Black Literature, Literacy, and Liberation: Implications for Teaching and Learning

• In Event: Black Excellence: An Exploration of the Literacy and Learning Practices of Black Youth

Abstract

The lack of knowledge that separates American youth from one another stems from ignorance and mis-education, which are perpetuated through the exclusion of the Black voice as a prevalent source of national and global historical, cultural, and social progress. How can one study history, science, race, class, language, and economics in American classrooms without including an intentional focus on one of the foundational communities that formed this country, which is Black America? The exclusion of Black histories and perspectives in schools perpetuates ‘white supremacist’ constructions of race, power, and identity. Such constructions cycle through generations of youth and teach them, however subconsciously or not, to ignore Black Excellence and to disregard social injustices directed toward Blackness (e.g., identities, histories, cultural practices). This disregard often leads young people to conform to societal practices rooted in racism, classism, and sexism. Simultaneously, it perpetuates the belief that young people should accept racialized injustices instead of questioning, resisting, and changing them.

This paper presentation examines how curricular practices, rooted in the Black experience and culturally relevant pedagogies, can challenge understandings of achievement, identity and critical consciousness for racially diverse students in a suburban high school classroom. The guiding research question is: What lessons are learned from co-creating with high school students a learning space of introspection that centers Black cultural practices? To address this question, I begin with an exploration of Black Studies and its historical, political, and social connection to U.S. education and activism. This exploration allows me to showcase how the study of Black America and the concept of ‘Blackness’ reveals important questions relevant to contemporary life, social justice, freedom, and identity. As I outline how the exclusion of Black histories and perspectives in schools and the curricula promotes mis-education, I turn attention to how it also perpetuates ‘white supremacist’ notions of race, power, and identity. This leads into an acknowledgement of the literature produced by scholars who have developed ways to liberate and humanize education (Gay, 2000; Ladson Billings, 1995).

In the second section, I provide a description of how parallels among curriculum development (how I created my course, “African American Voice”) , instruction, and research lend themselves to developing student understandings of achievement, identity, and critical consciousness. The third section focuses on how this work seeks to develop a model for infusing Black cultural studies into the curricula while supporting culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy (Ladson-Billings,1995; Kinloch, 2012; Paris, 2012) and critical literacy praxis (Woodson,1933; Freire, 1970, 2000). I refer to this model as Cultural and Critical Teaching (CCT). This section also highlights a number of student participants from my teacher-research study who were engaged with Cultural and Critical Teaching practices in a Black Studies high school curriculum that I created and taught. Across each of these student cases, I explore the connections between student exposure to Black studies and how this exposure lends itself to empowering students to critique race, class, and popular understandings of identity through examination of Black cultural and literary practices. I conclude with implications for pedagogy and praxis in schools.

Author

• Donja Bridges, The Ohio State University