Dreaming Out Loud: Exploring Poetic Counternarratives of Black High School Youth

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Youth Writers: Composing Counternarratives, Taking Action

Abstract

Through this case-study framed by culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory, I illuminate the writing of ninth-grade Black youth in a summer, pre-college program. During their participation in a GEAR-UP pre-college program, students created poems about their lived experiences and dreams and aspirations for their future. I conceptualize their poems as poetic counternarratives that reveal their strengths as writers, affirm their identities and defy dominant narratives about the literacies and lived experiences of Black youth. Data from the study speak to the importance of utilizing culturally relevant literacy practices to advance the literacy development of Black youth and connect them to the historical and contemporary power of poetry in their individual and collective lives.

Author

• Theda Gibbs Grey, Ohio University