"Well, I Took It There": Subversive Teaching to (Disrupt) the Test

• In Event: Disrupting the Discipline: Subversive Teaching in the Secondary English Language Arts Classroom

Abstract

Purpose
When a literary text and its associated questions on a mandated standardized test refused to
acknowledge race and other differences, it became complicit in the erasure of the students who
were taking it in Miss Hughes’ 11th grade English classroom. Rather than be complicit in the erasure of her racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students’ languages and valued
knowledge, Miss Hughes rejected the feigned neutral stance of mandated assessments, and used
her instruction to explicitly support students’ ability to name and discuss racism, sexism, and
erasure of differences. The purpose of this symposium presentation is to detail how Miss
Hughes’ subversive teaching layered literary theories to teach students to read and analyze texts,
disrupting a new criticism approach to testing that maintains whiteness.

Theoretical Framework
This work is drawn from the framework of culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris, 2012) which
“seek to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as a part of
the democratic project of schooling and as a needed response to demographic and social change”
(Paris & Alim, 2014, p. 88). Rather than offering prescriptive practices, CSP offers a nuanced,
contextualized model for culture-centered education that combats colonialism to fight for the
survival of communities that are otherwise damaged and erased through schooling (Alim &
Paris, 2017).

Methodology
This research uses a humanizing, critical ethnographic design (Paris & Winn, 2013). Within this
tradition, sustained, reciprocal interaction over time presents the opportunity to collaboratively
identify issues, generate new knowledge, and create local change. This paper represents the
participatory work of Selena Hughes, a Black able-bodied female, and Leah Panther, a White
able-bodied female.

Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection followed three constant comparative phases between September 2017 and May
2018 which included structured observations, field notes, phenomenological, semi-structured,
and informal interviews, photography, audio recordings, and documents. All data was coded
using three part pattern analysis which was validated through dialogic spirals and storying (San
Pedro & Kinloch, 2017) to keep Miss Hughes’ voice centered in the findings.

Conclusion and Significance
Miss Hughes’ subversive teaching focused on layering diverse literary theories to teach reading
of texts. This prepared her students to complete standardized assessments and to name systems
of oppression that were otherwise hidden under the false guise of neutrality. Through explicit
instruction and practice with rhetorical analysis, archetypal theory, feminist literary theory, and
critical literacy, students were regularly exploring, honoring, and problematizing texts that
reflected both dominant and non-dominant communities.
Standards and their associated assessments can reduce teaching to a checklist rather than one of
the many complex tools at a teacher’s disposal for instructional design. As standards reduce the
complexity of a curriculum, it is often the most marginalized that are erased from it. Miss
Hughes made complex, subversive decisions about how to prepare her students for mandated
assessments that were informed, but not governed, by the standards. By creating a foundation in
the curriculum that valued her students’ humanity, Miss Hughes explicitly built students’
capacity to contend with white supremacy within mandated assessments.

Authors

• Leah Panther, Mercer University

• Selena Hughes, Cristo Rey High School