Disrupting White Supremacy: A Critical Content Analysis of REWARDS Plus Reading Intervention Curriculum

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Disrupting Whiteness and Settler Pedagogies

Abstract

In order to equip students to become critical thinkers, readers and citizens capable of reading the word and the world, reading interventionists must commit to the intentional action of consciously examining curricular materials through critical lenses while striving to dismantle the oppressive status quo of schooling. To that end, this study asks: How does the REWARDS Plus reading fluency intervention curriculum promote white supremacy through the privileging of expository style, the centralizing of whiteness, and the minimization of racism? Findings reveal strict adherence to expository style, instances of Othering and minimizing of the unearned privileges of whiteness, and disconnecting race from societal circumstances through the nonrecognition of race and the erasure of People of Color.

Authors

• Deani Thomas, Iowa State University

• Jeanne Dyches, Iowa State University