The Power and Possibilities of Hip-Hop Pedagogies and Spoken Word Poetry as Counter-Storytelling Praxis With Latinx Immigrant Students

• In Event: Literacies of Liberation Through Writing, Poetry, and Counterstories

Abstract

Drawing from participatory action research on The Shop — a free, after-school hip-hop-based spoken word poetry club in a diverse suburban high school in the Mid-Atlantic United States, this paper highlights the ways hip-hop pedagogies and literacies helped “Q”, a second-generation Mexican-American immigrant student compose and perform “counter-stories” that challenged deficit discourses about the Latino Threat Narrative. Analysis indicates that pedagogies with hip-hop texts helped to restore “realness” to classroom relationships. Furthermore, Q’s performances became “counter-storytelling praxis" as she worked to “represent for her people”, and expose inconsistencies in her school and country’s words and actions about diversity/inclusion. Study findings will push researchers and organizational stakeholders to consider the potential of building transformative third spaces on foundations of hip-hop cultural knowledge.

Author

• H. Bernard Hall, Drexel University