Revolutionary Love: Teachers in Early Literacy Classrooms

• In Event: Toward a Future of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies in Early Literacy Classrooms

Abstract

Objectives
This paper problematizes the idea of curricula that solely teach children to read and write as a technical event (Freire, 1972) such as phonemic patterns, sight words, onsets and rimes. At the most fundamental level, we define literacy as a human right which encompasses the ability to comprehend, create, and communicate both written and oral text. For us, literacy is far more expansive than that. Literacy is a dynamic, ever-changing process in which one makes meaning across a variety of modes of communication, whether it be oral or written. The meaning that is made is dependent on numerous factors, such as one's social identity, time, space, and/or perspectives. This study will detail a critical content analysis of a mandated district curriculum and offer ways to amplify marginalized voices.

Theoretical Framework
This paper builds on and extends the framework of using Critical Race Theory to examine curriculum ( McNair, 2008; Pérez Huber, Camargo, & Solórzano, 2020; Rogers and Mosely, 2006) and on Rudine Bishop’s (1990) work that reminds us that children’s literature has the potential to be windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors for students.

Methods and Techniques of Inquiry

This paper will detail a critical content analysis that was conducted to examine how a district’s pacing guides perpetuated white dominance by listing each picture book and examining the characters, communities, and languages represented. This paper presents the inquiry that teachers and researchers engaged in while conducting an analysis of the district’s curriculum plan.

Results and Substantiated Conclusions
Findings from this inquiry indicate that curriculum across several districts are largely driven by Eurocentric values despite being in districts that serve primarily Black and Latine students. Findings also indicate that curricula did not reflect the richness in language that was present in the school district. In fact, no language other than English was reflected in the mandated school curriculum.
Significance
This study is significant as it problematizes Eurocentric narratives that are prevalent in schools and offers one way to begin to ponder how to include marginalized epistemologies (Delgado & Stefanic, 2017) in the curriculum . This study offers an approach that can be taken as researchers and teachers conduct crucial audits of pacing guides and mandated curriculum.

Authors

• Kamania Wynter-Hoyte, University of South Carolina
  Presenting Author

• Eliza G. Braden, University of South Carolina
  Presenting Author

• michelle myers
  Presenting Author

• Sanjuana Carrillo Rodriguez, Kennesaw State University
  Presenting Author

• Natasha A Thornton, Kennesaw State University
  Presenting Author