Literacies of Refusal: Writing, Healing, and Creating Outside the White Gaze

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In this symposium, panelists discuss how collaborative literacy spaces provide opportunities for participants to realize, as Lorde (1984) said, the “creative function of difference in our lives.” Presenting qualitative research from four unique studies that stem from our own lived and educational experiences, we examine literacy collectives as a group of education scholars using creative expressive practices to take meaningful action together, convening around shared identities, experiences, histories, and interests. The panelists explore how we embrace our educational responsibility for creating more truthful, liberating, equitable, and humanizing paths forward in English teacher-education and beyond. Our goal is to advance research methods that are rooted in a commitment to anti-racism, decoloniality, and linguistic justice.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Jamila Lyiscott, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Papers

• Literacies of the Body: The Testimonios of Body Art in New York City ELA (English Language Arts) Secondary and University Classrooms to Create Spaces of Trust and Healing - Christine A. Feliciano-Barrett, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Where Are We Unheard? Creating Intergenerational Racial Literacies With Youth and In-Service Teachers - Diana Liu, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Critical Doesn’t Have to Mean Traumatic! Writing Beyond Pain in Youth Poetry Slam Communities - Brian Mooney, Fairleigh Dickinson University

• These Are Our Stories: Reimagining a Critical and Healing Lens for Black and Brown Students’ Identities - David O. Beauzil, Teachers College, Columbia University

Discussant

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University