Learning to Talk and Write About Race: Developing Racial Literacy in a College English Classroom

• In Event: Roundtable Session 66
  In Roundtable Session: Learning in Schools: From Racial Literacy to Cultural Capital to Women’s Leadership

Abstract

There is limited theorizing around racial literacy development in literacy education (Johnson, 2009; Rogers & Mosely, 2006; Skerrett, 2011) and no previous discussion of its application to a community college English classroom. This presentation argues that community college composition classrooms be seen as spaces for critical conversations on race and racism. And have students examine their positionality and develop an awareness of the social, political and economic inequalities pervasive in American society, and how these realities affected their lives and the lives of others.

Author

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University