47.059 - Writing and Literacies SIG Business Meeting. "The Truth That I Owe You": Teaching Literacy in the Light of #BlackLivesMatter

Session Type: Business Meeting

Abstract

This presentation is based on over a decade of research aimed at understanding the complexities of teaching and learning in urban settings. The goal of the presentation is to raise awareness of the effects of educational injustices in the lives of urban youth in order to interrupt cycles of miseducation. Focusing on the (mis)education of Black males, the presentation addresses the following questions: How do cycles of inequity influence how, why, and what urban youth learn (and do not/refuse to learn)? How might critical educators disrupt such cycles to empower urban youth to transform their own communities, lives, educational destinies, etc.? In addressing these questions, the presentation aims to examine, perhaps more holistically, the peculiar deficit politics of urban education, exploring instead the power of the spoken and written word, as it constructs and deconstructs opportunities for learning and liberation. In closing, the presentation will suggest that, from a a liberatory perspective, urban youth take on new meanings beginning with a voice and a verb, where youth when affirm, valued, and respected have the power to transform the world inside-out.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Participant

• David E. Kirkland, New York University

Officers

• Jessica Zacher Pandya, California State University - Long Beach

• Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania

• Anna Smith, Illinois State University

• Kathy Ann Mills, Australian Catholic University