Teaching Racial Literacy

Reflective Practices for Critical Writing

By (author) Mara Lee Grayson

Publication date:

13 March 2018

Length of book:

168 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475836608

Racial literacy, a collection of discursive and decoding skills that allow individuals to interrogate race and racism as well as representation and personal identity, is vital in a contemporary society that professes meritocracy and post-racialism yet where racism and racialism continue to give rise to fear, violence, and inequity. Because racial literacy requires individuals to develop a cache of discursive tools with which to critically read and respond to particular situations and broader societal practices as well as to investigate the rhetorical practices and power of racial ideology, there is no venue better fitted to the development of racial literacy than the college composition classroom.
From the planning stages through the end of the semester, this book provides practical strategies for designing and implementing racial literacy curricula in the composition classroom and across the curriculum. Drawing upon an award-winning three-year ethnographic teacher research project, the author offers curricular suggestions and teacher resources instructors can use to increase student engagement, improve student writing, and help students harness the tools of racial literacy, including awareness of structural inequity and discursive modes with which to respond to social injustice.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Racial Literacy and the College Composition Classroom
Chapter 2: Prepare, Plan, and Provide: Developing Curricula within the Racial Literacy Framework
Chapter 3: Reading, Writing and Multimodality: Text Selection in the Racial Literacy Curriculum
Chapter 4: Narrative Song Lyrics: A Text-Based Approach to Racial Literacy
Chapter 5: Emotion is Everything: Feeling and Experience in the Racial Literacy Classroom
Chapter 6: Personal Writing and Positionality: How We Know What We Know
Chapter 7: Controversial Conversations: What We (Don’t) Say
Chapter 8: Racial Literacy as Civic Engagement: Writing Beyond the Classroom
Chapter 9: Special Considerations for Secondary English Education
Afterword
References and Additional Resources for Instructors and Students
About the Author
Index

Mara Lee Grayson’s beautifully written book is sure to be powerfully influential. This book shows college composition instructors how to enliven and deepen the intellectual character of writing classes while transforming such classes into inspiring sites for advancing social justice.