Researching a problem can be done by holding dialogue and having conversations with our students to learn more.

This kind of hopelessness is derived from the systemic racism ingrained in the United States. I understand that we want students to be aware and question the world around them, but we also have to consider the daily hardships they face...this takes time!

Based on earlier readings on theories, I know that critical praxis relies on student engagement but also on their understanding of social creations to determine why change should occur. This has to approached carefully because of the associated trauma with mass incarceration is in close proximity of this school (and student lives).

This is a more organic way to listen to student voice and opinion, often times this policing occurring in schools causes students to not want to speak up in fear of being punished and/or ignored.

The high school I attended also did tardy sweeps for when you walked into the school, and at the beginning of each period. I understand that it's meant to help regulate attendance, but perhaps schools need to look at why students are unable or unwilling to meet these demands. I don't think it improved tardiness, it made students want to be absent.

To do more, we must learn more. I always appreciate effort to reach out and understand others' circumstances.

I've noticed teachers doing this as well with their expectations. They have little to no confidence in a child's ability that the quality of a lesson or assignment is simplified so much that it becomes a chore for both parties to work on. I wonder if selective classes like AP and honors add to this narrative?

This is an act of resistance to the negative generalizations and stereotypes of Black people. Negative generalizations are so prevalent that when positive news is shared, some people are in shock/amazement.

During my undergrad courses, we learned that there are so many ways to be literate; a limited perspective would have you believe that a child just 'can't read' if they capable yet of looking at printed letters and words.

The goal of the education system should be consistent with the goals of educators; but social constructs interfere with all of our lives. This reminds me of my earlier linguistic classes; if the goal to 'help' students or conform them to a popular ideal?

This impacts young children's perspectives and their imagination of the future, as well as how life should be. White cinderella becomes a young girl's dream, as this is what she was introduced to.

There seems to be a false narrative in mainstream media that African American parents do not support their children's education. This is far from the truth. Community forums such as this and the push to stop the closing of 50 schools in predominately African American areas in Chicago refute this narrative.

The authors of Pose Wobble Flow give several reasons for writing in community. "It sharpens our thinking. It improves our final product. It also allows us to speak with authority about the writing process from the inside out." To create a space for writers in Writing Our Lives must sharpen the thinking of adult and youth writers. Garcia, A., & O'Donnell-Allen, C. (2015). Pose, wobble, flow: A culturally proactive approach to literacy instruction (p. 84). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This reminds me The Stories They Tell, where students/teachers explore all the injustices, explicit and implicit, to transform original knowledge. I think this is the goal of a democratic education.

I wonder if this unit was only implemented in an ELA class or if it was cross-curricular into math and social studies classes. I notice many interdisciplinary elements; I would maybe do this unit to conclude several subjects.

I think this can be seen through the gentrification of neighborhoods where people of color were originally pushed to - they continue to get pushed out. The construction of Lincoln Yards comes to mind.

Not only are many South Siders living in a food desert, but they also must deal with inflated prices. Canned and packaged foods in gas stations are one to two dollars more than at most grocery stores.

This is such a great unit. In Pose, Wobble, Flow (Garcia, A. & O'Donnell-Allen, C.), the authors describe a culturally proactive teacher as one who "advocates for educational transformation and push back against existing inequitable systems." Kara seems to fit this description with this food justice unit, which includes multiliteracies and encompasses many content areas such as math, history, social studies, and health.

Across from our school is a corner store that some students visit before class. They may buy chips, candy, soda before eating their school breakfast. The breakfast consists of pancakes or muffins reheated in a package, milk, and fruit on the side. Some students will not eat the fresh fruits in the school breakfast because they have already "eaten" snacks from the store. We can teach our students at young ages how to eat healthy meals.

This documentary highlights the harmful health changes Spurlock incurs as he ingests fast food for 30 days. Minority communities have access to fast food, but it causes obesity and increases in cholesterol. The availability of food is unjust if communities can not readily access fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables.

Group mentoring for African American males can have positive rewards. There may be a lack of black volunteers in a particular urban area; therefore, one or two males/females mentor several boys. Mentoring can take the form of academic, social-emotional, or vocational help. https://nationalmentoringresourcecenter.org/index.php/component/k2/item/177-mentoring-for-black-male-youth.html

It makes me think about why we need to create spaces. The spaces are exited. The problem is how teachers can invite students into the space, and comfortable to write and share their thinking in the spaces.

Along with an instructor who is African American, this is also another way that students are comforted. It is unfortunate the hardships and trauma that children and young people go through, but a space is made for them to express their ideas and emotions. I think it's different than traditional writing assignments because of the grading element.

This goes along with the internal bias people have on the type of language Black children may engage in - linguistic racism towards AAE.

I suppose that radical applies more to the point of view of an authority figure; and their own expectations of young people.

In schools, we may call this extracurricular or enrichment. When so many students are performing below grade level in a classroom, kids like this sometimes get forgotten.

I think this is true for students of all ages, from grade school to college. As an educator, I try to ask students about themselves but sometimes what they say is filtered.

This has greatly contributed to spreading knowledge of injustice and demonstrations. However, even Black spaces on social media are disrupted by the very people discriminating people of color. I often see people taking information and terminology for their own use; taking some of the power away from the originators.

This was also the case for George Floyd, instead of focusing on the real issue of excessive and abuse of power of the police, people tried to shift the blame to Floyd.

This is a huge problem in American society because it generalizes a large group of people. It causes fear and it's used as an excuse in issues with police brutality in public and educational spaces. How often do we hear about present day KKK and white power groups the way we hear about gangs?

This reminds me of the incident with Christian Cooper. In Central Park, Mr. Cooper was bird watching and asked a white woman to put a leash on her dog. She responded by calling 911 to claim that a Black man was threatening her life. Some new outlets were sympathetic, and her lawyer also said that any repercussion is 'cancel culture'. Mr. Cooper graduated from Harvard and is well-respected, and in my opinion, this is why the media begrudgingly did not try to portray him negatively.

Not only in mainstream media and academic environments, but also in the medical field. I have read that Black women's concerns are more likely to be overlooked in medical institutions. Prejudice against African Americans is prevalent everywhere.

This can be seen in less extreme manners in the classroom, which is a gateway to thinking that this mindset is acceptable. Automatically thinking of a Black child as full of deficits hinders the educational system of this country because it allows microaggressions and other racist actions to continue.

A recent example (2020) is Lori Loughlin, convicted of conspiracy in connection with a college admissions bribery scandal, received permission from a federal judge to serve her prison sentence in her choice facility.

Teachers have a responsibility to become a part of the disruption. After listening to students, we must keep the conversations going. The text mentions that the pedagogy of healing does not indicate a "completed recovery." Indeed, these lessons are just the beginnings of critical literacy conversations.

Just these 3 words "If that girl," imply otherness. The CNN analyst's language seems to say, "This is what a girl should do, but that girl was in the wrong." We do not have to be concerned about an officer assaulting us because we always do what we are told.

In August 2020, Chicago Public Schools voted whether to maintain school resource officers in the light of George Floyd's death. The majority of schools decided to keep the officers in place. Are we treating our youth as adult citizens requiring policing?

I love this. It engages students in learning content knowledge and teach students use the power of their own fund of knowledge to fight for their rights.

This is a good beginning. It's crucial to teach our student critical media literacy and use critical thinking to obtain or ignore the information they read.

By providing a safe place for students to share their ideas and to make students' voice to be heard.

They always publish things they want people to believe in order to manipulate majority minds. Even happened in social media, show large quantity of information that they want people to read to make people stand with them especially to the youth.

There is a film in which the running joke shows that if you are of the majority population and want to change a situation, you must "write a letter" to those in power. The offending party will coward in fear and quickly appease the letter writer. Unfortunately, many minority students do not believe they have access to the power of the written word. This research-driven unit allows students to address the mistreatment of the administration through respectful letter writing. As teachers, we need to stress critical literacy as a way to bring lasting change for our students and their communities.

The school-to-prison pipeline supports the evidence for this quote. http://ijjc.illinois.gov/tags/school-prison-pipeline

Treating students as criminals with police wordings as "Freeze" and "Don't Move" has the opposite effect of encouraging students to go to class.

This percentage of incarceration rates is startling. Instead of genuine civil rights in the 1960s, the courts unfairly incarcerate minority citizens. Rather than provide equity in the form of health, economics, education, etc., we punish students when they commit crimes (which stems from inequity) then incarcerate them believing we no longer have to "deal" with their crimes-out of sight, out of mind. The "racial caste system" is evidenced by formerly incarcerated persons lack of employment opportunities. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html

I think it's also important to note that there are Black girls of different background like Afro Latinas, African girls, Middle eastern etc. that identify as black in America. It would be meaningful to have literature that strays from the trope.

Resource: The Chicago sector of Girls Inc is a program that works to empower young Black girls.

A classic text that teachers use is To Kill a Mockingbird and it's problematic because the point of view is for the white experience.

The student population at my school is majority Black and Latinx. Every year, I am dismayed to hear from my students that they are unaware of many important figures of color, but they are able to tell me about the typical well known white men - Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, etc. Many teachers believe that having a character with brown skin in every other read aloud book is representation, but it's not. I am a firm believer that White-only curriculum must be dismantled.

In Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools Morris discusses the double standards of girls of color and white girls. If a Black girl stands up for herself, she is seen as defiant. A white girl does this and she's viewed favorably. Adults that have these kind of beliefs need to reevaluate why they think the way they do. Like in the doll experiment, adults are projecting their own discriminatory ideas onto their children.

Black girls are often overlooked in schools and in children's literature; in classroom libraries you will see more books about Black boys as protagonists as opposed to girls. Being ignored or overlooked is another form of silent violence.

There is something fundamentally wrong in telling a child that they do not live up to the American ideal of beauty because her hair does not look like Cinderella. This mandating of hairstyles is reminiscent of the Black Codes mentioned earlier in the text. Zero- tolerance school policies should not refer to the type of hair to which you were born. Black students are threatened with a suspension due to their hairstyles. http://theoklahomaeagle.net/2017/07/18/when-black-hair-violates-the-dress-code/

These examples of the Black Code testify to the afterlife of slavery:

• Race was defined by blood; the presence of any amount of black blood made one black.
• Employment was required of all freedmen; violators faced vagrancy charges.
• Freedmen could not assemble without the presence of a white person.
• Freedmen were assumed to be agricultural workers and their duties and hours were tightly regulated.
• Freedmen were not to be taught to read or write.
• Public facilities were segregated.
• Violators of these laws were subject to being whipped or branded

https://sites.google.com/a/email.cpcc.edu/black-codes-and-jim-crow/black-code-and-jim-crow-law-examples

With my own students, we have a long unit about the discovery of the Americas and the history of holidays such as Thanksgiving. The essential understanding was that no one can 'discover' people, they were already here. It's difficult to undo misconceptions when they are presented everywhere - social media, books, cartoons, maybe even previous teachers. An area for growth I have to include is more literature about actual tribes - I went over brief histories but students need to know more about the culture.

Systematic racism has deep roots, from when the Spanish and European countries explored the New World. The goal of exploration was to gain riches and 'introduce' new people to the dominant religion of the time. We can feel this othering in religion even today, with many discriminating people of different religions. How can teachers discuss this in a way that doesn't condense or dismiss the hardships of people throughout history?

This reminds me of Teaching For a Living Democracy by Block. The author describes the community efforts of acknowledging and celebrating the history and customs of the Maori people.

It is important to be specific with how people want to be identified. This should be a global norm. For example, in Mexico, there is still a division between the poor and rich and internally based on the differences in appearance. To use the Spanish form of "Indian" is also insensitive to people who identify as "indígena." That term is used almost as an insult for those who have 'indigenous' features.

It is very intentional to disregard the culture, language, and stories of Indigenous people. By casting Indigenous people in a primitive light, the larger culture will not consider their personhood.

Also, consider films directed by those who are not native can do irreparable harm by inaccurate depictions. It is difficult to "erase" negative film images. This text focuses on critical Indigenous literacy for children. This age may be the best place to begin questioning who benefits from these films and books.

This tendency is especially true of reporting SAT/ACT scores by race/ethnicity. Indigenous people, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders scores are often grouped. To add insult to injury, these test scores are sometimes categorized as "other."

I read the world as an African American female. I can relate to this statement of locating Native lives in the past. During February, which is traditionally Black History Month, school bulletin boards, films, books all depict either slave lives or biographies of Dr. M. L. King. These narratives are essential to include. Seldom are African American narratives centered on the lawyers, doctors, professors who also impacted American lives.

This lends itself to more of a true democratic classroom where the teacher and student both need mutual respect to analyze what is going on in their world(s).

This reminds me of the foundations of many projects explained in Teaching for a Living Deomocracy. Block's projects resulted with his students (mostly) invested in the work because it revolved about their stories and the stories of others.

In 2016 I was a "pre"student teacher observing different schools all over the city. I remember feeling overwhelmed as the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first generation college student. Now, I can say that I was experiencing uneasiness from both roles as a student and educator. An obstacle that teachers with similar backgrounds as my own would be to control their fear when discussing current events with parents and children.

It's important to make this distinction because we don't want students to mindlessly assimilate our beliefs. It's difficult to be unbiased with politics, but some students (and their parents) may have beliefs that clash with the educator's.

I personally feel that educators are often overlooked and overworked, especially with remote learning expectations during this pandemic. It's become normalized for teachers to be expected to have things together, but the reality feels like this quote.

So glad the authors mentioned teachers and students in this statement. During this pandemic, teachers are expected to put their lives on the line; Latino teachers face fears and anger concerning immigration; African American teachers face frustration concerning police brutality. A "safe space" is difficult but necessary to achieve for both teachers and students.

We are so pressed to implement Common Core Curriculum and push students to achieve high standardized test scores that it leaves little time for dealing with emotionally traumatized students. Yet, if we do not address students' traumas and show concern for their well-being, they will push back against testing because it does not meet their immediate concerns.

This notion of knowledge as embodied is fascinating. We compartmentalize knowledge. PE teachers' domain is health and activity, but not literacy. Literacy teachers' domain is reading/writing but not movement. Our bodies respond to the knowledge of inflicted trama and/or hate.

Acknowledging trama is the first step in healing.

This is true. As a second year teacher, I don't know how to address this political topic that happen the same time as the pandemic. There is a standard for me to refer to.

We need to be vulnerable in order to take care of all of our students whose come from different background.

Just last week, my students asked why we only take one day off, we should take days off until the election settled. They can't focus in class because they worried about the election. I felt the emergence of anxiety in my students, and it depressed me. They need to face a new round of election every four years. How can I address this hot topic to them?

In the text, Critical Indigenous Literacies by Debbie Reese, she notes that "#OwnVoices stories—a hashtag created by Corinne Duyvis to describe a book that is written by someone who is of the particular culture being depicted. The idea is that the quality of a story is improved when the person creating that story is an insider who knows what to share and how to share it with outsiders. " When others write your story, they can own it and resell it at their leisure.

Parental roles in black males' success is an appealing area of research. What actions, conversations are available to young black males in the home? How do parents set the bar high for academic expectations? What motivates parents to push for academic success?

Khaleeq positioned himself as a valuable resource in this research study. He was a bridge between his adolescent peers and the researchers. He was knowledgeable and respected among his peers and his community.

This is why there aren't enough texts and books about minority.

Agree! As educator, we need to bring cultural related resources to them.

This is an important point. I wonder how African American students get to enjoy learning literacy and engaging in literacy event when current literacy curriculum have nothing to do with their lived experience.

Agree! They always close schools in areas who need school the most!

All students write and participate in the read-aloud. Then all take notes on each person's narrative. All the students have to "buy-in" to this process because they bear such intimate thoughts and feelings. Creating this safe place was crucial to the sharing process.

It is innovative to create units with multiple literacies and not binding learning to just one or two texts.

This is a difficult balance to maintain for literature. Although critical literacy engaged Christensen's students in high school, many colleges only teach and accept "traditional" (white) literature.

According to Handsfield, in Literacy Theory as Practice, "There are no actual curricula that are considered to be CRT (Critical Race Theory) instructional programs." Christensen had to create literacy units that met her students' individual and collective needs as students of color.

I have the exact same feeling. What would students think about themselves when they figure out how the world, the society called them and label them? The influence is negative!

This is a social emotional skill as well, within the topic of empathy.

I wonder how this classroom looks like when students are in various part of the writing process. In Teaching for Democracy, I was reminded that it may be difficult for an outsider to notice everything that's really going on.

This poem reminds me of the book "The Pushout: The Civilization of Black Girls in School" where cultural differences add to ignorance. In the book, some girls were described as rude or loud, but they grew up learning from their parents to ask questions if they were confused and to stand up for themselves.

I appreciate that this text began with this distinction. It bothers me when fellow teachers define kids by labels out of their control - it's a deficit mindset. Also, this enables the savior mentality.