In response to a trend in public schools toward zero-tolerance discipline policies, restorative justice practitioners employ “circle processes” to support youth in schools and surrounding communities who have experienced harm, as well as those who caused the harm, in a restorative dialogue.

heater arts as a way to reintroduce themselves to family, peers, and society, I also learned how theater arts builds community and supports marginalized youth as they build and sustain literate identities.

in Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom is the lack of a more nuanced discussion of what Paris ( 2012 ) refers to as a “culturally sustaining” pedagogy or a pedagogical stance that seeks to value a multiethnic and multilingual experience

These student poets used the Power Writing circle to build com- munity while reading original compositions aloud in an open mic format, much like the venues I observed in Northern California, and engaging in giving and receiving feedback. In the con- text of these literacy communities, Poppa Joe and his guest teachers taught by modeling.

Gutierrez’s ( 2008 ) concept of “sociocritical literacy”—that is a “historicizing literacy” that privileges the lived experiences and legacies of participants—provided the much needed space to analyze the activities of both classes against the backdrop of a history of Black poets and writers.

The Black Arts Movement unapologetically sought to incorporate a Black aesthetic into visual and performing arts along side the Black Power Movement, which advocated self-determination and self-definition among Black Americans

ADPLCs, as literacy or literary-centered events outside of school and work communities that combined oral, aural, and written traditions through an exchange of words, sounds, and movements that privileged a Black aesthetic

I introduced the educational research community to the phenomenon of exchanging writing and voices at open mic events using ethnographic research methods and in-depth interviews with an inter- generational community of poets, writers, and event organizers in the aforementioned venues.

Like other open mics, POSA, is an invitation to both novice and seasoned poets to share their writing in a space that promotes reading, writing, thinking, and activism, as well as collabo- ration among elders and children. V.S. Chochezi and Staajabu, the mother daughter poetry duo also known as Straight Out Scribes (SOS), begin with saying “hello,” in several languages punctuated with a decidedly urbanized “What’s up!”

they along with conscientious teachers have forged a collective “third space” to present their literate selves and cultivate their literate identities.

performing literacy” in particular (Fishman, Lunsford, McGregor, & Otuteye, 2005 )

beyond school settings?

democratizing technology and authoritarian technology.

but they are instead examining how it developed in a give context.