Each year the market is flooded with prob-lematic books that publishers market to classroomteachers, but there are also gems worth reading. Atmy website, American Indians in Children’s Liter-ature (https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com)

A middle grade teacher doing a uniton lyrics in pop music might consider using EricGansworth’s (2013) If I Ever Get Out of Here. Itis tribally specific, set in the present day,

Assuch, Smith is writing from her personal knowl-edge of Muscogee families and communities as theycome together to help a child prepare and partici-pate in a ceremonial dance for the first time.

The key ideas are to choose books thatare tribally specific (that name a specific tribalnation and accurately present that nation), writtenby Native writers, set in the present day, and rele-vant all year round, keeping Native peoples visiblethroughout the school year.

While Native people share some of our ways pub-licly in the present day, there is a great deal that wecontinue to protect from outsiders.

ouknow, like, what you [Phillip] be talkin’ ’bout. They think we don’t do any good,like we not smart. Like, we dangerous ’cause we Black or we criminals ’cause weBlack. Then put being male on top ah that. We get labeled ’cause ah who we are.”

the Black male college students in Harper’s (2009) composite coun-ternarrative challenge the assumption that Black males are not high academicachievers. Harper’s composite counternarrative, a response to the scholarly focuson Black male academic underachievement, is based on interviews with 143 Blackmale college students from across the United States. It highlights that althoughtheir “experiences are often overshadowed by the master narrative that amplifiesBlack male underachievement, disengagement, and attrition” (Harper, 2009, p.708), countless Black males who are academically successful also encounter racism

two dominant,competing models of literacy—the autonomous and ideological. The autonomousmodel, which views literacy as a set of discrete skills, “disguises the cultural andideological assumptions that underpin it so that it can then be presented as thoughthey are neutral and universal and that literacy as such will have . . . benign effects”(Street, 2003, p. 77). On the other hand, the ideological model understands literacynot as neutral, but as “always embedded in socially constructed epistemologicalprinciples. It is about knowledge: the ways in which people address reading andwriting are themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity, and being”

public education and theneed to provide opportunities for people to actively participate in a democratic,multiracial, and multiethnic society. As DuBois (1902) reminds us, “Education mustkeep broad ideals before it, and never forget that it is dealing with Souls and notwith Dollars”

airy tales wereselected because they represent a set of narrativesthat most young children are exposed to in earlyliterary interactions or through educational chil-dren’s programs. Together the model represents theinteractions between fairy tales, counternarratives,and oral storytelling from which Black girls andother culturally and linguistically diverse learnerscan extend or adapt the traditional narrative to bet-ter represent their experiences and cultural funds ofknowledge.

reclaim literary spaces by retellingclassic stories from the perspective of nondominantgroups of learners.

iteracy instruction should be re-sponsive to students’ identities (e.g., race, ethnicity,gender expression, age, appearance, ability, spiri-tual belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic sta-tus, and community environment) and languages/dialects as they affect students’ opportunities tolearn.

In consideration of this fact, we assert thatBlack girls as an identity are upheld to stereotypicalconnotations of what it means to be Black, female,and a “Black girl” that manifests itself in intricateways. Literature has the power to oppose or upholdstereotypical depictions of Black girls and women.Thus, we propose authentic and affirmative narra-tives to (re)center Black girls’ voices as literacies ofresistance in English education.

Consequently,these forms of literary work are often not includedwithin English education or are seen within aWhite superiority framework, are misguided, orvoid the significance of race, racism, and sexismin literature. Exposure to these narratives is at theheart of educational equity. These literary works af-firm Black girls and expand the perspectives of allstudents.

A lot of [my students]think people are obese because people can’t put down afork . . . [In this unit] we do research about things likegenetics . . . [to counter that notion].” In addition to theinformation about the availability of healthy food in theircommunities, this challenged the idea that obese and/oroverweight people are just lazy: they may be respondingto larger forces outside their control.

Kara also provided her students with research andnews articles that discussed the national disparitybetween predominantly White and predominantly Blackneighborhoods

Thisassignment positioned students as experts with insiderknowledge about their local environment (Machado,Vaughan, Coppola, & Woodard, 2017)—knowledge thatoften differs from outside perspectives.

Explorations of urban literacy have attempted to extend“the focus on literacy from school-sponsored practicesand events . . . to situate and resituate literacy acrosspolitical and educative conditions and situations thatinvolve children, youth, and/or adults of color” (Kinloch,2011, p. 2)

For ourchildren, literacy determines their ability to engagethe world as citizens, as intellectuals, as workers, andhopefully as artists, filmmakers, and writers of thenext generation” (xi). Students’ determination led topolicy-changing and identity-affirming actions

They sought to tell a counternarrativeby applying the methodical five steps of criticalpraxis found in Freire’s critical pedagogy. As such,they cultivated a healthy relationship to power andbegan their project by working within their edu-cational system

The students’ persistence in thequest for change was a long labor that sometimesappeared to wane, but was then amplified when theymet a supportive group of leaders within their SanJoaquin Valley area civic communities.

Freire’s concept of reading theword and the world together applied to the readingof a dominant, oppressive narrative along with theneed for a liberating counternarrative to tell moreabout young people experiencing the name of thetardy policy through their eyes and perceptions.

Even the most well-intentioned educators avoid thistopic in their classrooms for fear of misspeaking, sounding racist, not havinganswers, or causing more harm than help. We acknowledge that engagingin this kind of work requires courage and confidence, but as educators, wemust understand that we will not always have the answers.

Rather, our notion of healing refers to a process whereby teachers usecurriculum and instruction as a kind of “catharsis, a letting out of emotionsthat become painful or even dangerous if they remain internalized” (Mor-rell, 2008, p. 169).

Look how they [police officers] lined up.They ready to kill us!They ready to kill us!And guess what?I’ma die for what I stand for

In 1992, hooks pointed out that weare socialized within a racist mass media that convince Black people thatBlack lives (and Black life) are not complex or worthy of sophisticated criticalanalysis and reflection. This systematic racist representation is evidenced byFox News commentators, who blamed gangs, schools, and the welfare systemfor the Baltimore uprisings (Giroux, 2015) instead of examining the systemicracist violence against Black people who—like activist Fannie Lou Hamer—are “sick and tired of being sick and tired” (Brooks & Houck, 2011, p. 62).

has provided a counterspace for Black perspectives insocial media; however, it alone cannot dismantle racial violence and counterthe damaging narratives that mainstream media outlets continue to writeabout Black youth and other people of color. Weagree with Morrell (2008) that it is critical foreducators to prepare all youth “to critique thesemaster media narratives [and provide youthwith] the skills to use new media technology astools in the struggle for social and educationaljustice” (p. 158).

Our field—particularly our expertisewith modes of communication—is uniquely suited for sustaining ways tohelp each other navigate the risks while holding ourselves accountable totake up the work. To be clear, we cannot untangle trauma from the politicsour nation has witnessed

n classrooms, testimony to experienceis always present, whether explicitly invited or authorized, as the bodiesof teachers and students tell stories of connection, disconnection, care,dismissal, belonging, and exclusion. Thus, as literacy scholars have argued,classrooms should be spaces of intentional invitation and opportunity forstudents to testify to and engage with their experiences and histories (e.g.,Cruz, 2012; Johnson & Vasudevan, 2012; Saavedra, 2011)

SEL must addresswhat it means to cultivate belonging in a broken world. Far more expan-sive than developing students’ emotional skills, English educators and thechildren, youth, and families with whom they work must help remake andrepair the world.

English educators need support in addressing the emotional dimensions ofteaching and learning in punctual moments like these, but also in the dayto day of classroom routines and relationships. Students—like much of theAmerican public—have questions, uncertainties, and mistruths that circulatearound them constantly.

a deluge ofinequitable policies, words, and actions continue to shape the tensions, fears,and contours within which classrooms exist today

recognition that teach-ers are generally not prepared to address the intersections of healing, politics, and emotion inclassrooms.

“undergroundwriters. . . . When you see these studentswalking down the halls, you would neverknow that they were writers.

The main focus of WritingOur Lives is to celebrate “radical” youthliteracies and intentionally work to challengedominant narratives about who is and canbe a writer.

T]he moreradical a person is, themore fully he or sheenters into reality so that,knowing it better, he orshe can transform it.

I knew that the commonlyheld view of Black children as nonwriters and nonreaderswho were disengaged from learning was false. Thiswas a dominant misconception, however, because ofthe power given to writing and other literacies that areschool sanctioned and assessed

I gavevoice to my lived experiences and reimagined my lifethrough writing poetry and fiction. I also saw writingas a way to access greater opportunities. I was a skilledessayist, and my writing won many competitions andscholarships toward my higher education. Like many ofthe youth writers I meet, I, too, credit everything that Iam now to writing.

Parents and communitymembers understood writing to be the timed writingtasks for standardized exams or the demonstration of theconventions of writing on school assignments, which isnot unusual given the national focus on standards andtesting and on preparing young people to be college-and career-ready.

digital literacies, which is especially important giventhe ways that social issues are communicated in digitaland online spaces. Youth writers in the workshopsare encouraged to post their ideas and thoughts ascomments on websites featuring essays and news storiesabout current events. They create blog sites wherethey contribute articles raising awareness about socialinjustices and inequities and offering solutions to theproblems.

It is paramount that youth writers learn aboutand witness the writing processes of everyday writers intheir lives and communities. We all write. Teachers havean opportunity to bridge community literacy practiceswith school expectations

When they wrote, they had spellingerrors and grammar issues, despite—or because of—theWarriner drills or my lack of knowledge about AfricanAmerican Vernacular English, but their logic andevidence spun circles around me.

When they wrote, they had spellingerrors and grammar issues, despite—or because of—theWarriner drills or my lack of knowledge about AfricanAmerican Vernacular English, but their logic andevidence spun circles around me.

When I stopped attending to test scores and startedlistening to the music of my students’ voices and seeingthem as “more than a score,” I increased my capacity toengage them. I knew what didn’t work, but I still didn’tknow what did work.

he “disadvantaged”label that the newspaper had placedon my students didn’t recognize theireagerness to learn, their drive to beintellectuals, to know more about theworld.

. But the worst part came laterwhen my photo appeared in the local paper stating thatI taught “disadvantaged” students. I prayed that noneof my students or colleagues would see the article.

I increased my capacity toengage them. I knew what didn’t work, but I still didn’tknow what did work.

I moved in the right direction when Istopped believing that I was the one who knew and theywere the ones who needed to know.

try to make myliteracy work a sustained argument against inequalityand injustice.

I try to make myliteracy work a sustained argument against inequalityand injustice.

In order to teach studentseffectively, I have to raise the curtain on the myths thatcontrol the narrative of our community:

n order to teach studentseffectively, I have to raise the curtain on the myths thatcontrol the narrative of our community:

ut asteachers, we have more academic space than we inhabit.We can choose to push back against the disadvantagednarratives and mandates that continue to lurk in ourschools and society and instead build a curriculum thatputs students’ lives at the center and encourages them toresist a story line that distorts or maligns their right toblossom into the intellectuals and change-makers theyare so ready to become