Learning And Teaching Literature With The Arts For Social Justice

This text invites pre-service teachers to explore arts-informed practices that showcase the transformative potential of literature in the classroom. Through the lens of "stories-we-live-by," the authors recognize literature as interference, capable of disrupting the habitual patterns through which we interpret the world in order to reawaken the capacity of students and teachers alike to change. Chapters are designed to inspire students' love of literature by fostering literary and artful encounters that provoke their thinking and sense-making. Each chapter includes engaging pedagogical features that spark thinking and analysis of literature and invite readers to further engagement. The appendices include directions for instruction as well as additional resources. An essential text for courses on children's and adolescent literature and English methods, pre-service teachers will come away with plenty of text recommendations and arts- and social justice-informed practices to use with their future students. Through artful encounters with visual learning analyses, visual-verbal journals, drama, soundscapes, poetry, and so much more, readers examine their own transformative experiences with literature. Readers will learn to craft and curate practices that encourage engagement, imagination, experimentation, and self-awareness in and beyond the classroom.

This text invites pre-service teachers to explore arts-informed practices that showcase the transformative potential of literature in the classroom. Through the lens of "stories-we-live-by," the authors recognize literature as interference, capable of disrupting the habitual patterns through which we interpret the world in order to reawaken the capacity of students and teachers alike to change. Chapters are designed to inspire students’ love of literature by fostering literary and artful encounters that provoke their thinking and sense-making. Each chapter includes engaging pedagogical features that spark thinking and analysis of literature and invite readers to further engagement. The appendices include directions for instruction as well as additional resources. An essential text for courses on children’s and adolescent literature and English methods, pre-service teachers will come away with plenty of text recommendations and arts- and social justice-informed practices to use with their future students. Through artful encounters with visual learning analyses, visual-verbal journals, drama, soundscapes, poetry, and so much more, readers examine their own transformative experiences with literature. Readers will learn to craft and curate practices that encourage engagement, imagination, experimentation, and self-awareness in and beyond the classroom.

This book explores the relationship between social justice practices and the Arts in Education. It argues that social justice practices, at their best, should awaken our senses and the ability to imagine alternatives that can sustain the collective work necessary to challenge entrenched patterns and practices. Chapters display a range of arts-based pedagogies for challenging oppressive practices in schools, community centers and other public sites. The examples provided illustrate both the promise and on-going challenge of enacting arts based social justice practices that can transform consciousness and organize action toward justice and social change. They show the power of arts-based pedagogies to engage the imagination, reveal invisible operations of power and privilege, provoke critical reflection, and spark alternative images and possibilities. They also show the importance of on-going critical reflection for this work with attention to both the specificities of place and the obstacles (internal and external) to maintaining a social justice stance in the face of contemporary neoliberal discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of Equity & Excellence in Education.

Through accessible language and candid discussions, Storytelling for Social Justice explores the stories we tell ourselves and each other about race and racism in our society. Making sense of the racial constructions expressed through the language and images we encounter every day, this book provides strategies for developing a more critical understanding of how racism operates culturally and institutionally in our society. Using the arts in general, and storytelling in particular, the book examines ways to teach and learn about race by creating counter-storytelling communities that can promote more critical and thoughtful dialogue about racism and the remedies necessary to dismantle it in our institutions and interactions. Illustrated throughout with examples drawn from contemporary movements for change, high school and college classrooms, community building and professional development programs, the book provides tools for examining racism as well as other issues of social justice. For every facilitator and educator who has struggled with how to get the conversation on race going or who has suffered through silences and antagonism, the innovative model presented in this book offers a practical and critical framework for thinking about and acting on stories about racism and other forms of injustice. This new edition includes: Social science examples, in addition to the arts, for elucidating the storytelling model; Short essays by users that illustrate some of the ways the storytelling model has been used in teaching, training, community building and activism; Updated examples, references and resources.

Teaching Tough Topics shows teachers how to lead students to become caring citizens as they read and respond to quality children’s literature. It focuses on topics that can be challenging or sensitive, yet are significant in order to build understanding of social justice, diversity, and equity. Racism, Homophobia, Bullying, Religious Intolerance, Poverty, and Physical and Mental Challenges are just some of the themes explored. The book is rooted in the belief that by using picture books, novels, poetry, and nonfiction, teachers can enrich learning with compassion and empathy as students make connections to texts, to others, and to the world.

Arts educators have adopted social justice themes as part of a larger vision of transforming society. Social justice arts education confronts oppression and inequality arising from factors related to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, ability, gender, and sexuality. This edition of Common Threads investigates the intersection of social justice work with education in the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, and literature. Weaving together resources from a range of University of Illinois Press journals, the editors offer articles on the scholarly inquiry, theory, and practice of social justice arts education. Selections from the past three decades reflect the synergy of the diverse scholars, educators, and artists actively engaged in such projects. Together, the contributors bring awareness to the importance of critically reflective and inclusive pedagogy in arts educational contexts. They also provide pedagogical theory and practical tools for building a social justice orientation through the arts. Contributors: Joni Boyd Acuff, Seema Bahl, Elizabeth Delacruz, Elizabeth Garber, Elizabeth Gould, Kirstin Hotelling, Tuulikki Laes, Monica Prendergast, Elizabeth Saccá, Alexandra Schulteis, Amritjit Singh, and Stephanie Springgay

How can Canadian educators begin to instill cultural sensitivity and social awareness in elementary and secondary school students? This vital text attempts to answer that question by bringing together literacy scholars and practicing teachers in a unique cross-Canadian exploration of children’s literature and social justice. Through reflection on the experience of teaching with various Canadian texts including picture books, novels, and graphic novels, the contributors behind Challenging Stories create a “pedagogy of discomfort” that will encourage both educators and their students to develop critical literacy skills. The compelling contributions to this collection highlight the complexities of teaching with texts that address issues of discrimination, historical marginalization, colonialism, racial and gender intolerance, sexual orientation, language, and cultural diversity. The authors offer first-hand insight into the possibilities and challenges of implementing curricular and pedagogical changes to promote equity and social justice in the classroom. Featuring the stories of participating teachers and an annotated bibliography of children’s literature, this invaluable resource will prove to be essential reading for current and future educators.

"This book presents the LIST Paradigm to help educators "unlock" literature with four keys to culture: Language, Identity, Space, and Time. The text includes teaching strategies, classroom examples, and texts by writers of color"--