Unearthing Joy

In this sequel to Cultivating Genius, Gholdy Muhammad adds a fifth pursuit--joy--to her groundbreaking framework. Dr. Muhammad shows how joy, which is rooted in the cultural and historical realities of Black students, can enhance our efforts to cultivate identity, skills, intellect, and criticality for ALL students, giving them a powerful purpose to learn and contribute to the world. Dr. Muhammad's wise implementation advice is paired with model lessons that span subjects and grade levels.

In Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy E. Muhammad presents a four-layered equity framework--one that is grounded in history and restores excellence in literacy education. This framework, which she names, Historically Responsive Literacy, was derived from the study of literacy development within 19th-century Black literacy societies. The framework is essential and universal for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. The equity framework will help educators teach and lead toward the following learning goals or pursuits: Identity Development--Helping youth to make sense of themselves and others Skill Development-- Developing proficiencies across the academic disciplines Intellectual Development--Gaining knowledge and becoming smarter Criticality--Learning and developing the ability to read texts (including print and social contexts) to understand power, equity, and anti-oppression When these four learning pursuits are taught together--through the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework, all students receive profound opportunities for personal, intellectual, and academic success. Muhammad provides probing, self-reflective questions for teachers, leaders, and teacher educators as well as sample culturally and historically responsive sample plans and text sets across grades and content areas. In this book, Muhammad presents practical approaches to cultivate the genius in students and within teachers.

Full-time FindingJoy.net blogger, speaker, marketer, podcaster, and single mom of seven, Rachel Marie Martin presents a rallying cry to anyone who believes the lie that she is "just a mom." Over the years, you willingly pour everything you have into your family, but in the process, you lose the essence of who you are. In her characteristic raw and visceral style, Rachel teaches you how to rewrite the pages of your story, follow your passion, and discover the beauty of who you are. Drawing on lessons from her own incredible journey--together with insight from conversations with thousands of other women--Rachel encourages moms to break cycles, take off masks, and prevent fear from taking control. She balances her "no excuses" approach with breathing room and grace for those messy moments in life and mothering. Rachel reminds you there is always a reason to hope, to move forward, and to dare the impossible. You can make changes. You can pursue dreams, find yourself, and live a life of deep happiness and boundless joy. Stop waiting for "someday." Take hold of the moment, and say yes to your dreams.

"These narratives share teacher breakthroughs-the ways teachers have successfully and courageously turned a corner"--

Advancing Critical Pedagogy and Praxis Across Educational Settings is both an inquiry and response of gratitude to the work of critical scholars, educators, practitioners, and researchers who honor the complex realities of partnerships between school communities and institutions of higher education. This volume centers the voices of those who explore across time and in between spaces to illuminate synergistic approaches, pathways to new ideas and consciousness, relationships of mutual respect, and human-centered perspectives. This collective of narratives reveals the power of local schools and communities partnering with universities and organizations to disrupt inequitable social processes. The authors interrogate the creation and permeation of boundaries to understand interconnectivity of educational practices, community, and the impact of social contexts.

There is a space that resides between girlhood and womanhood. This space contains what is personal, familial, and societal. It is the place that transforms Black girls into Black women. This is also the place that beckons us to create our own identities and definition of Black womanhood. These Black Kids: The Lived Experience of African American Adolescent Girls Writing Poetry uncovers the voices of teen girls writing their way to Black womanhood together. This book exposes the journey of learning strength through vulnerability; (re)defining love and recovering from grief and suffering. These Black Kids offers the writings and lived experiences of three adolescent girls, “Keisha,” “Mishaps,” and “Blue,” as they uncover their muted voices to speak with truth, courage, and conviction. This is the space where the “girlchild” learns what it means to be free. Grounded in phenomenology, Black feminism, lived experience, and the poetic voices of girls and women. This book is indispensable for anyone seeking to integrate culturally responsive poetry into their own teaching, community work, research, counseling practice, coursework, and healing.

Tony and Bonnie's marriage endured many storms...From their survival of the press box crash at the Indy 500 to their struggle to hold onto their lives in an Arkansas tornado. But the whirlwind of divorce wreaked the most damaged on their lives. Their search for happiness in power, prestige, and possessions fed it winds. To support that search, Bonnie spent more and more hours at her job as a TV talk show host while Tony devoted more and more of himself to his company. Finally there wasn't left for each other. When the storm winds had done their damage, they left behind only the splintered remains of the Libhart's marriage. That was when Bonnie called out to God- and He answered her cry. Born-Again Marriage is a story of wreckage and rebuilding. But more that it's a handbook you can use to look at your own priorities. The unique Analysis-Action sections at the end of each priorities are-and a chance to set new ones. Born-Again Marriage offers an exciting story of struggle and romance. You, too, can have a Born-Again relationship, if you would please. Thank you for taking us home with you. Please let us now how this has helped you and if we can use your story in the sequel at www.DrBonnieL.com.

What if our truest life is the one right in front of us? Does life sometimes seem to be passing you by? Are you so busy—with email to check, Instagram to scroll through, and friends to be envious of—that you’ve become disconnected from your actual life? You know, the one you are living right here, right now? With hilariously relatable confessions and profoundly beautiful insights, Kate Merrick invites us to stop running away from the lives we’re living today and instead walk in the peace and fullness God offers moment to moment. She shows us how to kill your Wi-Fi, put down the tech, and find deeper contentment, redirect the FOMO so you don’t miss out on your own life, and go on a diet of fewer choices to discover the blessings of the quiet, the slow, and the intentional. Only when we look honestly at our hearts and have the courage to live truly present do we receive the gifts of God found in all of life’s seasons—the painful ones, the big and beautiful ones, and even the ordinary ones.