During February, the month of the African American Read-In, we continue our theme of spotlighting connections with thoughtful NCTE texts.
In Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground Adam Banks uses the concept of the Digital Divide as a metonym for America’s larger racial divide, in an attempt to figure out what meaningful access for African Americans to technologies and the larger American society can or should mean. Read more about this text in a review from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Probing deep into issues that affect American schools today, the author of Shooting for Excellence: African American and Youth Culture in New Century Schools demonstrates how two connected cultures cannot be ignored if one is to effect change in education. Dive deeper into this text with this article, “Using Hip-Hop in Schools: Are We Appreciating Culture or Raping Rap?”
Finding ways to build on the language abilities that students of diverse cultures bring to school, the book Signifying as a Scaffold for Literary Interpretation: The Pedagogical Implications of an African American Discourse Genre recounts an experiment in helping urban African American high school students to interpret literature by drawing on their own rich oral tradition of “signifying.” Read more about this text in this review from R. Baird Shuman from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tensions and Triumphs in the Early Years of Teaching: Real-World Findings and Advice for Supporting New Teachers shares the results of a seven-year research study identify the challenges new teachers face and how all concerned can help keep new teachers in the profession. Learn more of this book from a review over at A Year of Reading.
Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom
offers specific ideas for how to teach writing well and in a culturally relevant way. Read as the others share “From Mis-education to Re-education: Our Journey.”
Thanks for checking out these NCTE texts!