Ernest Morrell
University of Notre Dame, Department of English, Faculty Member
- Teachers College, Columbia University, Arts & Humanities, English Education, Faculty MemberTeachers College, Columbia University, Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), Department MemberUniversity of California, Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Faculty Memberadd
- Education, Literary Theory, Digital Humanities, Postcolonial Theory, Popular culture (Humanities), Humanities, and 36 moreMultimedia Learning, Media Literacy, Pedagogy, Adolescent Literacy, Youth Studies, Participatory Research, Cultural Studies, 21st Century Literacies, Cyberstudies, Game studies, Game Theory, Literacy, Critical Theory, Critical Pedagogy, Media Education, Popular Culture, Academic Development, African American Culture, African American Males and Education, African Diaspora Studies, African Disapora Studies, Caribbean Studies, Computing In Social Sciences, Arts And Humanities, Professions, Creative Writing, Curriculum Studies, Democratic Education, Educational Leadership, Sociology of Education, Digital Media, Action Research, STEM Education, Urban Education, Catholic Religious Education, Catholic Theology, Aimé Césaire, and Caribbean Literatureedit
- ERNEST MORRELL is the Associate Dean of Humanities and Equity in the College of Arts and Letters, the Coyle Professor... moreERNEST MORRELL is the Associate Dean of Humanities and Equity in the College of Arts and Letters, the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education, a professor of English, and Africana Studies and Director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame. Ernest is also director of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) James R. Squire Office for Policy Research in the English Language Arts. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, an elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). From 2015-2022 Ernest has been annually ranked among the top university-based education scholars in the RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings published by EdWeek. Ernest is also the recipient of the NCTE Distinguished Service Award, the Kent Williamson Leadership Award from the Conference on English Leadership, and the Divergent Award for Excellence in 21st Century Literacies. His scholarly interests include: Critical Pedagogy, English Education, Literacy Studies, Postcolonial Studies, popular culture and education across the African Diaspora.
Ernest has authored 90 articles, research briefs, and book chapters and ten scholarly monographs including Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community (Columbia, 2020), Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education (Routledge, 2019), New Directions in Teaching English, and Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools, which was awarded Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine of the American Library Association. Ernest has earned numerous commendations for his university teaching including UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He received his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of California, Berkeley where he was the recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation award in 2001. Ernest is chair of the Planning and Advisory Committee for the African Diaspora Consortium and he sits on the Executive Board of LitWorld.edit
This ethnographic study investigated ways that urban youth developed academic and critical literacies that were linked in part to them becoming critical researchers of popular and marginalized cultures. It documented and analyzed a high... more
This ethnographic study investigated ways that urban youth developed academic and critical literacies that were linked in part to them becoming critical researchers of popular and marginalized cultures. It documented and analyzed a high school intervention that sought to foster critical awareness and a multicultural college- going identity for particular urban secondary students who had not been expected or encouraged to go on to college. Using a sociocultural lens that viewed learning as changing participation over time (Lave, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1998), this study explored the movement of these students from peripheral to core participation in a critical research focused community of practice.
The study revealed the key roles and strategies of the critical research community of which these students became a part. This research community was comprised of certain teachers in the high school and researchers from a prominent university involved in a school/university partnership. It worked within a cultural studies epistemology that drew upon critical, postmodern, and Marxist theory to reconceptualize and challenge educational structures and practices that produced inequitable achievement.
In addition to documenting the experiences of most of the students affected by the intervention, this research also followed four focal students over a two-year period to determine specific impacts that the program had on their personal and academic development. The study found and assessed a number of ways that work to develop the students' perspectives and abilities as critical researchers could also lead to higher commitment to social action, increased academic performance, and ultimately greater access to college. It also examined a variety of ways that the structure and culture of urban schooling resists the implementation of potentially empowering curricula and pedagogies.
The study revealed the key roles and strategies of the critical research community of which these students became a part. This research community was comprised of certain teachers in the high school and researchers from a prominent university involved in a school/university partnership. It worked within a cultural studies epistemology that drew upon critical, postmodern, and Marxist theory to reconceptualize and challenge educational structures and practices that produced inequitable achievement.
In addition to documenting the experiences of most of the students affected by the intervention, this research also followed four focal students over a two-year period to determine specific impacts that the program had on their personal and academic development. The study found and assessed a number of ways that work to develop the students' perspectives and abilities as critical researchers could also lead to higher commitment to social action, increased academic performance, and ultimately greater access to college. It also examined a variety of ways that the structure and culture of urban schooling resists the implementation of potentially empowering curricula and pedagogies.
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Challenging the assumption that access to technology is pervasive and globally balanced, this book explores the real and potential limitations placed on young people’s literacy education by their limited access to technology and digital... more
Challenging the assumption that access to technology is pervasive and globally balanced, this book explores the real and potential limitations placed on young people’s literacy education by their limited access to technology and digital resources.
Drawing on research studies from around the globe, Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education identifies social, economic, racial, political and geographical factors which can limit populations’ access to technology, and outlines the negative impact this can have on literacy attainment. Reflecting macro, meso and micro inequities, chapters highlight complex issues surrounding the productive use of technology and the mobilization of multimodal texts for academic performance and illustrate how digital divides might be remedied to resolve inequities in learning environments and beyond.
Contesting the digital divides which are implicitly embedded in aspects of everyday life and learning, this text will be of great interest to researchers and post-graduate academics in the field of literacy education.
Drawing on research studies from around the globe, Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education identifies social, economic, racial, political and geographical factors which can limit populations’ access to technology, and outlines the negative impact this can have on literacy attainment. Reflecting macro, meso and micro inequities, chapters highlight complex issues surrounding the productive use of technology and the mobilization of multimodal texts for academic performance and illustrate how digital divides might be remedied to resolve inequities in learning environments and beyond.
Contesting the digital divides which are implicitly embedded in aspects of everyday life and learning, this text will be of great interest to researchers and post-graduate academics in the field of literacy education.
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About the Book Critical Literacy and Urban Youth offers an interrogation of critical theory developed from the author’s work with young people in classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions of power. Through cases, an articulated process,... more
About the Book
Critical Literacy and Urban Youth offers an interrogation of critical theory developed from the author’s work with young people in classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions of power. Through cases, an articulated process, and a theory of literacy education and social change, Morrell extends the conversation among literacy educators about what constitutes critical literacy while also examining implications for practice in secondary and postsecondary American educational contexts. This book is distinguished by its weaving together of theory and practice.
Morrell begins by arguing for a broader definition of the "critical" in critical literacy – one that encapsulates the entire Western philosophical tradition as well as several important "Othered" traditions ranging from postcolonialism to the African-American tradition. Next, he looks at four cases of critical literacy pedagogy with urban youth: teaching popular culture in a high school English classroom; conducting community-based critical research; engaging in cyber-activism; and doing critical media literacy education. Lastly, he returns to theory, first considering two areas of critical literacy pedagogy that are still relatively unexplored: the importance of critical reading and writing in constituting and reconstituting the self, and critical writing that is not just about coming to a critical understanding of the world but that plays an explicit and self-referential role in changing the world. Morrell concludes by outlining a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy and considering its implications for literacy research, teacher education, classroom practice, and advocacy work for social change.
Critical Literacy and Urban Youth offers an interrogation of critical theory developed from the author’s work with young people in classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions of power. Through cases, an articulated process, and a theory of literacy education and social change, Morrell extends the conversation among literacy educators about what constitutes critical literacy while also examining implications for practice in secondary and postsecondary American educational contexts. This book is distinguished by its weaving together of theory and practice.
Morrell begins by arguing for a broader definition of the "critical" in critical literacy – one that encapsulates the entire Western philosophical tradition as well as several important "Othered" traditions ranging from postcolonialism to the African-American tradition. Next, he looks at four cases of critical literacy pedagogy with urban youth: teaching popular culture in a high school English classroom; conducting community-based critical research; engaging in cyber-activism; and doing critical media literacy education. Lastly, he returns to theory, first considering two areas of critical literacy pedagogy that are still relatively unexplored: the importance of critical reading and writing in constituting and reconstituting the self, and critical writing that is not just about coming to a critical understanding of the world but that plays an explicit and self-referential role in changing the world. Morrell concludes by outlining a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy and considering its implications for literacy research, teacher education, classroom practice, and advocacy work for social change.
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This book furthers the discussion concerning critical pedagogy and its practical applications for urban contexts. It addresses two looming, yet under-explored questions that have emerged with the ascendancy of critical pedagogy in the... more
This book furthers the discussion concerning critical pedagogy and its practical applications for urban contexts. It addresses two looming, yet under-explored questions that have emerged with the ascendancy of critical pedagogy in the educational discourse: (1) What does critical pedagogy look like in work with urban youth? and (2) How can a systematic investigation of critical work enacted in urban contexts simultaneously draw upon and push the core tenets of critical pedagogy? Addressing the tensions inherent in enacting critical pedagogy —between working to disrupt and to successfully navigate oppressive institutionalized structures, and between the practice of critical pedagogy and the current standards-driven climate—The Art of Critical Pedagogy seeks to generate authentic internal and external dialogues among educators in search of texts that offer guidance for teaching for a more socially just world.
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Becoming Critical Researchers analyzes the findings of a two-year ethnographic study of the apprenticeship of urban youth as critical researchers of popular culture. Drawing on new literacy studies, critical pedagogy, and sociocultural... more
Becoming Critical Researchers analyzes the findings of a two-year ethnographic study of the apprenticeship of urban youth as critical researchers of popular culture. Drawing on new literacy studies, critical pedagogy, and sociocultural learning theory, this book documents the changes in student participation within a critical research-focused community of practice. These changes include the acquisition and development of academic and critical literacies and the resulting translations of these literacies into increased academic performance, greater access to college, and commitment to social action. This book inserts critical and postmodern theory into the conception and evaluation of classroom practice and its findings suggest that programs centering on the lived experiences of teens can indeed achieve the goals of critical education, while also promoting academic achievement in urban schools.
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Product Description This comprehensive,theoretically grounded and empirically tested approach to teaching popular culture in schools promotes academic and critical literacy development among students. Ideal for preservice teachers,... more
Product Description
This comprehensive,theoretically grounded and empirically tested approach to teaching popular culture in schools promotes academic and critical literacy development among students. Ideal for preservice teachers, practicing teachers and teacher educators who, given the current demographic shifts among the teaching and student populations, are increasingly challenged to find ways to meaningfully and authentically connect with diverse students in schools.
This comprehensive,theoretically grounded and empirically tested approach to teaching popular culture in schools promotes academic and critical literacy development among students. Ideal for preservice teachers, practicing teachers and teacher educators who, given the current demographic shifts among the teaching and student populations, are increasingly challenged to find ways to meaningfully and authentically connect with diverse students in schools.
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The following is the text of Ernest Morrell's presidential address, delivered at the NCTE Annual Convention in Washington, DC, on November 23, 2014.I initially conceptualized this address as dealing with powerful English at NCTE today... more
The following is the text of Ernest Morrell's presidential address, delivered at the NCTE Annual Convention in Washington, DC, on November 23, 2014.I initially conceptualized this address as dealing with powerful English at NCTE today and tomorrow moving forward, and something felt not right in portraying ourselves in that way. It is unconscionable to think of ourselves as at the beginning of a movement, or at the beginning of the first movement in the history of NCTE. NCTE has been about movement, and to say that we have not is to dishonor the legacy of those who have come before us and worked so hard on our behalf. So I added zyesterday to today and tomorrow because I think that we don't often reflect on who we are and what we have become to think about where we need to go. So it is not towards a movement, it is towards the next, or another, movement because that is who we are and what we do. Deborah Brandt (2010) in her foreword to Reading the Past, Writing the Future said:What we take for granted in our professional background is there as a result of somebody's insight and effort. In retrospect, we appreciate how the activism of forebears built the house in which we do our work today: Reading as constructive. Writing as process. Language as a heritage right. Assessment as formative. Teachers as leaders. Scholarship and pedagogy as one. We assume these truths to be self-evident, but only because NCTE members studied, taught, argued, and presented them into existence, making them programmatically real to the wider field. So this begs the question: Whose forebears are we? What do they need from us now? (p. xii)NCTE and Its MovementsLet's begin at the beginning of NCTE and movements. In its third year as an organization, NCTE released the report of the Committee on Home Reading (NCTE, 1913), which sold 400,000 copies. At that time, NCTE members were concerned with the undue influence that the College Board had on the selection of reading texts. Even then, in 1913, NCTE members were arguing for the need to read different books. So much so that they basically neutralized the influence of the College Board and began exploding the cannon over 100 years ago. We see that work continue with the NCTE Black Caucus, who initiated the African American Read-In to encourage a greater appreciation of African American literature.In the 1940s, NCTE stepped out front to think about teaching in a context of war, a context not unlike today, almost 80 years later. Even then our predecessors were contemplating, "How do we talk about freedom? How do we talk about peace? How do we talk about democracy in a time of war, and what is the role of the English teacher in that process? How can we think that teaching English is not a political act?"In the 1960s, NCTE was far out front in thinking about teaching English to speakers of other languages. We are having this conversation again now, in 2014, as if we all of a sudden have become a multilinguistic nation. We have been a multilinguistic nation since we became a nation-people were speaking languages other than English when the British colonists arrived! But NCTE was on top of this issue even in the 1960s.It is important to acknowledge the wonderful work that ReLeah Lent and her colleagues on the Standing Committee Against Censorship are doing now in 2014. But we should also acknowledge that NCTE has anti-censorship challenges going back to the 1960s. I love the note below because it sums up so much of what I think is a part of NCTE. You can read it. It is a letter written to the director of publications in 1963 about fighting the good fight against the censorship of Catcher in the Rye, and the part I love says, "Alas, it was to no avail." This fight did not succeed, but NCTE was still fighting, and that was over 50 years ago. We are still fighting that fight.Anti-racism: NCTE has been fighting against racism in curriculum in American education since the 1970s. …
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As our communities become increasingly ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as critical literacy becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that English... more
As our communities become increasingly ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as critical literacy becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that English integrates theories of race, culture, and imperialism into its understandings of literature, literacy, and cultural production. What does it mean to read from a Eurocentric perspective, both in terms of our selections of texts and our interpretations of texts? How do traditional readings of the word and the world reinforce racial and cultural hierarchies? Which authors and thinkers best help us to theorize the role of culture in the reproduction of structural, racial and gender inequality? And how do these novelists, playwrights, poets, activists, and cultural theorists help us to better reimagine a more equitable and humanizing pedagogy of reading, writing, and multimodal production in the 21 st Century? This class is intended to serve as a general introduction to postcolonial literature and theory. Toward that end, we will be reading a number of the most influential theorists of Postcolonialism as well as some of the novels that have been of particular importance to debates and discussions in the field. This course begins with the premise that a study of postcolonial theories and a growing body of literature from subaltern perspectives can help the discipline of English to diversify its canon and add a robust theory of race, culture, imperialism, and intersectionality to its intellectual discourse. With this in mind, the goals of this course are: • To explore the anti-colonial tradition that is a precursor to and a companion of the postcolonial theoretical movement • To understand the roots of postcolonial theory and its development across global contexts, with a focus on South Asian, sub-Saharan African, Latin American/Caribbean, and U.S. Postcolonialism • To read critically postcolonial literatures and media texts from Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States • To draw on postcolonial theory to read the traditional British and American literary canons • To develop the ability to employ Postcolonialism as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text. In addition, at the end of this course you will be better able to: • Examine and critique the arguments of key theorists and scholars in group presentations that you will make to your classmates • Actively listen to classmates as a thoughtful participant in Socratic and small group discussions
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This seminar involves a survey of the historical and contemporary schooling conditions for African children on the continent and in the Diaspora. The focus is on the relationships between colonialism, capitalism, institutional racism,... more
This seminar involves a survey of the historical and contemporary schooling conditions for African children on the continent and in the Diaspora. The focus is on the relationships between colonialism, capitalism, institutional racism, academic attainment, identity development, and the reproduction of social, economic, and racial inequality on a global level. This course begins with the understanding that it is important in our time to situate current issues in race and urban education within a larger historical and international perspective. Toward this end, we will read seminal pieces from history, sociology, African and African-American studies as well as educational studies that explore the conditions of educational apartheid as well as the contexts in which African and Diaspora students thrive. We will also attempt to amass original sources to fill in the gaps in our own scholarship and, perhaps, offer an outline or a proposal for a publication or academic conference that adds a critical element to the discussion of Pan-African education in the United States. There will be scope for participants to develop final projects that explore aspects of race and education that are of interest to them (these are not limited to African and Diaspora education), and to explore these issues in the context of Pan-African education.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Routledge
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Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Education, Feminist Theory, Youth Studies, and 13 moreParticipatory Research, Teacher Education, Participatory Action Research, Critical Pedagogy, Urban Education, Critical Race Theory, Pedagogy, Secondary Education, Participatory Action Research with Youth, Teacher Preparation, Urban Teacher Preparation, Routledge, and Postcolonial and Anticolonial Studies
La nanolithographie (série Électronique et microélectronique, EGEM) Alors que le nano-monde s'ouvre à nous, les chercheurs ont disposés ces dernières années d'un magnifique terrain de jeu pour mettre au point de nouvelles... more
La nanolithographie (série Électronique et microélectronique, EGEM) Alors que le nano-monde s'ouvre à nous, les chercheurs ont disposés ces dernières années d'un magnifique terrain de jeu pour mettre au point de nouvelles technologies destinées à façonner cet espace des ...
Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for... more
Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for change be collaborative rather than competitive? Can we envision self-love, wellness, and intercultural understanding as compelling ends of a reimagined literacy pedagogy? Toward these ends, this essay offers demographic, moral, and economic imperatives for fundamentally reconsidering literacy policy and practice. It then presents five “big” ideas. We must ask different questions, we must identify and problematize our notions of success, we must advocate for the equitable distribution of material resources, we must fight for bottom-up accountability practices, and we must envision new literacy practices that reflect our new global reality. Finally it advocates a global postcolonial critical literacies framework where teachers are positioned as intel...
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Literacy, Educational Leadership, Digital Literacy, and 12 moreCritical Pedagogy, Accountability, Political Science, Education Policy, Digital Media And New Literacies, Educational Equity and Justice, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, English Education, Critical Literacy, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Digital Media Learning, and Equity Law
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The intellectual, cultural, and political contributions of the African diaspora have long gone underacknowledged in educational research. Furthermore, the historical, social, and economic powers of education for global African descendants... more
The intellectual, cultural, and political contributions of the African diaspora have long gone underacknowledged in educational research. Furthermore, the historical, social, and economic powers of education for global African descendants have been largely under-explored in African diaspora studies. This special issue is motivated by these two interrelated provocations. Well into the 21st century, there is still an urgent need to harness the analytical tools that education studies and African diaspora studies afford to identify new educational solutions for old social problems (Freeman & Johnson, 2012). Strengthening our understanding of the relationship between these two fields of critical interdisciplinary inquiry enables researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to further develop a distinct intellectual and activist terrain rooted in the liberationist impulses and transgressive possibilities of education for African descendants locally and globally. Educational research in the field of African diaspora studies adds richness and depth to our understandings of Black people across time, space, and place. Research at the interstices of education studies and African diaspora studies provides us with new and frequently overlooked forms of knowledge on the history, anthropology, and political economy of education across the African diaspora. Furthermore, such scholarship challenges deficit theoretical, methodological, and empirical accounts of African descendants’ relationship to education that discount the prevailing structures of inequality limiting the educational advancement of Black people from early childhood education to higher education (Levin, 2005; Wallace, 2019). Recent scholarship at the intersection of education studies and African diaspora studies articulates the resilience, remembrance, and resistance strategies African descendants use in schools and society that cannot be captured—or ignored—by cursory readings of global Black histories. This special issue takes its cue from the power of studying Black education throughout the African diaspora from comparative and international perspectives not only to disrupt dominant, pathological representations and challenge the steady misrecognition of Africa’s global descendants, but also to identify the practices that have the potential to positively impact all Black children, young people, and adults across borders (Freeman & Johnson, 2012; Givens, 2016). We maintain that the sustained study of formal and informal teaching, learning, and schooling across the African diaspora from critical, feminist, and postcolonial perspectives can enrich education studies and African diaspora studies now and in the future. Throughout Africa and the African diaspora, popular leaders and lay officials have long understood education not simply as a social practice for knowledge exchange, but as a technology of power for self-determination, nation-building, and global Black consciousness (Givens, 2016; Msibi, 2012; Nasir et al., 2013). Twentieth-century activists and thought-leaders, such as Anna Julia Cooper, Gisèle Rabeshala, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Bernard Coard, Rigoberta Menchú, among scores of others, underscored the significance of critical, internationalist perspectives on education for global African descendants as necessary, and not simply ancillary, for social, cultural, and political freedom (Hall, 1997). Today, Black teachers, school leaders, parents, community activists, and civil society leaders continue to subscribe to the power and promise of education for the upliftment of global African descendants—though some simultaneously decry modern schooling as a project of constraint, co-optation, and control (Dumas, 2014; Dumas & ross, 2016). Still, educational research, particularly in the Global North, has yet to offer
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Background The research community has long documented educational disparities along race lines. Countless studies have shown that urban African American and Latino students are systematically denied educational resources in comparison to... more
Background The research community has long documented educational disparities along race lines. Countless studies have shown that urban African American and Latino students are systematically denied educational resources in comparison to their white counterparts, resulting in persistent achievement disparities. Though this research is thorough in many regards, it consistently lacks the voices of the Latino and African American students themselves. This omission not only silences those most affected by educational inequalities, it also denies the research community valuable insights. Purpose This article discusses an analysis of a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program, the Council of Youth Research, in which urban youth of color research educational conditions. We address the following research questions: 1. How do the Council youth appropriate traditional tools of research? How do they adapt and transform these tools to serve their purposes? 2. What methodological insig...
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Knowledges from academic and professional research-based institutions have long been valued over the organic intellectualism of those who are most affected by educational and social inequities. In contrast, participatory action research... more
Knowledges from academic and professional research-based institutions have long been valued over the organic intellectualism of those who are most affected by educational and social inequities. In contrast, participatory action research (PAR) projects are collective investigations that rely on indigenous knowledge, combined with the desire to take individual and/or collective action. PAR with youth (YPAR) engages in rigorous research inquiries and represents a radical effort in education research to value the inquiry-based knowledge production of the youth who directly experience the educational contexts that scholars endeavor to understand. In this chapter, we outline the foundations of YPAR and examine the distinct epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical contributions of an interdisciplinary corpus of YPAR studies and scholarship. We outline the origins and disciplines of YPAR and make a case for its role in education research, discuss its contributions to the field and t...
Research Interests: Sociology, Epistemology, Education, Youth Studies, Participatory Research, and 10 moreParticipatory Action Research, Action Research, Educational Research, Social Justice in Education, Youth Civic Engagement, Social Justice Education, Educational reform, Participatory Action Research with Youth, Critical epistemology, and Youth Participation Action Research (YPAR)
School-based health education efforts can positively affect health behaviors and learning outcomes; however, there is limited available time during the school day for separate health education classes. The purpose of this study was to... more
School-based health education efforts can positively affect health behaviors and learning outcomes; however, there is limited available time during the school day for separate health education classes. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and sustainability of implementing a classroom-based health education program that integrates skill development with health learning. A wait-list control study design was conducted among 168 6th graders in 2 urban schools. Data on program implementation, feasibility, and health outcomes were collected from students at 3 time points and from 5 teachers across the implementation of the 10-week program. There were barriers to implementation, including time limitations, unexpected school-wide disruptions, and variations in student reading ability and teacher preparedness. However, analyses revealed there were significant increases in self-efficacy regarding fruit and vegetable consumption and outcome expectations following program im...
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Now that I am a researcher, I am analyzing, comparing and contrasting different communities. I have the ability to recognize the similarities and differences between urban and suburban areas. The second interview I liked was at Beverly... more
Now that I am a researcher, I am analyzing, comparing and contrasting different communities. I have the ability to recognize the similarities and differences between urban and suburban areas. The second interview I liked was at Beverly High. What I liked about the interview was that the kids were honest. They admitted that the only reason their school gets a lot of funds and has a lot of money is because of the name Beverly Hills. (Cynthia, high school student)
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Research Interests: Digital Literacy, Critical Pedagogy, Student Motivation And Engagement, Policy, Education Policy, and 11 moreDigital Media And New Literacies, Community Based Programs, Childhood, Adolescence, Text Structure Knowledge and Comprehension, Issue of Policy Accountability, Self Perception, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Digital Media Learning, Early Adolescence, and Language Learners
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Annual Harvard Dean's Distinguished Lecture
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Inaugural Macy Endowed lecture held at Teachers College, Columbia University
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Keynote given at the Bell Center's 10th Annual Black Male Retreat
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Rigor, Relevance, and Powerful Literacies in 21st Century Classrooms How do we motivate and engage youth drawing from their interests and experiences while also creating challenging and standards-based English Language Arts curricula? Is... more
Rigor, Relevance, and Powerful Literacies in 21st Century Classrooms
How do we motivate and engage youth drawing from their interests and experiences while also creating challenging and standards-based English Language Arts curricula? Is it possible for 21st century literacies and “great literature” to co-exist in the same units and lessons? In this hour-long keynote Morrell will examine these questions and more as he outlines a core set of principles for culturally relevant and academically rigorous 21st century literacy classroom instruction. Morrell begins his talk addressing the challenge of motivation. He explains how incorporating new literacies into classroom instruction can serve to increase student engagement. Next he outlines several core tenets of powerful teaching through practice that involves engagement, affirmation, discipline, inspiration, purpose and love. The remainder of the talk will feature numerous examples of 21st century pedagogy in action across the K-12 spectrum. Some of these examples include working with youth as critical media consumers, developing Ning sites, creating digital documentaries, involving youth in community-based research, and using PowerPoint to make powerful public presentations. Morrell concludes with a set of strategies for teachers who want to learn more about how to incorporate 21st century literacies into their standards-based ELA curricula.
How do we motivate and engage youth drawing from their interests and experiences while also creating challenging and standards-based English Language Arts curricula? Is it possible for 21st century literacies and “great literature” to co-exist in the same units and lessons? In this hour-long keynote Morrell will examine these questions and more as he outlines a core set of principles for culturally relevant and academically rigorous 21st century literacy classroom instruction. Morrell begins his talk addressing the challenge of motivation. He explains how incorporating new literacies into classroom instruction can serve to increase student engagement. Next he outlines several core tenets of powerful teaching through practice that involves engagement, affirmation, discipline, inspiration, purpose and love. The remainder of the talk will feature numerous examples of 21st century pedagogy in action across the K-12 spectrum. Some of these examples include working with youth as critical media consumers, developing Ning sites, creating digital documentaries, involving youth in community-based research, and using PowerPoint to make powerful public presentations. Morrell concludes with a set of strategies for teachers who want to learn more about how to incorporate 21st century literacies into their standards-based ELA curricula.
Overall Series: Powerful Teaching: Toward a Pedagogy of the Global City Lecture I. Towards a Pedagogy of the City: Voice, Agency, Achievement, Purpose, Action and Love Lecture II. Youth Participatory Action Research, Academic Literacy,... more
Overall Series: Powerful Teaching: Toward a Pedagogy of the Global City
Lecture I. Towards a Pedagogy of the City: Voice, Agency, Achievement, Purpose, Action and Love
Lecture II. Youth Participatory Action Research, Academic Literacy, and Civic Engagement in Urban Schools
Lecture III. Popular Culture, Media Production, and a Re-Imaging of Classroom Life
Lecture I. Towards a Pedagogy of the City: Voice, Agency, Achievement, Purpose, Action and Love
Lecture II. Youth Participatory Action Research, Academic Literacy, and Civic Engagement in Urban Schools
Lecture III. Popular Culture, Media Production, and a Re-Imaging of Classroom Life
Education 320A/B/C, Secondary Literacy Methods, serves as Center X's Secondary English Teacher methods course sequence. This course sequence will provide pre-service teachers insight into methods for developing effective curricula and... more
Education 320A/B/C, Secondary Literacy Methods, serves as Center X's Secondary English Teacher methods course sequence. This course sequence will provide pre-service teachers insight into methods for developing effective curricula and pedagogies for secondary urban English classrooms. It is also a Masters-level course sequence intended to engage graduate students in exploring a variety of theoretical perspectives pertaining to the impact of deep-seated norms about race, class, culture, and language on the literacy development for low-income students in US schools. As such, the courses engage macro theories and micro issues related to developing an engaging pedagogical approach to secondary literacy instruction in public schools in the greater Los Angeles community. The course will focus on four substantive areas: 1) critical reading strategies and critical responses to literature; 2) literacy and popular culture; 3) creative drama; and 4) youth participatory action research as a pathway to developing highly engaging curricula and pedagogy that foster academic and critical literacy for urban youth. All of the major assignments are designed to be completely functional to the project of learning to teach through joining theory with practice. Students will work in their neighborhoods to collect data that will help them to understand how students, as members of multiple cultures and communities use language and literacy in powerful ways that can be drawn upon in classroom literacy instruction. Each course participant will also draw from their personal philosophy of teaching, course readings and class discussions to develop a standards-based multimedia theme-based lesson that they will deliver and evaluate at their student teaching placement. It is expected that elements of this project that can be mapped onto their teaching assignment, used for the PACT portfolio, and incorporated into the Resident Inquiry portfolio. COURSE TEXTS Required
Research Interests:
According to the popular discourse, America is facing a tremendous literacy crisis. Poor children and children of color trail their affluent and White counterparts on traditional literacy assessments. Employers complain that workers do... more
According to the popular discourse, America is facing a tremendous literacy crisis. Poor children and children of color trail their affluent and White counterparts on traditional literacy assessments. Employers complain that workers do not possess requisite literacy skills at a time when changing communications technologies are making old and new literacy skills mandatory for participation in the global economy or even civic life. As all of this happens, urban schools continue to fail to provide access to literacies of power for their students as they also fail to account for the local and popular cultural literacies that their students bring with them into the classroom. The true literacy crisis is that educators and researchers have not figured out how to decrease the literacy achievement gap; a gap that carries with it severe social, economic, and political consequences.
Of course, nothing is inevitable, and there have been historic moments when populations have gained access to literacies of power as they also intervened in their conditions of oppression. Even now, literacy educators and scholars possess the potential to create positive, conceptually grounded and empirically tested strategies for transformative literacy education that can not only change classroom practices, but the world itself.
This course examines historical, cultural, and critical contexts of literacy theory and research in hopes to produce scholars and educators who are able to theorize, create, and/or investigate these transformational practices. It begins with an examination of the historical legacy of literacy as a vehicle to freedom and empowerment for marginalized populations. Students will read literature covering the Cuba literacy campaign and the struggles of African-Americans in the United States as they consider (and reconsider) the role of literacy education in social transformation. The class will also investigate the major paradigms of literacy theory and research during the past half century examining myths about great divides between oral and literate societies and the transformation from “culturally neutral” theories of literacy to cross cultural and sociocultural theories. The course will also consider the impacts of the revolution in communications technologies on the nature of literacy and on contemporary new media literacy practices. Finally, the course will examine theories of critical literacy education and examples of literacy praxis in classroom and out of school settings.
Of course, nothing is inevitable, and there have been historic moments when populations have gained access to literacies of power as they also intervened in their conditions of oppression. Even now, literacy educators and scholars possess the potential to create positive, conceptually grounded and empirically tested strategies for transformative literacy education that can not only change classroom practices, but the world itself.
This course examines historical, cultural, and critical contexts of literacy theory and research in hopes to produce scholars and educators who are able to theorize, create, and/or investigate these transformational practices. It begins with an examination of the historical legacy of literacy as a vehicle to freedom and empowerment for marginalized populations. Students will read literature covering the Cuba literacy campaign and the struggles of African-Americans in the United States as they consider (and reconsider) the role of literacy education in social transformation. The class will also investigate the major paradigms of literacy theory and research during the past half century examining myths about great divides between oral and literate societies and the transformation from “culturally neutral” theories of literacy to cross cultural and sociocultural theories. The course will also consider the impacts of the revolution in communications technologies on the nature of literacy and on contemporary new media literacy practices. Finally, the course will examine theories of critical literacy education and examples of literacy praxis in classroom and out of school settings.
Research Interests:
This course, the second in a two-course sequence, is designed with two purposes in mind. First, it will serve to induct beginning doctoral and Ed.M. students in into the discourse community of English education by familiarizing them with... more
This course, the second in a two-course sequence, is designed with two purposes in mind. First, it will serve to induct beginning doctoral and Ed.M. students in into the discourse community of English education by familiarizing them with the history of the field of English education and with the seminal texts that have shaped and defined the field as an intellectual discipline and discrete arena for research and teaching. "Classic texts" refers to articles, chapters and books that have had a transformative impact on research, on theory, and on principles and practices for the teaching of English historically. "Contemporary Trends" will focus on new voices in the field defined broadly to include traditional English Education scholarship as well as media and cultural studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, linguistic anthropology, and curriculum theory. This course will also explore the relationship between sociocultural learning, critical pedagogical theories, Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism, Critical Race Feminisms, and recent transformations (and conflicts) in the field. The second aim of the course, implied by its first aim, is to prepare present and prospective doctoral students for the first certification examination in English education, which is largely an examination covering the history and principal texts and theories of the field of English education.
Research Interests: Literacy, English Literature, Composition and Rhetoric, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Theory, and 9 moreNew literacy studies, New Literacies, Postcolonial Theory, Postcolonial Literature, Poststructuralist Theory, English Education, African American Language, Teaching of English Language and Literature, and Translanguaging
As our communities become increasingly culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as intercultural understanding becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that... more
As our communities become increasingly culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as intercultural understanding becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that the discipline of English integrates theories of race, culture, and imperialism into its understandings of literature, history, and cultural production. What does it mean to read from a Eurocentric perspective, both in terms of our selections of texts and our interpretations of texts? How do traditional readings of the word and the world reinforce racial and cultural hierarchies? Which authors and thinkers best help us to theorize the role of culture in the reproduction of structural, racial and gender inequality? And how do these novelists, playwrights, poets, filmmakers, composers, artists, and cultural theorists help us to move beyond stereotypes and essentializing narratives to reimagine a more equitable and hybridized world of the 21 st Century? This class is intended to serve as a general introduction to postcolonial literature and literary theory. Toward that end, we will be reading a number of the most influential theorists of Postcolonialism as well as some of the novels that have been of particular importance to debates and discussions in the field. This course begins with the premise that a study of postcolonial theories and a growing body of literature from subaltern perspectives can help the discipline of English to diversify its canon and add a robust theory of race, culture, imperialism, and intersectionality to its intellectual discourse.
Learning Goals With this in mind, the goals of this course are: • To explore the anti-colonial tradition that is a precursor to and a companion of the postcolonial theoretical movement • To understand the roots of postcolonial theory and its development across global contexts, with a focus on South Asian, sub-Saharan African, Latin American/Caribbean, and U.S. Postcolonialism • To read critically postcolonial literatures and media texts from Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States • To draw on postcolonial theory to re-read the traditional British and American literary canons • To develop the ability to employ Postcolonialism as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text (i.e. music, film, theatre, social media, advertisements, political speech, fashion, etc.).
Learning Goals With this in mind, the goals of this course are: • To explore the anti-colonial tradition that is a precursor to and a companion of the postcolonial theoretical movement • To understand the roots of postcolonial theory and its development across global contexts, with a focus on South Asian, sub-Saharan African, Latin American/Caribbean, and U.S. Postcolonialism • To read critically postcolonial literatures and media texts from Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States • To draw on postcolonial theory to re-read the traditional British and American literary canons • To develop the ability to employ Postcolonialism as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text (i.e. music, film, theatre, social media, advertisements, political speech, fashion, etc.).
Research Interests: American Literature, English Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Pedagogy, African American Literature, and 8 moreCaribbean Literature, Literary Theory, Postcolonial Theory, Postcolonial Literature, Poststructuralist Theory, English Education, Global Anglophone Literature, and Teaching of English Language and Literature
Critical pedagogy, education intended to inspire consciousness and action for change, has the potential to become one of the most relevant and powerful tools in urban education today. This course will consider the potential of conceptual... more
Critical pedagogy, education intended to inspire consciousness and action for change, has the potential to become one of the most relevant and powerful tools in urban education today. This course will consider the potential of conceptual and empirical work in critical pedagogy and cultural studies to inform, confront and transform many of the persistent challenges we presently face in urban schools, classrooms, and out-of-school programs. The course begins with an examination of the historical antecedents of critical pedagogy, from Catholic Social Teaching, the Western philosophical tradition and "Othered" traditions such as the African-American and Latin American social movement traditions, liberation theology, and Postcolonialism. The course will then examine the theory and research of critical pedagogists such as Paulo Freire, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Antonia Darder, and bell hooks. The second half of the course will focus on cultural studies and, in particular, the critical uses of popular culture in urban classrooms and out of school contexts. Lectures, discussions, and student activities will focus on hip-hop and spoken word poetry, film, television, mass media consumption and production and their implications for transformative work in city schools and out-of-school settings.
Learning Goals Upon successful completion of the course you will be better able to:
•Identify key tenets of critical pedagogical theory
• Identify key concepts and key authors in British and American cultural studies
• Articulate how scholars have applied critical pedagogical theory and popular culture to classroom practice in urban and multicultural settings
• Brainstorm applications of critical pedagogy and cultural studies in your own professional and personal life
• Examine and critique the arguments of key theorists and scholars in group presentations that you will make to your classmates
Learning Goals Upon successful completion of the course you will be better able to:
•Identify key tenets of critical pedagogical theory
• Identify key concepts and key authors in British and American cultural studies
• Articulate how scholars have applied critical pedagogical theory and popular culture to classroom practice in urban and multicultural settings
• Brainstorm applications of critical pedagogy and cultural studies in your own professional and personal life
• Examine and critique the arguments of key theorists and scholars in group presentations that you will make to your classmates
Research Interests:
Overview: As literacy has constantly been defined by its relation to the latest communications technology, we are challenged in this digital age to revisit our definitions of literacy and, as a result, our conceptualizations of literacy... more
Overview: As literacy has constantly been defined by its relation to the latest communications technology, we are challenged in this digital age to revisit our definitions of literacy and, as a result, our conceptualizations of literacy pedagogy. This becomes increasingly timely when we consider the role that media play in the lives of youth. From a consumption standpoint we know that youth are saturated with corporate media that, in selling products, corporate media also sell an image of American life that can be harmful, even fatal to students in K-12 schools. On the production side, however, we also know that youth are gaining increasing fluency with digital tools that provide them with the power to create and distribute counter-knowledge that resists cultural oppression. This course begins with the idea that a critical media literacy is an imperative goal for English studies and we take the view that a critical media pedagogy entails developing the tools of media consumption and media production. Toward these ends, this course will cover four major areas: (1) The history of media studies; (2) Powerful theories of media consumption; (3) Theory and practice of media production; (4) Examples of critical media pedagogies in action in schools and out of school settings. Accommodation Policy The College will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. Students are encouraged to contact the office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities for information about registration (166 Thorndike Hall). Services are available only to students who are registered and submit appropriate documentation.
Research Interests:
Course Overview Webster’s dictionary defines theory in two ways 1) as the analysis of a set of facts in relation to one another and 2) as a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action. These definitions are... more
Course Overview
Webster’s dictionary defines theory in two ways 1) as the analysis of a set of facts in relation to one another and 2) as a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action. These definitions are important to educational leaders and scholars for a number of reasons. Our decisions as leaders and researchers are often based upon theories that we may or may not be aware of. Knowing about the existence of theories in education can lead to a questioning or even a challenging of existing policies and practices. Developing new theories may also lead to innovative and transformative policies and practices in K-16 education. With that in mind this brief two-unit course intends to expose students to some of the most important theorists and thinkers in education in the 20th century. These thinkers have generated ideas about how children learn, the purpose of schooling, explanations for educational failure and educational inequality, approaches to powerful teaching and learning, and strategies for educational reform. It is the hope that exposure to these leading thinkers and their ideas helps you in your roles as educational leaders. It is also my hope that these thinkers help as you begin to formulate your dissertation studies. The idea for this course emerged from conversations with members of prior cohorts who, at the dissertation stage, wanted more exposure to theories of education. These ideas have also developed through my countless interactions with educational leaders across the country who are trying to figure out novel approaches for bridging theory with practice.
Webster’s dictionary defines theory in two ways 1) as the analysis of a set of facts in relation to one another and 2) as a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action. These definitions are important to educational leaders and scholars for a number of reasons. Our decisions as leaders and researchers are often based upon theories that we may or may not be aware of. Knowing about the existence of theories in education can lead to a questioning or even a challenging of existing policies and practices. Developing new theories may also lead to innovative and transformative policies and practices in K-16 education. With that in mind this brief two-unit course intends to expose students to some of the most important theorists and thinkers in education in the 20th century. These thinkers have generated ideas about how children learn, the purpose of schooling, explanations for educational failure and educational inequality, approaches to powerful teaching and learning, and strategies for educational reform. It is the hope that exposure to these leading thinkers and their ideas helps you in your roles as educational leaders. It is also my hope that these thinkers help as you begin to formulate your dissertation studies. The idea for this course emerged from conversations with members of prior cohorts who, at the dissertation stage, wanted more exposure to theories of education. These ideas have also developed through my countless interactions with educational leaders across the country who are trying to figure out novel approaches for bridging theory with practice.
Research Interests:
Critical pedagogy, or education intended to inspire consciousness and action for change, has the potential to become one of the most relevant and powerful tools in urban education today. This course will consider the potential of... more
Critical pedagogy, or education intended to inspire consciousness and action for change, has the potential to become one of the most relevant and powerful tools in urban education today. This course will consider the potential of conceptual and empirical work in critical pedagogy and cultural studies to inform, confront and transform many of the persistent challenges we presently face in urban education. The course begins with an examination of the historical antecedents of critical pedagogy, from Catholic Social Teaching, the Western philosophical tradition and " Othered " traditions such as the African-American and Latin American traditions, liberation theology, and Postcolonialism. The course will then examine the theory and research of critical pedagogists such as Paulo Freire, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Antonia Darder, and bell hooks. The second half of the course will focus on cultural studies and, in particular, the critical uses of popular culture in urban classrooms and out of school contexts. Lectures and student activities will focus on hip-hop and spoken word poetry, film, television, mass media consumption and production and their implications for transformative work with urban youth.
Research Interests:
As our communities become increasingly ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as critical literacy becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that English... more
As our communities become increasingly ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, and as critical literacy becomes more integrally tied to meaningful and humane participation in the global family, it is essential that English integrates theories of race, culture, and imperialism into its understandings of literature, literacy, and cultural production. What does it mean to read from a Eurocentric perspective, both in terms of our selections of texts and our interpretations of texts? How do traditional readings of the word and the world reinforce racial and cultural hierarchies? Which authors and thinkers best help us to theorize the role of culture in the reproduction of structural, racial and gender inequality? And how do these novelists, playwrights, poets, activists, and cultural theorists help us to better reimagine a more equitable and humanizing pedagogy of reading, writing, and multimodal production in the 21 st Century? This class is intended to serve as a general introduction to postcolonial literature and theory. Toward that end, we will be reading a number of the most influential theorists of Postcolonialism as well as some of the novels that have been of particular importance to debates and discussions in the field. This course begins with the premise that a study of postcolonial theories and a growing body of literature from subaltern perspectives can help the discipline of English to diversify its canon and add a robust theory of race, culture, imperialism, and intersectionality to its intellectual discourse. With this in mind, the goals of this course are: • To explore the anti-colonial tradition that is a precursor to and a companion of the postcolonial theoretical movement • To understand the roots of postcolonial theory and its development across global contexts, with a focus on South Asian, sub-Saharan African, Latin American/Caribbean, and U.S. Postcolonialism • To read critically postcolonial literatures and media texts from Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States • To draw on postcolonial theory to read the traditional British and American literary canons • To develop the ability to employ Postcolonialism as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text. In addition, at the end of this course you will be better able to: • Examine and critique the arguments of key theorists and scholars in group presentations that you will make to your classmates • Actively listen to classmates as a thoughtful participant in Socratic and small group discussions
Research Interests:
As English educators, we stand at a crossroads where we must simultaneously defend the legitimacy and the impact of English as a discipline as we also wrestle with the inequitable distribution of achievement in reading and writing across... more
As English educators, we stand at a crossroads where we must simultaneously defend the legitimacy and the impact of English as a discipline as we also wrestle with the inequitable distribution of achievement in reading and writing across lines of race, class, gender, and geography. At present too many students fail to demonstrate a mastery of academic literacies and the lines of failure are all too predictable and all too familiar. And while technically every content area is responsible for teaching reading and writing the discipline most closely associated with this task is English.
English educators also wrestle with the external pushes from economic, technological, critical, and cultural forces to fundamentally reconsider the nature and practices of our discipline. A discipline that once prided itself on the teaching of humanities and the greatest works of literature in the English language is now forced to encompass workplace literacy, participatory media technologies, writing, and oral language development. Indeed the common core standards are built around the ideas of career readiness and college readiness and, though these are important goals, they don’t often lend themselves to conversations that may be of more concern to the humanities like the appreciation of art and literature, or an understanding of one’s self and the human condition.
A new generation of English educators, then, is challenged to answer fundamental questions concerning what we do, how we do it, and why it is all still necessary in a world where we are told the book is a dying relic and that the word is giving way to the image (Kress, 2003). Why, for instance, do we continue, for the duration of their K-12 education, to teach children a language that they know and are able to speak and write at an early age? Why do we insist on teaching the novels, poems, and plays of people who are long since perished; works of fiction and drama written by people who may have held problematic and politically incorrect worldviews?
And, even if we are able to defend our intents, of what achievements can we boast? After thirteen years of compulsory English language arts, why aren’t our students reading and writing better than they do? Why do such large and seemingly intractable gaps in reading achievement persist along lines of race and socioeconomic class (US Department of Education, 2005)? Why do reading levels so accurately predict prison populations and why are prison populations so differently constituted than the population of the university where I teach? Why does the English classroom look so similarly to what it did a generation ago when the world of literacy is so rapidly changing? If there is going to be English teaching (and lets hope that there is) in the future of American education, what can it do to be more powerful, more relevant and yet retain its character and its traditions?
In response to the question “why English,” clearly there is more to this discipline of English than teaching students the rudimentary rules of language. However, questions persist as to the substance of English and whether or not it should change to reflect the changes in society. Should English teaching change as the population of students change? If we hold on to the teaching of literature as a primary focus, what literature should be taught and what approaches to literature should students be encouraged to undertake? Should our priorities in English education change as the communications technologies transform to make life utterly unrecognizable to the worlds that many of our canonized authors inhabit? And what in English is sacred and untouchable? What makes our discipline a discipline at the elementary and secondary levels? How does it relate, if at all to English as defined and taught in undergraduate and graduate level seminars at our colleges and universities.
In response to these questions and more, this course will look at how multicultural, sociocultural, postmodern and critical theories have shaped and are shaping research and practice in the teaching of English within the current political-education climate. We will also examine the latest research and the most innovative practices in the teaching of writing, reading and literary theory, and the uses of popular culture and other media in English classrooms. Students will have the opportunity to develop their presentation skills and students will also have the power to shape their final projects in consultation with the course instructor.
English educators also wrestle with the external pushes from economic, technological, critical, and cultural forces to fundamentally reconsider the nature and practices of our discipline. A discipline that once prided itself on the teaching of humanities and the greatest works of literature in the English language is now forced to encompass workplace literacy, participatory media technologies, writing, and oral language development. Indeed the common core standards are built around the ideas of career readiness and college readiness and, though these are important goals, they don’t often lend themselves to conversations that may be of more concern to the humanities like the appreciation of art and literature, or an understanding of one’s self and the human condition.
A new generation of English educators, then, is challenged to answer fundamental questions concerning what we do, how we do it, and why it is all still necessary in a world where we are told the book is a dying relic and that the word is giving way to the image (Kress, 2003). Why, for instance, do we continue, for the duration of their K-12 education, to teach children a language that they know and are able to speak and write at an early age? Why do we insist on teaching the novels, poems, and plays of people who are long since perished; works of fiction and drama written by people who may have held problematic and politically incorrect worldviews?
And, even if we are able to defend our intents, of what achievements can we boast? After thirteen years of compulsory English language arts, why aren’t our students reading and writing better than they do? Why do such large and seemingly intractable gaps in reading achievement persist along lines of race and socioeconomic class (US Department of Education, 2005)? Why do reading levels so accurately predict prison populations and why are prison populations so differently constituted than the population of the university where I teach? Why does the English classroom look so similarly to what it did a generation ago when the world of literacy is so rapidly changing? If there is going to be English teaching (and lets hope that there is) in the future of American education, what can it do to be more powerful, more relevant and yet retain its character and its traditions?
In response to the question “why English,” clearly there is more to this discipline of English than teaching students the rudimentary rules of language. However, questions persist as to the substance of English and whether or not it should change to reflect the changes in society. Should English teaching change as the population of students change? If we hold on to the teaching of literature as a primary focus, what literature should be taught and what approaches to literature should students be encouraged to undertake? Should our priorities in English education change as the communications technologies transform to make life utterly unrecognizable to the worlds that many of our canonized authors inhabit? And what in English is sacred and untouchable? What makes our discipline a discipline at the elementary and secondary levels? How does it relate, if at all to English as defined and taught in undergraduate and graduate level seminars at our colleges and universities.
In response to these questions and more, this course will look at how multicultural, sociocultural, postmodern and critical theories have shaped and are shaping research and practice in the teaching of English within the current political-education climate. We will also examine the latest research and the most innovative practices in the teaching of writing, reading and literary theory, and the uses of popular culture and other media in English classrooms. Students will have the opportunity to develop their presentation skills and students will also have the power to shape their final projects in consultation with the course instructor.
Research Interests:
Course Overview An understanding of American history, literature, and contemporary culture is incomplete without a serious and culturally sustaining engagement with the African-American literary tradition. However, African-American... more
Course Overview
An understanding of American history, literature, and contemporary culture is incomplete without a serious and culturally sustaining engagement with the African-American literary tradition. However, African-American literature is often obscured or absent in the canon of texts taught in college English departments. And when African-American novels, poems, plays, essays, and popular texts are included, they are often read through an Anglo-centric lens.
With this in mind, the goals of this course are:
To expose students to the breadth of African-American literature from slave narratives to the Harlem Renaissance, to Civil Rights Literature, to Afrofuturism to hip-hop.
To understand the roots of African American literary theory and its development from the West African griot tradition through the late 20th century.
To employ African American literary theory to read critically African American literatures and popular texts from the antebellum period, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, Afrofuturism, and the Hip-Hop Social Movement.
To draw on African-American literary theory to read the traditional British and American literary canons.
To develop the ability to employ African-American literary theory as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text.
An understanding of American history, literature, and contemporary culture is incomplete without a serious and culturally sustaining engagement with the African-American literary tradition. However, African-American literature is often obscured or absent in the canon of texts taught in college English departments. And when African-American novels, poems, plays, essays, and popular texts are included, they are often read through an Anglo-centric lens.
With this in mind, the goals of this course are:
To expose students to the breadth of African-American literature from slave narratives to the Harlem Renaissance, to Civil Rights Literature, to Afrofuturism to hip-hop.
To understand the roots of African American literary theory and its development from the West African griot tradition through the late 20th century.
To employ African American literary theory to read critically African American literatures and popular texts from the antebellum period, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, Afrofuturism, and the Hip-Hop Social Movement.
To draw on African-American literary theory to read the traditional British and American literary canons.
To develop the ability to employ African-American literary theory as a toolkit to read and critique any cultural text.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This seminar involves a survey of the historical and contemporary schooling conditions for African children on the continent and in the Diaspora. The focus is on the relationships between colonialism, capitalism, institutional racism,... more
This seminar involves a survey of the historical and contemporary schooling conditions for African children on the continent and in the Diaspora. The focus is on the relationships between colonialism, capitalism, institutional racism, academic attainment, identity development, and the reproduction of social, economic, and racial inequality on a global level. This course begins with the understanding that it is important in our time to situate current issues in race and urban education within a larger historical and international perspective. Toward this end, we will read seminal pieces from history, sociology, African and African-American studies as well as educational studies that explore the conditions of educational apartheid as well as the contexts in which African and Diaspora students thrive. We will also attempt to amass original sources to fill in the gaps in our own scholarship and, perhaps, offer an outline or a proposal for a publication or academic conference that adds a critical element to the discussion of Pan-African education in the United States. There will be scope for participants to develop final projects that explore aspects of race and education that are of interest to them (these are not limited to African and Diaspora education), and to explore these issues in the context of Pan-African education.
Research Interests:
According to the popular discourse, America is facing a tremendous literacy crisis. Poor children and children of color trail their affluent and White counterparts on traditional literacy assessments. Employers complain that workers do... more
According to the popular discourse, America is facing a tremendous literacy crisis. Poor children and children of color trail their affluent and White counterparts on traditional literacy assessments. Employers complain that workers do not possess requisite literacy skills at a time when changing communications technologies are making old and new literacy skills mandatory for participation in the global economy or even civic life. As all of this happens, urban schools continue to fail to provide access to literacies of power for their students as they also fail to account for the local and popular cultural literacies that their students bring with them into the classroom. The true literacy crisis is that educators and researchers have not figured out how to decrease the literacy achievement gap; a gap that carries with it severe social, economic, and political consequences.
Of course, nothing is inevitable, and there have been historic moments when populations have gained access to literacies of power as they also intervened in their conditions of oppression. Even now, literacy educators and scholars possess the potential to create positive, conceptually grounded and empirically tested strategies for transformative literacy education that can not only change classroom practices, but the world itself.
This course examines historical, cultural, and critical contexts of literacy theory and research in hopes to produce scholars and educators who are able to theorize, create, and/or investigate these transformational practices. It begins with an examination of the historical legacy of literacy as a vehicle to freedom and empowerment for marginalized populations. Students will read literature covering the Cuba literacy campaign and the struggles of African-Americans in the United States as they consider (and reconsider) the role of literacy education in social transformation. The class will also investigate the major paradigms of literacy theory and research during the past half century examining myths about great divides between oral and literate societies and the transformation from “culturally neutral” theories of literacy to cross cultural and sociocultural theories. The course will also consider the impacts of the revolution in communications technologies on the nature of literacy and on contemporary new media literacy practices. Finally, the course will examine theories of critical literacy education and examples of literacy praxis in classroom and out of school settings.
Of course, nothing is inevitable, and there have been historic moments when populations have gained access to literacies of power as they also intervened in their conditions of oppression. Even now, literacy educators and scholars possess the potential to create positive, conceptually grounded and empirically tested strategies for transformative literacy education that can not only change classroom practices, but the world itself.
This course examines historical, cultural, and critical contexts of literacy theory and research in hopes to produce scholars and educators who are able to theorize, create, and/or investigate these transformational practices. It begins with an examination of the historical legacy of literacy as a vehicle to freedom and empowerment for marginalized populations. Students will read literature covering the Cuba literacy campaign and the struggles of African-Americans in the United States as they consider (and reconsider) the role of literacy education in social transformation. The class will also investigate the major paradigms of literacy theory and research during the past half century examining myths about great divides between oral and literate societies and the transformation from “culturally neutral” theories of literacy to cross cultural and sociocultural theories. The course will also consider the impacts of the revolution in communications technologies on the nature of literacy and on contemporary new media literacy practices. Finally, the course will examine theories of critical literacy education and examples of literacy praxis in classroom and out of school settings.
Research Interests:
Professional organizations will have to evolve to become places where people participate in a continual process of knowledge production. When I first became a member of NCTE in 1993 as a pre-service teacher candidate at UC Berkeley,... more
Professional organizations will have to evolve to become places where people participate in a continual process of knowledge production. When I first became a member of NCTE in 1993 as a pre-service teacher candidate at UC Berkeley, membership in NCTE entailed opening and reading my copy of English Journal and possibly trying to convince my principal to let me off work for the three days needed to travel to the convention each fall. In total, maybe I was a member of NCTE for a dozen days a year and that involvement was largely as a recipient of information. Being a member of learning communities twenty years later means something else entirely. More than receiving information (which is still possible), members can produce information, they can share information, and they can work collaboratively within and across sites and organizations. Participation in the digital age is also a 24/7/365 enterprise and professional groups like NCTE are making that adjustment. Professional organizations can also help teachers as we collect data and become researchers of innovative practices and innovative learning communities for teachers. We have to document these impactful K-12 and professional learning practices to make more room for them. A professional organization should help to provide teachers with the information we need to advocate for the practices we should believe in.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article explores the potential of a critical pedagogy of race in high school classrooms to foster civic engagement and academic development. We begin with an exploration of the role of white supremacy in “race neutral” curricula in... more
This article explores the potential of a critical pedagogy of race in high school classrooms to foster civic engagement and academic development. We begin with an exploration of the role of white supremacy in “race neutral” curricula in U.S. schools. Even as the largest 60 school districts in the nation are 80% non-White and states such as California and New York move toward non-white pluralities in their school systems, curricula remain largely unchanged. We outline some of the larger systemic inequities that result from this often alienating and exclusive approach to teaching in city schools and we conclude this first section by acknowledging various efforts to name and resist racially oppressive curricula and pedagogies. The second section of the article provides a brief historical context for the Ethnic Studies movement as a response to white supremacist curriculum and instruction in high school and college classrooms. We trace this movement back to its inception in the 1960s to provide a framing for our work. Our goal is to show that 1) the tradition of teaching Ethnic Studies in the high school is as old as the movement itself; 2) the teaching of Ethnic Studies has always been tied to both academic development and civic engagement; and 3) that Ethnic Studies courses and content have been infused across disciplines and taught to racial heterogeneous groups since the outset of the movement. The third section of the paper will focus on three case studies of the critical pedagogy of ethnic studies with high school students. Two of these cases are of high school classes and the third explores a summer and after school program where high school students engage in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) projects around issues of importance in their neighborhoods and communities. Across each of these cases we define our conception of a critical pedagogy of race and we explore the connections between the teaching of Ethnic Studies and the development of literacies of power, agency, social awareness, civic engagement, and academic achievement. We conclude the article with implications for pedagogy, policy, and praxis in city schools.
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Knowledges from academic and professional research-based institutions have long been valued over the organic intellectualism of those who are most affected by educational and social inequities. In contrast, participatory action research... more
Knowledges from academic and professional research-based institutions have long been valued over the organic intellectualism of those who are most affected by educational and social inequities. In contrast, participatory action research (PAR) projects are collective investigations that rely on indigenous knowledge, combined with the desire to take individual and/or collective action. PAR with youth (YPAR) engages in rigorous research inquiries and represents a radical effort in education research to value the inquiry-based knowledge production of the youth who directly experience the educational contexts that scholars endeavor to understand. In this chapter, we outline the foundations of YPAR and examine the distinct epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical contributions of an interdisciplinary corpus of YPAR studies and scholarship. We outline the origins and disciplines of YPAR and make a case for its role in education research, discuss its contributions to the field and the tensions and possibilities of YPAR across disciplines, and close by proposing a YPAR critical-epistemological framework that centers youth and their communities, alongside practitioners, scholars, and researchers, as knowledge producers and change agents for social justice.
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I initially conceptualized this address as dealing with powerful English at NCTE today and tomorrow moving forward, and something felt not right in portraying ourselves in that way. It is unconscionable to think of ourselves as at the... more
I initially conceptualized this address as dealing with powerful English at NCTE today and tomorrow moving forward, and something felt not right in portraying ourselves in that way. It is unconscionable to think of ourselves as at the beginning of a movement, or at the beginning of the first movement in the history of NCTE. NCTE has been about movement, and to say that we have not is to dishonor the legacy of those who have come before us and worked so hard on our behalf. So I added a yesterday to today and tomorrow because I think that we don't often reflect on who we are and what we have become to think about where we need to go. So it is not towards a movement, it is towards the next, or another, movement because that is who we are and what we do. Deborah Brandt (2010) in her foreword to Reading the Past, Writing the Future said: What we take for granted in our professional background is there as a result of some-body's insight and effort. In retrospect, we appreciate how the activism of forebears built the house in which we do our work today: Reading as constructive. Writing as process. Language as a heritage right. Assessment as formative. Teachers as leaders. Scholarship and pedagogy as one. We assume these truths to be self-evident, but only because NCTE members studied, taught, argued, and presented them into existence, making them programmatically real to the wider field. So this begs the question: Whose forebears are we? What do they need from us now? (p. xii)
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Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for... more
Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for change be collaborative rather than competitive? Can we envision self-love, wellness, and intercultural understanding as compelling ends of a reimagined literacy pedagogy? Toward these ends, this essay offers demographic, moral, and economic imperatives for fundamentally reconsidering literacy policy and practice. It then presents five " big " ideas. We must ask different questions, we must identify and problematize our notions of success, we must advocate for the equitable distribution of material resources, we must fight for bottom-up accountability practices, and we must envision new literacy practices that reflect our new global reality. Finally it advocates a global postcolonial critical literacies framework where teachers are positioned as intellectuals and agents of change, where students have opportunities to collaboratively produce and distribute multimodal compositions, where children have access to a wider array of literary texts that enable them to become powerful, reflexive readers of the word and the world, and where parents and communities are partners in the project of nurturing powerful readers, authors, and speaker.
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Our contemporary apprenticeship model of teacher education often places preservice teachers in learning environments where they never witness the types of dynamic and engaged practice they desire to emulate. Either there are structural... more
Our contemporary apprenticeship model of teacher education often places preservice teachers in learning environments where they never witness the types of dynamic and engaged practice they desire to emulate. Either there are structural limits within the classroom placed by school or district leadership or there are preselected veteran mentor teachers who do not value the same kinds of critical practice. These challenges necessitate a radical rethinking of how and where preservice teachers learn their craft. We pose an anticolonial model of teacher development, one that situates teachers and students in collaborative networks where they work powerfully together via Youth Participatory Action Research on projects that have significant social, cultural, and digital relevance. The purposes of this article are (a) to propose the essentiality of anticolonial approaches to reimagine the preparation of preservice teachers and (b) to demonstrate how these approaches are enacted in our own practice within critical, project-based clinical experiences with preservice educators toward the development of an anticolonial model for urban teacher preparation.