Where Do We Go from Here? Toward a Critical Race English Education

• Published in: Research in the teaching of English Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 102 - 124
• Main Author: Johnson, Lamar L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Urbana National Council of Teachers of English 01.11.2018
• Subjects: Activism; Adolescents; Adult Literacy; African American Children; African American Students; African Americans; Autoethnography; Biographies; Black people; Black white relations; Brown, Michael; Classrooms; Curricula; Disproportionate Representation; Education; Education Courses; English language; Expulsion; Gifted; Grass roots movement; Hidden Curriculum; Imprisonment; Justice; Language arts; Literacy; Literacy Education; Males; Martin, Trayvon; Mass media images; Pedagogy; Police; Police brutality; Police community relations; Race; Racial Differences; Racial Discrimination; Racial justice; Racial violence; Racism; Shootings; Social justice; Social media; Social networks; Students; Teacher Educators; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Violence; White supremacy; New York; Chicago Illinois; United States > US; South Carolina
• ISSN: 0034-527X; 1943-2348

In this article, I propose Critical Race English Education (CREE) as a theoretical and pedagogical construct that tackles white supremacy and anti-black racism within English education and ELA classrooms. I employ autoethnography and counterstorytelling as methods that center my multiple identities and lived realities as I document my racialized and gendered experiences in relation to my journey to Ferguson, MO and my experiences as a secondary ELA teacher. The research questions guiding this study are the following: (1) As a Black male English educator and language and literacy scholar, how am I implicated in the struggle for racial justice and what does it mean for me to teach literacy in our present-day justice movement?; (2) How are Black lives mattering in ELA classrooms?; and, (3) How are we using Black youth life histories and experiences to inform our mindset, curriculum, and pedagogical practices in the classroom? This article explicates findings from three interconnected stories that work to show how CREE can be operationalized to better understand the #BlackLivesMatter movement in its historical and contemporary dimensions. The data analyzed stem from my autobiographical narratives, observations, social media artifacts, and images. I aim to expand English education to be more synergistically attuned to racial justice issues dealing with police brutality, the mass incarceration of Black people, and legacies of grassroots activism. This analysis suggests implications that aim to move the pedagogical practices around the intersections of anti-blackness and literacy from the margins to the center of discussion and praxis in ELA contexts.