In this essay, I compare "Django Unchained," directed by Quentin Tarantino in 2012, which relies on common tropes about slavery and largely silences the experiences of enslaved women, to "Daughters of the Dust," directed by Julie Dash in 1991, a film that focuses on black womanhood in the post-Reconstruction era on the eve of…

This author's reading selection for his class provoked an unexpected response: when one of the main characters in the reading "came out of the closet," the students divided themselves into those who were willing to discuss the issues, and those who weren't.

Theory has always possessed an elusive, intangible, and almost ethereal quality. Comprising nothing but ideas compressed into words, it is supposed to guide literacy interactions and transactions. Theory provides the "why" that underlies the "how to" of teaching. Yet the author, a teacher, has often struggled with the effort of translating theory…