When teaching a Drama and Theater class the author's students chose August Wilson's "Fences" to focus on the teaching of "dramatic" texts. As the author reread Wilson's play, she noticed that within the first pages is the n-word, used in conversation between two African American men, two friends, and it became an immediate…

In this article, the authors challenge the ongoing dehumanization of people of color by arguing for the use of Black texts as core readings in courses on adult learning rather than as add-ons or "special topics."

This article seeks to explore the complexities of Black subjectivities as written and illustrated by comic book creators of color who wrestle with the enigmatic qualities of blackness as they write within and beyond racial imaginaries and social realities. I call these works "critical race comics" to highlight their explicit engagement…

Scholars, educators, writers, and librarians have been calling for richer literary depictions of Black culture since the 1930s. Using a critical content analysis framework with the books "Ada Twist, "Scientist" and "Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut," I discuss how the concepts of fugitivity, fantasy, futurity, and freedom…

"Engaging the African Diaspora in K-12 Education" provides in-service and pre-service teachers with valuable information and resources related to African diaspora communities in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. This unique anthology fills an important gap in current pedagogical and curricular publications by combining the…

This article seeks to address the question: "How can religious educators learn from those who have been marginalized and whose voices are not usually heard because of the hegemony of whiteness?" My primary sources are scenes from the work of two U.S. black creatives. Specifically, I examine the "Clearing" scene in Toni…

On the second day of a 2019 high-stakes English Language Arts assessment, Massachusetts 10th graders faced an essay question that was based on a passage from the novel "The Underground Railroad" and publicly characterized as racially insensitive. Though the state excluded the essay responses from student scores, an unresolved public…

In this commentary, the author sttes that she has gained much insight from reviewing the collection of writing on whiteness. While there is agreement among those authors that there is a distinction between the first wave and second wave whiteness studies, there is a unified theme to not minimize the consequences of inhaling racist air, which is a…

Black American Literature is a microcosm of the history of the black people's presence on the American continent as it is known today. The literature of the Black Americans cannot be fully separated from the experience of Slavery and Racism which characterized their lives as a community of people whose social, economic and political privileges are…

It has been created within the larger realm culture, in that "Black methodology differs from most colonial differences by members of a minority community who reside within a nation of cultural biases."

In theorizing how we should pedagogically approach African American literature, especially in courses for undergraduates, I argue that we have to move away from questions of what was or even what is African American literature and, instead, find ways to teach African American literature in both its historical contexts--artistic and political--and…

This study examined how the use of African American literature that depicts Black males influences the reading comprehension and the reading motivation of Black boys as demonstrated through oral, written, and creative expressions. Studies have been conducted using children's literature with Black boys to examine their social interaction with the…

Andrea J. Stairs advocates culturally responsive teaching, a practice that explicitly highlights "issues of race, ethnicity, and culture as central to teaching, learning, and schooling," and emphasizes the necessity of interrogating the themes of race, power, and privilege in the urban classroom. Stairs observes two student teachers as…

In this article, the author shares her experience teaching Native American and African American literature at a top public liberal arts college. Working with a large Native American student population and growing up in Montana, the author had both seen and experienced the racism Native Americans face in their culture. As a new faculty member, the…