In this article, the authors argue that the racial violence that unfolds against Black youth in various communities seeps into English language arts (ELA) classrooms. They offer a theoretical framework that centers on Black literacies that secondary ELA teachers can use to disrupt the violence and curricula and pedagogical inequities against Black…

How do students read tales about the past? What kinds of stories might they tell in response to these histories? Within broader considerations about the teaching of history through literature, a more comprehensive consideration of students' understanding of children's and young adult historical literature is warranted. African American historical…

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 "The Bluest Eye," Toni Morrison presents a community in which a racist ideology is internalized. The sufferers of racial abuse in this community both endure and resist in a complex inverse interrelationship between the two actions. This contradiction of the internalization and the insurrection of racial abuse is one of the crucial…

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…

The migration of blacks in North America through slavery became united. The population of blacks passed down a tradition of artist through art to native born citizens. The art tradition involved telling stories to each generation in black families. The black culture elevated by tradition created hope to determine their personal freedom to escape…

Reading and reflecting upon ethnically unfamiliar literature can provide opportunities for teacher candidates to critically examine assumptions of self and other relative to racial, cultural, and linguistic identities. However, ethnically unfamiliar literatures can be difficult for readers to understand and appreciate due to the aesthetics they…

Coupling Royster's (2000) conceptual framework of "zamani" with Rosenblatt's (1978) reader response theory, the researcher explores the ways African American women's writings supported, nurtured, and "mentored" the writings of adolescent girls. Findings show that the mentor texts helped in generating ideas for writing, thinking…

In this article, the author talks about her past experiences and how she immersed herself in African-American literature. While teaching a journalism class in an after-school program at the Decatur Clearpool Beacon School in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy section, the author realized that most of her students had no sense of African-American history beyond a…

The migration of blacks in North America through slavery became united. The population of blacks passed down a tradition of artist through art to native born citizens. The art tradition involved telling stories to each generation in black families. The black culture elevated by tradition created hope to determine their personal freedom to escape…

This review analyzes three new texts about the history and meaning of children's literature: Leonard Marcus's "Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature"; Perry Nodelman's "The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature"; and Rudine Sims Bishop's "Free Within Ourselves: The Development…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social practices of African American families--with children in grades K-2--changed as a result of participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children's literature. The families were exposed, through a series of workshops, to an abundance of children's literature…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the behavior of a character, Celie, in a movie, 'The Color Purple," through the lens of two adult learning theorists to determine the relationships the character has with each theory. The development and portrayal of characters in movies can be explained and understood by the analysis of adult learning…

The use of fiction and autobiography in social science course work has been shown to enhance students' learning experience. Using the novel PUSH, by Sapphire, we designed a curriculum supplement for the social work course, human behavior and the social environment (HBSE) that encourages students to integrate course content in an innovative way and…