Teachers College Press Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students (Language and Literacy Series)

Rooted in examples from their own and others' classrooms, the authors offer discipline-specific practices for implementing antiracist literature instruction in White-dominant schools. Each chapter explores a key dimension of antiracist literature teaching and learning, including designing literature-based units that emphasize racial literacy, selecting literature that highlights voices of color, analyzing Whiteness in canonical literature, examining texts through a critical race lens, managing challenges of race talk, and designing formative assessments for racial literacy and identity growth.Book Features:Specific classroom scenarios and transcripts of race-related challenges that teachers will recognize to help situate suggested strategiesSample racial literacy objectives, questions, and assessments to guide unit instruction. A literature-based unit that addresses societal racism in A Raisin in the Sun. Assignments for exploring Whiteness in the teaching of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Questions teachers can use to examine To Kill a Mockingbird through a critical race lens. Techniques for managing difficult moments in whole group discussions. Collaborative glossary and exploratory essay assignments to build understanding of race-based concepts and racial identity development. Review "Using the experiences of 'real teachers in real classrooms, ' Borsheim-Black and Sarigianides offer theoretically grounded practical examples of and approaches to teaching texts in ways that center critical close reading, student voice, difficult discussions, and the construction and maintenance of race in the canon and society."--Journal of Language and Literacy Education" Letting Go of Literary Whiteness is an important resource for White English teachers looking to racialize the canonical texts in majority White environments."--Education ReviewLetting Go of Literary Whiteness is an important and accessible text that pulls no punches while drawing examples from the authors' own practice to squarely address ways to implement antiracist literature instruction in all classrooms, with particular attention to the challenges of antiracist literature teaching in White-dominant schools. --Teachers College Record About the Author Carlin Borsheim-Black is associate professor of English Education at Central Michigan University. Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides is professor of English Education at Westfield State University.