Antiracist Inquiry in English Language Arts

Antiracist Inquiry requires that teachers are antiracists. Antiracist Inquiry in English Language Arts classrooms need to uplift and honor all student identities, especially concerning intersectionality, with the goals of moving towards equality and social justice. Antiracist Inquiry in English Language Arts classrooms needs to address racism through content, practice, and assessment.

 

Texts must represent all students while working specifically to uplift the writing, voices, and perspectives of African American, Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous identities. Instruction is designed guided by student interests, questions, and problems, while relying on the expertise of the teacher. Students will be given opportunities to consistently connect selves, texts, and worlds, through reading, discussion, writing, and production in multiple modes.

 

Teachers must introduce antiracist concepts such as, but not limited to, systemic racism, white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and colonization. Teaching from an Antiracist Inquiry framework honors student perspectives, voice, and choice in text and production, while honoring the reading, writing, and thinking skills that allow for multiple definitions of success in multiple spaces. Antiracist Inquiry recognizes that all students bring valuable knowledge and experiences to learning. It values communal work above all. Antiracist assessments recognize the variety of ways that knowledge can be expressed and especially values those assessments that lead toward justice oriented change. Antiracist Inquiry recognizes the racist history and outcomes of large-scale, high stakes, assessments.