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Race Lessons: Using Inquiry to Teach about Race in Social Studies [ebook ed.]
 9781681238920

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Race Lessons Using Inquiry to Teach About Race in Social Studies

A volume in Teaching and Learning Social Studies William Russell, Series Editor

Race Lessons Using Inquiry to Teach About Race in Social Studies

edited by

Prentice T. Chandler Austin Peay State University

Todd S. Hawley Kent State University

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress   http://www.loc.gov ISBN: 978-1-68123-890-6 (Paperback) 978-1-68123-891-3 (Hardcover) 978-1-68123-892-0 (ebook)

Copyright © 2017 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Foreword................................................................................................ ix 1 Using Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Inquiry Pedagogy to Re-imagine Social Studies Teaching and Learning....... 1 Prentice T. Chandler and Todd S. Hawley

SECT I O N I FOUNDATIONS OF RACIAL PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE 2 Race and Racism in the Social Studies: Foundations of Critical Race Theory.......................................................................................... 19 Andrea M. Hawkman 3 The Inquiry Design Model.................................................................. 33 Kathy Swan, S.G. Grant, and John Lee 4 “Do You Feel Me?”: Affectively and Effectively Engaging Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Social Studies Classrooms....... 45 Christina Shiao-Mei Villarreal



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SECT I O N I I INQUIRY-BASED RACE LESSONS IN SOCIAL STUDIES 5 Teaching Racial Inequity Through the California Gold Rush......... 61 Christopher C. Martell, Jennifer R. Bryson, and William C. Chapman-Hale 6 Africans in New Amsterdam................................................................ 75 Jane Bolgatz, Tamar Brown. and Emily Zweibel 7 Settler Schooling: A TribalCrit Approach to Teaching Boarding School Histories in Elementary Social Studies............... 113 Sarah B. Shear 8 But “Ain’t I a Woman?”: An Inquiry on the Intersectionality of Race and Gender During the 19th Century Abolitionist Movement............................................................................................ 133 Lauren Colley 9 Teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott as Citizen Action for Racial and Economic Justice........................................................ 155 Todd S. Hawley, Andrew L. Hostetler, and Prentice T. Chandler 10 Does Geography Have a Violence?.................................................... 171 Kenneth T. Carano 11 Do People Get to Choose Where They Live?: A Case Study of Racial Segregation in Austin, Texas............................................. 193 Victoria Davis and Ryan Crowley 12 Stories, Counterstories, and Tales of Resistance: Family History Projects in World History Classrooms.............................................. 213 Juan Gabriel Sánchez and Raquel Y. Sáenz 13 Toward a Latin@ Critical Race Theory: Examining Race, Racism, and Afro-Latinidad in World History and Human Geography........... 231 Christopher L. Busey 14 Are U.S. Citizenship Tests Racially Motivated?: Analyzing the Racial Implications of Citizenship “Tests,” Historically and Today....... 251 William L. Smith 15 Countering Single Stories: Inquiring Into the Confederate Battle Flag With Students.................................................................. 269 Jessica F. Kobe and Ashley Ann Goodrich

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16 What is Race?: A Compelling Question With a Complex Response............................................................................. 297 Samina Hadi-Tabassum 17 On the Matter of Black Lives: Using CRT and C3 Inquiry to Examine Current Events............................................................... 319 John P. Broome and Jason Endacott 18 Has Social Media Provided Communities of Color a Platform for Sharing Counternarratives?......................................................... 341 Jennifer E. Killham 19 Examining the Power Structures That Impact Friendships............ 361 Jennifer Burke

SECT I O N I I I VOICES FROM THE FIELD 20 Notes on Understanding and Valuing the Anger of Students Marginalized by the Social Studies Curriculum.............................. 379 Lisa Gilbert 21 CounterNarratives in U.S. History: Race Lessons in a Social Studies Methods Course......................................................... 397 Emilie M. Camp 22 Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi: Using Teacher Professional Learning Communities to Promote CRT/RPCK............409 Jenice L. View 23 Race Autobiographies in the Social Studies Classroom: Possibilities and Potential.................................................................. 439 Adam W. Jordan and Dacario Poole About the Editors............................................................................... 453 About the Contributors...................................................................... 455

FOREWORD

Year after year we, teachers, teacher educators, and social studies scholars, chronicle the myriad ways curriculum and practice reinforce systemic and systematic oppression in the United States. We document how social studies textbooks and state standards carefully script the American story—a story that largely erases the histories and experiences of our families, friends, teachers, and students who identify as women, non-Christian, Arab, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and/or LBGTQ+. We further document how curricula celebrate a United States defined within whiteness, heteronormativity, and the settler colonial narrative of progress (see examples: Chandler, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Mayo, 2017; Yoder, Johnson, & Karam, 2017). In light of these acts of curricular violence, we put forth arguments for tearing down these legal and cultural strangleholds, but to what ends? The 2016 election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States put into sharp focus just how deep and strong the roots of race, gender, sexual, and religious-based hatred truly go in this country. In The New Yorker, Toni Morrison (2016) wrote, So scary are the consequences of a collapse of White privilege that many violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble. (n.p.)

Hatred and the fear of an ever-changing, ever-diversifying “America” unleashed a deafening roar in 2016 and reminded those of us who center our teaching toward justice that the road ahead is fraught with danger.

Race Lessons, pages ix–xii Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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In the Foreword to Doing Race, King (2015) noted, “Teaching and learning about race and racism cannot be a safe endeavor” (p. x). King (2015) posited, “safe racial space” remain “an oxymoron and serves as another function of power” in social studies classrooms and curricula because most still center White supremacy (p. x). I have heard teachers and teacher educators proclaim their classrooms as “safe spaces” for students, but these proclamations, I maintain, rarely explicitly name what already exists in classrooms—White supremacy, heteronormativity, misogyny, and settler colonialism (to name a few). I question how a space can be “safe” when the many isms that plague our society are always already present when teachers and students enter the physical classroom space. In attempts to offer an inclusive classroom, many teachers utilize a non-racist curriculum and pedagogy. King and Chandler (2016) discussed this type of teaching as “a racially liberal approach to race that favors passive behaviors, discourses, and ideologies that rejects extreme forms of racism” (p. 4). Non-racist curriculum and pedagogy, while analyzing racism as prejudice, fails to tackle the structure that legitimizes such actions. An anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy, on the other hand, “is an active rejection of the institutional and structural aspects of race and racism and explains how racism is manifested in various spaces, making the social construct of race visible” (King & Chandler, 2016, p. 4, emphasis in original). Anti-racist social studies names the interlocking layers of a system that works to remain nameless and invisible and in that naming challenges students and teachers to begin the arduous process of dismantling it. The 2016 U.S. presidential election only amplified, in my view, the need for anti-racist social studies curriculum and pedagogy. Many of my elementary education majors regularly express fear—of parents, other teachers, and administrators—in enacting lessons that challenge the status quo narrative. Many also have expressed sadness and an anxiety of uncertainty in what Trump and his administration will reap on the United States. It would be easy, perhaps, to retreat, to remain silent in the face of such a future, but this, too, is an act of violence towards those most vulnerable in these uncertain times. Junot Díaz (2016), also writing in The New Yorker, reflected, “Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit. We have to keep fighting, because otherwise there will be no future—all will be consumed” (n.p.). The challenge presented to social studies scholars is to translate our years of research and teaching experience into lessons for preservice and in-service teachers that inspire hope and civic action. Hope, however, wears many faces. In his recent essay, Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade revealed these faces and the challenges and possibilities they provide. Identified as an enemy of hope, hokey hope, according to Duncan-Andrade (2009), “projects some kind of multicultural, middle-class

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opportunity structure that is inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of working-class, urban youth” (p. 3). Ultimately this type of hope is false because it focuses on a bootstrap mentality that fails to acknowledge systemic suffering. Similarly, mythical hope gazes upon the falsity of equal opportunity and an end to racism in the United States as ordained in the election of Barak Obama. As Duncan-Andrade (2009) noted, “Mythical hope is a profoundly ahistorical and depoliticized denial of suffering that is rooted in celebrating individual exceptions” (p. 4). Critical hopes, however, contain three connected elements: material, Socratic, and audacious. Material hope manifests itself when teachers provide students the resources they need to name and deal with the myriad issues that impact their lives. “To accomplish this, we have to bust the false binary that suggests we must choose between an academically rigorous pedagogy and one geared toward social justice” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009, p. 6). In this vision, Socratic hope requires both teachers and students to share in the painful unpacking of an oppressive society. Solidarity is at the heart of Socratic hope. The third element, audacious hope, takes on the “collective capacity for healing” (DuncanAndrade, 2009, p. 9). Taking the audacious steps to seek to understand and feel students’ pains and dreams as their own, teachers have the potential to model acceptance and care. We must strive for critical hope. DuncanAndrade concluded, “For those of us who will be working alongside this next generation of teachers, we must purposefully nurture our students, colleagues, and ourselves through the cracks, knowing we will sustain the trauma of damaged petals along the way” (p. 11). In Race Lessons: Using Inquiry to Teach About Race in Social Studies, Prentice Chandler and Todd Hawley bring together a collection of social studies scholars and educators committed to teaching through these cracks. As a follow up to Chandler’s (2015) Doing Race in Social Studies: Critical Perspectives, the collection of chapters that follow seeks to provide readers much needed theoretical discussions and practical lessons for bringing anti-racist social studies into K–12 classrooms. Chapter authors were challenged to utilize the National Council for the Social Studies’ (NCSS) inquiry-based College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (2013). While the C3 Framework does not explicitly promote the inclusion of race lessons (King & Chandler, 2016), authors in this volume demonstrate how race lessons are possible and could be taught. Race Lessons propels us into uncomfortable spaces with each other (as social studies educators) and with our students, which I believe is long overdue. I hope this book encourages greater audacity in our K–12 and teacher education classrooms to tackle the ideologies and actions that continue to threaten each of our lives. In these dangerous times, we must cling to critical hope and foster the needed solidarity to bring justice to our world. —Sarah B. Shear

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REFERENCES Chandler, P. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Díaz, J. (2016, November 21). Radical hope. The New Yorker. Retrived from http:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on -trumps-america#diaz Duncan-Andrade, J. M. R. (2009). Note to educators: Hope required when growing roses in concrete. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 1–13. King, L. (2015). Forward. In P. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. ix–xx). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. King, L., & Chandler, P. (2016). From non-racism to anti-racism in social studies teacher education: Social studies and racial pedagogical content knowledge. In A. R. Crowe & A. Cuenca (Eds.), Rethinking social studies teacher education (pp. 3–21). New York, NY: Springer. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Mayo, J. B. (2017). The imperative to teach marriage equality in the social studies classroom: A history, rationale, and classroom practice for a more inclusive democracy. In W. Journell (Ed.), Teaching social studies in an era of divisiveness: The challenges of discussing social issues in a non-partisan way (pp. 79–92). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Morrison, T. (2016, November 21). Mourning for Whiteness. The New Yorker. Accessed online http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath -sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america#morrison National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life: C3 framework for social studies state standards (NCSS Bulletin 113). Washington, DC: Author. Yoder, P. J., Johnson, A. P., & Karam, F. J. (2017). (Mis)perceptions of Arabs and Arab Americans: How can social studies teachers disrupt stereotypes? In W. Journell (Ed.), Teaching social studies in an era of divisiveness: The challenges of discussing  social issues in a non-partisan way (pp. 63–77). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

CHAPTER 1

USING RACIAL PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND INQUIRY PEDAGOGY TO RE-IMAGINE SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHING AND LEARNING Prentice T. Chandler Austin Peay State University Todd S. Hawley Kent State University

If American democracy is to fulfill its high mission, those who train its youth must be among the wisest, most fearless, and most highly trained men and women this broad land can furnish. —Beard, 1929, p. 369

SOCIAL STUDIES, RACE, AND DOUBT As social studies methods professors (and former teachers), we often are asked by our students if the things we teach in our education courses “can be done in the real world.” This question and sentiment forms one of the Race Lessons, pages 1–16 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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purposes of this project. In this questioning by our preservice teacher candidates, there is a dualism in their thinking: wishing that a sort of pedagogy is possible while simultaneously doubting if it will work. This reminds us of the statement made by Kliebard (1987), in which he stated his stance relative to pedagogical reform: “. . . assume from the outset that statements by leading proponents of curriculum reform movements were invariably far more ambitious and grandiose than one could possibly expect in practice” (p. x). This is similar to the doubts that our students have when we discuss pedagogical ideas or philosophies that are, in a sense, not mainstream. In a sense, there is, in pre-service and in-service teachers alike, a moment of aporia, a “serious perplexity . . . raising problems without providing solutions” (Blackburn, 1994, p. 21), that emerges when we ask teachers to transgress pedagogical norms. In this way, our students are thinking about our pronouncements on pedagogy and filtering those ideas through what they see as the “real world”—creating a feeling of inescapable doubt about whether or not a radical (i.e., “going to the root”) pedagogy is possible. Oftentimes our pedagogy does seem to be halted by this state of doubt—a contradiction between the stated goal of social studies on the one hand, and the state of race-based pedagogy on the other—and we face a pedagogical impasse. When faced with this contradiction, we (i.e., teachers) tend to go to what is familiar, safe, and recognizable. As Dewey (1902) reminds us, “Familiarity breeds . . . something like affection. We get used to the chains we wear, and we miss them when removed” (p. 28). This familiar, safe, and recognizable social studies pedagogy, we fear, does not begin to prepare students for the racialized worlds that they currently inhabit. As Wills (2001) reminded us:  . . . school knowledge is a poor resource for enabling students to develop a discourse of contemporary race and ethnic relations that moves beyond psychological understandings of racism to structural understandings of racism. (p. 44)

In what follows, the contributors to this volume demonstrate that an informed, radical, inquiry-based, race pedagogy is possible. This state of doubt, although grounded in personal experiences and constraints of classroom life, can be overcome—allowing us to unshackle ourselves from familiar, traditional pedagogical stances. To echo Kliebard (1987), we believe the following chapters do represent “ambitious and grandiose” pedagogy, but we take the stand that this sort of teaching is possible and that it can and should be expected in social studies practice.

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RACE AND SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY IN NEGLECT The theory, research, and practice related to social studies education and race can only be characterized by a lack of attention and willful neglect (Chandler, & McKnight, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 2003). Over the last two decades, this curricular criticism has sharpened, but the problem remains the same. When it comes to social studies in the formalized, enacted curriculum, race and racism, as formal topics/subjects of instruction are ignored or marginalized. The educators whose work is included in this volume are looking to change this trajectory. In developing our ideas on race pedagogy, we take as our starting point the stated goal of social studies as a school subject. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) states: “The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (NCSS, 1994, p. 3). We hold that the mission of social studies is not attainable, in any meaningful sense, without attention to the ways in which race and racism play out in the lives of all U.S. citizens—past, present, and future (Alexander, 2011). Social studies that does not pay attention to the role of race is but a partial social studies. As a former middle school student once told one of the authors, “If you take out race, the story (i.e., “Manifest Destiny”) doesn’t even make sense.” As such, our social studies curriculum should reflect this fact of social life. The realization that race plays a pivotal role in social life and that this should be reflected in the formalized and enacted curriculum seems to be obvious to many; but, this obvious recognition does not always translate into classroom practice (Bigler, Shiller, & Wilcox, 2013). Research suggests that social studies teachers do not teach about race because of several factors: teacher fear, personal adherence to notions of color blindness, viewing slow incremental change as preferable to radical change, and privileging of multicultural narratives that stress assimilation and cohesion (Chandler & McKnight, 2011). Over the past two decades, researchers have taken up the question of how race is addressed in social studies curriculum and have found it lacking (Ladson-Billings, 2003; see also Chandler, 2015; Chandler & McKnight, 2011; Nelson & Pang, 2001). Research on the inclusion of race and racism into national standards tells the same story of de-racialization. The NCSS Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: Expectations of Excellence (1994) as well as A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (2010) lacked any substantial mention of race (Chandler & McKnight, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 2003). In the NCSS sponsored document, The College, Career, and Civic Life: C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards (2013), we see more of the same. As King and Chandler (2016) noted:

4    P. T. CHANDLER and T. S. HAWLEY Although the C3 Framework does build upon the improved NCSS Standards model by including “Dimensions of informed inquiry in social studies,” this document reflects the same raceless perspective as previous NCSS sanctioned documents [emphasis in original]. Not counting references, the entire 108-page document includes the word “race” a total of five times in appendices that detail sociological and anthropological knowledge. Four of these 5 uses are found in the appendix dealing with anthropology, a course offering that receives little attention in public schools and in social studies research . . . In short, this formal curricular-organization document contains one full sentence [emphasis in original] that could be construed as a nod towards the importance of race within social studies and citizenship education . . . (, p. 9)

In the most recent NCSS sponsored document, Teaching the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework: Exploring Inquiry-Based Instruction in Social Studies (2014), the editors include an inquiry lesson on the civil rights movement in the United States. Following the C3 Framework, this lesson does what other NCSS sponsored documents fail to do—it does attempt to tie the notions of history, structural racism, and civil rights to the present moment through its “Dimension 4” suggested activities (Newseum Education Department, 2014, p. 119). Although the focus of this chapter is not an analysis of contemporary forms of racial oppression, this document suggests creating news reports, class maps, local history, and service learning as a part of this inquiry lesson. Additionally (and not surprisingly), textual analysis studies (Anderson & Metzger, 2011; Bryant-Pavely & Chandler, 2016; Vasquez-Helig, Brown, & Brown, 2012) have concluded that state social studies standards do not treat race in any substantial way. If we are ever to transform social studies from a partial social studies to a vibrant, meaningful whole, we must design and enact a curriculum supported by national and state standards that confront the role race and racism play in the daily life of citizens. As the chapters in the book illustrate, this type of social studies is not only necessary, but also attainable in schools and communities. FOUNDATIONAL IDEAS OF THIS BOOK . . . students need the intellectual power to recognize societal problems; ask good questions and develop robust investigations into them; consider possible solutions and consequences; separate evidence-based claims from parochial opinions; and communicate and act upon what they have learned . . .  —NCSS, 2013, p. 6

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Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge This book is based on three main ideas: (a) racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015), (b) inquiry pedagogy, and (c) an antiracist teaching stance. In 2015, a dedicated group of social studies educators published the book Doing Race in Social Studies: Critical Perspectives (Chandler, 2015). As outlined in Doing Race (Chandler, 2015), RPCK represents a shift in the way we think about social studies and the teaching of race. RPCK is a construct that seeks to meld content knowledge in the social science disciplines, pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), and critical race theory (CRT; for the uninitiated, CRT is discussed in Chapter 2 of this volume). Rather than viewing the disciplines that comprise the social studies as objective, pure disciplines, RPCK recognizes that each of these “knowledges” possesses its own racialized histories that influence the ways in which we understand them. In addition, this position allows the nature of each of the subject areas to be understood, not only in the traditional sense, but with a criticalracial lens as well. Pedagogical and disciplinary thinking would be examined but so would pedagogical content thinking from a CRT standpoint. In fact, each of the social science disciplines would be treated in this way to answer large, essential questions in social studies. (Chandler, 2015, p. 5)

When the idea of RPCK was first introduced, it was put forth as a way to guide teachers’ thinking about how to enact a social studies pedagogy informed by critical theories of race (Essed & Goldberg, 2008)—not a fixed blueprint for teaching. We deploy the terms “stance” and “approach” here to highlight for teachers that this framework is not intended to be used as a rigid approach to teaching about race within social studies. We believe that teaching about race is a complex interplay between a teacher’s identity and knowledge, local context, formal curriculum, and student experience. In short, there is not one way to teach about race, nor do the authors make that claim. Teaching about race can sometimes feel like a moving target, and the context of a lesson or unit matters a great deal when we attempt to teach about race. However, we do hold that having a framework to organize instruction and to aid in the selection of content is superior to simply “talking about race” during the course of a social studies lesson. We would ask that you view RPCK as a fluid construct that can be used throughout your practice, situating aspects within the social sciences when necessary. Our vision of race pedagogy within social studies is not proscriptive; it allows for “complexity and idiosyncrasy of the everyday classroom” (Kincheloe, 2001, p. 45). Given this stance on teaching about race that was outlined in Doing Race, we recognized that concrete examples of what this would look like in a classroom were needed. When the authors of Doing Race (Chandler, 2015)

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presented their work at the NCSS conference in Boston in 2014, the great turnout for the session gave us hope that social studies teachers are hungry for more information on how to teach about race in honest, meaningful, and powerful ways. The attendees’ excitement about our work seemed to be tempered by their local, contextualized classroom realities. We received more than one question about how these ideas might be transformed into, to borrow the words of one attendee, a “usable model.” In a way, his question mirrors the question that our students at the university ask us on a regular basis—How can I do this with real kids, in a real school? This question by our methods students and by the teachers who attended our session at NCSS is the origin of the book you are reading. It’s an attempt by social studies educators from around the country to help us understand how we can meet the goals of the social studies when it comes to race, and to develop usable models of RPCK. Inquiry Pedagogy Second, our book focuses on inquiry pedagogy, specifically, using the NCSS (2013) College, Career, and Civic Life: C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards (C3) and the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) (Grant, Lee, & Swan, 2014). Although the C3 and IDM are discussed in Chapter 3, we want to give the reader a glimpse into the foundational thought of these frameworks (Grant, Swan, & Lee, 2015) and how they can be used with RPCK. Inquiry, although not a new pedagogical idea, has garnered more attention within the field since the publication of the C3 Framework. “Teaching facts does not produce learners of facts; teaching inquiry does create inquirers” (Clabough, Turner, Russell, & Waters, 2016, p. 26). Within the context of our work, inquiry speaks to teachers framing their instruction around real social studies questions—questions that matter. In part, the C3 Framework is guided by the following principles: 1. social studies is preparation for college, career, and civic life; 2. inquiry is at the heart of social studies; 3. social studies is interdisciplinary and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities; and 4. social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines . . . emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision making (Herczog, 2013, p. viii). In looking at how ideas of RPCK can be used to inform our teaching, questions that address social science content oftentimes have a decidedly

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racial component. Too often, the social sciences that comprise social studies are taught as closed disciplines for which all questions have been answered. In this way, traditional instruction is antithetical to the ways in which historians, geographers, economists, and political scientists go about their work. These disciplines share, as a hallmark of their existence and purpose, a quest for answers—answers to complex and important questions. The notion that there is one historical narrative that we should teach in our history classes or that geographers “fill in outline maps,” or that economists simply draw supply and demand curves, or that self-governance simply involves voting, betrays the spirit of these disciplines. In short, people who work within these disciplinary traditions spend their time asking and answering deep, meaningful questions. We think students in our social studies classes should do the same. The idea behind RPCK is that there are aspects of all of the social sciences that are informed by and that inform how race manifests itself within social studies phenomena. At the heart of the C3 Framework and at the heart of our work is allowing students to actually explore these issues and to take informed action. As Selwyn (2014) notes, . . . inquiry in the “real world” involves asking questions that the researcher truly wants to or needs to explore . . . Inquiry involves an increasingly valuable set of skills and strategies to bring to students; if we don’t help them learn how to question, to research, to evaluate, to communicate, to act, where will they learn and practice those skills? (p. 268)

With the C3 Framework’s push for disciplinary inquiry within the social sciences and its focus on “developing questions and planning inquiries,” we believe that the construct of RPCK can serve as an opening for teachers to develop meaningful inquiries to drive social studies instruction. Combining the idea of RPCK and the disciplinary tools of the C3 Framework would allow for inquiries addressing not only essential questions in social studies, but it would allow for essential questions that address race and racism among and between groups in our nation and across the world. (King & Chandler, 2016, p. 13–14)

The combination of RPCK and NCSS’s C3 Framework also represents a partnering of established social studies thought (i.e., C3) and marginalized race thought (i.e., critical race pedagogy). Given the unwillingness on the part of NCSS to address race in meaningful ways, we see this as an opportunity for social studies teachers to maintain their ties to established pedagogical structures and ideas while learning about ways to infuse the taboo topic of race into their instruction. The ways in which social studies

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teachers can organize and represent inquiries using RPCK is limited only by their imagination. For example: U.S. History –– How did race/racism/racial theories impact the founding of the United States? –– How did ideas about race impact the different racial groups during the “Age of Contact”? –– How is racial conflict portrayed in the media? In textbooks? Geography –– How does location impact our ideas about race? –– Why do racial groups live where they do? –– What role does race play in our ongoing debates about immigration? Government –– Whose racial interests does the U.S. government serve? –– How has the idea of “We the People” changed over time? –– How do you explain racial voting patterns? Economics –– Why are there disparities in hiring rates for people of different races? –– How do you explain disparity in income among and between racial groups? –– How is wealth distributed in the United States by race? Sociology –– How were/are “races” created? –– What is White privilege? –– What does it mean to “act White?” Psychology –– How have “intelligence” tests been used to support racism? –– What is racial profiling? –– Can we profile unconsciously? Current Events –– What is the role of police in a democracy? –– What accounts for the racial makeup of Ferguson, Missouri’s police force? –– Why does the killing of unarmed, Black males elicit such emotion in people of all races? Anthropology –– What is ethnocentrism? –– What are your cultural assumptions and how are they rooted in race? (King & Chandler, 2016, p. 13)

Using Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Inquiry Pedagogy    9

Antiracist Stance Towards Social Studies Third, our book leans on the idea of social studies as an antiracist pedagogy. In King and Chandler’s (2016) work, they delineate the distinction between pedagogy that is nonracist and pedagogy that is antiracist. Nonracist pedagogy, a default position for NCSS and many teachers, is a “racially liberal approach to race that favors passive behaviors, discourses, and ideologies and that rejects extreme forms of racism” (p. 4). Nonracist stances assume and adhere to the naturalness of slow, incremental change, and cast racism, in the American context, as an aberration in our history, rather than racism as historically “normal.” Nonracism serves the function of highlighting and rightfully condemning the most extreme forms of racism, while ignoring systemic and structural racism. In this conceptual move, racism is cast in extremist terms, to which only the fringe accept. This serves to narrow the lenses through which we think about and (by extension) teach about race. In this way, nonracist stances in social studies serve to limit what gets to “count” as racism. Conversely, antiracist stances view race in structural, macro terms. This means that race and racism, as lived and imagined constructs, represent much more than simply “bad men doing bad things” (Brown & Brown, 2010, p. 60). When teachers take antiracist stances, they are in essence rejecting “racial common sense.” This would include thinking of race/racism not solely in individualist, isolated, and extreme terms. As King and Chandler (2016) state, antiracism is a “ . . . critical awareness of race and racism that rejects racial common sense —the accepted racial liberal norms, values, and ideologies related to race and schooling in U.S. and global society” (p. 8). When we shift the focus from the individual and individual acts of racism, we can then focus on how structures in our society (i.e., schools, government, law, race relations, and media) over-determine the racial landscape, in essence setting the (racial) rules in place before the game begins. Key concepts like meritocracy, color blindness, equality, citizenship, and freedom (among others) are all questionable and problematic within the matrix of race and the American project. The concepts in the previous sentence represent racial common sense, and are sometimes thought to be beyond interrogation—and therein lies their (racial) power. If teachers inculcate notions of merit without paying attention to an established racial hierarchy, or color blindness without a recognition that one’s skin color matters a great deal, or equality without looking at an racially unequal world, or citizenship as a race free concept, or freedom as having nothing to do with race, students are left with an incomplete picture of how race works in American and global life. In short, a very large part of the story (arguably the most important part) is simply left out, leaving students to fill in the blanks with racial common sense and regurgitated platitudes.

10    P. T. CHANDLER and T. S. HAWLEY

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK Race Lessons is designed to bridge the gap between what state and NCSS sponsored documents have failed to do and what the profession of social studies education is required to do (i.e., prepare our students for the worlds in which they live). On the one hand we have an area of scholarship that is marginalized in our schools and on the other we have one of the most pressing social issues of our day. To address the lack of attention to race within the social studies, this book has three main sections. The first section addresses some of the foundational ideas behind the core purpose of the book. The chapters in this section discuss basic tenets of critical race theory, inquiry teaching, and RPCK. This section begins with Andrea Hawkman’s overview of CRT and how these ideas can be used to conceptualize and think differently about how we engage with social studies content and pedagogy. Hawkman discusses not only the major ideas within CRT; she addresses ways in which educators can reexamine their relationship with teaching about race. This chapter is followed by Kathy Swan, S. G. Grant, and John Lee’s discussion of the IDM that forms the major structure for Section 2 of our book. In this chapter, the authors provide readers with an overview of the IDM blueprint and how it can be used to engage students with inquiry pedagogy. They provide us with an illustrative example of an inquiry on emancipation for an 11th grade U.S. history class. In Chapter 4, Christina Villarreal’s work discusses RPCK as a way to engage students in the study of race in social studies. This work addresses the inevitable emotions that come to the surface when we engage with and attempt to teach about race in social studies. Villarreal’s work highlights ways that we can conceptualize RPCK as being less about “learning it all” and more about a commitment to teaching about race in audacious ways. Section 2 addresses how RPCK can be implemented in social studies within the structures of IDM. The chapters in this section give readers a glimpse into what race-based, inquiry teaching looks like. The chapters/lessons in this section address each of the social science disciplines that constitute the social studies in U.S. schools. The chapters dealing with U.S. history begin with Christopher Martell, Jennifer Bryson, and William Chapman-Hale’s look at racial inequality through the California Gold Rush. In this chapter, Martell, Bryson, and Chapman-Hale use the racial caste system of the 1850’s to help students “do history.” In Chapter 6 Jane Bolgatz, Tamar Brown, and Emily Zweibel frame their lesson around the question “Why did slavery exist in New Amsterdam and how did it become race-based?” This chapter gives students a chance to see how Africans and Europeans interacted in New Amsterdam, rather than leaving Africans out of the story or relegating them to a footnote. This work is followed by Sarah Shear’s chapter on U.S.

Using Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Inquiry Pedagogy    11

policies towards Indigenous people in North America, specifically policies for Indigenous education. This chapter aims to engage elementary teachers in critical dialogue about ways to teach a topic largely absent from many students’ social studies experiences. Next, Lauren Colley uses the concept of intersectionality to examine race and gender during the 19th century abolitionist movement. Colley prioritizes the voices and perspectives of women to help students critically examine this movement. In Chapter 9, Todd Hawley, Andrew Hostetler, and Prentice Chandler’s inquiry lesson explores the connection between economic justice and racial justice as seen through the events and actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This work will help teachers to engage students in the development of an argument for pursuing collective action for economic justice as a way to enable marginalized groups to gain greater justice today. For the discipline of geography we have two inquiries in this section. In Chapter 10, Ken Carano uses CRT to ask the question, “Does Geography Have a Violence?” In this work, Carano demonstrates how spatial relationships are shaped by power and molded by cultural groups resulting in institutional spatial policies, such as redlining. Tori Davis and Ryan Crowley delve into why certain racial groups live in certain areas with their inquiry “Do People Get to Choose Where They Live?” Using CRT as an analytical framework, they explore the case of Austin, TX’s racial segregation as well as the city’s current struggles with gentrification. Next Juan Gabriel Sánchez and Raquel Y. Sáenz examine family histories in a world history classroom. Their work demonstrates the ways in which inquiry-based family projects that incorporate CRT can be a valuable way to “develop individualized and unique research questions, build research skills, and examine the complexities and multiplicity of history.” Continuing with this theme, Chris Busey shares his work on Latin@ CRT and how this can be used in world history and human geography. This work highlights the use of CRT as a curricular framework for interrogating race and racism in Latin American society specifically as it pertains to the formation of Afro-Latinidad, AfroLatin identity. William Smith uses the discipline of government to craft his CRT based inquiry around knowledge that citizens “should” know and how this is transmitted through citizenship exams, past and present. In this chapter he asks the question, “Are U.S. citizenship tests racially motivated?” and uses historical and contemporary tests to help students engage with complex issues around these documents. Using civics as their guide, Jessica Kobe and Ashley Goodrich take up the meaning of the Confederate flag in their chapter. Their work centers on the question “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?” helping students to focus on the narratives and meanings around this controversial symbol. Samina Hadi-Tabassum’s inquiry chapter poses the inquiry “What is race?” and delves into this question from a psychology/behavioral science lens. This work allows readers

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to understand the constructedness of race and how this can be taught to students within social studies. John Broome and Jason Endacott’s chapter focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and how CRT can be used to examine current issues in social studies. By examining storytelling, examining stereotypes, and oppositional stances on race, the authors push us towards action on race in the social studies curriculum. Next, Jennifer Killham’s work examines the use of social media/technology and its impact on the construction of narratives for communities of color. This work makes connections between the Black Lives Matter movement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s to help teachers and students locate, analyze, and reflect on the power of social media posts to facilitate the sharing of counternarratives. Concluding this section, Jennifer Burke’s chapter, focuses on how power structures, influenced by race, impact friendships in elementary school settings. This chapter focuses on the importance of including lessons about race in an elementary classroom as a way to combat color-blind racism in the early grades. The third section of the book addresses issues faced by social studies teachers when they attempt to teach about race. We recognize that foundational readings and lesson descriptions alone will not guarantee that classroom teachers and methods instructors (King and Chandler, 2016) will feel more confident about addressing race and racism in their social studies classrooms. To provide additional support for teachers, the contributions in this section will examine current issues in social studies education through the lens of enacted race pedagogy. These chapters are designed to build on the first two sections and provide additional support for teachers as they engage with race in their classrooms. This section begins with Lisa Gilbert’s look at the anger that marginalized students may face within the scope of experiencing social studies. Gilbert’s work argues that we, as social studies educators, should view anger as a lucid and healthy response to a variety of situations, and this view may have more positive associations than we may anticipate. Next, Emilie Camp discusses how counternarratives can be used in a social studies methods course. Camp’s work highlights practical ways that social studies educators at the university level can use RPCK in their methods courses. This is followed by Jenice View’s chapter on teaching the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Specifically, this work chronicles the “Mississippi Teacher Fellows Program” and their attempt to fuse CRT and RPCK into their statewide professional development efforts. Lastly, this section ends with Adam Jordan and Dacario Poole’s interesting piece on race autobiographies in social studies teaching. This chapter highlights the possibilities of connecting students and teachers regarding the importance of race conversations within the context of social studies instruction.

Using Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Inquiry Pedagogy    13

PROLOGUE What would social studies education look like if we taught the subject “as if it mattered” (Darling, 2006, p. 265)? To phrase the question this way may seem odd, but to teach social studies “as if it mattered” would look very different from what passes as social studies in the United States. This issue is particularly salient given recent attempts in several states to, in effect, mute any power that social studies may have to educate for citizenship. Consider these recent cases: 1. Lawmakers in West Virginia sought to make the teaching of social issues, before teaching “basic instruction in geography, U.S. history, U.S. government . . . and the Declaration of Independence” illegal. http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc= hb2107%20intr.htm&yr=2015&sesstype=RS&i=2107 2. In Oklahoma, there was a push to eliminate AP history because detractors claim that it “emphasizes what is bad about America” and that it “omits the concept of American Exceptionalism.” http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oklahoma-ban-ap-us-history 3. Publisher McGraw-Hill referred to slaves as “workers” and described the institution of slavery as “patterns of immigration.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/publisher-promises-revisions-after-textbook-refers-to-african-slaves-as-workers.html?_r=0 4. Efforts nationally to create and implement a required “citizenship test” to graduate from high school supported by the Joe Foss Institute. The state of Arizona, who created legislation to make ethnic studies illegal in 2011, was the first state to mandate this high stakes test in “citizenship.” http://bustedpencils.com/2016/03/mandatory-civics-test-a-goodidea-to-deny-ethnic-studies/ Each of these episodes represents an effort to instill raceless, traditional, “common sense” stances on social studies education. It’s common sense that “basics” should be covered before “problems”; it’s common sense that Americans are “exceptional”; and it’s common sense that slaves were a type of “worker.” It’s common sense that students should know about citizenship. The examples above serve to shield teachers and students from topics which, when taught, can lead to thinking about our world in different ways. They represent a form of protection for a specific type of social studies, a social studies that only serves to support the status quo. They serve to shield dominant narratives from criticism and interrogation (Chandler & Branscombe, 2015). For our purposes, our questions are simple and pointed: What do these ideas mean for social studies teachers who want to “help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good

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as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (NCSS, 1994, p. 3)? How can race, as a topic within social studies, be taught with these restrictions? It is time to move away from social studies as solely a celebratory pedagogical act. The argument that social studies should be used solely to transmit a culture has run its course and outlived its usefulness. Social studies that does not attempt to transform or change the ways that we think about race and racism, it can be argued, is part of the problem. Additionally, a social studies that does not attempt to (re) construct a more racially just society is in danger of being irrelevant. In 2017, our social studies classes/spaces are but one place that our students receive social knowledge and insight about their worlds. With recent events and movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #ICantBreathe, social studies teachers have social issues thrust upon them, with a constant barrage of images and videos. In short, the requirement of social studies, that we prepare students for society, is thrust upon us like no other generation of educators. In order to “fulfill the high mission” of democracy, we believe that projects like this one and the ideas contained herein are a necessary part of the resistance against raceless social studies. We invite you to join the struggle towards a more race conscious democracy. REFERENCES Alexander, M. (2011). The new jim crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press. Anderson, C. B., & Metzger, S. A. (2011). Slavery, the Civil War era, and Black representation in U.S. history: An analysis of four states’ academic standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(3), 393–415. Beard, C. (1929). The trend in social studies, Historical Outlook, 20, 369–372. Bigler, E., Shiller, J., & Willcox, L. (2013). The teaching of race and class in American social studies classrooms. In J. Passe & P. G. Fitchett (Eds.), The status of social studies: Views from the field (pp. 153–168). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Blackburn, S. (1994). Oxford dictionary of philosophy. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. Brown, A. L., & Brown, K. D. (2010). Strange fruit indeed: Interrogating contemporary textbook representations of racial violence towards African Americans. Teachers College Record, 112(1), 31–67. Bryant-Pavely, B., & Chandler, P. (2016). A critical race theory analysis of the Ohio social studies standards. Ohio Social Studies Review, 53(1), 16–27. Chandler, P. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Chandler, P., & Branscombe, A. (2015). White social studies: Protecting the white racial code. In P. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 61–87). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Using Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Inquiry Pedagogy    15 Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2011). Race and the social studies. In W. Russell (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader (pp. 215–242). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Clabough, J., Turner, T., Russell, W., & Waters, S. (2016). Unpuzzling history with primary sources. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Darling, L. F. (2006). Teaching social studies as if it mattered: Young children and moral deliberation. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (pp. 265–282). New York, NY: SUNY Press. Dewey, J. (1902). The child and the curriculum. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Essed, P., & Goldberg, D. (2008). Race critical theories: Text and context. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Grant, S. G., Lee, J., & Swan, K. (2014). The inquiry design model. Retrieved from http://www.c3teachers.org/inquiry-design-model/ Grant, S. G., Swan, K., & Lee, J. (2015). Bringing the C3 framework to life. Social Education, 79(5), 310–315. Herczog, M. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: A watershed moment for social studies. In NCSS (Eds.), Social studies for the next generation: Purposes, practices, and implications of the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards (pp. vii–x). (NCSS Bulletin 113). Washington, DC: NCSS. King, L., & Chandler, P. (2016). From non-racism to anti-racism in social studies education: Social studies and racial pedagogical content knowledge. In A. Crowe, & A. Cuenca (Eds.), Rethinking social studies teacher education for twentyfirst century citizenship (pp. 3–21). New York, NY: Springer. Kincheloe, J. (2001). Getting beyond the facts: Teaching social studies/social sciences in the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Kliebard, H. (1987). The struggle for the American curriculum, 1893–1958. New York, NY: Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Curriculum standards for social studies: Expectations of excellence (NCSS Bulletin 89). Silver Spring, MD: NCSS. National Council for Social Studies. (2010). A framework for teaching, learning, and assessment (NCSS Bulletin 111). Silver Springs, MD: National Council for Social Studies. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life: C3 framework for social studies state standards (NCSS Bulletin 113). Washington, DC: NCSS. National Council for the Social Studies. (2014). Teaching the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework: Exploring inquiry-based instruction in social studies (NCSS Bulletin 114). Washington, DC: NCSS. Nelson, J. L., & Pang, V. O. (2001). Racism, prejudice, and the social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Eds.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (pp. 143–162). Albany: State University of New York Press. Newseum Education Department. (2014). What don’t you know about civil rights. In K. Swan & J. Lee (Eds.), Teaching the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework: Exploring inquiry based instruction in social studies (pp. 111–120). Washington, DC: NCSS.

16    P. T. CHANDLER and T. S. HAWLEY Selwyn, D. (2014). Why inquiry? In E.W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (pp. 267–288). New York, NY: SUNY Press. Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. Wills, J. S. (2001). Missing in interaction: Diversity, narrative, and critical multicultural social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education 29(1), 43–64. Vasquez-Heilig, J. V., Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2012). The illusion of inclusion: A critical race theory textual analysis of race and standards. Harvard Educational Review, 82, 403–424.

SECTION I FOUNDATIONS OF RACIAL PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 2

RACE AND RACISM IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES Foundations of Critical Race Theory Andrea M. Hawkman Utah State University

ABSTRACT In this chapter the author seeks to address three aims. First, the author attempts to briefly trace the genesis and history of critical race theory (CRT). Second, the author discusses the major constructs that undergird investigations utilizing CRT. Finally, the chapter concludes with a section devoted to the utilization of CRT in in the context of social studies education. This chapter seeks to provide readers with a working knowledge of CRT to aid in not only the reading of this book, but also to assist in reexamining the ways in which they teach and talk about race and racism in their social studies classrooms.

Race Lessons, pages 19–31 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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20    A. M. HAWKMAN The social studies can serve as a curricular home for unlearning the racism that has confounded us as a nation. —Ladson-Billings, 2003, p. 8 To teach U.S. history without stressing the power of race, with all its permutations, is to teach a form of the national myth—a myth that has implications for the present. In essence, social studies becomes an exercise in White supremacy. —Chandler & Branscombe, 2015, p. 81

The myth of America as post-racial is one that continues to retain relevance in popular discourse. Despite assurances that we have moved beyond race on the part of the individuals across the political spectrum—conservative, neoconservative, liberal, and neoliberal—racism remains ever-present. Admittedly, the embodiment of racism may not exist in the same forms as decades ago. For example, we do not typically see self-identified White supremacists engaging in overt acts of racial violence towards people of color and separate but equal is no longer considered legally appropriate doctrine. Even with the rise in racially charged rhetoric and provocations surrounding the 2016 presidential election, these acts and beliefs are are viewed as outliers to socially acceptable behavior. In this, the post-Obama era, racism has taken on a new look and feel. Racism is now more covert, silent, unseen, and unchallenged by many, especially Whites who seek to accept the argument that the civil rights movement of the 1960s resolved “appropriate” racial concerns. Regardless of how we name racism today—“modern,” “subtle,” “aversive,” “social dominance,” “competitive,” “Jim Crow,” or “color-blind”— racism continues to affect all of us, whether we realize it or not (Bonilla-Silva, 2010, p. 211). As is the case in society broadly, race and racism continue to inform the ways we engage in teaching and learning within K–12 contexts. Whether through the influence of our own identities upon our perspectives of curriculum and instruction, the (un)intended racial consequences of school rules and regulations, or the state and federal policies that inform school and state assessments and funding, one cannot deny the continued influence of race and racism in the American school system. However, classrooms have not been sufficiently utilized as spaces to directly investigate race and challenge racism in both historic and contemporary contexts. The field of social studies education specifically, can and should do better at assisting students in gaining complex understandings of race and racism (Chandler, 2015; LadsonBillings, 2003; Pang, Rivera, & Gillette, 1998). The utilization of race critical theories (Essed & Goldberg, 2001) is one method of strengthening the teaching of race and racism in social studies classrooms. In this chapter, I seek to provide context for one such theory, critical race theory (CRT), as a potential framework to engage in investigations of the complexities of race, racism, and White supremacy within the context

Race and Racism in the Social Studies    21

of social studies education. Thus, this chapter has three aims. First, I will briefly trace the birth and history of CRT from its insemination in the late 1970s through modern iterations. Second, I will discuss the nine foundations essential to utilizing CRT. Finally, I will examine the application and utility of CRT in the social studies classroom. THE BEGINNING OF A MOVEMENT: THE BIRTH OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s has often been heralded as the official end to de jure racial segregation and discrimination in the United States. Mrs. Parks’ famous ride, Dr. King’s memorialized speech, the passing of major civil rights legislation, and landmark Supreme Court decisions all seemed to close the proverbial book on racial unrest in America, and thus the problem of race had been solved. Throughout the 1970s this brief yet popular narrative of the civil rights movement was advocated in public, political, and educational discourse as means to define a specific set of racialized understandings about the law, justice, and discrimination (Peller, 1995). Consequently, a series of conservative U.S. Supreme Court decisions and legislative changes pushed through by President Nixon began to roll back many of the advancements made during the civil rights era (Brown & Jackson, 2013; Crenshaw, 2011). At the same time a group of scholars from critical legal studies (CLS), mostly White men, began to challenge the argument that the legal system was neutral and unaffected by social and political phenomena (Brown & Jackson, 2013). Seemingly, this would open space to challenge the erosion of civil rights advancements made decades before within the court system. By the early-1980s CLS made substantial progress in disrupting the hegemony of America’s legal system, working against many of the abuses of power initiated by previous administrations. However, the majority of CLS scholars were advocating for an approach to racial justice that adopted a long-term vision of racial equality—essentially repurposing Dr. King’s long arc toward justice mantra for liberal, yet non-racialized aims (Crenshaw, 2011). A group of critical legal scholars of color felt CLS failed to adequately address the struggles of people of color, specifically Black Americans in the post-Brown era (Brown & Jackson, 2013). This group, namely Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Neil Gotanda, Charles Lawrence, and Mari Matsuda, observed what Crenshaw (2011) recalled as the existence of a “frame misalignment,” wherein the tenets of CLS failed to align with the needs of race work and race scholars. Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, and Thomas (1995) noted,

22    A. M. HAWKMAN Because CLS scholars had not, by and large, developed and incorporated a critique of racial power into their analysis, their practices, politics and theories regarding race tended to be unsatisfying and sometimes indistinguishable from those of the dominant institutions they were otherwise contesting. (pp. xxii–xxiii)

In the middle of the decade this group of legal scholars assembled in pursuit of a new theoretical formulation that moved beyond CLS to directly challenge the continued impact of racism and White supremacy in society. Thus, CRT was born to accommodate this gap in theory and praxis. FORMULATING UNDERSTANDING: TENETS OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY Foundationally, CRT scholars pursue work related to two overarching interests. First, CRT scholars conduct work that “seeks to reveal that the conceptions of racism and racial subordination as understood by traditional legal discourse are neither neutral nor sufficient to overcome the effects of centuries of racial oppression on people of color” (Brown & Jackson, 2013, p. 14). Second, CRT scholarship is consciously designed in pursuit of changing the problematic relationship between the legal system and racial power. The opposite of neutrality, CRT scholarship is an overtly political endeavor entrenched in ethical and moral assertions that racism and White supremacy are harmful and must be directly challenged through research and praxis. Delgado (1995) noted, “virtually all of Critical Race thought is marked by deep discontent with liberalism, a system of civil rights litigation and activism characterized by incrementalism, faith in the legal system, and hope for progress, among other things” (p. 1). In these pursuits, CRT is organized around the following constructs: 1. Race Is a Social Construction: Historically, debate has persisted over the construction of race, however CRT scholars assert racial identity is socially constructed. Omi and Winant (1994) defined race as, “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (p. 55). Although racial understandings invoke biological features, upon closer investigation these biological divides are “at best imprecise, and at worst completely arbitrary” (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 55). Haney Lopez (1995) added, “racial formation includes both the rise of racial groups and their constant reification in social thought” (p. 196). Thus, Whiteness is perpetually redefined in pursuit of maintaining its position of dominance, superiority, and normality.

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2. Racism is Permanent, Pervasive, and Historic: Morrison (1992) wrote, “Expensively kept, economically unsound, a spurious and useless political asset in election campaigns, racism is as healthy today as it was during the Enlightenment” (p. 63). CRT is rooted in the belief that racism is “an integral, permanent, and indestructible part of this society” (Bell, 1992a, p. ix). Over time, racism has transitioned from being demonstrated through overt acts of racial violence or discrimination into more covert and engrained attacks towards people of color. 3. Critique of Colorblind Approaches to Reform: As liberal incrementalism sank in during the 1970s and 1980s and the limits of legal equality became clear, so too grew the adoption of a colorblind ideology, or the insistence that one’s racial identity is a non-issue in terms of legal doctrine, constitutional interpretation, and public policy (Gotanda, 1991). Bonilla-Silva (2010) identified four frames of colorblind racism that currently plague racial discourse: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Within these frames, racism is masked within meritocratic rhetoric (abstract liberalism) while simultaneously appearing to be just “the way it is” (naturalization). Racial discrimination in employment, housing, and education are viewed as the result of cultural laziness and not structural inequities (cultural racism), and in modern contexts economic factors are more influential than racism on one’s position in society (minimization). Furthermore, Whites are safe behind an “impregnable” wall that shields them from the racial realities of this country. 4. Interest Convergence: CRT also asserts that advances in racial justice come only at convenient times for White Americans, and not as a result of explicit desires to serve communities of color, or what Bell (1980) coined interest convergence. Bell (1980) observed, “The interests of Blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of Whites” (p. 523). Two historic examples of interest convergence are highlighted in Bell’s (1980) seminal piece. The first refers to Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, noting that his concern was for preserving the Union and not the humanity of enslaved persons. Second, Bell observed that the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, in which de jure school segregation was deemed unconstitutional, instantly raised America’s credibility in fighting against communism in the Cold War. 5. Counter-storytelling: A central component of CRT research is the attention to the voices of marginalized communities and people of color. Delgado (1995) noted “The stories or narratives told by

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the ingroup remind it of its identity in relation to outgroups, and provide it with a form of shared reality in which its own superior position is seen as natural. The stories of outgroups aim to subvert that reality” (p. 64). CRT seeks to construct counter-stories of people of color or those who are marginalized in order to establish common knowledge within marginalized communities, challenge master narratives, provide context to lived experiences, and to serve as emancipatory experiences for participants (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Ladson-Billings (1998) noted that CRT scholars use stories, poetry, fiction, revisionist histories, and parables to define their own reality. 6. Whiteness as Property: CRT identified Whiteness as the underlying cause of racism. Harris’ 1993 article argued that White status provides individuals unique property rights which are unavailable to people of color, and subsequently renders Whiteness valuable. The “holders” of Whiteness are therefore afforded rights of disposition, use/enjoyment, status, and exclusion. Harris (1993) contended, “Just as whiteness as property embraced the right to exclude, whiteness as a theoretical construct evolved for the very purpose of racial exclusion. Thus, the concept of whiteness is built on both exclusion and racial subjugation” (p. 1737). Property rights thus render Whiteness the ultimate prize in society, for those who “pass” are eligible for a substantial set of unearned benefits. Bell (1995) observed, “Even those Whites who lack wealth and power are sustained in their sense of racial superiority by policy decisions that sacrifice Black rights. The subordination of Blacks seems to reassure Whites of an unspoken, but no less certain, property right in their ‘whiteness’” (p. 7). 7. Intersectionality: As a result of the permanent and pervasive nature of racism, CRT scholars are committed to intersectional approaches to challenging racial oppression. Delgado and Stefanic (2001) defined intersectionality as, “the examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation and how their combinations play out in various settings” (p. 51). Crenshaw (1991) noted the importance of recognizing the various ways that race and gender inform one’s lived experiences and how the world is socially constructed. Intersectionality insists that we address the ways in which policy and procedure affect the intersections of our identities. 8. Racial Realism: Founding father of CRT Derrick Bell (1992b) lamented, “Racial equality, is, in fact, not a realistic goal” (p. 363). CRT scholars understand the existing legal system was created in order to preserve the racial status quo, and as a result cannot be

Race and Racism in the Social Studies    25

trusted to create racial equality. Therefore work must be done both within and beyond systems in order to work for racial justice. 9. Overarching Goal of Dismantling All Forms of Oppression: While racism is at the heart of CRT, scholars are invested in the larger battle of challenging all forms of oppression (i.e., sexism, classism, and homophobia; Brown & Jackson, 2013). Although critical race scholars are often informed by all nine constructs in their efforts to challenge racism and White supremacy, each application of CRT does not necessitate direct attention to all nine. Rather, as scholars and educators deploy CRT in their work, they may choose to draw upon tenets that are particularly informative to the projects or tasks at hand. CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES In 1995, Ladson-Billings and Tate initiated a dialogue between CRT and the field of education. As racism is endemic to American society broadly, Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) argued it too was pervasive within educational contexts, and as a result necessitated the adoption of CRT to best address its influence. A major call for CRT within the context of education is emerged from the perceived shortcomings of multicultural education initiatives. Too often, multicultural education was interpreted as “trivial examples and artifacts of cultures such as eating ethnic or cultural foods, singing songs or dancing, reading folktales, and other less than scholarly pursuits” (LadsonBillings & Tate, 1995, p. 61). Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) suggested the multicultural approach to education mirrored the inept CLS approach to racism of the 1970s and 1980s, and therefore called for CRT’s application in both the classroom and the research community. The pair lamented the inability of current efforts of multicultural education as it related to challenging racism in the classroom, Instead of creating radically new paradigms that ensure justice, multicultural reforms are routinely “sucked back into the system” just as traditional civil rights law is based on a foundation of human rights, the current multicultural paradigm is mired in liberal ideology that offers no radical change in the current order. (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 62)

At the time, many race scholars in education argued the inclusivity rhetoric inherent in multicultural education discourse failed to address the systemic and institutional impact of racism and White supremacy in education contexts. Thus, scholars began to infuse CRT in an attempt to bring people of color and their narratives in from the margins while directly combatting

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racism in educational research and praxis (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005; Lynn & Dixson, 2013). CRT scholars in education seek to step beyond the mere inclusion of diverse perspectives often advocated through multicultural education by directly challenging the complicated and troubling relationship between educational inequity and race through exposing the nonsensical nature of common sense rhetoric surrounding people of color, cultural practices, and education (Dixson & Lynn, 2013). Further, through calling into question the typical colorblind, or racially neutral approaches to education, CRT scholars seek to disrupt the stranglehold Whiteness has maintained over the educational system for decades. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) observed that the four property functions of Whiteness—rights of disposition, rights to use and enjoyment, reputation and status property, and the absolute right to exclude—maintain a significant influence over education. Both physical (i.e., financial properties, income tax, school funding, school resources) as well as intellectual (i.e., what counts as knowledge, what should be taught) properties are valued, taxed, and assessed by Whiteness in American schools. Moreover, the norm of middle class Whiteness is applied to all educational settings, as those able to demonstrate ownership of this property are destined for educational success, and those whose property is deemed of lesser value face incredible and sometimes insurmountable odds. Thus, as racism has evolved and manifested in new forms over time so too has its embodiment within the school house. Whiteness has defined and shaped what Swartz (1992) called the master script, or “classroom practices, pedagogy, and instructional materials—as well as to the theoretical paradigms from which these aspects are constructed—that are grounded in Eurocentric and White supremacist ideologies” (p. 341). The enactment of the master script silences multiple perspectives and raises dominant (White) discourse to standard or official knowledge (Apple, 2002). When we examine the three main facets of the master script—curriculum, instruction, and materials—we are able to observe several possibilities for utilizing CRT. First, Yosso (2002) noted, “A Critical Race Curriculum must not only challenge traditional curricula, but must also learn from the blind spots of more established critical curricular approaches” (p. 103). Within the context of social studies curricula, there are many such “blind spots” that CRT could serve to illuminate. One such example is the way in which the social studies curriculum represents notions of citizenship. A central feature of citizenship within American contexts is the notion of property ownership. Thus, tracing the ways in which race has informed the construction of citizenship through property ownership is particularly telling about our nation’s history.

Race and Racism in the Social Studies    27

According to Yosso (2002) a critical race curriculum (CRC) would: (a) acknowledge intersectionality of oppression within curriculum, (b) challenge stereotypes and cultural assumptions, (c) advocate social justice and developing a critical consciousness, (d) feature counter-stories, and (e) utilize interdisciplinary approaches and methods to make evident the historic and contemporary connections between education and inequality. Instead of the social studies curriculum serving as official knowledge of American record (Apple, 2002), teachers should interpret it as one knowledge, of many. Yosso (2002) noted “curriculum that purports to be objective actually maintains the status quo and sustains a normalized system of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia from inside the classroom” (p. 99). Teachers, and subsequently their students, should engage in critical questioning about what is and is not included in social studies curriculum. Second, CRT scholars are critical of ways in which Whiteness permeates instructional decisions in the classroom. Ladson-Billings (1998) observed that teachers often adopt racially-neutral or colorblind approaches to instructional design that are assumed to work for all students. Thus, when the strategies fail to elicit success, it is the student, not the teacher to blame. CRT scholars encourage the adoption of culturally responsive and justiceoriented pedagogies which seek to honor the diverse lived experiences, knowledges, contributions, and needs of all students (Gay, 2000). Within the context of social studies instruction, Chandler and Branscombe (2015) defined the construct of White social studies (WSS) to analyze the impact of Whiteness on classroom instructional decisions. WSS is a ten-component enacted pedagogical construct that includes the following: (a) the deployment of White common sense, (b) enacted and personal traits, (c) assumed dominant (White) ways of knowing, (d) a deep racial investment in the image of the United States, (e) contradictory and self-reinforcing aims, (f) is capable of explaining-away race (i.e., “raceproof”), (g) ignores connections between the historic and contemporary, (h) selectively deploys historical thinking to support colorblind approaches to history, (i) falls within the transmission camp of social studies theory, and (j) seeks to protect Eurocentric approaches to history. These instructional enactments tend to facilitate racial silence, privileged discourses, American exceptionalism, and a failure to dive deep into racial discourse and analysis that even “well-intentioned” teachers find it difficult to avoid. Despite what may seem like disparate circumstances, Maher and Tetreault (1997) observed that even in spaces completely blinded by Whiteness there are possibilities for transformation, “While classrooms often not only reflect, but also impose the dominant culture’s ideological frameworks, they also function as somewhat sheltered laboratories where those frameworks may be exposed and interrogated” (p. 346). Therefore, in problematizing WSS in their classrooms, teachers can engage in instructional activities that deliberately seek

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to challenge the permanence of racism with their students, instead of those which tend to, at best, promote racial ambivalence, and at worst, perpetuate systems of oppression. Third, the materials (i.e., texts, artifacts, primary and secondary sources, and media) utilized in schools are influential in shaping student knowledge of race, racism, and White supremacy. Within the social studies classroom, textbooks are often the dominant instructional tool and the site of the official knowledge to be learned by students (Lintner, 2004). Problematically, as these texts are often written by individuals educated in WSS, they often include narrow, stereotypical, or even inaccurate depictions of historical content, especially the narratives of people, communities, and perspectives of color (Brown & Brown, 2010; Lintner, 2004). Therefore, a CRT approach to text analysis would include a questioning of the ways in which texts represent, include, and exclude people of color and their stories within the context of official social studies knowledge. Brown and Brown (2010) defined representation as “how racial groups see themselves through school text as well as how they are constructed by different discourses embedded within the school curriculum” (p. 140). From a CRT lens, we must be willing to ask ourselves critical questions about the texts and other materials we seek to use with our students: What story does the text tell about people of color? How are people of color portrayed in relation to White people? Which individuals are afforded historical agency? Said another way, we must remain critical not only of whether people of color are represented in the materials we use, but also the ways in which they are represented. CONCLUSION For decades, education and race scholars have called for social studies educators to adopt tenets of CRT within their instructional and pedagogical design (Ladson-Billings, 2003; Chandler, 2015). Howard (2003) harkened, “social studies educators must help call into question the role that race plays in helping or enabling citizens to experience democracy in its fullest manifestations” (p. 35). CRT provides social studies teachers a framework for creating learning experiences that allow students to develop meaningful understandings of the influence of race and racism in their lives and society and seek ways to challenge it beyond school walls. Teaching has been, is, and will always be a political act. We must also recognize that it has been, is, and will always be a racialized act as well. Exposing the nature of racism and White supremacy within education is particularly arduous as Whiteness prefers to go simultaneously noticed and unnoticed in the classroom (Chandler & Branscombe, 2015). As a result, we must prepare ourselves and our students to develop a sense of racial

Race and Racism in the Social Studies    29

consciousness, racial literacy, and racial justice. This work can be challenging and is truly never complete. However, this work is equally necessary in order to combat racism and White supremacy moving forward. CRT offers educators a framework for challenging, disrupting, and unthinking racism and White supremacy in education. In order to engage in such work, we must first embrace and promote the understanding that racism is endemic in our system of schooling. As Bell (1992b) stated, we must get “real” about racism being here to stay, so that we move forward in lessening its impact on communities of color. My work in “getting real” about racism has been time intensive and reflexive in nature as I often find myself implicated in the web of Whiteness. Through this work, and in conversation with CRT, I am perpetually reminded of a quote from Audre Lorde (1984), For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.

Although racism remains here to stay, we must always continue on the path toward racial justice, using whatever tools necessary on the journey. CRT calls all of us as social studies educators to move beyond the traditions of WSS by listening to and incorporating the agentic stories, narratives, and histories of people of color within our classrooms in such a way that challenges the persistence of racism and White supremacy. We must view this work as personal, political, and necessary in order to truly challenge the master at their game. REFERENCES Apple, M. W. (2002). Official knowledge: Democratic education in a conservative age. New York, NY: Routledge. Bell, D. (1980). Brown v. board of education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93, 518–533. Bell, D. (1992a). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bell, D. (1992b). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24(2), 363–379. Bell, D. (1995). Racial realism: Prudent speculations on America in a post-racial epoch. In R. Delgado (Ed.). Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 2–8). Philadelphia, PA: Temple. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism & racial inequality in contemporary America, 3rd edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

30    A. M. HAWKMAN Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2010). Silenced memories: An examination of the sociocultural knowledge on race and racial violence in official school curriculum. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(2), 139–154. Brown, K., & Jackson, D. D. (2013). The history and conceptual elements of critical race theory. In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixson (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 9–22). New York, NY: Routledge. Chandler, P. T. (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Chandler, P. T., & Branscombe, A. (2015). White social studies: Protecting the White racial code. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 61–87). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Crenshaw, K. (2011). Twenty years of critical race theory: Looking back to move forward. Connecticut Law Review, 43(5), 1253–1352. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds). (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York, NY: The New Press. Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple. Delgado, R., & Stefanic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University. Dixson, A. D., & Lynn, M. (2013). Introduction. In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixson (Eds.). Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 1–8). New York, NY: Routledge. Dixson, A. D., & Rousseau, C. K. (2005). And we are still not saved: Critical race theory in education ten years later. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 7–27. Essed, P., & Goldberg, D. T. (Eds.). (2001). Race critical theories: Text and context. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gotanda, N. (1991). A critique of “our constitution is color-blind.” Stanford Law Review, 44(1), 1–68. Haney Lopez, I. F. (1995). The social construction of race. In R. Delgado. (Ed.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 191–204). Philadelphia, PA: Temple. Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. Howard, T. C. (2003). The dis(g)race of the social studies: The need for racial dialogue in the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings. (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum (pp. 27–44). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? Qualitative Studies in Education 11(1), 7–24. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68.

Race and Racism in the Social Studies    31 Lintner, T. (2004). The savage and the slave: Critical race theory, racial stereotyping, and the teaching of American history. Journal of Social Studies Research, 28(1), 27–32. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Lynn, M., & Dixson, A. D. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of critical race theory in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Maher, F. A., & Tetreault, M. K. T. (1997). Learning in the dark: How assumptions of Whiteness shape classroom knowledge. Harvard Educational Review 67(2), 321–349. Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Pang, V. O., Rivera, J. J., & Gillette, M. (1998). Can CUFA be a leader in the national debate on racism? Theory & Research, 26(3), 430–436. Peller, G. (1995). Race-consciousness. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement (pp. 127–158). New York, NY: The New Press. Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(23), 23–44. Swartz, E. (1992). Emancipatory narratives: Rewriting the master script in the school curriculum. The Journal of Negro Education, 61(3), 341–355. Yosso, T. J. (2002). Toward a critical race curriculum. Equity & Excellence in Education, 35(2), 93–107.

CHAPTER 3

THE INQUIRY DESIGN MODEL Kathy Swan University of Kentucky S.G. Grant Binghamton University John Lee North Carolina State University

The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a distinctive approach to creating instructional materials that honors teachers’ knowledge and expertise, avoids over-prescription, and focuses on the key elements envisioned in the Inquiry Arc of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for State Social Studies Standards (NCSS, 2013). Unique to the IDM is the blueprint, a one-page presentation of the questions, tasks, and sources that define an inquiry. The blueprint offers a visual snapshot of an entire inquiry such that the individual components and the relationship among the components can all be seen at once. Although inquiries align with standards, they are not intended to be comprehensive content units, nor are they intended to be a series of prescribed lesson plans. They are intended to serve as pedagogically rich examples of content and skills built out in inquiry-based fashion. As such, Race Lessons, pages 33–44 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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they focus on the following elements necessary to support students as they address a compelling question using disciplinary sources in a thoughtful and informed fashion: • • • • •

Compelling Question (frame the inquiry); Staging the Compelling Question tasks (create interest in the inquiry); Supporting Questions (develop the key content); Formative Performance Tasks (demonstrate emerging understandings); Featured Sources (provide opportunities to generate curiosity, build knowledge, and construct arguments); • Summative Performance Tasks (demonstrate evidence-based arguments); • Summative Extensions (offer assessment flexibility); and • Taking Informed Action exercises (promote opportunities for civic engagement).

In this chapter, we illustrate the IDM structure by unpacking an inquiry that was created as part of the New York Toolkit Project (Grant, Swan, & Lee, 2015). In this inquiry on Emancipation, 11th grade students examine a historical debate around the freeing of African-American slaves using historical sources and contemporary scholarship. Here, we highlight the compelling and supporting questions that frame and organize this inquiry; the assessment tasks that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and apply their understandings; and, the disciplinary sources that allow students to practice disciplinary thinking and reasoning (see Figure 3.1). Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question New York State Social Studies Framework Key Idea & Practies

Staging the Compelling Question

Does it matter who freed the slaves? 11.3 EXPANSION, NATIONALISM, AND SECTIONALISM (1800–1865): As the nation expanded, growing sectional tensions, especially over slavery, resulted in political and constitutional crises that culminated in the Civil War. • Gathering, Using, and Interpreting Evidence • Comparison and Contextualization • Chronological Reasoning and Causation Read and discuss excerpts from the Washington Post article “On Emancipation Day in D.C., Two Memorials Tell Very Different Stories” and view images of the Emancipation Memorial and the African American Civil War Memorial.

Figure 3.1  The Emancipation blueprint.

(continued)

The Inquiry Design Model    35 Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

What legal steps were taken to end slavery?

What arguments do historians make about who ended slavery?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Create an annotated timeline Construct a t-chart that that describes legal steps contrasts arguments that taken from 1861 to 1865 to Lincoln freed the slaves end slavery. with arguments that the slaves freed themselves. Featured Sources Source A: Excerpts from the Confiscation Acts. Source B: Excerpts from the Emancipation Proclamation. Source C: Thirteenth Amendment

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Featured Sources Source A: “Who Freed the Slaves?” Source B: “Who Freed the Slaves?: Emancipation and Its Meaning in American Life”

Supporting Question 3 What are the implications of the debate over who ended slavery? Formative Performance Task Develop an evidence-based claim that explains the implications of the debate over who ended slavery. Featured Sources Source A: “Who Freed the Slaves? Source B: “Who Freed the Slaves?: Emancipation and Its Meaning in American Life”

Argument

Does it matter who freed the slaves? Construct an argument (e.g., detailed outline, poster, essay) that addresses the compelling question using specific claims and relevant evidence from historical sources while acknowledging competing views.

Extension

Examine the story of emancipation told by a history textbook and propose revisions.

Understand: Watch the film Lincoln. Assess: Using evidence generated from the inquiry as support, discuss the extent to which the film accurately depicts the end of slavery. Act: Write a review of the film and post it to www.IMDB.com

Figure 3.1 (continued)  The Emancipation blueprint.

QUESTIONS As Socrates demonstrated, questions matter. In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates claims, “my way toward truth is to ask the right questions” (Vlastos, 1956). Answers are important, but a well-framed question can excite the mind and give real and genuine meaning to the study of any social issue. The C3

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Inquiry Arc and the IDM feature compelling questions as a way to drive social studies inquiry. Jerome Bruner’s (1960) claim—“any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development” (p. 33)—points to the idea that compelling questions should reflect both content and student concerns. Taking this point seriously does not mean that we have to dumb down the curriculum. In fact, it means just the opposite: Teachers should teach intellectually ambitious material. The key is to see within the ideas to be taught those elements about which teachers know their students care. It is not the case that students are uninterested in President Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, or slavery. But it is the case that teachers need to pull relevant connections from those ideas to their students’ lives. In crafting compelling questions, the key is hitting the sweet spot between the qualities of being intellectually rigorous and being personally relevant to students. Intellectually rigorous questions reflect an enduring issue, concern, or debate in social studies and speak to the big ideas of history and the social sciences. For example, the compelling question— Does it matter who freed the slaves?—asks students to grapple with historical significance and causality generally and the end of slavery specifically. Historians continue to tease out the profound complexity and the chains of action and reaction that caused this turning point in U.S. history. In this inquiry, students enter the ongoing historical discussion by investigating the laws that emancipated certain slaves over time as well as the arguments contemporary historians have made about who was responsible for freeing the slaves. Within the question—Does it matter who freed the slaves?—the kidfriendly elements of the question quickly emerge. First, the question pulls on a thread that all students care about—purpose. At the very heart of this question is something all students ask as they approach any subject in school: What is the purpose of this lesson?, Why do I have to know this?, and Does it even matter? Instead of assuming purpose or significance, the question puts students in charge of those fundamental questions by asking them to wrestle with something they might be already thinking—Does it matter? Second, the question is free of jargon and is written in a student-accessible way. Students should be able to hold compelling questions in their heads in ways that are illuminating rather than merely decorative. With a compelling question framing an inquiry, supporting questions act to sustain it. Supporting questions flesh out the compelling question by organizing and sequencing the main ideas. Supporting questions follow a content logic representing what experts know about the compelling question as it is engaged over the inquiry experience. For example, in the Emancipation inquiry, the supporting questions (SQ) sequence this way:

The Inquiry Design Model    37

• SQ1: What legal steps were taken to end slavery? • SQ2: What arguments do historians make about who ended slavery? • SQ3: What are the implications of the debate over who ended slavery? Each support questions builds on the previous, filling in the intellectual space opened by the compelling question. The compelling question in this inquiry asks students to evaluate emancipation, thus Supporting Question 1 focuses on emancipation as a legal concept and series of actions. Historians’ arguments about emancipation as put forth in Supporting Question 2 provide grounding for students to consider the issue of purpose as suggested in the compelling question. The issue of whether it mattered that slaves were freed is ripe with speculation, hence Supporting Question 3 asks about the implications of the debate. The compelling question and supporting questions work in tandem to provide the architecture for the inquiry; they highlight the ideas and issues with which teachers and students can engage. There is no one right compelling question for a topic, nor is there only one way to construct and sequence supporting questions. The question—Does it matter who freed the slaves?—has been vetted and found to be compelling by a range of teachers and academics, but that is not to say that others might not develop equally engaging questions on the same topic. The supporting questions sequence in this inquiry could also be rearranged, substituted, or augmented into a whole new series. The IDM Blueprints require teacher expertise and individual craft to fully come to life. To underscore this point, all inquiries on C3 Teachers (c3teachers.org) are available in both PDF and Word documents so that teachers are encouraged to adapt and improve the inquiries for their particular context. TASKS In the IDM Blueprint, a variety of performance tasks provide students with experiences for learning and teachers with opportunities to evaluate what students know and are able to do. Assessments serve instructional as well as evaluative purposes so the IDM features both formative and summative performance tasks as well as extension activities and taking informed action opportunities. Based on the C3 Inquiry Arc, IDM begins with a compelling question (Dimension 1) that is consistently answered in the form of an evidencebased argument (Dimension 4). In this way, students’ summative products are convergent—that is, the investigation results in the construction of an evidence-based argument that answers the compelling question.

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Opportunities for divergent thinking surface through the extension activities and taking informed action exercises. Students can express their arguments creatively through the extension activities and taking informed action exercises. The heart of each inquiry, however, rests between two points—the compelling question and the argument. What comes in between (i.e., supporting questions, formative performance tasks, and sources) is designed to prepare students to move constructively between the compelling question and the summative argument. In the eleventh-grade Emancipation inquiry, for example, the summative performance task begins with the compelling question followed by the phrase, “construct an argument.” The verb construct was purposefully chosen to indicate that not all arguments must take the form of an essay. Making and supporting a strong argument is challenging as students must engage with content and skills throughout an inquiry. The formative performance tasks within the inquiry are designed as content and skill exercises intended to move students toward success in constructing a coherent, evidence-based argument. These tasks do not include all of what students might need to know and do, but they do include the major content and skills that provide a foundation for their arguments. In this way, teachers avoid “gotcha” assessments—tasks that catch students off guard or without the proper preparation for success on the summative performance task. Formative performance tasks are framed by the supporting questions within an inquiry. In this way, the formative performance tasks and the supporting questions have a similar relationship to that of the compelling question and the summative argument. The formative performance tasks also increase in complexity so students can develop and practice the skills of evidence-based claim-making. In the Emancipation inquiry, these formative performance tasks provide opportunities to develop the knowledge (e.g., an understanding of the legal context that ended slavery) and practice the skills (e.g., reading sources and supporting claims with evidence) necessary to construct a coherent, evidence-based argument. The formative tasks sequence in the following way: 1. Create an annotated timeline that describes legal steps taken from 1861 to 1865 to end slavery. 2. Construct a T-chart that contrasts arguments that Lincoln freed the slaves with arguments that the slaves freed themselves. 3. Develop an evidence-based claim that explains the implications of the debate over who ended slavery.

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Students rightly disdain busy work. Formative performance tasks are purposeful exercises designed to support student growth and success as they engage the summative argument task. Reflecting the purpose and structure of the summative and formative performance tasks, extension exercises offer alternatives through which students may express their arguments. In keeping with the C3 Inquiry Arc, extension exercises ask students to (a) present adaptations of their arguments, (b) do so with a range of audiences, and (c) do so in a variety of venues outside of the classroom. Unlike the summative argument, extension activities are divergent in that the products vary from inquiry to inquiry. For example, in the Emancipation inquiry, students have the opportunity to propose revisions to a history textbook based on their arguments. In the other Toolkit inquiries, adaptations range from writing letters to the editor, engaging in a classroom debate, and participating in perspectivetaking exercises. Another kind of extension exercise is taking informed action. These experiences offer students opportunities to civically engage with the content of an inquiry. Informed action can take a wide range of forms (e.g., discussions, debates, presentations) and can occur in a variety of contexts both inside and outside of the classroom. Key to any action, however, is the idea that it is informed. The IDM stages taking informed action activities such that students build their knowledge and understanding of an issue before engaging in any type of social action. In the understand stage, students demonstrate that they can think about the issues behind the inquiry in a new setting or context. The assess stage asks students to consider alternative perspectives, scenarios, or options as they begin to define a possible set of actions. And the act stage is where students decide if and how they will put into effect the results of their planning. In the Emancipation inquiry, taking informed action is expressed as three steps at the conclusion of the inquiry: • Understanding: Watch the film Lincoln (Spielberg, 2012). • Assessing: Using evidence generated from the inquiry as support, discuss the extent to which the film accurately depicts the end of slavery. • Acting: Write a review of the film and post it to www.IMDB.com Taking informed action is included in every blueprint, but we acknowledge that teachers may not be able to enact the sequence due to time constraints. Reflecting this condition, taking informed action is embedded into the formative and summative performance tasks for some inquiries in order to ease the time burden on teachers and to make civic opportunities more seamless.

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SOURCES Sources complete the IDM model. With compelling and supporting questions in place and formative and summative performance tasks situated to enact student learning about the content in those questions, sources provide the substance and the content for an inquiry. But sources in IDM only provide access to content. Unlike a textbook or a teacher lecture, disciplinary sources require that students dig into the materials applying analytical skills to construct the necessary content and understanding needed to move the inquiry forward. In an inquiry, sources have three purposes: • to spark and sustain student curiosity in an inquiry, • to build students’ disciplinary (content and conceptual) knowledge and skills, and • to enable students to construct arguments with evidence. Used in this way, sources correspond with parts of the IDM Blueprint: staging the compelling question, formative performance tasks, summative performance tasks, and additional tasks (i.e., extensions and taking informed action exercises). The first role of sources is to spark curiosity in students as they initiate and sustain an inquiry. The IDM suggests that sources can play an important role in helping students become curious about and interested in knowing more about an inquiry topic. Each blueprint includes a space to craft a brief exercise to spark student curiosity activities called Staging the Compelling Question. In the Emancipation inquiry, students are asked to read an excerpted article from the Washington Post and to react to images of the Emancipation Memorial and the African American Civil War Memorial (see Figures 3.2 and 3.3). After reading the article and examining the monument images, teachers can facilitate discussion about the process of emancipation, how historians and citizens interpret events such as emancipation, and the ongoing nature of these historical conversations. Using the ideas generated from the class discussion, teachers can introduce the compelling question—”Does it matter who freed the slaves?”—and set the stage for the inquiry. The second use of sources is to help students build their content and conceptual knowledge and practice with disciplinary skills (e.g., historical thinking, geographic reasoning). The C3 Framework encourages shifting instructional practice away from didactic teacher-focused approach to delivering content toward a more active approach where students integrate disciplinary knowledge and disciplinary skills purposefully (Swan, Lee, &

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Figure 3.2  Thomas Ball, statue celebrating the emancipation of African Americans, Emancipation Memorial, Washington, DC, 1876. Source: The Washington Post, © 2012 Washingtonpost.com.

Figure 3.3  Ed Hamilton, statue honoring the service of African Americans during the Civil War, African American Civil War Memorial (also known as the Spirit of Freedom), 1998. Source: Photo by Peter Fitzgerald. Creative Commons.

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Grant, 2014); IDM inquiries put this idea into practice through the formative and summative performance tasks. The excerpt below is a source for the first formative performance task in the inquiry on Emancipation. The 13th Amendment (1865) provides an important foundation for the key content in the inquiry. Namely, it marks the legal abolishment of slavery in the United States: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

This amendment and other sources in the task (excerpts from the Confiscation Acts and Emancipation Proclamation) can be used to establish the legal timeline of emancipation and help students complete the first formative task: Create an annotated timeline that describes legal steps taken from 1861 to 1865 to end slavery. The summative performance task in the IDM calls on students to construct and support arguments, and sources play a big role in that process. Throughout an inquiry, students examine sources through the sequence of formative performance tasks. Doing so, allows students to develop the knowledge they need in order to build arguments through evidence-based claims. Each of the sources in this inquiry holds the potential to contribute to the arguments students might make. For example, in the essay by noted Civil War historian James McPherson, he examines the agency of slaves to free themselves: The traditional answer to the question posed by the title of this paper is: Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. In recent years, though, this answer has been challenged as another example of elitist history, of focusing only on the actions of great White males and ignoring the actions of the overwhelming majority of the people, who also make history. If we were to ask our question of professional historians today, the reply would, I think, be quite different. As Robert Engs put it: “THE SLAVES FREED THEMSELVES.”1 They saw the Civil War as a potential war for abolition well before Lincoln did. By voting with their feet for freedom—by escaping from their masters to Union military camps in the South—they forced the issue of emancipation on the Lincoln administration. (McPherson, 1994, p. 34)

Expressing a different perspective, Ira Berlin’s (1994) response to McPherson, argues that the slaves were the primary force behind their emancipation: Lincoln’s proclamation, as its critics have noted, freed not a single slave who was not already entitled to freedom under legislation passed by Congress the previous year. It applied only to the slaves in territories then beyond the reach

The Inquiry Design Model    43 of federal authority . . . Indeed, as an engine of emancipation, the Proclamation went no further than the Second Confiscation Act of July 1862, which freed all slaves who entered Union lines professing that their owners were disloyal, as well as those slaves who fell under federal control as Union troops occupied Confederate territory . . . Even Lincoln recognized the limitations of his ill-defined wartime authority, and, as his commitment to emancipation grew firmer in 1863 and 1864, he pressed for passage of a constitutional amendment to affirm slavery’s destruction. (Berlin, 1994, p. 41)

Students can use ideas from the McPherson (1994) and Berlin (1994) texts, combined with other sources in the inquiry, as evidence to make and support claims about who freed the slaves and the implications of the historical debate of who ended slavery. Rarely will a source, as created, will be perfectly suited for use in an inquiry. After all, these sources were not created with the inquiry in mind or for that matter with high school students in mind. Thus, sources more often than not need to be adapted to suit the needs of students and the inquiry Although sources such as photographs may be used as is in an inquiry, many sources require adaptation in one of three ways: • Excerpting: Involves using a portion of the source for the inquiry. Care should be taken to preserve information in the source that students may need to know about the creator and context of the source. • Modifying: Involves inserting definitions and/or changing the language of a text. Modifying texts increases the accessibility of sources. • Annotating: Involves adding short descriptions or explanations. Annotations allow teachers to set a background context for sources. Examples of two of these three approaches to adapting sources are evident in the Emancipation inquiry. • Excerpting: Text passages from Emancipation are all carefully selected passages from longer sources. • Annotating: The images of the monuments include annotations. Arguing that changing sources does more harm than good, observers may object to altering sources. It is a valid concern, yet teachers should keep in mind the purpose of the source in the inquiry and ask themselves whether they are using the source for the source’s sake or to accomplish some other learning goal. Rarely will teachers use a source solely for the sake of using it in its original form.

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BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER Taking inquiry as its origin point, compelling question serves to initiate an inquiry; a summative performance task, where students address that question, serves to pull the inquiry together. The beginning and end points are important, but no more so than the elements—supporting questions, formative performance tasks, and sources—that comprise the middle of the IDM. Readers should note that the IDM reflects a specific, conscious decision not to produce fully-developed and comprehensive curriculum units or modules. Teachers should find considerable guidance within each inquiry around the key components of instructional design—questions, tasks, and sources. What they will not find is a complete and prescriptive set of lesson plans. Experience suggests that teachers teach best the material that they mold around their particular students’ needs and the contexts in which they teach. Rather than scripts reflecting generic teaching and learning situations, the IDM encourages teachers to draw on their own wealth of teaching experience as they add activities, lessons, sources, and tasks that transform the inquiries into their own, individual pedagogical plans. REFERENCES Berlin, I. (1994). Who freed the slaves? Emancipation and its meaning in American life. Reconstruction, 2(3), 41–44. Bruner, J. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grant, S. G., Swan, K., & Lee, J. (2015). Bringing the c3 to life: The New York state K–12 resource toolkit. Social Education, 79(5), 310–315 . McPherson, J. (1994). Who freed the slaves? Reconstruction, 2(3), 35–40. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (c3) framework for state social studies standards. Washington, DC: Author. Swan, K., Lee, J. K., & Grant, S. G. (2014). C3 instructional shifts. C3teachers.org. Retrieved from http://www.c3teachers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ C3Shifts.pdf U.S. Const. amend. XIII. Vlastos, G. (Ed.). (1956). Plato: Protagoras. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill.

CHAPTER 4

“DO YOU FEEL ME?” Affectively and Effectively Engaging Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Social Studies Classrooms Christina Shiao-Mei Villarreal Brown University

ABSTRACT This chapter discusses the key tenets of racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015) and how teachers can affectively and effectively develop and engage RPCK in social studies classrooms. In addition to the development of content and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), Chandler proposes that teachers must also develop a “working racial knowledge of how race operates within social science, from CRT [critical race theory] perspectives” (Chandler, 2015, p. 5). This chapter thus has three aims: (a) to situate the urgent need for RPCK within the racialized contexts of social studies curriculum, classrooms, and schools; (b) to re-imagine some of the inevitable and necessary emotions (i.e., stress, anxiety, fear, pain, etc.) that often accompany efforts to authentically engage issues of race and racism in social studies classrooms as moments of radical possibilities to expand and develop one’s RPCK (Matias, 2014; Matias, 2016; Stevenson, 2014), as well as an informed

Race Lessons, pages 45–58 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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“Do you feel me?” There was no other phrase that I heard uttered more often during the years that I spent teaching and learning with the beautiful youth of East Oakland, California. In the context of my 7th and 8th grade social studies classes, this question was often framed as a closing statement following a passionately delivered observation or opinion about topics ranging from Thomas Jefferson’s profound contradictions as an influential political leader to discussions about the impacts of race-based legislation to debates about Kublai Khan’s social reforms. Similarly, in my work as an assistant principal, this question was often invoked following the testimony of a student trying to explain the reasoning for engaging in any number of conflicts that occurred on our campus. Most frequently however, I would hear the question verbally volleyed between students engaging in conversations about their daily-lived experiences. Quite simply—“Do you feel me?”—is one’s way of: (a) checking for listeners’ understanding of that which was just shared; (b) asking for empathy with the positionality of the speaker; and (c) posing a rhetorical question that alerts the listener to the climax or conclusion of one’s opinion, story, or statement. One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned from my students over the course of the past decade is that the essence of teaching lays in the ability of an educator to meet students where they are in order to guide them to where they can be. Being able to meet students where they are requires teachers to get to know their students as individuals, develop authentic relationships with them, and work to recognize and honor the social and structural realities in which their lives are embedded. Knowing who our students are and the realities surrounding their lived experiences are necessary prerequisites for guiding their learning and connections to curricular content. In writing about the importance of how culturally relevant teachers think about their students, Ladson-Billings (2006) notes the significance of having teachers move from a “position of sympathy (“you poor dear”) to one of informed empathy.” She writes that “this informed empathy requires teachers to feel with the students rather than feel for them,” and that “feeling with the students builds a sense of solidarity between the teacher and the students but does not excuse students from working hard in pursuit of excellence” (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 31). The racial demographic realities among student and teacher populations across the nation underscore the urgent need for novice and veteran

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social studies teachers to develop positions of informed empathy, as well as their capacities to navigate curricular and pedagogical engagements with race. With over 50% of students in schools currently being young people of color and a teaching population that remains predominantly White, teacher education programs have undergone iterative adjustments over the past decade to address this demographic reality in American schools (Irvine, 2003; Sleeter, 2008). Teacher education programs across the United States have increasingly emphasized their commitment to social justice and to preparing teachers to work in diverse contexts (Gay & Kirkland, 2003; Hollins & Guzman, 2005). King and Kasun (2013) define social justice in social studies education as “the pedagogical practice of guiding students toward critically discussing, examining, and actively exploring the reasons behind social inequalities and how unjust institutional practices maintain and reproduce power and privilege that have a direct impact on students’ lives” (p. 1). The ability of social studies teachers to recognize the political nature of their work, as well as to guide students in the type of learning described by King and Kasun (2013), is deeply connected to their ability to read the historical and contemporary worlds of U.S. schooling, which includes a critical understanding of the social realities entrenched in schools, and how these realities impact the lives of students. In the context of increasingly diverse social studies classrooms, the need for teachers to develop a position of “informed empathy,” as well as the capacity to teach for social justice in social studies is inextricably bound with the need to develop a RacialPedagogical-Content Knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015). Chandler (2015) defines RPCK as a construct that “calls on teachers to have content knowledge (in the social science disciplines), pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), and working racial knowledge of how race operates within social science, from CRT [critical race theory] perspectives” (p. 5). Critical race theory (CRT) emerged from legal studies as a critique and response to the slow racial gains caused by colorblind, liberal, and meritocratic legal approaches to addressing structural inequities (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado & Stefanic, 2000). The first basic premise of CRT posits “racism [as] normal, not aberrant in American society. Because racism is an ingrained feature of our landscape, it looks ordinary and natural to persons in the culture” (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000, p. xvi). The ever-mutating nature of racism has enabled it to adapt and persist by way of laws that prohibit racial discrimination, but do little to combat subliminally racist aggressions. Another key tenet of CRT is recognizing race as a social construction and the ways it has been used to develop and maintain systems of power in the United States that have disproportionately impacted and harmed people of color. In her application of CRT to the field of social studies, Ladson-Billings (2003) explains, “In the case of social studies, CRT examines the way racism

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is made invisible through the curriculum, participation in the profession, and its policies. CRT can serve as an analytic tool to explain the systemic omissions, distortions and lies that plague the field” (p. 9). Nelson & Pang (2006) have discussed the ways in which dominant forms of social studies curricula have worked to uphold and perpetuate oppressive institutional and ideological systems within the United States, while Howard (2004) names social studies as the “ideal” subject area to “engage students in debate about race and racism” (p. 485). Camangian (2015) describes the curricula and policies in urban schools as persistently “irrelevant and culturally hostile,” thus failing to provide “critical spaces where young people of color can deconstruct racialized identities and historically oppressive relationships” (p. 39). Interrogating the consequences of intense urban poverty in schools located in low-income communities of color, Fine, Burnes, Payne, and Torre (2004) write that “the spirits and souls of poor and working-class urban youth of color, and their educators, are assaulted in ways that bear academic, psychological, social, economic, and perhaps, also, criminal justice consequences” (p. 2193). Fine et al. (2004) further contend “poor and working-class youth of color are reading these conditions of their schools as evidence of their social disposability and evidence of public betrayal” (p. 2194). Thus, many of the young people attending high-need schools across the nation are viscerally aware of the dehumanizing structural violence that is being inflicted upon their bodies, minds, and hearts by way of irrelevant curriculum, discriminatory disciplinary practices, and lack of sufficient resources. With regard to the working racial knowledge that must necessarily be developed in RPCK, social studies teachers must employ a CRT lens to recognize the ways in which race and racism have been central organizing principles in persistent instances of systemic dehumanization within the context of American public education and curriculum (Omi & Winant, 2014). RPCK is multidimensional framework and approach to social studies teaching and learning that involves self-reflection, curriculum development, and pedagogical implementation. In the following paragraphs, I will explain some of the key structural considerations and processes involved in efforts to affectively and effectively develop and engage RPCK in social studies classrooms. A key area where social studies teachers must recognize the power and impact of race is in the content of social studies and how content knowledge in the social studies has been shaped by the legacies of racism and oppression, and how these legacies continue to permeate the field today. The United States is a nation that was developed through explicit acts of dehumanization from the moment of its founding. From the violent displacement and dispossession of Indigenous lands to the legally sanctioned enslavement of African human bodies to the strict legal boundaries of American citizenship and subsequent rights, the persistent struggle for

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various populations of color to exist as humans in the United States is deeply interwoven with racially disproportionate federal, state, and local level policies, practices, and beliefs (Lopez, 2006; Takaki, 2008). Understanding the roles that race and racism played during these formative moments throughout U.S. history is necessary for contextualizing the racial politics and climate of the present, yet numerous studies of social studies curricula have revealed that explicit treatments of race and racism continue to be downplayed or completely absent (Ladson-Billings, 2003; Sleeter, 2011; Vasquez-Heilig, Brown, & Brown, 2012). Focusing on the institutional power of archives as active producers of privileged historical knowledge and facts, Trouillot (2012) poignantly discusses the ways in which historical silencing and signification have occurred at various levels in the production of history and how “they [archives] convey authority and set the rules for credibility and interdependence; they help select the stories that matter” (p. 52). Trouillot’s (2012) work remains salient in the present context of the Black Lives Matter movement; both in terms of the ways in which events and facts are being “archived,” as well as the implications for RPCK in social studies curriculum and practice. Viscerally audible in the anguished chants of “I can’t breathe” and “Say her name” during the recent Black Lives Matter protests across the nation, were the intergenerational echoes of the violent silencing and extermination of Black voice and life throughout local and global history. Every social movement, including Black Lives Matter, share an ideological grounding in the collective struggle to be able to live and breathe as human beings. Contending that the renewal of our past horrors can only occur in the present, Trouillot (2012) continues: “Thus, even in relation to The Past our authenticity resides in the struggles of our present. Only in the present can we be true or false to the past we choose to acknowledge ” (p. 151). As Trouillot (2012) illuminates a powerful political force in the production of what constitutes “historical knowledge,” his insights also shed light on the ways in which political forces in the present, including teachers’ curricular choices, inform the teaching of social studies in middle and high school classrooms. Trouillot’s (2012) work thus compels those of us in social studies education to confront and interrogate that which we consider “content knowledge,” especially with regard to the historical narratives with which we engage and prioritize in classrooms, while also working to deconstruct the influence of historical and contemporary political forces upon our varied curricular enactments and pedagogical approaches. In this regard, CRT’s theme of revisionist history, which “reexamines American’s historical record, replacing comforting majoritarian interpretation of events with ones that square more accurately with minorities’ experiences” (Delgado & Stefanic, 2012, p. 20), provides social studies teachers with an additional analytic tool with which to consider and search for the historical silences

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related to race within their current content knowledge and perceptions about what constitutes history. Not only must social studies teachers grapple with how to both conceptualize and teach about race-related content; they must also wrestle with the range of emotions that are inevitably invoked by engaging in critical inquiries about race and racism. Matias (2016) explains the importance of recognizing the various ways in which emotions are intimately tethered to and influenced by societal structures, such as racism, and that denial of these emotions serves to reify oppressive structures including, but not limited to White supremacy. Thus, at its core, RPCK centers on an affective, self-reflexive, race-based inquiry akin to the types of race-based inquiry learning experiences developed and discussed by the contributing authors to this volume. As such, the act of developing and implementing lessons about race in our classrooms necessitates a number of prerequisites on behalf of teachers. The work of developing RPCK must begin with a deep exploration and interrogation of our personal biographies, as well as our personal feelings about approaches to both curricular engagements with race and the students that we teach. As educators, we often get locked into notions about understanding and gathering the “strategies” and the “methods” that we need to know in order to be effective educators. What is missing in this approach is a critical development of the affective qualities necessary for engaging in not only lessons about race, but of the very acts of teaching and learning with diverse groups of young human beings. The ongoing acquisition and development of RPCK must thus be recognized as more than a skillset, rather, we must treat RPCK as a way of being and moving through the politically and racially contentious work of social studies education and relentlessly work to do so from a place of informed empathy for the young people in our classrooms. Effectively developing the affective dimensions of RPCK requires teachers to engage in critical self-reflection about the various emotions that we experience as educators and how those emotions have been shaped and informed by our experiences and worldviews. Howard (2010) explains: Critical self-reflection on race and culture within a diverse cultural context requires education practitioners and researchers to engage in one of the most difficult processes for all individuals: honest self-assessment, critique, and evaluation of one’s own thoughts, behaviors, cultural patterns, methods of expression, and cultural knowledge and ways of being. (p. 114)

Critical self-reflection on race for social studies teachers should begin with an honest assessment of the role that race has played in our respective lives. It is necessary, for instance, to take some time to reflect upon our earliest race-related memories. More important than naming the racialized dimensions of race-related encounters or experiences, is being able to reflect

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upon the emotions that were engendered by these experiences. Emotions such as shame, guilt, pain, fear, confusion, and anger are the most common emotions named among teachers with whom I’ve worked when sharing their earliest race-related memories. An explicit analysis of our emotional responses to race helps us to better recognize the relationship between human emotions and social structures, and most importantly, the necessary role that emotions play in the work of racial justice. Matias (2016) explains: The emotional openness so needed to proudly simultaneously resist and endure racism—and find love within a racist state of life—must still be felt in its entirety lest we succumb to an anesthetic life, forever numb to feel. For that matter, how can these individuals expect to be committed to antiracism—moreover, racial justice in any form—if they cannot: (a) feel their emotions, (b) recognize their emotions, (c) understand from where these emotions stem, nor (d) develop the emotional ovaries to withstand the ups and downs of discussing race? In this lack of understanding and disregard of our own emotionalities—moreover, our inability to even identify these emotionalities—misconceptions of them arise, tightening the shackles of racism even more. (p. 3)

Recognizing and confronting our respective proximities and distances to systems of privilege and oppression must therefore begin with honest exploration of our emotions and biographies. Being able to analyze our emotional responses to our earliest race-related memories may also better position us to recognize our own triggers around racially contentious conversations or interactions in classrooms in the present, and learn to treat them as moments of possibilities to courageously engage, rather than flee. These emotions might be triggered in a classroom by way of historical and contemporary curricular inquiries when students pose questions like, “Why did slavery happen?” or “Why do they[cops] keep killing us [Black people]?” Stevenson (2014) discusses both the unique and varied attributes and consequences of the racial stress that can often occur in the minds and hearts of teachers. He writes: How one navigates the stress of teaching for the first time is not the same as how one navigates the stress of teaching Black students for the first time if one’s concerns about racial matters preoccupy the teacher–-student relationship or the teacher’s perception of his or her abilities. (p. 38)

Not only does racial stress impact how teachers engage with and implement social studies curriculum, but racial stress also impacts how teachers interact with students. If teachers feel pressure to always have all of the “right” answers, as opposed to engaging in a collective critical inquiry with our students, then it inhibits our ability to confront, combat, navigate, and

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interrupt racially stressful encounters in the classroom. In his earlier discussion of pedagogical content knowledge, Shulman (1986) highlighted the importance of a teacher’s confidence in both the art of pedagogy and in the content; when we add a racial dimension to what teachers are tasked with navigating in classrooms, there comes an inevitable unpredictability and uncertainty that must be embraced. In a study of teachers’ and adolescents’ conceptions of historical significance, Levstik (2000) discusses the conundrum that many teachers of history face when confronting issues of racial injustice in the past: Several [teachers] declared that they didn’t see color in their classrooms and couldn’t imagine discussing with their students how color was used to construct racial categories in the United States. They were aware that injustices happened in the past but were terrified of what they might unleash by speaking about them in the present. In response, they chose silence. (p. 297)

That the teachers in Levstik’s (2000) study were clearly aware of racial injustices in the past and “terrified” of merely introducing those topics in the present belies their claims of colorblindness and instead illuminates the ways in which their anxieties about confronting racial issues in the classroom ultimately result in a curricular silence. Stevenson (2014) argues that intentional avoidance is one of the dominant coping mechanisms among teachers who experience fear, stress, and feelings of inadequacy around issues of race. This begs painful questions around the messages that these curricular silences and instances of avoidance during palpable moments of racial stress, send to our students. In addition to actively confronting and wrestling with our own personal feelings about race, it is just as important to consider and learn about our students’ feelings about and experiences with race and racism. Howard (2010) argues, “educators must be willing to see how race shapes the way in which many young people understand their worlds and how the world shapes understanding of themselves as racial beings” (p. 121). In discussing the institutionalized terror of White supremacy and its impact upon students of color, Matias (2014) writes: The terror of racism becomes real in America, and in this terror is real fear. Therefore, it is irresponsible to believe that such terror does not seep into the daily routines of the classroom. For a student of color, terror can exist when traveling to and from school with the surveillance of racial profiling or sitting inside school where one is presumed pathologically deficient. In fact, after the release of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, students can also be deemed “suspect” for something as simple as wearing hoodie. (p. 147)

“Do You Feel Me?”    53

Recognizing and learning about the current racial realities faced by students of color is thus an integral affective component of RPCK development and practice, as well as one of the most vital responsibilities of current social studies educators. RPCK requires a persistently evolving and working knowledge of both systems of race, as well as how these systems influence policies, practices, and beliefs about youth of color in schools. It is important to note that this balance also requires teachers to develop authentic caring relationships with students (Valenzuela, 2010). Valenzuela (2010) explicates how “authentic caring” is rooted in relational reciprocity between teachers and students, and a genuine acceptance of students’ backgrounds, values, and contextual lived experiences; whereas “aesthetic caring” is rooted solely in instructional practice and interactions. Simply put: “Teachers have a tremendous responsibility and obligation to earn the trust of students from diverse backgrounds” (Howard, 2010, p. 120). Because curricular and pedagogical engagements with race and racism cannot be safe due to the regressive violence embedded in social studies curriculum and the humanistic violence that is necessary to combat and transform this condition (King, 2015), the urgent need for trust and authentic caring in social studies classrooms becomes even more acute. The current political and racial climate in the United States also begs social studies teachers to develop an acceptance of and compassionate sensibility about the ways in which race and racism impact the lives of their students. Teachers must work to develop quality relationships with their students and enact curriculum that actively engages the expertise of students’ lived experiences with an analysis of the historical and contemporary functions of race and racism. Placing value on the affective domains of social studies teaching requires what Ginwright (2015) refers to as a “dramatic shift in thinking from technical pedagogy, which focuses on what teachers should know and what teachers should do, to relational pedagogy, which focuses on who teachers should be” (p. 89, emphasis in original). As such, we need to re-imagine the inevitable and necessary range of emotions—in ourselves and in our students—that often accompany explicit curricular and pedagogical engagements with race and racism as moments of radical possibilities to expand and develop RPCK and a position of informed empathy, in order to better meet the needs of our students. Embracing the affective dimensions of RPCK and relational pedagogy is a necessary step towards effectively engaging RPCK as a way to promote radical healing (Ginwright, 2010; Ginwright, 2015) in social studies classrooms. Ginwright (2010) defines radical healing as follows: Radical healing involves building the capacity of young people to act upon their environment in order to create the type of communities in which they want to live. By integrating issues of power, history, self-identity, and the possi-

54    C. SHIAO-MEI VILLARREAL bility of collective agency and struggle, radical healing rebuilds communities, to foster hope and political possibilities for young people. (p. 12)

Ginwright’s (2010) framework of radical healing explicitly focuses on practices that produce and sustain hope and healing as political acts. Ginwright (2010) conceptualizes racism, fear, shame, and violence as some of the key social toxins that youth of color living in dense urban poverty are forced to confront. The process of radical healing helps youth to develop a critical awareness and historical knowledge of the various social toxins that they encounter, so that they may better contextualize and analyze their impact upon their lives, in order to engage in collective action to transform the conditions produced by social toxins (Ginwright, 2010). Bridging this framework with RPCK and race-based inquiry can further shift the affective dimensions of social studies teaching and learning. Nelson & Pang (2006) contend that social studies classrooms are the spaces best suited to cultivate a critical analysis of race in order to develop the tools necessary for social action and change. Our task as social studies teachers is to provide our students with the analytical tools necessary for examining and contextualizing the world that surrounds them. Race-based inquiry in social studies can provide students with the goggles necessary to see their world as it is, and for urban youth of color especially, this necessitates a critical curricular engagement with issues of race and racism. Weaving the key features and principles of radical healing into the culture and curriculum of social studies classrooms extends the goals of race-based inquiry to include the development of healthy relationships and well-being for young people. The five features of radical healing are: culture, agency, relationships, meaning, and achievement (CARMA). Ginwright’s (2015) following discussion of each feature further highlights the prospects of affectively engaging RPCK as a transformative move toward radical healing. Ginwright (2015) explains CARMA: • Culture: Serves as an anchor to connect young people to a racial and ethnic identity that is both historically grounded and contemporarily relevant. This view of culture embraces the importance of a healthy ethnic identity for youth of color while at the same time celebrates the vibrancy and ingenuity of urban youth culture. • Agency: Agency is the individual and collective ability to act, create, and change external and personal issues. Agency compels youth to explore their personal power to transform problems into possibilities. • Relationships: Relationships are the capacity to create, sustain, and grow healthy connections with others. Relationships build a deep sense of connection and prepare youth to know themselves as part of a long history of struggle and triumph.

“Do You Feel Me?”    55

• Meaning: Meaning is discovering our purpose and building an awareness of our role in advancing justice. Meaning builds an awareness of the intersections of personal and political life by pushing youth to understand how personal struggles have profound political explanations. • Achievement: Achievement illuminates life’s possibilities and acknowledges movement toward explicit goals. Achievement means to understand oppression, but not be defined by it and encourages youth to explore possibilities for their lives, and work toward personal and collective advancement. (pp. 25–26) The ongoing development and strengthening of RPCK is thus a necessary prerequisite and foundational approach for social studies teachers that seek to authentically integrate the five features of radical healing into their daily work. For instance, helping students in their journeys toward developing healthy racial and ethnic identities necessitates both a working racial knowledge of how race operates from multiple vantage points, as well as a position of informed empathy toward their daily-lived realities. Engaging the principle of “agency” requires teachers to critically recognize the root causes of structural oppression, such as racism that necessitate transformation. Simultaneously, teachers also need to develop their own affective abilities to understand the individual realities, hopes, and fears of their students in order to effectively play a role in helping them to realize and release their capacity to “explore their personal power to transform problems into possibilities” (Ginwright, 2015, p. 25). Preparing young people to connect their experiences to histories of struggles and triumph requires social studies teachers to purposefully engage CRT’s tenet of counter-storytelling and counternarratives to counteract the consequences of historical silencing within the dominant curriculum, while creating opportunities for students to learn about various human populations beyond superficial titles and shallow treatments of historical events and processes (Ginwright, 2015). Building opportunities for students to recognize how their personal struggles connect to political life and advancements for justice and possibilities for transforming oppressive conditions, requires curriculum that teaches the histories and complexities of oppressive systems, such as racism, with the purposeful intention of guiding students toward understanding how these systems were constructed and how they may thereby be deconstructed. Racism remains one of the most debilitating diseases that afflict our society and healing can only occur through accurate diagnosis and active intervention and eradication. The best doctors are the ones who listen to their patients through a lens of informed empathy. They possess a strong knowledge of their patients’ histories and are thus able to affectively and effectively diagnose and prescribe the necessary treatments. Our work as

56    C. SHIAO-MEI VILLARREAL

social studies teachers must be approached and treated with the same sense of urgency and care as that of the medical profession. If we are to enact “race lessons” in social studies classrooms, we must first reject false notions of neutrality by historicizing the roles of race and racism through a CRT lens. At its very core and development as a social construct, there was nothing neutral about race. It was steeped in the manifestations of the most horrific aspects of the human condition. Engaging in lessons about race requires teachers to push themselves and their students to forefront the psychosocial and emotional dimensions of racism, along with its ever-mutating structure and status. In this way, we must recognize and treat RPCK as a framework for social studies that is less about prioritizing an encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to race (this racial knowledge, as with all content knowledge, is built over time), and is more importantly an audacious approach to teaching and learning about race and racism in social studies in ways that push us to honor and embrace the inevitable emotions engendered by critical engagements and confrontations with race as necessary steps towards positioning ourselves to authentically teach for social justice and change. In doing so, we might better understand and prioritize the prospects of fostering social studies classrooms as spaces to engage the principles of radical healing. My sincere hope is that the ideas, lessons, and narratives shared in this book will inspire social studies teachers to embrace the varied dimensions of love, hope, anxiety, pain, joy, and fear during every moment spent in classrooms with young people as a necessary part of developing RPCK and engaging in lessons about race and racism. We must work to recognize that our greatest challenge is less about perfecting the effective professional contours of our roles as social studies teachers, and that it is more importantly about developing our affective capacities to connect as human beings with our students in our collective struggle for justice. REFERENCES Camangian, P. R. (2015). Teach like lives depend on it agitate, arouse, and inspire. Urban Education, 50(4), 424–453. Chandler, P. T. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K, (Eds.). (1995).  Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York, NY: The New Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2000). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: NYU Press.

“Do You Feel Me?”    57 Fine, M., Burns, A., Payne, Y., & Torre, M. E. (2004). Civics lessons: The color and class of betrayal. In L.Weis & M.Fine (Eds.), Working method: Research and social justice (pp. 53–77). New York, NY: Routledge. Gay, G., & Kirkland, K. (2003). Developing cultural critical consciousness and selfreflection in preservice teacher education. Theory Into Practice, 42(3), 181–187. Ginwright, S. A. (2010). Black youth rising: Activism and radical healing in urban America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Ginwright, S. (2015). Hope and healing in urban education: How urban activists and teachers are reclaiming matters of the heart. New York, NY: Routledge. Hollins, E. R., & Guzman, M. T. (2005). Research on preparing teachers for diverse populations. In M. Cochran-Smith & K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education (pp. 477–548). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Howard, T. C. (2004). “Does race really matter?” Secondary students’ constructions of racial dialogue in the social studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(4), 484–502. Howard, T. C. (2010). Why race and culture matter in schools: Closing the achievement gap in America’s classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Irvine, J. J. (2003). Educating teachers for diversity: Seeing with a cultural eye (Vol. 15). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. King, L. (2015). Foreword. In P. T. Chandler, (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. ix–xii). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. King, L., & Kasun, G. S. (2013). Food for thought: A framework for social justice in social studies education. Focus on Middle Schools, 25(3), 1–4. Ladson-Billings, G. (2003). Lies my teacher still tells: Developing a critical race perspective toward the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum (pp. 1–12). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). Yes, but how do we do it? Practicing culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. Landsman & C. W. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers/diverse classrooms: A guide to building inclusive schools, promoting high expectations, and eliminating racism (pp. 29–42). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Levstik, L. S. (2000). Articulating the silences: Teachers’ and adolescents’ conceptions of historical significance. In P. N. Stearns, P. Seixas, & S. Wineburg (Eds.), Knowing, teaching, and learning history: National and international perspectives (pp. 284–305). New York, NY: New York University Press. Lopez, I. H. (2006). White by law: The legal construction of race. New York, NY: New York University Press. Matias, C. E. (2014). And our feelings just don’t feel it anymore”: Re-feeling Whiteness, resistance, and emotionality. Understanding and Dismantling Privilege, 4(2), 134–153. Matias, C. E. (2016). Feeling White: Whiteness, emotionality, and education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense. Nelson, J. L., & Pang, V. O. (2006). Racism, prejudice, and the social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities, (pp. 115–135). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

58    C. SHIAO-MEI VILLARREAL Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial formation in the United States (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. Sleeter, C. (2008). Equity, democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(8), 1947–1957. Sleeter, C. E. (2011). The academic and social value of ethnic studies: A research review. National Education Association Research Department. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/NBI-2010-3-value-of-ethnic-studies.pdf Stevenson, H. C. (2014). Promoting racial literacy in schools: Differences that make a difference. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Takaki, R. (2008). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. (Rev. ed.). Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. Trouillot, M. R. (2012). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Valenzuela, A. (2010). Subtractive schooling: US–Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany: State University of New York Press. Vasquez Heilig, J., Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2012). The illusion of inclusion: A critical race theory textual analysis of race and standards. Harvard Educational Review, 82(3), 403–424.

SECTION II INQUIRY-BASED RACE LESSONS IN SOCIAL STUDIES

CHAPTER 5

TEACHING RACIAL INEQUITY THROUGH THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH Christopher C. Martell Boston University Jennifer R. Bryson Boston University William C. Chapman-Hale Frank M. Sokolowski Elementary School

ABSTRACT From an early age, children recognize differences in skin color, and by the early elementary grades, students are beginning to make sense of race and detect racism. Elementary teachers who intentionally make their classroom a place for students to investigate racial inequity tap into their students’ burgeoning understandings of race and racism and help students better understand the causes of discrimination and how people can work against systems of oppression. However, examples of lessons on race outside of a few elementary social studies units of study (e.g., Wampanoag and Pilgrims, slavery, the modern civil rights movement) are rare. This chapter uses the California Race Lessons, pages 61–74 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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62    C. C. MARTELL, J. R. BRYSON, and W. C. CHAPMAN-HALE Gold Rush as an event that should make race and inequity the focus of a historical inquiry. It includes an engaging opener that simulates the racial caste system of 1850s California and has students “do history” by asking them to construct an argument based on the evidence found in captivating primary sources. Although intended for grades 3–5, the lesson plan can be adapted for middle and high school students.

OVERVIEW Children recognize differences in skin color as young as age three (Tatum, 1997), student-initiated questions and discussions about race are common in elementary schools (Bolgatz, 2005; Martell, 2017), and by the early elementary grades, students are beginning to make sense of race and detect racism (Tatum, 1997). Yet, elementary teachers are often reluctant to approach topics of race in their classrooms, which is often due to a lack of comfort with the topic (Brown & Brown, 2011) or a desire to protect a presumed innocence of elementary-aged children ( James, 2008). However, there is strong evidence that when elementary teachers intentionally make their classroom a place for students to investigate racial inequity, they tap into their students’ burgeoning understandings of race and racism (Bolgatz, 2005; Brown & Brown, 2011; Martell, 2017). When social studies inquiries focus on racial inequity, they can provide powerful experiences that help students better understand the causes of discrimination, but also the ways that people in the past and present work against systems of oppression (Bolgatz, 2005; Brown & Brown, 2011; Chandler, 2015). As younger children are beginning to make sense of the larger world around them, it is important that teachers make learning about race and its relationship to inequity a primary part of the elementary curriculum. At the elementary-level, the topic of race typically only appears in a handful of curriculum units (e.g., the first interactions between the Wampanoag and Pilgrims, slavery, and the modern civil rights movement). This places race in the margins of the curriculum and sends a subtle message that race only mattered at a few points in history, or worse, racism was a problem of the past that was solved a long time ago. It is crucial that race becomes a regular component of the elementary social studies curriculum and is integrated within all units of study. This chapter’s lesson plan is built around three main assertions of critical race theory (CRT; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). CRT-oriented lesson plans should emphasize the following: • a focus on the role that race plays in determining past and present inequity,

Teaching Racial Inequity Through the California Gold Rush    63

• an emphasis on questioning the prioritization of property rights over human rights, and • a development of students’ abilities to use the intersection of race and property as a tool to analyze inequity. While a teacher may teach social studies lessons about race, it does not have to necessarily focus on inequity. For instance, a lesson may focus on racial tolerance or helping students from different racial backgrounds learn to live together. Instead, CRT-oriented lesson plans have students use race and property as an analytical tool, while focusing on social inequity and the prioritization of property over human rights. We advocate that teachers move away from a tolerance-oriented and toward an equity-oriented view of teaching race in elementary social studies. We provide this lesson as an example of that shift. Additionally, social studies lessons about race may lack the perspectives of, and narratives/counternarratives from, people of color (Chandler, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1998). For instance, race-related lessons may present predominantly White perspectives of the experiences of people of color or primary sources only written or created by White people. This lesson highlights one way to build an equity-oriented view of race into elementary social studies by carefully including the perspectives and narratives of people of color, moving their voices to the center of the curriculum. This may often be difficult for teachers, as the primary and secondary sources that exist are often created or written by those in power. As such, it may be difficult to find primary and secondary sources from diverse racial perspectives for a given topic. To represent narratives/counternarratives from people of color, teachers may need to dig deep into the historical archives and, in some cases, use or create historical fiction that represents perspectives that were discarded or erased from the historical record. Finally, social studies lessons about race may present racism as abnormal individual acts and part of a historical narrative of progress, where racism becomes simply part of the “low-points” of history and destined to be corrected overtime. This lesson instead presents racism as long being part of the American story and as a normal part of past and presentday American life (Chandler, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1998). By providing a CRT-oriented social studies lesson on a topic that is typically viewed as “race-less,” this chapter provides an example of how we can ask students to consider how social structures, definitions of citizenship, and discrimination in employment opportunities impact racial inequity in the past and present.

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Race and the Gold Rush The California Gold Rush is a standard component of most elementary social studies curricula. It is not uncommon for students to learn about the 49ers and their exploration for gold, sometimes through hands-on activities where students pan for gold. Yet, there is a major part of the Gold Rush that is rarely taught in schools, specifically the racial segregation and inequity that was prevalent in 1850s California. If you ask an elementary school student to describe the Gold Rush after studying it, it is very possible she or he will mention panning for gold, working long and hard days in the hot California summer, the mad-dash to prospect a piece of land, or perhaps the clothes, tools, and even the beards that 49ers commonly had. If you do an Internet search for teaching the Gold Rush, many of the resources and lesson plans lead you to believe that only Whites inhabited California during the period, leading many teachers and students to assume that all of the miners were White men and that everyone had an equal chance to strike it rich. Yet, that is not an accurate depiction. In 1846, the United States acquired California from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. At the time, California’s population of 157,200 was about 96% Indigenous people, 4% Californios (Californian-born Mexicans), and 0.4% foreigners (primarily Anglos or English-speaking White Americans; Cheng, Longsworth, & Pachter, 2006). Two years later, in 1848, gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. By 1852, census records listed that of the 260,000 people in California, 70% were Anglos; 10% Spanish-speaking (including Californios, Spanish, Mexicans, Chileans, and Peruvians); 10% Chinese (possibly including small populations of other Asian ethnic groups); 9% Indigenous people; and 1% African Americans (California population, n.d.). This shift in population was the result of four major events: westward migration of White Americans, disease and violence that devastated the Indigenous people, the annexation of California by the United States, and the Gold Rush that was publicized throughout the world. During the Gold Rush, California law sanctioned racial discrimination. Once the United States acquired California, Anglos established a territorial government (and after 1850, a state government) and made various laws that segregated and discriminated against the other groups living there. In 1850, the state legislature passed the Indenture Act (officially titled an “Act for the Government and Protection of Indians”; Act for the Government, 1850), which forced Indigenous people onto reservations and essentially enslaved anyone deemed to be a “vagrant Indian” (Johnson-Dobbs, 2002). Latinos, who had long made California their home, faced persecution often at the hands of White vigilantes and gangs. This violence was further fueled by stories about bandidos (of the most famous was the legend of Joaquín Murieta). While there were Mexican guerillas during this period, their presence was dramatically overstated (Cheng et al., 2006). The oppression of Chinese

Teaching Racial Inequity Through the California Gold Rush    65

miners began with their first arrival to California and included restrictions on where they could mine, prohibitions on their ability to testify in court (Cheng et al., 2006), and eventually, disallowing their citizenship through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (National Archives and Records Administration, 1989). During this period, both Latinos (especially immigrants from Chile and Perú, who were miners in their homelands) and the Chinese faced a steep Foreign Miners Tax on any gold that they found (Cheng et al., 2006). Additionally, many African Americans, often freemen from the northern states (as well as a smaller number of slaves brought by their masters), traveled to California in search of gold. However, when they arrived, they found similar types of discrimination as back home (Cheng et al., 2006). Content: U.S. History, California Gold Rush Connections to CRT: Race as Property, Revisionism/Historical Context Connections to the State and National Standards Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework MA HSS-USI.26.I: Describe the causes, course, and consequences of America’s westward expansion and its growing diplomatic assertiveness. Use a map of North America to trace America’s expansion to the Civil War, including the location of the Santa Fe and Oregon trails (including the search for gold in California). California History–Social Science Content Standards 4.3: Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework: D2.His.10.3-5: Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past. LESSON PLAN Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Did some groups benefit more than others from the California Gold Rush?

Standards and Practices

D2.His.10.3-5: Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past.

Staging the Question

Complete a California Gold Rush simulation to answer the question: Did a person’s race or ethnicity impact their ability to be successful during the Gold Rush?

66    C. C. MARTELL, J. R. BRYSON, and W. C. CHAPMAN-HALE Supporting Question 1 What different groups participated in the California Gold Rush and how did their experiences differ?

Supporting Question 2 What advantages and disadvantages did each group face during the California Gold Rush?

Formative Performance Task Share with the class initial answer to Supporting Question 1.

Formative Performance Task Create a two-column list of advantages and disadvantages for each group during the California Gold Rush.

Supporting Question 3 Should the California Gold Rush be remembered for a time when anyone could strike it rich or a time when there was inequity between groups? Formative Performance Task Make a list of the possible arguments for California being a time of individual prosperity and a time of inequity between groups.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: Lease agreement between Sutter & Marshall and the Yalesummi Tribe Source F: Photograph: “Gum Shan Meets El Dorado” Source G: Thomas Gilman bill of sale Source H: Painting of Joaquín Murietta

Source A: Lease agreement between Sutter & Marshall and the Yalesummi Tribe Source F: Photograph: “Gum Shan Meets El Dorado” Source G: Thomas Gilman bill of sale Source H: Painting of Joaquín Murietta

Source A: Lease agreement between Sutter & Marshall and the Yalesummi Tribe Source B: Letter from Sutter to Gov. Mason Source C: Painting: San Francisco after the Gold Rush Source D: Mining company charter Source E: Letter from Kerr to Ellis Source F: Photograph: “Gum Shan Meets El Dorado” Source G: Thomas Gilman bill of sale Source H: Painting of Joaquín Murietta

Argument

Using at least 3 pieces of evidence from the sources, write a paragraph answering the question: Did some groups benefit more than others from the California Gold Rush?

Extension

Research a current issue of racial inequity, and write a persuasive letter to a member of your state’s legislature proposing a law that could help make your state a more equitable place.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Understand the historical inequity during the California Gold Rush. Assess: Examine a present day issue of racial inequity in your state. Compare that current day issue to the conditions of the California Gold Rush. Are there similar political, social, economic, and environmental conditions that divide racial groups? Act: Write a persuasive letter to a member of your state’s legislature proposing a law that could help make your state a more equitable place.

Teaching Racial Inequity Through the California Gold Rush    67

LESSON PLAN NARRATIVE Opening This lesson plan begins with the teacher leading students in a brief brainstorming session around what they already know about the California Gold Rush, where she or he lists their ideas on the board. Next, the teacher should introduce the compelling question to students: “Did some groups benefit more than others from the California Gold Rush?” Next, the teacher will begin the gold hunt simulation activity. Without the students’ knowledge, the teacher should hide small pieces of gold around the classroom (we have found that small gold spray-painted rocks really do the trick). The teacher will then reveal that there is “Gold in the hills of our classroom! And it is your job to find it. However, in this society, California of early 1850s, different groups had to abide by different rules and laws.” Before the gold hunt, the teacher should lead the students in a read-aloud with images in a storybook-style or slideshow format: Many gold miners arrived by sea, most from the East Coast through the Isthmus of Panama or, if arriving from Asia or Latin America, by the Pacific Ocean (would be helpful to show students on a map). In fact, there was such a mad rush, many ships were simply abandoned once they reached San Francisco. Others traveled overland on trails across the continental United States. The gold-seekers, called “49ers,” a reference to 1849, which was the year that many arrived in California to find gold, often faced hardships on their trip. While most of the newly arrived were Anglos, or English-speaking White Americans, the Gold Rush attracted thousands of people from Latin America, China, Europe, and African Americans from the East Coast. At first, the 49ers found gold in streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning, where they would wash gravel in a pan to separate out the gold. Later, other methods of gold mining were used that made it easier to mine the gold, such as digging with picks or using water cannons. While a small group of gold miners became very wealthy, especially in the early days, the real money was to be made by selling gold mining equipment, such as pans, picks, camp supplies, and work clothes. In fact, this is when Levi Strauss first started selling his now well-known blue jeans. (Cheng et al., 2006)

The teacher should then assign students at random to be in one of five groups, the Anglos, Yalesummi and Pomo, Latinos, Chinese, and African Americans. Each student should be given a badge (or, even better, a historically accurate flag or symbol) identifying her or his ethnic or racial group. The teacher should explain that each group must obey the following directions while looking for gold:

68    C. C. MARTELL, J. R. BRYSON, and W. C. CHAPMAN-HALE Anglo Miners: The Anglos were often the first to show up to a mining site. As a result, government of California and the laws favored them. If you are assigned to this group, you should simply look everywhere by wandering around the classroom. Latino Miners: Latinos (primarily Californios, Mexicans, Chileans, and Peruvians) were the second group to arrive (or, if they were originally from California, already living there). They were often more skilled than the Anglos (especially the Chileans and Peruvians, because many of them were already miners back home). At the same time Latinos faced discrimination from Whites who ran the government of California and rumors of Latinos being “bandidos” or bandits who stole gold were common (Cheng et al., 2006). You should stay at least 10 feet away from any Anglos. If you do not keep your distance, Anglos can yell “bandidos” and take your gold. It is recommended that you focus in on a specific area of the room and only spend your time in that area scouring over every crevice. By doing this, your hard work is much more likely to help you find Gold. Yalesummi and Pomo Miners: The Indigenous people of northern California had a long history of poor treatment by Europeans (first by the Spanish missionaries and later by the Anglo settlers). During the Gold Rush, many Yalesummi and Pomo people had their land taken, or were taken as slaves and forced to do work in the gold fields. As a result, you will begin with the Anglos miners, but you will have to give Whites any of the gold that you find. It is estimated that 100,000 native people died in the first two years of the Gold Rush as the result of violence and disease, while many others Indigenous people lost everything they had (Cheng et al., 2006). Chinese Miners: The distance of the Pacific Ocean meant that many Chinese miners did not arrive until later. Additionally, Whites banned Chinese miners from mining new land (Cheng et al., 2006). So, for you, there will be a oneminute delayed start. You may only look for gold in places that the Whites have finished looking. Yet, by searching hard in places where no one is looking, you may still find more gold than the other groups. African American Miners: While some African Americans were slaves brought by their masters to California, most were freeman who came to earn an income and escape their poor treatment back east. However, much like Latino miners, African Americans faced discrimination (Cheng et al., 2006). Most of the group (3/4th) will be freemen from northern states, who, like the Chinese miners, can only mine in places with permission of the Anglo miners. The rest of the group (1/4th) will be enslaved and they will need to follow the same rules as the Yalesummi and Pomo miners, and forced to give Whites any gold you find.

After the students know this information, they should have about 10 minutes to search for gold, with the teacher monitoring the activity to ensure they are following the rules. Although this simulation may play-out slightly different each time, in the many years of using this lesson, we have found

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that usually the Anglos end up with the most gold, with the other groups varying based on their diligence. However, the amount of gold that each group finds is less important than the discussion of the activity afterward. Development: Supporting Question 1 The teacher will then pose the Supporting Question 1: “What different groups participated in the California Gold Rush and how did their experiences differ?” This will be followed by the distribution of four documents that highlight the various experiences of each group (Sources A, F, G, and H). Source A highlights the treatment of the Native people and the position of power that Whites were in. Source F shows an interaction between White and Chinese gold miners. Source G shows a Black man, who was enslaved, purchasing his freedom from his owner, as a result of the gold he mined. Source H shows a picture of an imagined Mexican bandit, who was used to cause fear among White gold miners and other White settlers. The teacher can use a turn-and-talk activity where students will discuss with a neighbor their answer to the supporting question. The teacher will then ask students to share their conversations and attempt to draw out of the students the various complexities of each group’s experience. Development: Supporting Question 2 Next, the teacher should introduce to the class the principles of fairness—the idea that everyone should have the same chances—and inequity— the reality that sometimes communities do not treat all of their members equally, giving some groups unfair privileges. The teacher should connect these concepts to the students’ prior knowledge and ask the students to brainstorm examples of inequity found in their previous social studies or language arts units. For example, students may mention the poor treatment of the native people by European conquistadors, which they studied earlier in the year, or the poor treatment of starless-bellied sneetches in Dr. Seuss’s book, The Sneetches (1961). This would lead into the teacher reviewing the terms “advantages” and “disadvantages.” Next, the teachers will put students in groups by their assigned ethnic group from the simulation and reveal Supporting Question 2: “What advantages and disadvantages did each group face during the California Gold Rush?” The students should then make a two-column chart on easel pads listing the “advantages” and “disadvantages” for their racial group (i.e., Anglos, Yalesummi and Pomo, Latinos, Chinese, and African Americans). The students will use examples from the simulation and the same documents introduced with Supporting

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Question 1 (Sources A, F, G, and H). For example, the Chinese group may list the long distance they had to travel to get to California as a disadvantage, but their ability to look more carefully for gold than the Anglos as an advantage. The teacher should then post the charts side-by-side, allowing for a comparison followed by a discussion of the role of fairness and the inequity found during the Gold Rush. Development: Supporting Question 3 After the simulation has piqued students’ interest in the Gold Rush, the teacher will introduce Supporting Question 3: “Should the California Gold Rush be remembered for a time when anyone could strike it rich or a time when there was inequity between groups?” In small groups, students should examine all of the sources (Sources A–H), use highlighters and take notes on a graphic organizer provided by the teacher. Next, each group should create a hypothesis to answer the question based on the evidence they have read. Some groups may conclude it was mostly a time of opportunity, mostly inequity, or a little bit of both. Lastly, students should present their hypotheses and evidence to the class. Closing: Answering the Compelling Question During the closing portion of the lesson, students will move out of their groups and have a chance to make their own individual historical reading of the California Gold Rush. For the Summative Performance Task, the students will complete an exit ticket where they write their own personal response to the lesson’s compelling question: “Did some groups benefit more than others from the California Gold Rush?” The teacher will ask students to cite at least three pieces of evidence from the provided documents to support their answer. Taking Informed Action An important component of the IDM is to encourage students to take informed action, where teachers offer opportunities for thoughtful civic engagement. In this lesson, we suggest teachers have a second class, perhaps during their English language arts time, where students would apply what they learned about racial inequity during the California Gold Rush to the present day through a letter writing activity.

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The teacher would begin the class by having students brainstorm present day issues of racial inequity in their state or local community, and asking students to make connections to the conditions of the California Gold Rush. The teacher should ask probing questions—”Are there similar conditions that divide racial groups today?”—and encourage the students to consider present day political, social, economic, and environmental factors. After the students have had a chance to discuss issues of racial inequity in their community or state, the teacher should ask the students to write a persuasive letter to a member of their city/town council or state’s legislature proposing an ordinance or law that could help make their community or state a more equitable place. The students’ letters should follow the typical conventions of a political letter, including proper headings and greetings, an introduction describing their role in the community, their specific concerns related to inequity, evidence related to the problem, and what action they would like the political leader to take. TIPS AND ADVICE When selecting primary sources it is crucial that they are developmentally appropriate and accessible to the readers in your class. As a result of archaic language and other factors, the reality is that many historical artifacts (written, images, etc.) are not accessible to adults, never mind young learners. We recommend that teachers adapt documents to help their students’ access the rich content found in primary sources. Furthermore, some students, especially English language learners and students with dis/abilities, may need additional scaffolding. On the National History Education Clearinghouse website, there is an excellent teacher guide written by the Stanford History Education Group (n.d.) on adapting sources (http://teachinghistory.org/ teaching-materials/teaching-guides/23560). While many students learn about the Gold Rush, it is crucial that they are also learning about past racial inequity. Not only will this lesson help students gain a more complex view of the Gold Rush, it will help them better understand how laws were often used to give unfair advantages to some groups at the disadvantage of others. By integrating primary sources within a lesson that simulates the inequity of 1850s California, students are able to act first as historical actors and later as inquiring historians. Ultimately, teaching students about the different perspectives, past and present, of the Gold Rush, helps them broaden their understanding that past discrimination traveled eastward into the gold mines of the West.

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SOURCE NOTES Source A: Lease agreement between John Sutter & James Wilson Marshall and the Yalesummi Tribe, February 4, 1848. https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/goldrush_pic/I_img4.png In this land lease, Sutter forces the Yalesummi to rent him the land for about $100 in clothing and other assorted items. The Yalesummi are not told that there is gold on the property. While the Sutter and Marshall signed their names, the Yalesummi only made marks, showing they were unable to write (and most likely read). In the document, it is written, “The Yalesumney tribe . . . rent and lease unto Sutter and Marshall the following described tract of Land for the term of twenty years . . . [and] grant the right and privilege of cutting Lumber . . . and likewise open such mines” (Kurutz, 2016, para. 1). Source B: Unsigned letter of John A. Sutter to Governor R. B. Mason, February 22, 1848. https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/goldrush_pic/I_img5.png Sutter also writes to the governor about the agreement in Source A, saying that it “will be of great benefit to the Indians by protecting them against the wild tribes above them, [giving] them . . . food, clothing, etc. and teach them habits of [work],” but he does not mention that gold has been found at the site (Kurutz, 2016, para. 2). The governor would later reject this agreement, saying that Indians had no legal rights to sell or rent land. Source C: Painting: San Francisco after the Gold Rush, circa 1851. http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/2_4.html This web link includes a photograph of San Francisco’s port at the height of the Gold Rush. Of note, there are probably over a hundred ships docked and some have probably just been left there by their crews (Smithsonian Institution, n.d.). Source D: Salem & California Trading & Mining Expedition company charter, February 15, 1849. https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/goldrush_pic/II_img22.jpg This document shows the charter for a mining company from Massachusetts. It is written in the document, “The company, composed of 63 men, sailed out of Salem, Massachusetts. . . . The ship was later hauled up to Sacramento and converted into a prison” (Kurutz, 2016, para. 1). Many of the Anglo gold miners came from the East Coast, especially New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

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Source E: Signed letter of John M. Kerr to Dick Ellis, circa April 1849. https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/goldrush_pic/III_img7.jpg In this letter home, John Kerr describes the difficulties he faced in the gold mines, starting with “The company I started [fell apart] and we sold everything out at auction and each of us joined other companies,” and added that many miners “were perfect scrubs” and that, “Coming in town from camp I passed the resting place of several poor fellows . . . who [had] Cholera” (Kurutz, 2016, para. 1). Source F: Photograph: “Gum Shan Meets El Dorado; Head of Auburn Ravine,” circa 1852. http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/2_4.html In this photograph, three White men are pictured working alongside four Chinese men. The title includes “gum shan,” which is the Chinese phrase “gold mountain,” and “el dorado,” which is Spanish for “the golden one.” Both phrases were used to describe where gold was found (Smithsonian Institution, n.d.). Source G: J. B. Gilman [master] and Thomas Gilman [slave], signed bill of sale, August 17, 1852. https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/goldrush_pic/VII-2_img8.jpg This document records the freedom of Thomas Gilman from J. B. Gilman of Tennessee purchased for $1,000. The document says, “I, J. B. Gillman, [freed] Thomas, the said slave, from further [slavery] . . . .The 17th day of August 1852.” Many slaves were forced to purchase their freedom with the profit they made from the mines (Kurutz, 2016, para. 1). Source H: Watercolor Painting of Joaquín Murietta by Charles Christian Nahl, 1859. http://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf80001193/?brand=oac4 This is an 1859 painting by Charles Nahl of the alleged Mexican bandit Joaquín Murietta (Online Archive of California, n.d.). Historians still debate if Murietta was a real or invented person (Cheng et al., 2006). REFERENCES Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, Chap. 133, Cal. Stats., April 22, 1850 (1850). Bolgatz, J. (2005). Revolutionary talk: Elementary teacher and students discuss race in a social studies class. The Social Studies, 96(6), 259–264.

74    C. C. MARTELL, J. R. BRYSON, and W. C. CHAPMAN-HALE Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2011). Teaching K–8 students about race: African Americans, racism, and the struggle for social justice in the U.S. Multicultural Education, 19(1), 9–13. California population by ethnic groups, 1790–1880. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.museumca.org/goldrush/curriculum/1stcalifornians/resourcesix.htm Chandler, P. T. (2015). What does it mean to “do race” in social studies? In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 1–10). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Cheng, J., Longsworth, L., & Pachter, A. (Eds.). (2006). The gold rush. American Experience. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldrush/peopleevents/ e_goldrush.html Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Pub. L. No. 47-126, 22 Stat. 58. (1882). James, J. H. (2008). Teachers as protectors: Making sense of preservice teachers’ resistance to interpretation in elementary history teaching. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(3), 172–205. Johnson-Dobbs, K. (2002, September). Early California laws and policies related to California Indians. Retrieved from https://www.library.ca.gov/crb/02/14/02-014.pdf Kurutz, G. F. (2016). Exploring the California gold rush. California State Library. Retrieved from https://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/ Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(47–67), 11–30. Martell, C. C. (2017). Approaches to teaching race in elementary social studies: A case study of preservice teachers. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 41(1), 75–87. National Archives and Records Administration. (1989). Teaching with documents: Using primary sources from the national archives. Washington, DC: Author. Online Archive of California. (n.d.). Joaquin Murieta. Retrieved from http://oac. cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf80001193/?brand=oac4 Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.). To California by the sea. On the water. Retrieved from http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/2_4.html Stanford History Education Group. (n.d.). Adapting documents for the classroom: Equity and access. Retrieved from http://teachinghistory.org/teaching -materials/teaching-guides/23560 Dr. Seuss. (1961). The Sneetches and other stories. New York, NY: Random House. Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York, NY: Basic Books.

CHAPTER 6

AFRICANS IN NEW AMSTERDAM Jane Bolgatz Fordham University Tamar Brown Fordham University Emily Zweibel Collegiate School

When Ryan studied the history of New Amsterdam in second grade, he and his classmates learned about the Dutch settlers in the area that used to be Manahatta (now part of New York City). They visited local museums and a house built by European settlers. They could describe what the streets and buildings looked like after studying the Castello Plan, a 1660 map of the settlement. Ryan wrote an in-depth diary account from the point of view of Pieter, a fictional Dutch blacksmith’s apprentice. Ryan did not, however, learn about any of the Africans—free or enslaved—living in New Amsterdam. How is it that a unit that lasted weeks and included multiple field trips could ignore such important people? And how could

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Ryan’s class ignore the fact that the Dutch introduced African slavery to New Amsterdam? The inquiry in this chapter gives students a chance to see how Africans and Europeans interacted in New Amsterdam, rather than leaving Africans out of the story or relegating them to a sidebar of history (Wills and Mehan, 1996). The compelling question of the inquiry is “Why did slavery exist in New Amsterdam and how did it become race-based?” Four supporting questions help students address the compelling question: (a) “What did the Dutch West India Company (DWIC) want?,” (b) “Who built New Amsterdam?,” (c) “How did enslaved Africans resist?,” and (d) “How is race socially and historically constructed?” The inquiry counters the traditionally colorblind (Chandler & McKnight, 2009) narrative of New Amsterdam. It also moves away from portrayals of people of color as the victims of history. Rather, students learn that Africans such as Groot Manuel de Gerrit and Dorothy Creole were instrumental in the rise of New Amsterdam, and that enslaved people found ways to fight against slavery and develop a thriving community. Perhaps most importantly, they learn that slavery was an institution that Europeans actively constructed to be racially based. Ideally, this inquiry would address the interactions among the Lenape and other Indians and the Africans and Dutch, but those interactions are beyond the scope of this chapter. The four lessons are designed for fourth graders, but can be adapted for older or younger students, and can be extended into a weeks-long unit. (In her longer unit, author Emily begins by having students research the heritage of enslaved Africans; students investigate the history and cultures of the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai; the Hausa City-States; and the Kingdom of Benin.) We assume students have background knowledge about the Lenape and the DWIC and their early interactions; about European exploration and trade in the 1500s and 1600s generally, and about the beaver trade specifically. (See Appendix A for background information about New Amsterdam.) The question for the first lesson is, “What did the Dutch West India Company want?” Students learn that New Amsterdam was developed in large part to grow DWIC’s lucrative beaver trade and to protect their monopoly on trade in that region. The company, motivated by a desire for profit, sought to use as much free or inexpensive labor as possible. Students will understand that the DWIC needed a steady influx of settlers. The company believed that the availability of African laborers was a significant selling point in bringing in more settlers. It was a choice, but not an inevitable choice, to enslave Africans. In the second lesson, students learn that Africans did many critical and arduous tasks in the colony. Enslaved Africans built the wall of Wall Street

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and important buildings and docks, cleared lands to be farmed, and worked in Dutch households. The third lesson introduces the idea of resistance, and asks students to explore the ways in which Africans and their descendants developed a thriving community. Students learn that Africans petitioned for their freedom in court and won, and that they created large farms in an area that became known as the Land of the Blacks. Using these and previous readings, students write a poem from the perspective of an enslaved or “half-free” African. The first three lessons scaffold students toward the summative performance task, which is to take on the role of an enslaved African and petition the directors of the DWIC for freedom. The fourth lesson addresses the social and historical construction of race. Students compare slavery in New Amsterdam to slavery in British-controlled New York. Students discover that the British increasingly codified slavery as a race-based institution. In the summative performance task extension, students hypothesize why the British made new slavery laws. Through these activities, students develop an understanding of the evolution of racism, enabling them to recognize and take informed actions to resist race-based inequity today. CONNECTIONS TO CRITICAL RACE THEORY Often when students are taught about slavery, enslaved people are seen as victims in an anonymous system. The lessons in this chapter, however, empower and uplift people of African descent (Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009) by amplifying the voices of enslaved and “half-free” Africans. They also shine a spotlight on the people in power who made decisions that defined and perpetuated the system of enslavement. We hope—as do critical race theorists—to disrupt the colorblind orientation that masks racism. We also want to help students understand the critical race theory (CRT) concepts of race as property, interest convergence, and race as a social construction. Storytelling and the Centrality of Experiential Knowledge Historical narratives traditionally have been told from a dominant perspective. Such narratives are flawed and incomplete since they ignore the voices and perspectives of people of color (Delgado, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 1998). Through storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), CRT centers marginalized voices (Delgado, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 1998). Investigating the lives of the Africans in New Amsterdam challenges narrowly-constructed

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narratives that either ignore or dehumanize enslaved Africans and their descendants (Delgado, 1989). In constructing “I am . . . ” poems and petitions for freedom, students explore enslaved Africans’ identities, culture, treatment by Dutch masters, and hopes for freedom. The assignments tap into the experiential knowledge of both the African slaves and the individual students, whose contemporary experiences and understandings influence their interpretation of enslaved Africans’ lives. Race as Property Social, political, and economic systems in the United States have been structured on White supremacy and racial domination. Whiteness guarantees its owners political, legal, and economic security and freedoms (Harris, 1993) often at the expense of people of color. In the lessons in this inquiry, students learn that the enslavement of African people was intentional and linked to race. While some Africans, like Groot Manuel de Gerrit and Dorothy Creole and their spouses, won their petitions for liberty and were offered conditional freedom, they were still deprived full humanity and their children were forced into slave labor. Students should understand that by enslaving Africans, and codifying slavery as a racialized legal practice, European slave owners were able to guarantee their own material benefits. Interest Convergence The CRT principle of interest convergence—the idea that people of color will only be granted their rights if such granting in some way benefits Whites in power—is clearly evident in the story of the Land of the Blacks. Half-free Blacks were given land north of New Amsterdam as a concession for their servitude, but it is clear that DWIC wanted Africans to serve as a protective buffer against Indian and other attackers. In addition, it was in DWIC’s interest to free petitioning Africans who were older and less able to do the hard manual labor of the settlement and therefore not profitable to keep enslaved. Race as a Social Construction Categorizing people according to “race” can make it seem as if race is real. Although there are arguments over the biological reality of race (e.g., Shiao, Bode, Beyer, & Selvig, 2012), most scientists agree that race is a concept that has been socially and historically constructed (Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Racial categories define, distinguish, and enforce a hierarchical system that

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renders some people subordinate and others dominant (Haney-Lopez, 1994). Without these conceptual supports, race would have little meaning or significance. In the fourth lesson, students examine the speciousness of racial categories and investigate how slavery was institutionalized. By asking students to grapple with the ways that Europeans legitimized their authority, we echo CRT’s attention to the construction of race (Williams, 1998). CONCLUSION Critical race theorists posit that colorblindness reinforces racism rather than solves it (e.g., Gotanda, 1991). Teachers, however, are often loath to bring up slavery or other topics related to race with students (Pollock, 2004), particularly when those students are young (Lewis, 2003; Martell, 2016). Yet when authors Jane and Emily taught these lessons to second and third grade classes, we found that the children were interested in and insightful about the topics of race and slavery. Indeed, they were hungry for information about the history of enslaved people. These lessons show students that the streets they have crossed were built by enslaved Africans. Students interrogate why Europeans chose to enslave Africans and how Africans resisted. Students examine how, over time, Whites in power systematically, albeit haphazardly, codified racialized systems of slavery. We hope that the lessons show how teachers can talk concretely about race and racism, not only in the history of New Amsterdam but anywhere in the country and indeed the world (Gross & de la Fuente, 2012). In what ways did enslaved people contribute to the development of Louisiana or Cuba? And even in “free” territories what discriminatory laws did and do Whites pass for their own benefit? Teachers need to challenge students’ misconceptions about slavery as a monolith, and instead help them examine how the institution was shaped and perpetuated by individual decisions and actions. We must offer students concrete stories about those involved in slavery, and help them to understand those actors’ motivations, accomplishments, and crimes. The racism that is endemic to society can only be challenged if we begin to talk about it.

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Content: U.S. History, Slavery, New Amsterdam, Race Connections to CRT: Storytelling, Centrality of Experiential Knowledge, Race as Property, Interest Convergence, Race as Social Construction Connections to State and National Standards This inquiry addresses several national and state standards. Below we list the 4th grade Common Core standards that the lessons address. There are parallel Common Core standards in other grades. Common Core Standards, Grade 4 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.7 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.3 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.8 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.B CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.B In addition, the National Center for History in the Schools 1996 standards (UCLA Department of History, n.d.) state that students in grades K–4 should understand “[t]he history of students’ own local community and how communities in North America varied long ago,” and that 5th through 12th graders should understand “how diverse immigrants affected the formation of European colonies” (UCLA Department of History, n.d.). Specifically, students should “[t]race the arrival of Africans in the European colonies in the 17th century and the rapid increase of slave importation in the 18th century.” New York State fourth grade standard 4.3b (Engage NY, 2016) says students should understand how “[c]olonial New York became home to many different peoples, including European immigrants, and free and enslaved Africans.” Specifically, “[s]tudents will trace colonial history from the Dutch colony of New Netherland to the English colony of New York, making note of lasting Dutch contributions. Students will investigate colonial life under the Dutch and the English, examining the diverse origins of the people living in the colony. Students will examine the colonial experience of African Americans, comparing and contrasting life under the Dutch and under the British.”

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LESSON PLAN Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question Standards and Practices

Why did slavery exist in New Amsterdam and how did slavery become race-based? CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.8 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.3 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.B CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.7 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.B New York State 4th grade Social Studies Standard 4.3b

Staging the Question

Supporting Question 1 What did the Dutch West India Company want? Formative Performance Task Order story activity Featured Sources Source A: Copper Nieu Amsterdam engraving Source B: Groot Manuel de Gerrit Story Order Activity Source C: Excerpt from 1629 Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions

Activity 1: Pair share: What was needed in order to build New Amsterdam? (materials, time, money, hard work) Activity 2: Examine image of Valerie Pratt Poitier quilt. What do you see? Think? Wonder? What might this tell you about who built New Amsterdam? Supporting Question 2 Who built New Amsterdam? Formative Performance Task Jigsaw activity reflection Featured Sources Source D: Castello Plan Prezi Source E: Fort, Wall, Housework texts

Supporting Question 3 How did enslaved Africans resist? Formative Performance Task “I am . . . ” poem

Supporting Question 4 How is race socially and historically constructed? Formative Performance Task Slave Laws Analysis

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source F: Record of African Landowners, 1643–1664 Source G: Feb 25, 1644 Half freedom Act emancipating certain slaves Source H: Land of the Blacks description

Source I: PBS Race the Power of an Illusion categorizing photographs Source J: British slave laws

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Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Argument

After lesson three, take on the role of an enslaved African and petition the directors of the DWIC for freedom. Students are expected to provide at least two pieces of evidence to support their positions.

Extension

After lesson four, hypothesize why the British passed increasingly harsh and race-based laws on slavery.

Understand: Identify inequitable situations today in which race plays a role. Assess: Create a list of possible actions that would work to change that/those situations. Act: Choose one of the brainstormed options and work for change, as an individual, small group, or whole class.

LESSON NARRATIVE Staging the Question Students respond in writing individually to the question: What was needed in order to build New Amsterdam? Remind students to draw from their schema, gained during a prior set of lessons, about the DWIC and New Amsterdam (see Appendix A for background information). Students share their ideas with a partner. Students then examine an image of Valerie Pratt Poitier’s (2012) quilt 240 Million Slaves Ago. Students talk with a partner about what they see, think, and wonder about the image (Harvard Project Zero, n.d.). If students do not get there on their own, guide the discussion so that students see that the image is of a wall composed of Africans. Ask what information this image might give us about how New Amsterdam was built. Supporting Question 1: What Did the Dutch West India Company Want? Preparation Cut the story of Groot Manuel de Gerrit (Source B; Appendix B) into strips so that each portion of the story is on one of six separate slips of paper. Hook Students look at Source A: Copper engraving entitled “Nieu Amsterdam,” circa 1642–1643, accessible at http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ items/510d47d9-7c02-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. Students discuss what they see, think, and wonder. Students will see items such as the people, buildings, ships, and clothing. They might think about aspects of topics such as

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trade, government, and religion. If they do not ask about it, guide them toward questions about employment and roles in society. Students then complete, either individually, in small groups, or as a whole class the Know and Want to Know portions of a KWL chart about Africans in New Amsterdam. When they share their questions, listen for—or lead students toward—the question “Why did the Dutch West India Company enslave Africans?” Write this question on the board. Formative Performance Task: Groot Manuel de Gerrit Story Order Activity Explain that the next activity will tell students something about how New Amsterdam was developed and what life was like for Africans there. Separate students into groups with two to five students in each group. Give each group the slips of paper with the jumbled story of Groot Manuel de Gerrit (Source B; Appendix B). Each student takes one to three of the slips of paper, depending on the size of the group. The students read their slips out loud to their small group. Then together they work to figure out how to put the story in chronological order; students explain their reasoning as they argue for why one slip should go before or after another slip. Note to Teachers We suggest you not let anyone take a story section from another student or give away their slip(s) of paper; this will help ensure that each student will have input in the activity. Story Debrief When the groups have come to agreement (or are able to explain their disagreement), ask students to stop their conversations and listen while one group reads the story in the order they think it should go. The other students give a thumbs up or thumbs down if they agree or disagree with the order. If there is disagreement, the students then talk about what the order should be. Follow Up Discussion The students return to answer the question on the board, referencing evidence from the story. Show students the following excerpt of Source C the company’s Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions: “The Company will endeavor to supply the colonists with as many Blacks as it possibly can” (DWIC, 1629 in Strong, Roever, Van Laer, & Rensselaer, 1908). Ask students questions such as “What was the purpose of setting up a colony?” or “What was the DWIC most interested in?” to help them recognize that the company’s primary motive was profit. Slave labor was a way

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to maximize profit, and the intention to use slave labor in the colony was made clear early on. Refer students back to Source A, the “Nieu Amsterdam” engraving, and guide them to understand it as an advertisement for the colony. The company believed that the availability of Black laborers was a significant selling point in bringing in more settlers, which the DWIC needed in order to develop the area—hence, the depiction of enslaved Africans doing the physical labor while the colonists enjoy the bountiful fruits of that labor. Finally, ask students to return to the KWL chart(s) used at the beginning of the inquiry, add to the list of what they want to know, and fill in some ideas and information that they learned. Check students’ understanding of why the DWIC enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam. Note to Teachers Be mindful of students’ tendency toward presentism—judging the past based on current circumstances or perspectives. Students might ask, for example, why enslaved Africans didn’t just run away (Epstein, 2012). Note that the DWIC tried to make local Indians work in New Amsterdam but they could—and often did—run away. Africans, however, rarely had similar networks or resources to be able to successfully escape (Wood, 2003).

Supporting Question 2: Who Built New Amsterdam? Hook To begin the second lesson, ask the question, “Who built New Amsterdam?” Then ask students to gather evidence from Source D, a Prezi presentation of the Castello Plan (Zweibel, 2016) about where enslaved people worked in New Amsterdam. Jigsaw Reading Activity Tell students that they are going to find out more about the roles of enslaved Africans in developing the new settlement. Break students into groups of two to three. Each group gets a text about building the fort, building the wall, or doing housework (Source E; Appendix C). Students use reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984) to read and discuss the text. After they read they will decide on three important details to share. Students then get in jigsaw groups of three: wall-fort-housework. Group members take turns sharing what they learned, focusing on the three details their group determined were most important.

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Formative Performance Task: Jigsaw Activity Reflection Students draw from the readings and discussions in this lesson, as well as the materials and discussions from the first lesson, in order to respond in writing to the following question: Who built New Amsterdam? You can differentiate this task by requiring either a graphic organizer with three columns—(a) Work performed, (b) Who did the work, and; (c) Why was it important for the development of New Amsterdam?—or a paragraph arguing who should be credited for building New Amsterdam. Note to Teachers The question of who should get credit for building New Amsterdam needs to be handled carefully so that students do not hear it as an endorsement of slavery in any way. They should not assume that slavery was the only option that the DWIC had. As historian Edgar McManus (1973) noted, “To claim that the colonies would not have survived without slaves would be a distortion, but there can be no doubt that the development was significantly speeded by their labor. They provided the basic working force that transformed shaky outposts of empire into areas of permanent settlement” (p. 17). Students need to balance acknowledging the contributions of enslaved people with a critique of the institution of slavery. Supporting Question 3: How Did Enslaved Africans Resist? Preparation Place clues from Sources F, G, and H (Appendix D) in marked envelopes. Hook Ask students, “How might African people in New Amsterdam have resisted being enslaved?” (If they need scaffolding to understand this word, show images of resisting against a problem, or against slavery specifically: day-to-day methods of economic sabotage like breaking tools and staging slowdowns, as well as running away or slave revolts.) Students may mention physical/violent resistance, and may draw on their schema about the Underground Railroad. Ask about how enslaved people could resist by maintaining their sense of dignity in face of inhumane treatment. Follow the Clues Activity The task is to figure out how enslaved Africans resisted their enslavement and made a vibrant community. Students work in groups of two to four. Each group receives a set of clues in numbered envelopes. They start with Clue 1 and do not move on to another envelope until they complete their

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investigation of that clue. We suggest giving students roles such as reader, facilitator/timekeeper, and recorder. Clue 1: Unlabeled list of African landowners (Supporting Question 3, Source F) Clue 2: Labeled list of African landowners (Supporting Question 3, Source F) Clue 3: Half freedom act (Supporting Question 3, Source G) Clue 4: Reading on half-freedom (Supporting Question 3, Source G) Clue 5: Reading on Land of the Blacks (Supporting Question 3, Source H) Follow up Discussion Students turn and talk with a partner about the readings, with the following prompts: “Did anything you read surprise you? What and why?” and “How did enslaved Africans fight for their freedom?” Together, make a list of how Africans resisted enslavement psychologically, physically, legally, and socially. Discuss the fact that while the Africans’ servitude was involuntary and uncompensated, the lack of a codified system of slavery in New Amsterdam meant that Africans had certain rights. They could bring suit and give testimony in court, even against free Europeans (Christoph, 1983). There are a number of examples of enslaved Africans suing Europeans in New Amsterdam, so they clearly understood and used that venue for redress of wrongs (cf. Mosterman, n.d.). Being able to go to court to petition for their freedom was unusual in later slaveholding colonies and would not be an option after the British took control (Singer, 2008). It is also interesting to note that although they could not own real property, enslaved Africans could own moveable property and were allowed to raise their own crops and animals on company land. When they were not at work for the company they could hire themselves out for wages. They could also marry. These rights allowed enslaved Africans to create strong communities (Christoph, 1983). Again, however, subsequent slave codes curtailed these rights. Point out the idea of interest convergence in the company’s decision to allow the half-free Blacks to have land north of New Amsterdam. Note to Teachers It is important to help students address the misconception that people in the past were less intelligent than we are today (Epstein, 2012). Ask students to put themselves in the shoes of the enslaved Africans to try to understand their worldviews and rationale.

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Formative Performance Task: I am . . . Poem Thinking through the details they have learned in this and previous lessons, students picture what it might have felt like to have been one of the Africans in New Amsterdam. Individually or in pairs, students construct an “I am . . . poem” (Levstik & Barton, 2005; Appendix E) from the point of view of Groot Manuel de Gerrit, Dorothy Creole, or another enslaved or “half-free” African. If they finish early, students should add any new questions and information to the KWL chart from the beginning of the inquiry. Summative Performance Task Using the form in Appendix F, students take on the role of an enslaved African and petition the DWIC Board of Directors for their freedom. Drawing from the sources they have used, students provide at least two pieces of evidence to support the argument that they are entitled to their freedom. Their answers need to demonstrate an understanding of why the DWIC wanted slavery. A particularly sophisticated answer would demonstrate an understanding of interest convergence. You can scaffold this task by having students list or orally rehearse evidence such as how hard they have worked on building the colony, how they were wrongly enslaved in the first place, that the colonists are capable of doing the work that they have been doing, that there is precedent for granting freedom, or that there is evidence that freed Africans are making important contributions to the colony. For a further challenge, students can write a reply to the petition. Alternately, you can put students into small groups and give each group a letter not written by a member of that group, and give the group the task of replying to the letter. Supporting Question 4: How is Race Socially and Historically Constructed? Note to Teachers This lesson addresses the second part of the compelling question: How did slavery become a race-based institution? It is important to begin this lesson by reinforcing ground rules so that students have clear expectations of how to be respectful of others. Remind students that there are many times in society when people use racial epithets to hurt others, and that they will be learning more about racism in this lesson, but that being disrespectful or racist to others is not allowed in the classroom.

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Hook Ask students to brainstorm the racial categories they have heard of. They might think of the ways that people are categorized in movies or newspapers. After gathering a list, explain that racial categories have changed over time. While there are physical differences between all people, there is no such thing biologically as race. Categorizing Activity Students work with Source I: PBS’s online activity, and try to categorize people by race: http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00home.htm Follow Up Discussion Ask students questions such as “How did you decide what category to put the pictures into?”; “Many of us made different choices; what does this tell us about the lack of clarity about racial categories?”; and “Who do you think decided to make these racial categories? When? Why?” Explain that people create racial categories. Historically, slavery was not a racially-based institution (Anderson, 1994). Indentured Europeans in New Amsterdam were treated similarly to enslaved Africans. Over time, however, in order to protect their investments, European slave owners created more and more laws to designate Africans and their descendants as slaves. The laws artificially differentiated people known as “Negroes” from Europeans. Explain to students that the next activity will explore how the laws changed over time.  Dutch owners were allowed to free their slaves, for example, whereas after 1712 any owner manumitting a slave had to pay such a large fee that freeing slaves was “effectively impossible” (Lepore, 2005). The Dutch had passed laws to prevent the mistreatment of slaves, but as students will see, those laws changed. Ask students why the laws might have changed. Notes to Teachers In the activity, students read about slave laws that involve whipping, death, and dismemberment. You can modify language, but certainly remind students that what they will be learning about is disturbing. The bulk of the laws in this activity (Source J) were taken from the sources listed in the source notes. Many of the British laws referred to “any Negro or other slave;” “Negroes and other slaves;” or “Negroes, Mulattos, or Indian Slaves;” but we did not use the exact language of every law. Formative Performance Task: Slave Laws Analysis Students work in groups of four. Each group member receives a different set of four laws passed in British New York (Source J; Appendix G). Students

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spend a few minutes on their own, reading the four laws they received. They then prepare to join their group with an observation about what these laws are doing, as well as any questions they have. In their groups, with designated roles, students will share, preferably in chronological order, the laws they read and their questions. Students then discuss: “What do these laws tell us about the lives of enslaved Africans in New York?” and “How does this compare to what we know about their lives in New Amsterdam?” Follow Up Discussion Ask students to put themselves in the shoes of an enslaved African in early 1700s New York. What has changed? Help students recognize that the laws are increasingly restrictive and harsh. For example, under British control, Africans’ ability to gather was restricted, which surely affected their communities and family life. Also, the 1702 law that they could only testify in court against each other meant Africans could no longer use courts to gain their freedom. And the 1712 ban on owning property hindered the expansion of free African communities (Lincoln, Johnson, Northrup, & Lyon, 1894). Next, ask students to look at how slavery became tied to the concept of racial difference discussed earlier in the lesson. Note that many of these laws specifically reference “Negroes.” Help students see that, in order to make slavery a permanent and hereditary condition, the Crown government began to define slave status by the unchangeable condition of skin color. Earlier, while there were references to skin color, slave status was defined more in religious terms. Africans and Native people were considered lesser because they were not Christian; they were deemed “heathens.” But the English wanted to stop slaves from escaping bondage by converting to Christianity. Indeed, by tying slavery to the status of one’s mother, and making it nearly impossible to free slaves, the British in power relegated an increasingly larger proportion of “Negroes” to slave status, solidifying the connection between slavery and race. Although slavery became increasingly difficult to resist under the British, students should understand that free Africans and their descendants continued to thrive in communities such as that established in the northern part of the colony (Mosterman, n.d.). Summative Performance Task Extension Using information from the slave laws activity and earlier lessons, students write a paragraph hypothesizing how and why the British enacted harsher laws and increasingly tied slavery to the concept of racial difference. The idea is to get at the larger, more abstract question of how race is

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socially constructed. As an extension, students can address how race continues to be constructed currently. Taking Informed Action Supporting questions 1–4 above should set the stage for students to brainstorm a list of inequitable situations today in which race plays a role (i.e., in education, housing, health care, policing, drug laws). Some students might want to examine how issues of race and racism are manifested in communities of color. For example, where is there intraracial discrimination such as bullying because of variations in speech patterns or appearance (Busey, 2014)? Individually, in small groups, or as a whole class, they choose one of the brainstormed options and research some of the parameters of the problem. The goal is to understand and assess the specific ways that race is a factor in an inequitable situation. Students then brainstorm and take an action that works to change the situation. Students might identify that classes in their school or the schools in their district, for example, that have a higher percentage of Black and Latino students seem to get fewer resources or lower funding, or have less experienced teachers. After gathering data about the specific resources allotted to different racialized groups, they might then write and send letters or a petition to their administrators, the school board, or a local newspaper. The letters should describe the problem, spell out the history of race being used as a way to discriminate, and ask that the racism be stopped. TIPS AND ADVICE When students are working in a classroom, the social dynamics do not magically become democratic or not racist. Indeed, we know that issues of power in society are mirrored in the classroom (Lewis, 2001). We also know that teachers can manipulate the dynamics by creating circumstances in which students cooperate in interdependent tasks, particularly when lowstatus students take on key roles (Cohen & Lotan, 1997). As much as possible, we suggest that teachers assign each student a role, such as facilitator/ timekeeper, reader, recorder, fact checker, word wizard, or teacher liaison, so that students are encouraged to see all participants in the group as contributing to the outcome. Using reciprocal reading (Palinscar & Brown, 1984) similarly encourages interdependence. All materials can be scaffolded and/or translated into other languages as needed so that they are accessible to all students. For example, to

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help students follow along as they read, you can audio-record the readings through Google Drive or with an iPad app like Voice Recorder. Particularly in predominantly White classes, it is important that African American students are not singled out or expected to be experts on slavery (Bolgatz, 2005). In many classes, Black students feel burdened when their peers or teachers look at them or ask questions when the topic of slavery or African American history comes up. Teachers should explicitly tell students not to assume that Black students are likely to know what slavery was like. Finally, no matter what the class demographics, learning about slavery can be distressing to students. Let students know that they might have strong reactions to the information and assignments, and they should let you know if they are troubled or upset (Martell, 2014). We also suggest that you explain to parents and caregivers early in the year (perhaps at a fall curriculum night or similar event) that learning about race and social justice will be part of the social studies curriculum. SOURCE NOTES Staging Pratt Poitier, V. (2012). 240 Million Slaves Ago [quilt]. Natick, MA. To find a visual representation of Poitier’s quilt see On View Magazine accessible at https://issuu.com/onview/docs/on_view_01-03.2015/107 or visit Ms. V’s quilts, writings, and works at http://msvpoitier. blogspot.com/p/gallery.html Valerie Pratt Poitier’s (2012) quilt 240 Million Slaves Ago serves as a entrée into students’ exploration of New Amsterdam. Supporting Question 1 Source A: Copper Nieu Amsterdam Engraving To find the copper Nieu Amsterdam engraving used in the first supporting question look at The New York Public Library, the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection of American Historical Prints, 1642– 1643, B-10. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ items/510d47d9-7c02-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 The engraving was used as an advertisement for the DWIC.

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Source B: Groot Manuel de Gerrit Story The New York Historical Society has a large collection of classroom materials related to slavery in New York, including a set of “Life Stories,” from which the activities about Groot Manuel de Gerrit and Dorothy Creole were adapted (the collection is accessible at http:// www.slaveryinnewyork.org/education.htm). The New York Historical Society’s teacher guide is at http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/PDFs/ Teacher_Guide.pdf (Waters, 2005). This is the account of one of the first enslaved Africans the DWIC brought to New Amsterdam. Source C: Excerpt from 1629 Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions Excerpts from the 1629 Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions are in Strong, Roever, Van Laer, and Rensselaer’s 1908 book, Van Rensselaer Bowier manuscripts, being the letters of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, 1630–1643, and other documents relating to the colony of Rensselaerswyck. Albany, NY: University of the State of New York. https://archive.org/details/vanrensselaerbow01newy This document spells out the agreement between the States General of the United Netherlands and the DWIC related to colonizing New Netherland. Supporting Question 2 Source D: Castello Plan Prezi http://prezi.com/bqnnfjemwxo2/?utm_campaign=share&utm_ medium=copy&rc=ex0share This prezi showing the development of New Amsterdam using the Castello Plan map was created by Zweibel (2016). Source E: Fort, Wall, Housework texts The wall and fort readings are taken and adapted from Columbia University’s “Mapping the African American Past,” an excellent resource for information and lesson plans about New York during the time of slavery (they are accessible at http://www.maap.columbia.edu). Text and information about the building of the fort were also taken and adapted from http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-andheritage/digital-exhibitions/a-tour-of-new-netherland/manhattan/ fort-amsterdam/

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The housework reading is taken and adapted from the New York Historical Society’s educational materials accessible at http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/PDFs/Life_Stories.pdf (Waters, 2005). These texts explain various ways that Africans worked in New Amsterdam. Supporting Question 3 Source F: Record of African Landowners , 1643–1664 The document can be found in Dodson, Moore, and Yancy’s The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 2000). It is also used in a unit plan in Social Science Docket: New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance. Available at: http://studylib.net/doc/14227004/, page 15 http://studylib.net/doc/14227004/ The Record of African Landowners (1643–1664) shows a list of men and their wives who were conferred plots of land. Since many of the landowners living on land north of New Amsterdam were Black, that area became known as the Land of the Blacks. Source G: Half Freedom Act Emancipating Certain Slaves, February 25, 1644 It can be found in Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638–1674, compiled and translated from the original Dutch records in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y., E.B. O’Callaghan, 1868. For a well-documented essay about the nature of slavery in New Amsterdam and the lives of freed slaves, see “The Freedmen of New Amsterdam” by Peter R. Christoph, Selected Rensselaerswijck Seminar Papers, at http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/ files/7313/5067/3659/6.2.pdf. Another article worth reading is Olson’s (1944) The slave code in colonial New York. The explanatory text in Clue 4 was taken and adapted from several sources, including http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org This text is the law passed in 1644. Source H: Land of the Blacks Description The text is accessible at http://www.maap.columbia.edu The Land of the Blacks description places the story of Black landowners in its historical context.

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Supporting Question 4 Source I: PBS Race the Power of an Illusion categorizing photographs activity To find the PBS Race the Power of an Illusion categorizing photographs used in Supporting Question 4, visit the PBS website at http://www .pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm (Pounder et al., 2003). Race: The power of an illusion is a PBS series that explores the myriad myths, assumptions, and contradictions about race that permeate society. Source J: British Slave Laws For information about how the Dutch and the British conceptualized and constructed slavery, and how the institution evolved through court decisions and slave codes in various states (see PBS materials at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p268.html). An excellent outline of lessons on the social construction of race by Nataliya Braginsky, including a listing of Virginia slave codes, laws, and declarations, can be found at http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/ units/2015/2/15.02.01.x.html (Braginsky, n.d.). A short essay and timeline about the history of slavery in the colonies, excerpted from the American Anthropological Association, is at http://www.understandingrace.org/history/gov/colonial_authority.html and a video about the history of race from the same source is at http://www.understandingrace.org/history/timeline_movie.html (American Anthropological Association, 2007). For the slave laws themselves, see “The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution: Including the Charters to the Duke of York, the Commissions and Instructions to Colonial Governors, the Duke’s Laws, the Laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the Charters of Albany and New York and the Acts of the Colonial Legislatures from 1691 to 1775 Inclusive” (Lincoln et al., 1894). Accessible at https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog or http:// books.google.com/books?id=d3U4AAAAIAAJ&oe=UTF-8 This document is a compilation of some of the British laws in New York from 1682–1742.

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APPENDIX A Background Information Before Inquiry DWIC and New Amsterdam The colony of New Netherland, including its chief town of New Amsterdam, was conceived by the DWIC as a business plan. The DWIC was in the business of trade, and its primary interest in forming New Netherland was to establish permanent control of the beaver trade in the area. In 1624 the DWIC sent about 30 families to New Netherland. More Dutch colonists came in 1625 and 1626. There was also a group of Walloon families (natives of a region in southern Belgium who had fled to nearby Holland to escape religious persecution) who settled in the new colony. But New Amsterdam grew slowly at first. Not many Dutch people wanted to leave The Netherlands, which had the highest standard of living and more religious tolerance than any European nation at that time. While some Dutch colonists continued to arrive through the 1630s, the DWIC wanted more people to farm and trade so that the colony would produce more profit. Through its shareholders, the company also brought in Norwegian, Danish, German, English, and Scottish settlers. Later, in the 1650s, Jews and Quakers came to New Amsterdam because they were exiled from or fled their home countries. For information about the Lenape, see The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Manahatta to Manhattan: Native Americans in Lower Manhattan. http://nmai.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/ Manahatta_to_manhattan.pdf The Use of Enslaved Labor Europeans began bringing enslaved people from Africa to the New World in the early 16th century. Although slavery was not yet common in the North American colonies in 1626, it was common in the Europeanowned colonies in the Caribbean and South America. By the time Groot Manuel de Gerrit was kidnapped, Europeans were used to the idea of African slaves. Europeans enslaved Indians as well, but Native Americans could escape into familiar territory much more easily than enslaved Africans (Wood, 2003). Slavery in the American colonies began in 1619, when slaves were brought into Jamestown, Virginia. In 1626, a DWIC ship sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam carrying 11 enslaved African men as part of its cargo. There are very few records from the early days of the colony, so no one knows for sure how the DWIC got these men. They were probably

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captured from wealthy Portuguese or Spanish ships, which were common for the Dutch to raid. The DWIC also enslaved African women. We know that in 1628, three enslaved Africans were brought to New Amsterdam (Burrows & Wallace, 1999). Although initially enslaved Africans were owned by the company, the DWIC eventually opened up the option for settlers to purchase slaves. The DWIC also used European servants who, as Hodges (1999) explains, were “engaged for as long as seven years, during which time they were little better off than Angolan slaves” (p. 10). Slavery in British-Controlled New York The British took over the colony in 1664. In New York, slavery would change significantly in several ways. The number of enslaved Africans increased substantially. Indeed, New York soon had the largest colonial slave population in the North. By the eighteenth century, the British had replaced the Dutch as the world’s leading slave traders. New York became an important trading center in the slave-based New World economy, and the slave trade became a linchpin in New York’s economy. Although, slavery in New York was legalized by the British in 1664, initially treatment of enslaved Africans in New York was not substantially different than it had been under Dutch rule. However, as the number of slaves rose so did fears of insurrection. As a result, increasingly restrictive controls were put in place. After a revolt in 1712, the New York Assembly passed “An Act for the suppressing and punishing the conspiracy and insurrection of Negroes and other slaves.” Among other things, the law authorized slave owners to punish their slaves at their own discretion. It prohibited free Blacks from owning real property. The law also effectively ended the practice of freeing slaves by placing cumbersome financial burdens on any owner manumitting a slave. There was also a shift from slave status being tied to religion (a changeable condition) to immutable physical appearance. The English “came to view Africans not as ‘heathen people’ but as ‘Black people.’” (Wood, 2003, p. 32). Within a generation, colonial laws made slavery race-based. REFERENCES Burrows, E. G., & Wallace, M. (1999). Gotham: A history of New York City to 1898. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hodges, G. R. (1999). Root and branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613–1863. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Wood, P. H. (2003). Strange new land: Africans in colonial America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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Appendix B Groot Manuel de Gerrit Story Order Activity for Supporting Question 1 In the 1620s the Dutch West India Company (DWIC) wanted to make money by trading in New Amsterdam. The land had to be cleared of trees. Buildings had to be built, and roads cut. There were not enough White colonists to do all this work. Manuel was a sailor on a ship. One day, the Dutch captured Manuel’s ship. The DWIC enslaved Manuel and brought him to New Amsterdam. Manuel and the other enslaved men did hard work: sawing, plowing, and carrying. They built docks and important buildings. In 1644, Manuel and several other slaves petitioned (asked) the DWIC’s director, Willem Kieft, for their freedom. The DWIC gave Manuel and the others land and “half freedom.” This meant that they had to pay a yearly tax or they would return to slavery; they could be free most of the time, but they had to work (for pay) when the company required them to; and the company enslaved their children and future children. Nearly 20 years after he was stolen from his ship, Groot Manuel de Gerrit owned a farm. His farm covered much of what is now Washington Square Park. He lived in a community with other Black people, on the edge of town.

Text adapted from http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/PDFs/Life_Stories.pdf

Source: Richard Dickenson, “Abstracts of Early Black Manhattanites,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 116(April, June 1985), 100–104, 168–173.

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APPENDIX C Jigsaw Readings for Supporting Question 2 Building the Fort Fort Amsterdam was originally designed to be a sophisticated, diamond-shaped fort, built of stone and armed with cannons. But in 1625 the town was in desperate need of houses, so a much simpler fort was planned instead. The new plan called for a square of four simple brick walls, mounded over with dirt. For 10 years, enslaved Africans worked to build the fort. They dug up tree stumps, hauled dirt, mounded it up over the fort walls, and battered it down firmly. Finally, they covered the earthen walls of the fort with grass and weeds. But as soon as it was finished, the fort began to crumble. The settlers didn’t usually fence their animals, so goats, sheep, and cattle strayed onto the weedy slopes to graze. Pigs went there to dig or rout in the dirt walls. In the words of one settler, the fort soon looked “like a molehill or a tottering wall.” It was eventually filled in with mortar and stone so it looked more like the fort you’re used to seeing in illustrations like this one. Glossary: sophisticated = advanced, complicated battered = hit repeatedly with heavy blows tottering = unsteady

Source: © Collection of the New-York Historical Society/ The Bridgeman Art Library

Source: Text and Information taken and adapted from http://maap.columbia.edu/place/31 and http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/digital -exhibitions/a-tour-of-new-netherland/manhattan/fort-amsterdam/ Who Built the Wall? A group of Black men labored for as long as daylight allowed, digging a three-foot-deep trench from the East River all the way across Manhattan Island to the Hudson River. The trench followed a rough path that ran along the north edge of the village.

Source: NYPL Digital Gallery

It was March 1653, and Governor Stuyvesant had been sent orders from the DWIC to fortify New Amsterdam. English warships were gathering in Boston Harbor, getting ready to sail south and take the Dutch colony.

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When they finished the trench, they formed a wall by standing big logs into it. Each log was 18 inches around and 12 feet long. Then they pounded dirt and stones back into the trench around the base of each log to make the wall strong. They built blockhouses at the ends of the wall, and gates were added where roads ran through it. But as soon as the wall was finished, the Netherlands and England signed a peace treaty. The wall built by the Africans followed the rough path that eventually became Wall Street. Glossary: trench = a long, narrow ditch fortify = make stronger blockhouse = a reinforced shelter used as an observation point. treaty = agreement between countries Source: Text taken and adapted from http://maap.columbia.edu/place/17 Housework Dorothy Creole was one of the first African women in New Amsterdam. The Dutch West India Company brought Creole and other African women to the colony to give male slaves wives, and give Dutch women help keeping house. In those days, keeping house meant more than what we call housework today. Family survival depended on the work of women: cooking, growing a garden, preserving food, watching the children, making warm clothes for winter, keeping the house and laundry clean, and taking care of sick or injured people. European and African women may all have worked at these tasks, but enslaved African women almost surely did the hardest, riskiest, and dirtiest jobs. Creole eventually married Paulo Angola, one of the first enslaved men brought to New Amsterdam. They adopted a baby named Antonio after his parents died. When Antonio was still a baby, a Dutch sea captain named Jan de Fries came to New Amsterdam. Visiting sea captains were often given special treatment. Dorothy and Paulo became the Captain’s slaves for a time. By this time, they had been owned by the Dutch West India Company for more than 15 years. This was long enough. They decided to ask the company for their freedom. Source: Text taken and adapted from http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org/ PDFs/Life_Stories.pdf Source: Richard Dickenson, “Abstracts of Early Black Manhattanites,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 116 (April, June 1985), 100–104, 168–173.

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APPENDIX D Follow the Clues Activity for Supporting Question 3 Clue 1

Source: Dodson, H., Moore, C. P., Yancy, R., & Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. (2000). The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg illustrated chronology. New York: John Wiley.

1. Examine Clue 1 and discuss these questions: –– Do you recognize any names in this chart? –– What do you notice about the dates? –– Make a prediction about what this chart might be. 2. Now open your second clue for more information

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Clue 2 Record of African Landowners, 1643–1664

Source: H. Dodson et al., ed. (2000). The Black New Yorkers. NY: Wiley, 23.

1. Now take another look at Clue 2. Read the title and headings. 2. Discuss: –– What is this a chart of? –– What do the dates represent? –– Are the people in this chart enslaved? –– Why do you think this? 3. Now open Clue 3.

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Clue 3 Background Clue 3 is a translation of an actual legal document written by the Directors of the Dutch West India Company in 1644. Directions: 1. DO NOT try to read the whole thing! 2. Instead, work together to discuss: –– Do you see any familiar names? Underline or circle them. –– Read the glossary below. It has the meanings of important words in the document. Find the words within the document and underline them. Do these words give you any clues about the document? –– Who wrote the document? –– What do you think this document is saying? Everyone shares at least one idea.

GLOSSARY: emancipating = freeing petition = a formal request to a court liberated = freed servitude = slavery condition = restriction or exception skepel = a Dutch measurement guilder = Dutch money tribute = tax or fee forfeit = give up

3. After you have shared your ideas, open Clue 4 to learn more.

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Source: From Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638–1674, Compiled and Translated from the Original Dutch Records in the Office of The Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y., E.B. O’Callaghan, 1868.

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Clue 4 “Half Freedom” In 1644, Paolo D’Angola and other enslaved men petitioned the Dutch West India Company for their freedom. They had worked for the DWIC for 18 or 19 years. The Dutch West India Company’s director, Willem Kieft agreed to free them, but not completely. There were three conditions on their freedom: 1. Former slaves had to pay a yearly tax; 2. They had to work for the DWIC (for pay) whenever they were called upon; and 3. Their children, present and “yet to be born,” remained enslaved. They gave the men and their wives plots of land north of New Amsterdam in an area that became known as the Land of the Blacks. Historians now call this “half freedom.” They were not fully free, but they were no longer completely slaves either. Now they were landowners living in a Black community. Nearly 20 years after he was stolen from his ship, Groot Manuel de Gerrit owned a farm, and so did Paolo D’Angola and his wife Dorothy Creole. Take a look at Clue #5 to discover what their community was like. Glossary: petitioned = asked Source: Text taken and adapted from several sources, including http://www. slaveryinnewyork.org

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Clue 5 Land of the Blacks One mile north of New Amsterdam, in what is now Washington Square Park in New York City, European farms had been attacked during the Dutch wars with neighboring Lenape. When raids began, the European settlers had fled to the safety of New Amsterdam. Director Willem Kieft decided to replace them with Africans. In 1643 the first land grants were given to members of the Black Source: http://maap.columbia.edu/content/ places/the_land_of_the_blacks/images/820/ militia, such as Domingo AnthoMAAP_LandBlacks_Then_820.jpg ny and Manuel Trumpeter, or to their widows, such as Catalina Anthony. The next land grants went to elders who were granted “half freedom.” Between 1645 and 1664, other enslaved people gained partial or complete freedom. Many of these men and women also received plots of land. The plots were large, from eight to twelve acres each, enough land for a garden, crops, and pasture for their cattle, goats, and sheep. In the hills and swamps free and enslaved Black people cleared tangles of trees, vines, and shrubs to build their own homes and plant their own gardens. Orchards were planted and included trees of apples, peaches, plums, and cherries. The homes and barns were mostly wooden with roofs of thatch or board. The farms were passed down through the generations, creating a strong Black community. This area would eventually be called the Land of the Blacks. Source: Text and information taken and adapted from http://www.maap. columbia.edu/place/3

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APPENDIX E “I am . . . ” Poem for Supporting Question 3 I am ___________________________________ I wonder ______________________________ I hear _________________________________ I see ___________________________________ I want _________________________________ I am ___________________________________ I pretend ______________________________ I feel __________________________________ I worry ________________________________ I cry ___________________________________ I am ___________________________________ I understand __________________________ I say ___________________________________ I dream _______________________________ Source: Levstik, L. and Barton, K. C. (2005). Doing history: Investigating with children in elementary and middle schools. Third edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 170.

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APPENDIX F Petition Template for Summative Performance Task

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APPENDIX G British Slave Laws for Supporting Question 4 British Slave Laws 1682

Enslaved Africans cannot possess guns.

1682

Enslaved Africans must carry a pass (document giving you permission to be out on the street or to travel without your owner)

1682

Slaves cannot gather in groups larger than 4, unless to work for their owner.

1692

Slaves who make noise in the street on Sunday can be whipped.

1702

The job of Common Whipper of Slaves is established.

1702

Slaves cannot gather in groups larger than 3. Slaves who violate this law can be whipped up to 40 lashes.

1702

Slaves can only testify in court against other slaves.

1712

Owners can punish “Negroes and other Slaves” however they wish, except to kill or dismember them.

1706

Any child born to an enslaved woman will automatically be a slave for life.

1707

Newly freed Blacks cannot own or inherit land, or pass their belongings on to their children.

1722

Black funerals must be held in the daylight.

1731

“No Negro, Mullato or Indian Slave, above the age of 14 years” shall appear alone in the streets after sunset without a lantern with a lighted candle in it.

British Slave Laws

British Slave Laws

British Slave Laws 1731

No more than 12 slaves can gather for a funeral.

1742

Slaves are banned from fetching water on Sundays, unless the well is next to their owner’s house.

1742

Every household is required to keep watch for suspicious nighttime behavior of slaves.

Source: Lincoln, C. Z., Johnson, W. H., Northrup, A. J., & Lyon, J. B. (1894). The colonial laws of New York from the year 1664 to the Revolution: Including the charters to the Duke of York, the commissions and instructions to colonial governors, the Duke’s laws, the laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the charters of Albany and New York and the acts of the colonial legislatures from 1691 to 1775 inclusive. Albany, NY: New York State Commissioners of Statutory Revision. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog or http://books.google.com/ books?id=d3U4AAAAIAAJ&oe=UTF-8

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REFERENCES American Anthropological Association. (2007). Race: Are we so different? Retrieved from http://www.understandingrace.org/history.html Anderson, J. D. (1994). How we learn about race in history. In L. Kramer, D. Reid, & W. Barney (Eds.), Learning history in America (pp. 87–106). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bolgatz, J. (2005). Talking race in the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Braginsky, M. (n.d.). History of a social construction: How racism created race in America. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Retrieved from: http://teachersinstitute. yale.edu/curriculum/units/2015/2/15.02.01.x.html Busey, C. L. (2014). Examining race from within: Black intraracial discrimination in social studies curriculum. Social Studies Research & Practice, 9(2), 120–131. Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2009). The failure of social education in the United States: A critique of teaching the national story from “White” color blind eyes. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 7(2), 217–248. Christoph, P. R. (1983). The freedmen of New Amsterdam. New York State Library. Selected Rensselaerswijck Seminar papers, p. 157–170. Retrieved from: http:// www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/7313/5067/3659/6.2.pdf Cioffi, D. (2005). “AIM: What was life like for Africans in the New Amsterdam colony?” Social Science Docket, 5(2), 12–15. Cohen, E., & Lotan, R. (1997). Working for equity in heterogeneous classrooms: Sociological theory in practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411–2441. Dodson, H., Moore, C. P., Yancy, R., & Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. (2000). The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg illustrated chronology. New York, NY: John Wiley. Engage NY. (2016). New York state K–12 social studies framework. Retrieved from: https:// www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-k-12-social-studies-framework Epstein, T. (2012, May). Preparing history teachers to develop young people’s historical thinking. Perspectives on History, 50(5), 36–39. Retrieved from: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-onhistory/may-2012/possibilities-of-pedagogy/preparing-history-teachers -to-develop-young-peoples-historical-thinking Gotanda, N. (1991). A critique of “our constitution is color-blind.” Stanford Law Review, 44(1), 1–68. Gross, A., & de la Fuente, A. (2012). Slaves, free blacks, and race in the legal regimes of Cuba, Louisiana, and Virginia: A comparison. North Carolina Law Review, (5), 1699–1756. Haney-Lopez, I. F. (1994). The social construction of race: Some observations on illusion, fabrication, and choice. In Delgado, R. (Ed.), Critical race theory: The culture edge (pp. 191–203). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. Harvard Project Zero. (n.d.). See think wonder: A routine for exploring works of art and other interesting things. Retrieved from: http://www.visiblethinkingpz.

110    J. BOLGATZ, T. BROWN, and E. ZWEIBEL org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_Core_routines/ SeeThinkWonder/SeeThinkWonder_Routine.html Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24. Lepore, J. (2005). New York burning: Liberty, slavery, and conspiracy in eighteenth-century Manhattan. New York, NY: Knopf. Levstik, L., & Barton, K. C. (2005). Doing history: Investigating with children in elementary and middle schools (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Lewis, A. E. (2003). Race in the schoolyard: Negotiating the color line in classrooms and communities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Lewis, C. (2001). Literacy practices as social acts: Power, status, and cultural norms in the classroom. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Lincoln, C. Z., Johnson, W. H., Northrup, A. J., Lyon, J. B. (1894). The colonial laws of New York from the year 1664 to the Revolution (Vol. 1). Albany, NY: James B. Lyon. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=d3U4AAAAIAAJ&print sec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Martell, C. C. (2014, April). Teaching about race in a multicultural setting: Culturally relevant pedagogy and the U.S. History classroom. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, PA. Martell, C. C. (2016). Approaches to teaching race in elementary social studies: A case study of preservice teachers. The Journal of Social Studies Research. doi:10.1016/j.jssr.2016.05.001 McManus, E. J. (1973). Black bondage in the North. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Mosterman, A. (n. d.). Slavery in New Amsterdam. The Museum of the city of New York educator resource guide. Lesson 4 of history lab: Life in New Amsterdam. Retrieved from http://mcny.org/sites/default/files/2016-11/MCNY_ Educator_Resource_Guide_Lesson4_0.pdf Olson, E. (1944). The slave code in colonial New York. The Journal of Negro History, 29(2), 147–165. Palincsar, A. S, & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehensionfostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117–175. Poitier, V. P. (2012). 240 Million Slaves Ago [quilt]. On View Magazine, January/ March, 2015, pp. 106–107. Accessible at https://issuu.com/onview/docs/ on_view_01-03.2015/107 Pollock, M. (2004). Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American school. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Pounder, C. C. H., Adelman, L., Cheng, J., Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T. H., Smith, L. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion [video]. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel. Shiao, J. L., Bode, T., Beyer, A., & Selvig, D. (2012). The genomic challenge to the social construction of race. Sociological Theory, 30(2), 67–88. Singer, A. J. (2008). New York and slavery: Time to teach the truth. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Africans in New Amsterdam    111 Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race. American Psychologist, 60(1), 16–26. doi:org/10.1037/ 0003-066X.60.1.16 Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23. Strong, S. D., Roever, N., Van Laer, A. J. F., & Rensselaer, K. (1908). Van Rensselaer Bowier manuscripts, being the letters of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, 1630–1643, and other documents relating to the colony of Rensselaerswyck. Albany: State University of New York. UCLA Department of History. (n.d.). History standards: National standards for history basic education, 1996. Retrieved from http://www.nchs.ucla.edu/ history-standards. Waters, M. (2005). Slavery in New York, NY: Classroom materials. New York, NY: New York Historical Society. Retrieved from http://www.slaveryinnewyork. org/PDFs/Full_Class_Materials.pdf Williams, P. J., (1998). Seeing a color-blind future: The paradox of race. New York, NY: Noonday Press. Wills, J. S., & Mehan, H. (1996). Recognizing diversity within a common historical narrative: The challenge to teaching history and social studies. Multicultural Education, 4(1), 4–12. Wood, P. H. (2003). Strange new land, Africans in colonial America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Yosso, T. J., Smith, W. A., Ceja, M., & Solórzano, D. G. (2009). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate for Latina/o undergraduates. Harvard Educational Review, 79(4), 659–690. Zweibel, E. (2016, November 16). On the trail of the untold story of New Amsterdam [Prezi presentation]. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/bqnnfjemwxo2/?utm _campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share.

CHAPTER 7

SETTLER SCHOOLING A TribalCrit Approach to Teaching Boarding School Histories in Elementary Social Studies Sarah B. Shear Penn State University–Altoona

ABSTRACT Stemming from the author’s recent research on the representation of Indigenous residential school policies in K–12 U.S. history textbooks and standards, this chapter aims to engage elementary teachers in critical dialogue about ways to teach a topic largely absent from many students’ social studies experiences. For elementary social studies, the author will work through two storybooks by Interior Salish and Métis author Nicola Campbell to demonstrate ways young learners may unpack not only the experiences of Indigenous school children in U.S. and Canadian boarding schools, but also the government policies that sought to use schools as a means to steal their identities.

Nestled amongst sprawling farmlands on the outskirts of Harrisburg lies the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. By all accounts, thousands of Race Lessons, pages 113–132 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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people pass the I-76 exit for Carlisle and the buildings and grounds now comprising the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks on a daily basis. Even my own students, mostly education majors who grew up in the Carlisle area, know little if anything about the history of the area’s connection to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. They readily admit walking or driving by the neatly arranged headstones guarded only by the black, wrought iron fence without giving much thought to who might be buried there. My students’ lack of knowledge about Carlisle’s role in the U.S. government’s grand assimilation plan, the nearly 200 children who died and are buried on the grounds of Carlisle, and social studies education’s perplexing silences and/or misrepresentations of Indigenous1 education policies that inspire this chapter. I hope to encourage elementary teachers to include the history (and current events) of Indigenous education as part of their teaching. To achieve this goal, I organize the chapter as follows: (a) a brief introduction to Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) and settler colonialism, (b) a brief timeline of events and laws, (c) sample lesson, (d) additional resources for teachers and students, and (e) concluding words of encouragement. FOR WHAT PURPOSE DO WE INQUIRE?: A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF TRIBALCRIT AND SETTLER COLONIALISM AS A FOUNDATION FOR TEACHING ABOUT INDIGENOUS EDUCATION Hixon (2013) wrote, “What primarily distinguishes settler colonialism from colonialism proper is that the settlers came not to exploit the Indigenous populations for economic gain, but rather to remove them from colonial space” (p. 4). In other words, from the colonial period to present, settlers including, but not limited to, the British, French, Spanish, and Americans (as an identity claimed by citizens of the United States) have worked to not only fulfill the colonial goals of economic expansion but also completely infiltrated White, Western ways of being into Indigenous spaces. Specifically, “settler colonizers came to stay: invasion is a structure not an event” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 388). I include Americans as colonizers because we tend not to examine the United States as an invading force. In fact, social studies curriculum (e.g., textbooks, standards) regularly normalizes the narrative of the United States fighting for freedom from the British while simultaneously excluding the ways in which the United States established, often violently, its dominance over people and landscapes from coast to coast before and after the Revolution (Chandler, 2010; Journell, 2009; Shear, Knowles, Soden, & Castro, 2015).

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While exclusions are commonplace in social studies curriculum, so are misrepresentations and the whitewashing of historical violence as found in lessons related to Columbus and the “discovery of America,” Thanksgiving, or the “Indian Wars.” Ladson-Billings (2003) noted: After the “Trail of Tears” American Indians disappear from the pages of our textbooks and the curriculum. For our students American Indians are museum exhibits. No discussion of the ongoing plight of Indians in America is available to most students in our schools. The contemporary Indian rarely emerges in classrooms. We rarely configure race into our discussions of American Indians. (p. 3)

I present this critique of the exclusions of Indigenous peoples in social studies as further evidence of the need to rupture the tightly-woven narrative of American exceptionalism to provide students in social studies classrooms the opportunity to grapple with the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the United States implemented racist education policies that sought to destroy Indigenous ways of life and the myriad ways Indigenous peoples and nations have fought against U.S. settler colonialism. The use of schools as weapons against Indigenous peoples is steeped not only in colonization, but also in racism. In this way, Brayboy’s (2013) writings on TribalCrit expand the ways in which we can address this history and current complexities of U.S. policies for Indigenous education. He wrote, “governmental policies and educational policies toward Indigenous peoples closely follow each other toward a problematic goal of assimilation” (p. 92). In directly confronting the colonial and racist stances the United States has taken and continues to take against Indigenous peoples, TribalCrit “is rooted in a belief in and desire to obtain and forge tribal autonomy, self-determination, self-identification, and ultimately tribal sovereignty” (Brayboy, 2013, p. 94). For social studies educators wanting to work in solidarity with TribalCrit’s call for Indigenous self-determination, the question for this chapter becomes: For what purpose(s) do we inquire about Indigenous educational experiences? This question is especially critical for nonIndigenous teachers to consider, as Kincheloe and Steinberg (2008) aptly noted even the best-intentioned White/non-Indigenous educators inadvertently participate in the continued colonization of Indigenous identities and experiences. As a non-Indigenous teacher educator, scholar, and ally, I argue nonIndigenous educators must be especially conscious of the curricular decisions we make in including and centering Indigenous experiences in our classrooms so we do not further narratives of victimization or romanticize the past, but rather work alongside our students and communities to openly name and challenge settler colonialism and racism. Arvin et al. (2013) challenge non-Indigenous allies

116    S. B. SHEAR who are settlers to become more familiar and more proactive in their critiques of colonialism, and to not rely upon Indigenous people to teach them how to become effective allies. It is also important to recognize that becoming an ally will require a long-term commitment to structural change and cannot be approached as a “pet” project in the same way that certain political causes become trendy at certain times. (p. 19)

In this way, too, I urge social studies educators to reflect on the reason(s) why we seek to engage inquiry learning in elementary and secondary social studies. Asking questions related to “for what purpose” and “for whose benefit” we teach about Indigenous education policies forces us to take responsibility for the life-long process of becoming allies in recognizing Indigenous autonomy, self-determination, self-identification, and sovereignty in social studies education.2 A BRIEF TIMELINE FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF U.S. INDIGENOUS EDUCATION POLICIES The U.S. Office of Indian Affairs published Rules for Indian Schools in 1892 calling for “the preparation of Indian youth for assimilation into the national life by such a course of training as will prepare them for the duties and privileges of American citizenship” (quoted in McCoy, in press). McCoy (in press) noted, “despite recent successes in Montana, Washington, and Oklahoma, the vast majority of states’ social studies standards either ignore American Indians or restrict their presence to a past which no longer affects the present” (n.p.). My own research (Shear et al., 2015; Shear, 2015) found social studies textbooks and standards remain largely silent on the histories of Indigenous education in the United States. As space limits an extensive discussion, I encourage teachers to incorporate key events and people from their communities and regions as a means to enrich this timeline, which draws from several sources as a starting point for content development about U.S. Indigenous education policies: 1492 Invasion of the Americas begins. 1500s–1600s During the colonial growth period, Christian missionaries, including organized efforts by Jesuit priests, saw the creation of conversion schools

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and praying towns in the Caribbean and New England colonies, including Massachusetts starting in 1651. In addition, missionaries inserted themselves with Spanish forces during the invasion of what would later become the American Southwest (Lawrence, 2011). In fact, 24 praying towns were established in Massachusetts by 1671. These praying towns were communities dedicated to the conversion of Indigenous Peoples to Christianity. Praying towns spread throughout the colonies and conversion became a focal point of the evolving Indigenous education policies in the soon-to-be United States. In addition, funds were provided as early as 1691 to open “Indian Schools” on the sites of schools we now know as the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and several others. These “Indian Schools” worked first and foremost to convert Indigenous children to Christianity (Richie, 2008). Conversion to Christianity remained a central focus of Indigenous education policies in the colonies (and early republic) well into the revolutionary period. For example, Eleazar Wheelock postulated that already converted Indigenous missionaries could be used at a cheaper cost than their English counterparts to further the goal of spreading Christianity. Wheelock’s Moor School opened in Lebanon, Connecticut in 1754, and was largely inspired by his earlier tutoring of Samson Occom between 1743–1748. In fact, Occom made several trips to Europe to demonstrate to potential school benefactors that Indigenous peoples could be civilized through education. Wheelock’s education program, which centered on the goal of training Indigenous missionaries to bring conversion to their home communities, largely failed by the 1760s (Richie, 2008). 1783–1871 Before the end of the treaty-making period, several treaties established U.S. federal funding of Indigenous education or other specified provisions for educating Indigenous children; Many of the schools were run by missionaries, although several Indigenous Nations in the American Southeast developed their own successful education systems. Congress established a “civilization fund” to provide small annual sums to Indigenous Nations to use for education beginning in 1819 (Szasz, 1999, p. 9). Szasz (1999) further noted: Although there had always been a small number of people who were convinced the Indian could be civilized, the public generally believed that he was incapable of progress. In the post-Civil War decades the public attitude began to shift, and within the space of a few years, in spite of the antagonism of westerners, assimilation because the popular approach. (p. 9)

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1870s–1880s Development and implementation of off-reservation boarding schools expanded under the purview of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Federal funding was given to Captain Richard Henry Pratt to establish the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1879 with the goal to show the American public that Indigenous children could be assimilated into White, American society (Deloria, Jr. & Lytle, 1983; Shear, 2015; Szasz, 1999). Based on the perceived successes at Carlisle, the U.S. Congress increased funding both to the Carlisle Indian School and to other boarding school development projects (1882) across the country, including: New Mexico: Albuquerque (1884); Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (1884); Sante Fe (1890); Renamed the Institute of American Indian Arts (1962); Kansas: Haskell (1884); Renamed Haskell Indian Junior College (1965); Nevada: Carson (1890); Later known as Stewart; Arizona: Phoenix (1890); and South Dakota: Pierre (1891); Flandreau (1893). Ultimately, 25 off-reservation boarding school opened by the turn of the 20th century (Szasz, 1999). 1900–1950 Increased federal dollars to states with boarding schools; thousands of acres of Indigenous lands given to the local school systems in return for their “promise” to “provide education to Indians” in public schools (Deloria, Jr. & Lytle, 1983, p. 241). “The Act of March 2, 1901 [emphasis added] (39 Stat. 950) allowed a state to test its rights to school lands without joining the tribe as a party if the secretary of the interior was made a party” (p. 241). “The Act of March 31, 1908 [emphasis added] (35 Stat. 53) authorized the secretary of the interior to issue a patent for certain lands of the Santee Reservation to school district No. 36 in Know County, Nebraska, soon became an accepted way to underwrite Indian participation in local school districts” (p. 242). “The Act of June 7, 1924 [emphasis added] (43 Stat. 536) bolstered the authority of the secretary of the interior to ‘pay any claims which are ascertained to be proper and just, whether covered by contracts of not, for the tuition of Indian pupils, in State public schools’” (p. 241–242). The Johnson-O’Malley Act of 1934 [emphasis added] (48 Stat. 596) expanded the Snyder Act of 1921 to increase federal monies for Indigenous “benefit, care, and assistance when used in contract with local school districts to “entice them to provide education to Indians” (p. 242). World War Two Era: Land transfers increased; Reservation lands were given to public school districts in return for free tuition for Indian students to attend the public schools (Deloria & Lytle, 1983).

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Szasz (1999) noted that, in 1930, BIA-reported statistics suggested education was one of the bureau’s most successful programs: (a) 90% of all Indigenous children were enrolled in school; (b) 50% attended public schools; (c) 33% attended BIA-operated schools, of which an equal number were enrolled in on- or off-reservation boarding schools; and (d) 10% attended private or mission schools. Unfortunately, these statists reported by the BIA excluded the following realities: (a) A significant drop-out rate; (b) The average education level on several reservations was 5th grade; (c) Most boarding school students were “unable to apply the training they had received” (p. 2) once they returned home; (d) Curriculum and vocational training at the boarding schools was insufficient, making it almost impossible for students to find work; and (e) Conditions at the boarding schools was inhumane and subjected students to several epidemics, hunger, overcrowding, and in several cases, the use of beatings and other harsh punishments. Taking a short step back, the conditions at the boarding schools became a focal point in the movement to reform the BIA. The publication the The Problem of Indian Administration (Merriam Report) in 1928 by the Brookings Institute was the most significant document at the time in illuminating problems within the BIA, especially the education policies and procedures. The report recommended Indigenous education align closely to their communities and include revisions to curriculum to focus on Indigenous cultures (Szasz, 1999). Additional reform recommendations, including addressing boarding school conditions and ensuring the Director of Education have an educational background fell out of favor with most members of Congress and the BIA in the 1940s (Szasz, 1999). 1950s P.L. 81-915 and P.L. 81-874 established federal funding of public education, making “the education of Indian children a special category of assistance to state school systems” (p. 242). Discrimination embedded in state statutes was common. For example, a California statute (as quoted in Deloria, Jr. & Lytle, 1983) provided the following exclusions: The governing body of the school district shall have the power to exclude children of filthy or vicious habits, or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, and also to establish separate schools for Indian children and for children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage. When such schools are established, Indian children or children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage must not be admitted into any other school. (p. 242)

An Indigenous student challenged California’s discriminatory statute before the state’s Supreme Court in 1924. The Court found the statutes

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denying Indigenous students access to public education unconstitutional based on the following factors: (a) California’s constitution guaranteed an education for all children living in the state, and (b) the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court further rejected the state’s argument the system was put under undue economic pressures because Indigenous Peoples did not pay taxes (Deloria, Jr. & Lytle, 1983). 1960s–Present Day The mid-20th century marked a time of turmoil in the BIA regarding education. While a number of 1930s progressive reforms became favorable again, some of the lingering extermination (aka assimilation) policies and feelings remained. The 1960s, spurred in large part by the growing Civil Rights Movement, saw an increased demand and support for Indigenous self-determination, including recognition for Indigenous Nations implementing and maintaining their own educational systems (Szasz, 1999). The 1969 Kennedy Special Subcommittee on Indian Education Report (aka The Kennedy Report) “characterized Indian education as a national tragedy” (Deloria, Jr. & Lytle, 1983, p. 240). The mid-1960s and 1970s were marked by increased turnover in the leadership of Indigenous education within the BIA. Indigenous Civil Rights leaders, including those within the American Indian movement (AIM), succeeded in a number of ways during this time period, too, in gaining national and international recognition. Two events in particular highlighted the growing movements within Indigenous communities to regain their lands and sovereignty: the takeover of the BIA’s Central Office in November 1972 and the 37-day siege of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in the spring of 1973 (Szasz, 1999). Passage of the Indian Education Act of 1972 and implementation of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act of 1975 brought further changes in U.S.-Indigenous relations. “The potential for Indian leadership and control was more promising than at any other time in the history of U.S.-Indian policy” (Szasz, 1999, p. 145). Indigenous Nations gained tremendous ground to control the education of their children. A large percentage of the BIA-operated boarding schools closed their doors or were transferred to the control of contracted Indigenous Nations by the end of the 1980s. Six years after the publication of A Nation at Risk, then Secretary of Education Lauro F. Cavasos commissioned a separate report titled “Indian Nations at Risk” (INAR). The creation of the INAR Task Force in 1990 was another major step in changing the way Indigenous education was organized and managed in the United States. Findings from the task

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force’s work ultimately brought 234 Indigenous delegates to the White House to meet and discuss the education needs of Indigenous communities with key figures in Congress, the Bush administration, and Departments of Education and the Interior (Szasz, 1999). Additional meetings between Indigenous leaders and the U.S. federal government were also held during the Clinton and Obama administrations (as recently as 2015– 2016). Indigenous students, parents, and community leaders continue to advocate for funding and self-determination (both supported by treaty) to create and implement schools from preschool through college that provide students not only the content and skills they need to succeed as U.S. citizens but also the languages and traditions that will sustain and enrich their Indigenous communities. TRAUMA, RESISTANCE, AND SURVIVAL: IMPORTANT CONTEXT FOR CHALLENGING U.S. POLICIES Understanding the trauma, including homesickness and physical and emotional beatings, Indigenous students suffered at the hands of teachers and administrators at the boarding schools is essential to challenging the creation and implementation of U.S. education policies toward Indigenous Peoples. Brenda Child and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (2000) wrote: Indian boarding schools were key components in the process of cultural genocide against Native cultures, and were designed to physically, ideologically, and emotionally remove Indian children from their families, homes, and tribal affiliations. From the moment students arrived at school, they could not “be Indian” in any way––culturally, artistically, spiritually, or linguistically. (p. 19)

It is important, as well, for social studies educators to expand learning and critical thinking to include the ways in which Indigenous students and their families resisted and survived (and continue to resist and survive) forced assimilation in White, American society. As a means of resistance and survival, for example, Indigenous students at the boarding schools often “ran away,” which included both risking their lives to leave the boarding schools (often during harsh winters) or find spaces within the boundaries of the school grounds to find refuge (Child & Lomawaima, 2000, pp. 46–47). In addition to trauma and student resistance, it is also important to bring in the roles Indigenous parents played in this history, from resisting the boarding schools to encouraging enrollment as a means of survival, Child and Lomawaima (2000) noted that “the return of children was long-awaited, happy, and celebrated. [Parents] wrote to boarding schools to make plans for the upcoming safe passage, send money to children if

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need be, or simply remark on past accomplishments and express gratitude” (p. 51). Similarly, too, “many students graduated from boarding schools grateful for the friendships and educational opportunities they received” (McCoy, in press). In order to move away from continued victimization narrative, it is important for teachers and students to consider the varied ways Indigenous peoples experienced, remember, and continue to work within the contexts of the boarding schools and related education policies. Content: History and Policies for Indigenous Education, Boarding Schools, Family Connection to TribalCRT: Colonialism, Assimilation, Indigenous Self-Determination Connections to State and C3 Standards As discussed previously, the majority of states do not include learning standards related to Indigenous education policies (Shear et al., 2015). Pennsylvania, where I teach, is no exception. Similarly, NCSS (2013) does not include standards for this content, either. As teachers consider the use of this chapter in designing lessons for their students, I encourage them to consider how they can think with and beyond their particular state standards. In addition, the C3 does not pay particular attention to the voices and experiences of Indigenous peoples and nations, so I encourage teachers to think with and beyond the C3 Framework to open spaces in their classrooms for discussions and other learning opportunities for students to critically engage the implementation and consequences of U.S. policies for Indigenous education. Elementary D.1.1.K-2: Explain why the compelling question is important to the student, D.1.1.3-5: Explain why compelling questions are important to others (e.g., peers, adults), and D.1.5.3-5: Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling questions, taking into consideration the different opinions people have about how to answer the questions.

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SAMPLE LESSON PLAN: ELEMENTARY, GRADES 2–3 Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question Standards and Practices

Staging the Question

How did boarding school policies and practices for assimilation impact Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi? Intentionally left blank; see previous section. Work with elementary students (grades 2–3) to consider how the storybooks Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi’s Canoe, both authored by Interior Salish and Métis author Nicola Campbell, teach the perspectives of a brother and sister who must leave their family to attend boarding school.

Supporting Question 1 How do family relationships shape Shi-shi-etko’s and Shin-Chi’s lives at home?

Supporting Question 2 What was life like for Indigenous children, including Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi, at the boarding school?

Supporting Question 3 How did Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi feel about being at school versus being home?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Identify parts of the book(s) where Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi are participating in an activity at home with family.

List rules and activities from the book(s) that illustrate Shi-shi-etko’s and ShinChi’s lives at school and compare that to pictures from the historical record.

Create a chart to compare and contrast Shi-shi-etko’s and Shin-Chi’s feelings about home and school using text and images from the books to support.

Featured Sources Source A: Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) Source B: Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008)

Featured Sources Source A: Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) Source B: Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008) Source C: Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center Source D: An Indian Boarding School Photo Gallery Source E: Residential Schools: Photographic Collections (Canada)

Featured Sources Source A: Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) Source B: Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008)

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Argument

How were children impacted by going to boarding schools in the United States (and Canada given the storybooks’ contexts)? Teacher-directed discussions (in small groups, pairs, or whole class) will document, possibly using charts or diagrams. Students use evidence from the storybooks and photographs to support their answers to this question.

Extension

Create an arts-based poster campaign for students to visually express their arguments for or against sending Indigenous children to boarding schools. Express, for example, text-to-self, text-to-school, and/or text-to-neighborhood connections to provide more critical thinking toward the role(s) schools play in shaping students’ lives.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Investigate the current movement by Indigenous children, families, and communities in Canada, the United States, and other countries (e.g. Australia) to improve education and address the history of the boarding schools. Connect: Identify other children’s experiences (e.g., Ruby Bridges, The Little Rock 9) with schooling in the United States that were shaped by assimilationist policies. Act: Use a web-based platform (such as Padlet) for students to create “pages” that visually express their learning about boarding schools and arguments for or against assimilationist policies and/or practices.

LESSON NARRATIVE This teacher-directed inquiry asks elementary students to consider the perspectives of two fictitious Indigenous children as a means to develop both literacy skills and critical historical thinking about assimilation policies and practices during the boarding school era. Teachers will need to provide structured vocabulary lessons for students, including: Indigenous, culture, cultural identity, assimilation, policy. Teachers will need to connect these vocabulary lessons with a brief historical timeline (using what is offered in the storybooks and what is provided in this chapter’s “Recommended Resources” section) to set the stage for student learning about the Canadian and American boarding schools. How teachers set up the vocabulary and history activities will depend entirely on the needs of their students in terms of reading and writing support/enrichment. Depending on how much time teachers dedicate to this unit, as engaging these questions and activities with Grade 2–3 will require multiple days, teachers should also utilize images from Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center and other websites (see Recommended Resources) to expand students’ connections between the storybooks and historical records.

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Supporting Question 1 and Formative Performance Task Supporting Question 1 Supporting Question

How do family relationships shape Shi-shi-etko’s and Shin-Chi’s lives at home?

Formative Performance Task

Identify parts of the book(s) where Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi are participating in an activity at home with family.

Featured Sources

Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) and Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008)

The first question and formative performance task asks students to read, as a whole class, Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) and Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008) and consider how their family relationships shape their lives at home. By considering this question, students will come to form an initial understanding of the two main characters’ lives before they go to boarding school. The formative performance task, therefore, asks students to identify specific examples where Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi are participating in activity at home with family. As this is a teacher-directed inquiry, students should share their responses verbally while the teacher keeps track of student responses on a chart, for example. Teachers should also adjust how the student responses are recorded based on their particular students’ abilities. Supporting Question 2 and Formative Performance Task Supporting Question 2 Supporting Question

What was life like for Indigenous children, including Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi, at the boarding school?

Formative Performance Task

List rules and activities from the book(s) that illustrate Shi-shi-etko’s and Shin-Chi’s lives at school and compare that to pictures from the historical record.

Featured Sources

Source A: Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) Source B: Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008) Source C: Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center Source D: An Indian Boarding School Photo Gallery Source E: Residential Schools: Photographic Collections (Canada)

The second question and formative task asks students to consider both the storybooks’ portrayal of Canadian boarding school life for Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi and the historical record, including first-hand accounts and pictures (Source C & D), of boarding schools in the United States. Teachers will likely want to revisit key vocabulary introduced at the start of this unit during these discussions, as well as a brief reminder that although the

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storybooks take place in Canada, most of the policies under investigation are based in the United States. It is important to provide students the geographical and historical context before they examine the boarding school pictures as this historical record will serve as a point of comparison for Shishi-etko and Shin-Chi’s experiences. The websites suggested for this question include the infamous “before and after pictures” (Source C–E), which were used by boarding school officials as “evidence” that the assimilation policies worked to turn the Indigenous children White. The websites also include photographs and artwork of the day-to-day experiences of Indigenous children at the boarding schools. This second question will likely need the most amount of class time because teachers and students are co-constructing understanding of life in the boarding schools using the teacher-directed history lesson (using text and photographs) and storybooks. Teachers may wish to utilize Venn diagrams or other charts to assist students’ thinking and talking through the details, as well as similarities and differences of the history (dependent on the text teachers utilize), pictures, and storybooks. Again, students’ individual abilities with reading and writing should be taken into consideration when planning these activities. Supporting Question 2 and Formative Performance Task Supporting Question 3 Supporting Question

How did Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi feel about being at school versus being home?

Formative Performance Task

Create a chart to compare and contrast Shi-shi-etko’s and Shin-Chi’s feelings about home and school using text and images from the books to support.

Featured Sources

Shi-shi-etko (Campbell, 2005) and Shin-Chi’s Canoe (Campbell, 2008)

The third question and formative performance task asks students to connect their thinking from the first two questions to compare and contrast Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi’s feelings about being at school and at home. By considering this question, students will be able to form a more complex understanding of the central characters’ lives. As this is still a teacher-directed inquiry, students should share their responses verbally while the teacher keeps track of student responses. Teachers should also adjust how the student responses are recorded based on their particular students’ abilities. Teachers are further advised to consider ways all three questions and tasks can be visually displayed in their classrooms in order to better prepare students for the extension and informed action activities.

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Summative Performance Task Students are challenged to extend their thinking of the three supporting questions to make an argument: How were children impacted by going to boarding schools in the United States and Canada? This teacher-directed discussion (in small groups, pairs, or whole class) will document students’ use of evidence from the storybooks and photographs to support their answers to this question. The Summative Performance task’s central question is expansive because it challenges students to draw conclusions based on their abilities to connect both the historical record and the storybooks’ portrayals of the day-to-day lives of Shi-shi-etko and Shin-Chi to the emotional impact of assimilation. By extension, students should express, for example, text-to-self, text-to-school, and/or text-to-neighborhood connections to provide more critical thinking toward the role(s) schools play in shaping not only the lives of Shi-shi-etko, Shin-Chi, and other Indigenous children presented in the historical record, but their lives as well. Taking Informed Action Once students have had time to unpack their reactions and connections to the storybooks and historical record, the teacher may choose to expand the unit to include three additional activities: 1. Understand: Investigate the current movement by Indigenous children, families, and communities in Canada, the United States, and other countries (e.g., Australia) to improve education and address the history of the boarding schools. This activity brings makes history present to open students to seeing how Indigenous students, families, and communities continue to advocate for better, more culturally-relevant education and recognition of the impact boarding schools had on Indigenous communities. Teachers can utilize websites, such as the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education (see Recommended Resources), to assist further student inquiry. 2. Connect: Identify other children’s experiences (e.g., Ruby Bridges, The Little Rock 9) with schooling in the United States that were shaped by assimilationist policies. This activity provides students the chance to think about how education has been used to assimilate, past and present, children from diverse backgrounds. By learning across perspectives and experiences, students may be able to further articulate the positive and negative role(s) of education in their lives and the lives of their families.

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3. Act: Use a web-based platform (such as Padlet) for students to create “pages” that visually express their learning about the boarding schools and arguments for or against assimilationist policies and/ or practices. This activity could be a cumulative project for students based on extensive inquiry discussed in this chapter. Web-based platforms, such as Padlet, allow teachers to further assess students’ comprehension and synthesis of the material to further articulate their argument. The web-based platform also enables students to share their individual and collective learning with others outside their classroom community. TIPS AND ADVICE I encourage teachers to utilize suggested resources from this chapter to familiarize themselves, if they do not already have background knowledge, on the policies and practices of the boarding schools. These histories are sensitive and can sometimes be uncomfortable, but teachers should not shy away from the value learning about the role(s) schools in the United States, Canada, and other countries around the world played and continue to play in shaping the lives of young people. As elementary education is already pressed for time, the use of storybooks as the anchor to this unit of inquiry allows teachers to connect literacy goals with the inclusion of social studies content. Establishing a routine and designated area for posting visuals for this unit is essential, especially as it has several parts. This unit of inquiry will undoubtedly raise a number of questions, which is why teachers should spend time reading and orienting themselves with the histories of the boarding schools. Two aspects students may wish to discuss in-depth, for example, is the significance of cutting Shi-shi-etko’s hair and the necessity for Shin-Chi (as representative of many Indigenous children attending boarding schools) to steal food. Teachers should scaffold information as part of read-alouds to encourage students to make connections between the storybook and historical record. Ultimately, students should be challenged as teachers see fit to formulate and express their opinions on whether or not Indigenous children should have been required to attend boarding schools and the impact of those experiences on their cultural identities. Elementary teachers should not ignore these histories––the experiences of Indigenous children in the boarding schools has been ignored long enough, especially in the United States. We owe it to our students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to tell the truth about how schools have been used to shape our society.

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CONCLUSION The goal of this chapter was to open the possibilities for elementary teachers to engage their students in critical learning about policies for Indigenous education, especially in the United States. The sample lesson in the previous section and the additional resources to come are a starting point, and I hope teachers reach out to local and state historical societies, boarding schools still in operation, and Indigenous nations in their area to further the dialogue of how social studies educators might engage this content and begin the process of dismantling the too-long held colonial and racist narratives embedded within our curriculum. As individual classrooms differ, I do not work to dictate how teachers at any grade level should teach a lesson. Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers and students should engage this content in ways that best meet their own communities’ needs and respectfully connects to the boarding schools and other education policies. My goal in writing this chapter was to ask teachers to consider how we can challenge settler colonialism and racism in our elementary classrooms through the incorporation of boarding school and other education policies in our teaching. I hope this chapter contributes to ongoing efforts to recognize and honor Indigenous survivance, self-determination, and sovereignty in our classrooms. SOURCE NOTES Source A: Campbell, N. (2008). Shin-chi’s Canoe. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books. Source B: Campbell, N. (2005). Shi-shi-etko. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books. Source C: Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center To find the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, search: “Carlisle Indian Resource.” http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/ This website provides images, publications, documents, and files that document stories of the many thousands of Indigenous children who were sent to the Carlisle Indian School. Source D: An Indian Boarding School Photo Gallery To find the Indian Boarding School Photo Gallery, search: “Indian Boarding School Photos.” http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/gallery.htm Modern American Poetry has posted a photo gallery accumulated by multiple museums and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. A note is given

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of how administrators of the Indian Boarding Schools take pride in showing the “before” and “after” of schooling. Source E: Residential Schools: Photographic Collections (Canada) To find Residential Schools: Photographic Collections (Canada), search: “Residential Schools Photography.” http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/Pages/residential-schools-photo-sets.aspx (you will need to select which Province you wish to research) This photographic collection is separated by Canadian province. One can view the structures and people of aboriginal origin. ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING Websites (for Teachers and Students) American Indians in Children’s Literature http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/ Center for International Studies and Diplomacy http://www.unwcc.org/documents Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights Initiative http://www.hrusa.org/indig/index.shtm Native Words, Native Warriors http://www.nmai.si.edu/education/codetalkers/ Northern Arizona University’s education links http://www2.nau.edu/~jar/IndianLinks.html The Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ Study Guide http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/studyguides/indigenous.html UN Documentation: International Law http://research.un.org/en/docs/law/courts White House Initiative on American Indian & Alaska Native Education http://sites.ed.gov/whiaiane/ Book Resources (for Teachers) Child, B. (2000). Boarding school seasons: American Indian families, 1900–1940. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Deloria, P. J. (2004). Indians in unexpected places. Topeka, KS: University Press of Kansas.

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Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2015). An indigenous people’s history of the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Dunbar-Ortiz, R., & Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2016). “All the real Indians died off” and 20 other myths about Native Americans. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Treuer, A. (2012). Everything you wanted to know about Indians, but were afraid to ask. St. Paul, MN: Borealis Books. Vučković, M. (2008). Voices from Haskell: Indian students between two worlds, 1884–1928. Topeka, KS: University Press of Kansas. Film Resources (for Teachers) Richie, C. (Director). (2008). Our spirits don’t speak English: Indian Boarding School [DVD]. USA: Richie-Heape Films. Lightening, G. (Director). (2008). Older than America [DVD]. USA: IFC Films. Iriving, K., Christensen, D. (Producers), & Wolochatiuk, T. (Director). (2012). We Were Children [DVD]. Canada: National Film Board of Canada. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Lisa Brown Buchanan, Elizabeth Bellows, Christina Tschida, Liz Saylor, and John Broome for their support of this chapter. NOTES 1. I use the naming term “Indigenous” throughout the chapter in recognition of peoples and nations who lived on these lands (and still live) before the creation of the Americas and specifically the United States. While names like “Native American” and “American Indian” are not necessarily wrong to use, we must challenge how these names are rooted in historical relationships of domination and genocide (Dunbar-Ortiz & Gilio-Whitaker, 2016). 2. I recognize the fear that some, if not many, non-Indigenous teachers may feel incorporating this type of pedagogy in their classrooms, but I encourage us all to commit to life-long learning for ourselves so we may better serve all of our students. The resources provided at the end of this chapter aim to support this learning.

REFERENCES Arvin, M., Tuck, E., & Morrill, A. (2013). Decolonizing feminism: Challenging connections between settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy. Feminist Formations, 25(1), 8–24.

132    S. B. SHEAR Brayboy, B. M. J. (2013). Tribal critical race theory: An origin story and future directions. In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixon (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 88–100). New York, NY: Routledge. Chandler, P. T. (2010). Critical race theory and social studies: Centering the Native American experience. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(1), 29–58. Child, B. J., & Lomawaima, K. T. (2000). A uniform course of study: Life at school. In M. L. Archuletta, B. J. Child, & K. Tsiannina Lomawaima (Eds.), Away from home: American Indian boarding school experiences, 1879–2000 (pp. 14–53). Phoenix, AZ: Heard Museum. Deloria, Jr., V., & Lytle, C. M. (1983). American Indians, American justice. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Hixon, W. L. (2013). American settler colonialism: A history. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Journell, W. (2009). An incomplete history: Representations of American Indians in state social studies standards. Journal of American Indian Education, 48(2), 18–32. Kincheloe, J. L., & Steinberg, S. R. (2008). Indigenous knowledges in education: Complexities, dangers, and profound benefits. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, & L.T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies (pp. 135– 156). New York, NY: Sage. Ladson-Billing, G. (2003). Lies my teacher still tells: Developing a critical race perspective toward the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum (pp. 1–11). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Lawrence, A. (2011). Lessons from an Indian day school: Negotiating colonization in northern New Mexico, 1902–1907. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. McCoy, M. (in press). Teaching trauma: Using American Indian boarding school films to prepare preservice teachers. In Shear, S. B., Tschida, C., Bellows, E., Buchanan, L., & Saylor, L. (Eds.), Making controversial issues possible in the elementary classroom: A critical reader. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life c3 framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Richie, C. (Director). (2008). Our spirits don’t speak English: Indian Boarding School [DVD]. USA: Richie-Heape Films. Shear, S. B. (2015). Cultural genocide masked as education: Analyzing U.S. history textbooks’ inadequate coverage of Indian Education policies. In P. Chandler (Ed.), Doing Race in Social Studies: Critical Perspectives (pp. 13–40). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Shear, S. B., Knowles, R. T., Soden, G., & Castro, A. J. (2015). Manifesting destiny: Re/ presentations of indigenous people in K–12 U.S. history curriculum. Theory & Research in Social Education, 43(1), 68–101. doi:10.1080/00933104.2014.999849 Szasz, M. C. (1999). Education and the American Indian: The road to self-determination since 1928. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler-colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.

CHAPTER 8

BUT “AIN’T I A WOMAN?” An Inquiry on the Intersectionality of Race and Gender During the 19th Century Abolitionist Movement Lauren Colley University of Alabama

ABSTRACT The 19th century abolitionist movement represents a historic moment where both race and gender collide as women work together and at odds with one another as they try to gain racial and gender equality. And yet, curriculum, standards, and textbooks have failed to take into account the breadth of the abolitionist movement. This chapter, and the curriculum inquiry that follows, aims to prioritize the voices and perspectives of women (i.e., Sojourner Truth, Sarah Mapps Douglass, and Maria Stewart) who are traditionally left out of the historical narrative and challenges students to critically examine the intersections of race and gender during the 19th century and beyond. Furthermore, the curriculum inquiry engages students in historiography, historical interpretation, and argument building. By confronting the complexity of the past, students must interpret to what extent abolitionists were fighting to end slavery and/or promoting women’s rights. By examining these intersections,

Race Lessons, pages 133–154 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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134    L. COLLEY students then apply their knowledge to the modern day debate over feminism and Black feminism. It is the ultimate goal of this chapter and curriculum inquiry to open up the conversation not only around the abolitionist movement, but also on the intersectionality of race and gender throughout other historic and contemporary moments. I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? —Sojourner Truth, 1851

In 1851, Sojourner Truth stood in front of a women’s rights convention held in Akron, Ohio, and gave what became one of the most famous speeches on abolitionism and women’s rights entitled, “Ain’t I a Woman.” Speaking as a former slave, Sojourner Truth questioned not only the injustice of the peculiar institution, but also the injustice of gender inequality at the time. However, as historians have pointed out, there’s quite a lot missing from this story. There is debate over whether or not there are really two Sojourner Truths at play; a historical “Truth” and our beloved carefully constructed image of Truth (Painter, 1997). The image that we hold of Truth is one of a brave woman standing on the “right side” of history. Sojourner Truth represented a symbol of a strong, Black female, a fierce abolitionist and feminist, which America desperately needed (and arguably, still needs). And although the individual hero narrative we continue to perpetuate would prove otherwise, Sojourner Truth was not alone in her quest for abolition. Other Black northerners made the transition from slavery to freedom and during the 19th century began to organize and protest the deep racial injustices of our country. Many of these African Americans banded together to form communities and organizations (i.e., social, political, economic, religious, etc.) to fight to end slavery and racial oppression (Horton & Horton, 1998). Other African American women worked within anti-slavery societies that were created by their White counterparts. For example, both the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society were interracial organizations that “denounced slavery as a sin and called for its immediate end” (Faulkner, 2011, p. 1). And although often misunderstood as a “quiet Quaker,” White woman Lucretia Mott was a leader within these interracial abolition organizations and was “the foremost White female abolitionist in the United States” while being “in the interracial vanguard of the anti-slavery movement” (Faulkner, 2011, p. 4). Joining Lucretia Mott in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society were African American women like Sarah Mapps Douglass. Like Mott, Douglass also often cited her religious convictions for her activism, but also felt a larger responsibility to the African American community. She gave meaning to her activism through a

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call for slaves and free Blacks to come together as “brethren and sisters” (Faulkner, 2011, p. 36). Other African American women such as Maria Stewart also took up the call for abolition. Giving four different lectures throughout Boston, Stewart spoke to other African Americans in favor of both abolition and the education of young girls (Lerner, 2004, p. 5). Although historic preference is given to the leaders of these anti-slavery societies (e.g., Lucretia Mott; Sarah and Angelica Grimké), many ordinary women formed similar anti-slavery societies across the country. Women mounted fairs and bazaars, they secured financial support, they created and circulated antislavery propaganda, they sponsored lectures, they gave speeches, they wrote for Garrison’s Liberator, and they used their moral activism and leveraged it into political activism (Jeffrey, 1998). The inquiry in this chapter focuses on the ways in which these women (both White and Black) worked both together, and at odds with one another, to end slavery through their bravery, determination, and sisterhood. For reference, a brief timeline of the work of these women is included below (adapted from http://www.ushistory.org/more/timeline.htm). 1827: Sarah Mapps Douglass establishes a school for Black children in Philadelphia. 1832: Maria Stewart launches her career as a public speaker and pamphleteer. Stewart is one of the first African American female political activists. 1835: Female anti-slavery societies are formed in Boston and Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society was an integrated group of White and Black middle class women, led by Lucretia Mott and included Sarah Mapps Douglass. 1836: The public careers of the Quaker abolitionists the Grimké sisters begins. 1837: First gathering of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women (interracial). 1838: Second meeting of the Anti-slavery Convention of American Women, gathered in Philadelphia at the newly built Pennsylvania Hall, is attacked by a mob. The hall is burnt down. 1840: American Anti-Slavery Society splits over the issue of the public involvement of women. 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes slavery and becomes a conductor on the Underground Railroad. 1851: Sojourner Truth delivers “Ain’t I a Woman” speech in Akron, Ohio.

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CONNECTING TO CRITICAL RACE THEORY The 19th century abolitionist movement represents a historical moment where gender and race intersect as women fighting for racial equality also often took up the quest for gender equality (Kellow, 2013). However, historians have highlighted how the maternalistic ideology and sisterhood that White women abolitionists often used (i.e., women’s moral superiority and/or equality) stopped short of extending itself to Black women (Hansen, 1993; Hogenson, 1993). Furthermore, Midgley (2007) argued that by prioritizing the stories of women such as Lucretia Mott and the Grimké sisters alongside the role of maternal ideologies in the abolitionist movement, scholars have in affect sidelined the anti-slavery efforts of African American women at the time. Other scholars have shown how the women’s suffrage movement that grew out of the abolitionist movement, was ultimately also coming from a place of racism and frustration with the fact that African American males had received the right to vote before White, middle class, “virtuous” women (Shklar, 1991). Thus, as historians continue to problematize their interpretations of the abolitionist movement and women’s movements, so should educators and educational researchers. Yet, Anderson and Metzger (2011) note that P–12 curriculum standards represent a “potluck approach to teaching the abolitionist movement” (p. 405). They explain that the standards “focus primarily on the contributions of a few exceptional African American figures toward fulfilling America’s revolutionary egalitarian promise” (p. 405) and that “the standards generally take for granted that all abolitionists advocated political and social equality between races” (p. 406). Still, relatively few studies have examined the intersectionality of race and gender within the social studies (Woyshner & Schocker, 2015). Woyshner and Schocker (2015) found through an analysis of high school history textbooks that Black women are still marginalized in today’s textbooks and appear only slightly more than they did in the 1970s. This inquiry thus attempts to create instructional ways in which to highlight this intersectionality during the time of the abolitionist movement. Delgado and Stefancic (2012) define intersectionality as meaning the “examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination plays out in various settings” (p. 57). Furthermore, scholars who use critical race feminism (CRF) argue that CRF centers on examining structures and institutions through the roles, experiences, and narratives of women of color and engages intersectionality as one of its hallmark features (Childers-McKee & Hytten, 2015; Pratt-Clarke, 2010). This inquiry focuses on the voices of the women in the abolitionist movement and forces students to confront how issues of racism and sexism often collided within these anti-slavery efforts. This inquiry is purposeful in its

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inclusion of African American abolitionist voices in an effort to embrace the goals of CRF and CRT. Students should consider how the African American female abolitionist’s experience was different and/or at odds with the White female abolitionist, and yet should also think about the ways in which women worked together to fight for their common goals. No one abolitionist’s experience was the same as another, and this inquiry should help teachers to navigate these complex stories within the classroom. In order to focus on using the voices of those previously silenced, this inquiry places the words of African American abolitionists Maria Stewart and Sarah Mapps Douglass alongside those of well-known abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Using the frame of a revisionist history, the inquiry replaces “comforting majoritarian interpretations of events with ones that square more accurately with minorities’ experiences” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p. 24). Using the voices of these women as a lens to view the abolitionist movement, this inquiry attempts to more accurately represent the breadth of minorities’ experiences during the 19th century. The decision to use a variety of voices also helps to counter the often naïve narrative of “women’s history,” that rests on assumptions of all women having the same experience (MacKinnon, 2013). By highlighting the complexity across gender and race, the narrative of abolitionism becomes not only one more inclusive of gender and race, but becomes a more accurate portrayal of the breadth of the female experience at this time. Revisionist historians also often “strive to unearth little-known chapters of racial struggle, sometimes in ways that reinforce current reform efforts” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p. 24). By focusing on the intersectionality of race and gender during the abolitionist movement, this inquiry thus unearths not only the ways in which this intersectionality played out in the past, but also aligns it to its modern counterpart, Black feminism. The staging of the compelling question as well as the taking informed action sections of this inquiry, require students to draw connections from the intersectionality of the past and the broader discussions over race and racism present in today’s feminist discourse. Using popular voices of Black feminism such as Beyoncé or Amandla Stenberg allow students to discuss the ways in which modern African American females experiences are also different than their White sisters. In conclusion, it is my hope that this inquiry represents an opportunity to look beyond the small sidebar in the textbook. To move beyond the very carefully, historically, and socially constructed images of women, and to place women of both races as lead actors. Women who were brave, fiery, and contentious. Lastly, it is my sincere hope that by placing the stories and experiences of women of color at the heart of the abolitionist movement students can empathize and begin to see themselves reflected in the narrative of history so that they too, can become just as fiery and brave.

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Content: U.S. History, Abolition (19th Century) Connections to CRT: Intersectionality, Revisionism/Historical Context Connections to State and NCSS Content Standards Alabama Course of Study, 10th Grade Content Standard 12 Describe the founding of the first abolitionist societies by Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin and the role played by later critics of slavery, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Sumner. NCSS Disciplinary Standards: History Guide learners in practicing skills of historical analysis and interpretation, such as compare and contrast, differentiate between historical facts and interpretations, consider multiple perspectives, analyze cause and effect relationships, compare competing historical narratives, recognize the tentative nature of historical interpretations, and hypothesize the influence of the past. SAMPLE LESSON: A HIGH-SCHOOL INQUIRY Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Standards and Practices

Staging the Question

Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement? Alabama Course of Study, 10th Grade Content Standard 12: Describe the founding of the first abolitionist societies by Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin and the role played by later critics of slavery, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Sumner. NCSS Disciplinary Standards: History: Guide learners in practicing skills of historical analysis and interpretation, such as compare and contrast, differentiate between historical facts and interpretations, consider multiple perspectives, analyze cause and effect relationships, compare competing historical narratives, recognize the tentative nature of historical interpretations, and hypothesize the influence of the past. Analyze Beyoncé’s recreation of the WWII Poster We Can Do It or Amandla Stenberg’s discussion of her authentic activism through social media.

But “Ain’t I a Woman?”    139 Supporting Question 1 How did abolitionists fight together for the abolition of slavery?

Supporting Question 2 How were women at odds with one another during the fight for abolition?

Supporting Question 3 To what extent were female abolitionists fighting for only the end of slavery?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Write 1–2 paragraphs that explain how women fought together to end slavery.

Write a brief summary of how women were at odds with one another during the abolitionist movement and provide two key details that highlight these conflicts.

Develop a claim supported by evidence about the extent to which female abolitionists were fighting for only the end of slavery.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: Foner, E. (n.d). “On the abolitionist vision.” PBS. Source B: Seal of the Philadelphia Female AntiSlavery Society. (n.d.). Source C: Stewart, M. (1831). “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build.”

Source D: Blight, D. (n.d.). “On Racism in the Abolitionist Movement.” PBS. Source E: Excerpts From Letter to William Bassett From Sarah Mapps Douglass (1837). Source F: Excerpts From the Negro Woman’s Appeal to Her White Sisters (1850).

Source G: Hewitt, N.A. (n.d.). “Abolition and Suffrage.” PBS. Source H: Truth, S. (1851). But Ain’t I a Woman? Source I: Stanton, E. (1860). Speech to the Anniversary of the American AntiSlavery Society.

Argument

Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement? Construct an argument (e.g., detailed outline, poster, essay) that addresses the compelling question using specific claims and relevant evidence from historical sources while acknowledging competing views.

Extension

Hold a mock forum between various female abolitionists (e.g., Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Sarah Douglass, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Stanton, etc.) by having students choose an abolitionist and debate the compelling question through the lens of their chosen abolitionist.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Investigate the current Black Feminist Movement and why some African American women feel excluded from the broader feminist movement. Assess: List the challenges that all women face in the United States and have a discussion about how these challenges might look different across race and/or class. Act: Students should create songs, poems, letters, instagram feeds (or other social media) and/or position statements that showcase their viewpoints on the intersections of racism and sexism/feminism. Students’ work can be displayed through a class wiki-page or could be shared during a school-wide assembly.

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LESSON NARRATIVE Objectives of the Inquiry The objectives of this inquiry are three-fold and focus on (a) investigating the intersection of race and gender during the abolitionist movement; (b) investigating and using the voices of historical actors in the past who are often left out of the traditional historical narrative in an attempt to counter and revise that narrative; and (c) engage students in historiography, historical interpretation, and argument building. Taken together, students are forced to confront the complexity of the past and to interpret to what extent abolitionists were fighting to end slavery and/or promote women’s rights. Through this historical interpretation and argument, students are then able to see the roots of the intersectionality between race and gender and are then better able to apply these lenses to modern day discussions over feminism and Black feminism. Overview and Description of the Compelling Question There has been much scholarly debate over the lack of voices (in particularly those of African Americans) during the study of the 19th century abolitionist movement. Historians have examined the various experiences of both White and African American women throughout the abolitionist movement, and have noted how leaders and everyday women alike pushed the movement forward. However, historians have also noted the complexity of the movement, showing how issues of racial equality and gender equality often collided. Throughout this inquiry, students will investigate the complexity of the abolitionist movement. Centered around the compelling question “Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement?” students will consider the extent to which women were able to work across racial lines in the name of abolition, and consider the extent to which they were fighting to end slavery versus promoting women’s rights. Students will evaluate evidence in order to answer the compelling question through an argument by the end of the inquiry. The compelling question was designed to allow for students to think more critically about the intentions and actions of the female abolitionists while considering the role that race and gender played in these discussions. Furthermore, this inquiry specifically highlights voices that are often left out of the traditional narrative of the abolitionist movement and focuses solely on the female efforts during this time. This was done intentionally to show students the breadth of the movement and to allow them to consider the ways in which women of all races mobilized to fight to end slavery. Thus,

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teachers might consider supplementing the sources that are provided here with additional sources that would allow students to investigate the voices of a more traditional abolitionist narrative (William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas, Grimké sisters, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, etc.). This inquiry also asks students to engage in the historiography on abolitionism. Each supporting question houses within its sources a perspective of a well-known historian on the subject of abolition. Having the voices of historians alongside the primary sources allows students to further discuss the complexities of building a historical argument. Teachers might consider supplementing the viewpoints of the historians represented here, with those historians who hold opposing viewpoints. This inquiry is expected to take four to six 55-minute class periods. The inquiry time frame could expand if teachers think that their students need additional instructional experiences (i.e., supporting questions, formative tasks, sources). Teachers know best the needs and interests of their particular students, and are encouraged to therefore modify and adapt this inquiry to fit their instructional purposes. Staging the Compelling Question The compelling question—“Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement?”—asks students to consider the role that race and gender played during the abolitionist movement. Like many issues of our nation’s past, racism and sexism often intersect in the struggle for equality. Throughout the inquiry, students will consider the ways in which both race and gender affected the abolitionist movement. The staging activity allows students to become familiar with this intersection through the discussion of popular figure(s), Beyoncé and/or Amandla Stenberg. To stage this inquiry, teachers should prompt students to analyze Beyoncé’s recreation of the WWII poster “We Can Do It!” (the image can be found at: http://www.mtv.co.uk/beyonce/news/beyonce-recreates-iconic-we-can-doit-poster-at-ww2-museum or through a Google search) or Amandla Stenberg’s activism discussion on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday (http://www.supersoul. tv/supersoul-sessions/amandla-stenberg-my-authenticity-is-my-activism). Teachers using the Beyoncé image could prompt students to see if they know who is in the image and if they have seen another version of the same image before. Teachers might consider then showing the Beyoncé version of the image alongside the original image (which can be found at http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_538122 or through a Google search). Teachers will want to help students understand the original intention of the original image (Rosie the Riveter) as well as having them discuss what that image now symbolizes (female empowerment/Black feminism). Teachers might then turn back to the Beyoncé image and consider asking “What is Beyoncé doing?,” “What point is she

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trying to prove?,” and “Why might she be recreating this image?” Teachers should help students to discuss how this relates back to issues of race and gender. Lastly, teachers might consider doing some additional reading about Beyoncé as a figure of Black feminism. Teachers who want to read more about the complexity of Beyoncé’s feminist message should start with reading the blog by scholar bell hooks (http://www.bellhooksinstitute. com/blog/2016/5/9/moving-beyond-pain). Teachers using the video clip of Amandla Stenberg’s discussion of her social media activism, will want students to take note of the issues she discusses during her talk (roles of femininity, differences in femininity and feminism between the races, role of social media in activism). Teachers might consider also discussing the social media movement #blackgirlmagic (i.e., Instagram/Facebook/Twitter) and discuss how young African American women are combatting racism and sexism through the use of social media. Teachers will want to ask students questions such as “What are young women trying to prove?,” “Why might young African American feel disenfranchised from the larger feminist movement?,” and “Why are they choosing social media?” Teachers should also begin to bridge connections back to the abolitionist movement. Teachers might begin by asking students “Who was involved in the abolitionist movement?,” “Do you think everyone worked together?,” and “How might these modern images (and discussion) relate back to women during the time of the abolitionist movement?” Having students begin these discussions of race and gender around popular images should not only spark the inquiry, but should also help frame their discussions as they move through the inquiry. Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources In order to answer the compelling question—“Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement?”—students will need to first consider the reasons why and how abolitionists worked together in their struggle to end slavery. The supporting question for this task—“How did abolitionists fight together for the abolition of slavery?”—has students think about the strategies and moral pleas that abolitionists used to further their cause. In analyzing the sources provided, students consider the ways in which abolitionists (both White and African American) sought to end slavery. Formative Task 1 Throughout this entire inquiry, the formative tasks focus on helping build students’ writing skills. This formative task calls on students to write 1–2 explanatory paragraphs about how women fought together to end slavery.

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Students will develop their paragraphs by reading about the vision of abolition as described by historian Eric Foner (n.d.), and by analyzing primary sources from female abolitionists. Teachers might choose to have students first analyze Eric Foner’s (n.d.) description of the abolitionist vision using a timeline or t-chart (described below). Depending on students’ abilities with analyzing primary sources, teachers might use whole class instruction to collectively analyze Source B and Source C. Teachers might also find it useful to allow students to work in small groups to create lists of the ways in which abolitionists worked together before writing their paragraphs. Lists could be developed that highlight both the strategies and moral pleas used. Example lists could look like those in Table 8.1. Featured Sources Source A is historian Eric Foner’s (n.d.) description of the abolitionist vision. Foner (n.d.) describes how abolitionists were directly challenging their predecessors in their definition of what American could (and should) be. Teachers might consider having students create a timeline using Foner’s (n.d.) description. Students could label the changes in thoughts on the issue of equality on their timeline. An example of what the timeline might look like is in Figure 8.1. Similarly, teachers might have students create a t-chart that would place descriptions of equality before abolitionists on one side and descriptions of equality according to abolitionists on the other. Source B is the seal of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS; 1833). The society was organized by Lucretia Mott and was interracial from its inception. Teachers will want students to first analyze the seal and then to read the image description. While analyzing the seal, teachers could use the observe, reflect, and question method for analyzing photographs and prints from the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/ teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html), or might consider developing their own set of analysis questions. Teachers will want students to consider what is happening in the image (begging, pleading), the text on the image “am I not a woman and a sister?” and why this would be used as the seal for PFASS. Teachers will want to make sure that students also capture

TABLE 8.1  Example Lists of Ways Abolitionists Worked Together Strategies Used

Moral Pleas

1. Formed interracial societies 2. Lobbied 3. Helped with underground railroad

1. Used religion to help promote abolition 2. Used rhetoric of equality to promote abolition 3. used the connection as female humans to promote abolition

144    L. COLLEY 1790 Naturalization Law: Anyone can migrate and become a citizen as long as they are White.

1800s: Free blacks not considered citizens even though they were born here.

1800s: Abolitionists promote birthright citizenship; if you are born here you are a citizen, regardless of race.

Figure 8.1  Example timeline of abolitionist events.

what types of actions PFASS took in their fight to end slavery (within the image description). Source C is an excerpt from the speech “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build” by Maria Stewart (1831). Stewart was an African American abolitionist who was best known for her valiant efforts to speak in public and for her published work in William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator (you can read more about Stewart [1831] at https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/womenwithdeadlines/ wwd17.htm). As students read through this excerpt, teachers might want to have students pay close attention to the passages in which she incites the unification of all women through religion. In particular, teachers might want to further investigate the following passages through a whole class discussion: I am of a strong opinion, that the day on which we unite, heart and soul, and turn our attention to knowledge and improvement, that day the hissing and reproach among the nations of the earth against us will cease . . .  Why cannot we do something to distinguish ourselves, and contribute some of our hard earnings that would reflect honor upon our memories, and cause our children to arise and call us blessed? Shall it any longer be said of the daughters of Africa, they have no ambition, they have no force? By no means. Let every female heart become united, and let us raise a fund ourselves; and at the end of the one year and a half, we might be able to lay the corner-stone for the building of a High School, that the higher branches of knowledge might be enjoyed by us; and God would raise us up, and enough to aid us in our laudable designs. (Stewart, 1831)

Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources For the second supporting question—“How were women at odds with one another during the fight for abolition?”—students build on their understanding of female abolitionists by investigating the ways in which racism affected the work of abolitionists. Students will once again examine the viewpoint of a historian as well as two primary sources. By examining each source, students should better understand how racism affected the work of

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abolitionists. Students should begin to see how the moral and religious call to end slavery was happening within the historical context of the very racism that fueled slavery. Formative Task 2 Continuing to build students’ writing skills, this formative performance task requires students to write a summary of how women were at odds with one another during the abolitionist movement. During this summary, students will use at least two key details that highlight these conflicts. Students will develop their summary by reading about abolition and race through the perspective of historian David Blight. Students will then read about Sarah Mapps Douglass’ experience of racial exclusion from a Friends (i.e., Quaker) meeting, all the while feeling included by the Grimké Sisters. Lastly, students will consider The Negro woman’s appeal to her White sisters (Source F, 1850) which calls upon White women to embrace the African American women’s call for abolition. As students examine these sources, teachers might consider having students organize main ideas and key details from each document into a graphic organizer. Table 8.2 shows an example of how the graphic organizer might look. Featured Sources Source D is historian David Blight’s (n.d.) perceptions on race and the abolitionist movement. Blight (n.d.) describes how the goals and intentions of White abolitionists versus Black abolitionists were different. In particular, teachers will want students to notice how Blight (n.d.) discusses the different agendas that these abolitionists had. It might be useful to allow students to use Blight’s (n.d.) discussion to create a Venn diagram that

TABLE 8.2  Example Graphic Organizer of Source Ideas and Details What is the Main Idea of the Source? On Racism in the Abolitionist Movement by David Blight Letter to William Bassett from Sarah Mapps Douglass (1837) The Negro Woman’s Appeal to her White Sisters (1850)

What are Two Key Details From the Source That Support This Main Idea?

What Do You Think We Can Learn About From This Source?

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houses the agendas of White abolitionists on one side, and the agenda of African American abolitionists on the other. However it will be important that teachers point out that although Blight (n.d.) discusses abolitionists in this way, not all White abolitionists felt the same way nor did all African American abolitionists. Source E is a letter to William Bassett from Sarah Mapps Douglass (1837). William Bassett was Quaker abolitionist and a friend of Sarah Mapps Douglass. In this letter, Douglass (who was a member of the PFASS and an abolitionist herself) describes her experience of being required to sit on a segregated bench during a Friends (i.e., Quaker) meeting. Teachers will want to point out to students that not only does Douglass describe the discrimination she faced, but she also explains her feelings towards fellow abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké. Douglass (1837) says: when Sarah and Angelina Grimke passed by; they saw our low estate and their hearts melted within them; with the tenderness of ministering angels they lifted us from the dust and poured the oil of consolation, the balm of sympathy into our lacerated bosoms; they identified themselves with us, took our wrongs upon them, and made our oppression and woe theirs.

Douglass’ letter is complex in how she describes facing racial discrimination and yet also her acceptance by fellow abolitionists. Teachers might direct students to the different passages within the letter that highlight both the struggles and successes of being an African American abolitionist. Teachers will also want students to notice the maternalistic language used by Douglass (e.g., “lifted us from the dust,” “balm of sympathy,” etc.). Source F is the broadside, The Negro Woman’s Appeal to Her White Sisters (1850). This broadside highlights the perspective of African American women who were using religion (and maternalism) to appeal to their White counterparts to help end slavery. Because of its length and complexity, teachers could choose to use the entire text or they could choose to use excerpts. If excerpting, teachers will want to make sure they capture the religious tone of the appeal, and that they allow students opportunities to discuss why African American women would be asking for help from White women. For example, capturing the first four lines and the last five lines highlights the ways in which African American women were using religion to try to help bridge the gap between the races: Ye wives and ye mothers, your influence extend— Ye sisters, ye daughters, the helpless defend— The strong ties are severed for one crime alone, Possessing a colour less fair than your own.

 . . . 

But “Ain’t I a Woman?”    147 when freed and redeemed from the bondage of sin Oh! fair Christian ladies, you bear a high name; Your works of benevolence loudly proclaim the mercy and kindness you show to distress; Ah! Pity dear ladies, our Savior will bless. —The Negro Woman’s Appeal to Her White Sisters, 1850

Teachers will want to use this source to allow students to discuss the complexities between race, gender, and power that are at play during the abolitionist movement. Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources For the third supporting question—“To what extent were female abolitionists fighting for only the end of slavery?”—students continue to build on their knowledge and understanding of the abolitionist movement by examining the ways in which conversations over ending slavery led to conversations over women’s rights. Students will once again examine the viewpoint of a historian as well as two primary sources. By examining each source, students might begin to question whether or not women’s call to abolition was really a feminist movement. Formative Task 3 To move students’ writing skills closer toward that of an argument, students in this formative task will develop a claim supported by evidence about the extent to which female abolitionists were fighting for only the end of slavery. Students will develop their claims by examining the perspective of historian Nancy Hewitt (n.d.), and by reading two iconic speeches by Sojourner Truth (1851) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1860). Teachers will want to make sure that students are examining the ways in which female abolitionists fought to end slavery, but also found it necessary at times to fight for their own rights alongside the call to freedom. As students examine each source, teachers might choose to have students record their thoughts in an organizer like the one in Figure 8.2. Students could then use these notes so that they can see the variety of claims they made, and use them to see what claims build on one another or which claims contradict one another. Students would then use these notes to develop their final claim and support it with evidence. Featured Sources Source G is historian Nancy Hewitt’s (n.d.) perspective on abolition and suffrage. Hewitt (n.d.) describes the differences between abolitionists when it

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What is the main idea of this source?

What claim could I make using this source?

What evidence would support this claim? (cite)

Figure 8.2  Example of an organizer for recording thoughts.

came to issues of women’s rights and explains how the question over women’s suffrage divided abolitionists after the Civil War. Teachers might have students read the source and create categories for as many different groups as they can find (female abolitionists who want abolition and women’s rights; male abolitionists who do not want women’s rights; African American abolitionists who do not want women’s suffrage [e.g., Frederick Douglas]; African American abolitionists who DO want women’s suffrage [e.g., Sojourner Truth]; etc.). Teachers would then want students to discuss why those differences existed, paying particular attention to the historical context of the time. Source H is the speech “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth (1851). Although there is some historical debate over the speech, Sojourner Truth (1851) represents the voice of one of the most well-known African American abolitionists and feminists. In this speech, Sojourner Truth (1851) describes her experience as a female in slavery as being the reasons why she is promoting women’s rights. She explains: Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? (Truth, 1851)

Teachers might also support students’ reading of the speech by having them interpret each stanza separately, writing their understanding of the text in a side-by-side column. Source I is Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s (1860) speech to the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Due to the length of this text, it is highly recommended that teachers excerpt portions of the text for students’ analysis. Even using only the first paragraph will allow students to understand Stanton’s call for women’s rights. As Stanton (1860) explains, “in settling the question of the negro’s rights, we find out the exact limits of our own” (para. 1).

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Summative Performance Task At this point in the students’ inquiry, they have examined a variety of historians’ perspectives as well as multiple sources that explain the complexity within the abolitionist movement. Students have analyzed how abolitionists worked together, what set them apart, and how they struggled to define their movement around slavery alone. In this summative performance task, students are now responding to the prompt: “Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement?” Students should be encouraged to use their notes, sources, and organizers from throughout the inquiry to develop their argument. These arguments could take the form of a traditional written essay, or they could create a poster, PowerPoint, or detailed outline that showcases their argument and uses evidentiary support. Students’ arguments likely will vary, but could include any of the following: • No. White and African American women fought for abolition because they thought that slavery needed to be ended. They often worked together across racial lines to prioritize racial equality. • Maybe. Although White and African American women fought together to end slavery, they also fought for the extension of rights to women. African American women also sometimes felt excluded from White women’s work for abolition. • Yes. Although most White and African American women abolitionists wanted to end slavery, some White women were reluctant to include their African American counterparts in their work (breeding more racism) and also often prioritized women’s rights over racial equality. Extension Teachers might choose to extend and build on students’ arguments by allowing students to hold a mock forum of female abolitionists. For this extension, each student would choose a specific female abolitionist (e.g., Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Sarah Douglass, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Stanton, etc.) and develop argument points around the compelling question through the perspective of that abolitionist. Teachers would want to allow students to complete more research around their given abolitionist either using texts or online research. Once research was completed and students developed argument points, the teacher would host a mock forum around the compelling question, “Was the abolitionist movement really a feminist movement?” For a starting list of female abolitionists, teachers might examine the one on the The Gilder Lehman Institute of

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American History website (https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/ slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/woman-abolitionists). Taking Informed Action In this inquiry, students have the opportunity to take informed action by understanding the current Black feminist movement and by examining why some African American women feel excluded from the larger women’s movement. Teachers might begin by reading the blog “Black Woman, White Movement: Why Black Women are Leaving the Feminist Movement” by Lindsey Hoffman (2015; retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost. com/lindsay-hoffman/black-woman-white-movemen_b_8569540.html). Teachers might choose to also have students read parts of this blog and/ or allow students to complete research on their own. Teachers might also turn back to the staging activity and allow students to watch the discussion of Amandla Stenberg (2015; retrieved from http://www.supersoul.tv/ supersoul-sessions/amandla-stenberg-my-authenticity-is-my-activism). Students should then assess the problem by creating a list of the challenges that all women face in the United States and have a class discussion about how these challenges might look different across race and/or class. Again, teachers might allow opportunities for students to research these challenges on their own or through teacher guidance. Teachers might use several news sources to allow students to see similarities and differences (e.g., Gallop, CNN, BBC, etc.). Lastly, students will have the opportunity to take action by creating songs, poems, letters, Instagram feeds (or other social media), and/or position statements that showcase their viewpoints on the intersections of racism and sexism/feminism in today’s world. Students should be encouraged to take their own positions on a single issue and/or multiple issues and showcase these positions in their song, poem, letter, Instagram feed (or other social media) or position statement. Students’ work could be displayed through a class wiki-page or could be shared during a school wide (or class wide) assembly. TIPS AND ADVICE Most of the sources used throughout the inquiry are text-based, and students will have a variety of level of skills when approaching reading historical documents like the ones represented here. Some students might be able to critically examine the entire source, while others might need excerpts of the source. Some students might also need additional support in reading the sources than what is provided in this inquiry. Before beginning this

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inquiry, teachers might find it beneficial to help students build some historical reading skills. Teachers might use their own strategies or they might benefit from using strategies such as the Reading like a Historian curriculum (Stanford History Education Group, n.d.). Furthermore, because the sources and topics that are represented in this inquiry are not those that are typically captured within the traditional narrative of the abolitionist movement, teachers might find it useful to allow their students to read the traditional narrative (e.g., textbook) before beginning this inquiry. Teachers might then have students continue to discuss how the sources and content presented throughout this inquiry either counters or corroborates the traditional textbook narrative. Alternatively, teachers could also develop an alternate inquiry that examines the male contributions to abolition and allow students to debate who should really go down in history. Brief Glossary of Terms Used Abolitionist: A person who fought for the end of slavery through various strategies and actions. Intersectionality: The examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and/ or sexual orientation, and how their combination plays out in various settings. Maternalistic Ideology: System of ideals or ideas that captures the distinctive role that women play as mothers and caregivers and applies it to (or leverages it for) the inclusion of women’s involvement in society and politics. Used mostly by early women’s reformers. Revisionist History: Term given to historians who counter the traditional or mainstream narrative. SOURCE NOTES The sources used throughout the inquiry are all available online through various websites. Provided below is the reference information for each source at the time of the development of this inquiry. Staging Knowles, B. (2014). We Can Do It! [image]. Retrieved from http://www.mtv. co.uk/beyonce/news/beyonce-recreates-iconic-we-can-do-it-poster -at-ww2-museum

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Stenberg, A. (2015). My authenticity is my activism [video]. Retrieved from http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sessions/amandla-stenberg-my -authenticity-is-my-activism Supporting Question 1 Source A: Foner, E. (n.d.). Eric Foner on the abolitionist vision. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i2977.html Source B: Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. (1833). “Am I not a woman and a sister?” [seal, image]. Pennsylvania abolition society papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. http://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/ object_id/1126 Source C: Stewart, M. (1831). [Religion and the pure principles of morality, The sure foundation on which we must build]. http://www.courant.com/news/local/consumers/hc-maria_excerpt. artsep29-story.html Supporting Question 2 Source D: Blight, D. (n.d.) David Blight on racism in the abolitionist movement. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i2978.html Source E: Douglass, S. M. (1837). Letter to William Bassett. Weld-Grimké collection, Clements Library, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h99t.html Source F: The Negro woman’s appeal to her White sisters. (1850). [broadside]. Library of Congress: Washington, D.C. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/03/0312001r.jpg Supporting Question 3 Source G: Hewitt, N. A. (n.d.) Abolition and suffrage. http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/resources/index. html?body=abolitionists.html Source H: Stanton, E. C. (1860). Speech to the Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society [pdf document]. In E. Dubois (Ed.), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Correspondence, Writings, Speeches. New York, NY: Schocken Books Inc., pp. 78–85.

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http://www.womenspeecharchive.org/files/Speech_to_the_Anniversary_ of_the_Am_1196706533927.pdf Source I: Truth, S. (1851). Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a woman. Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University. http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

Extension The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.gilderlehman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery /resources/woman-abolitionists Hoffman, L. (2015). Black Woman, White Movement: Why Black Women are Leaving the Feminist Movement. [blog]. Retrieved from http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/lindsay-hoffman/black-woman-whitemovemen_b_8569540.html Tips and Advice Stanford History Education Group. (n.d.). Reading like a historian. Retrieved from https://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh REFERENCES Anderson, C. B., & Metzger, S. A. (2011). Slavery, the Civil War era, and African American representation in U.S. history: An analysis of four states’ academic standards. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(3), 393–415. Childers-McKee, C., & Hytten, K. (2015). Critical race feminism and the complex challenges of educational reform. The Urban Review, 47(3), 393–412. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Faulkner, C. (2011). Lucretia Mott’s heresy: Abolition and women’s rights in nineteenth century America. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hansen, D. G. (1993). Strained sisterhood: Gender and class in the Boston female antislavery society. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Hogenson, K. (1993). Garrisonian abolitionists and the rhetoric of gender, 1850– 1860. American Quarterly, 45(4), 558–595. Horton, J. O., & Horton, L. E. (1998). In hope of liberty: Culture, community, and protest among northern free blacks, 1700–1860. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Jeffrey, J. R. (1998). The great silent army of abolitionism: Ordinary women in the antislavery movement. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

154    L. COLLEY Kellow, M. M. (2013). Woman and abolitionism in the United States: Recent historiography. History Compass. 11(11), 1008–1020. Lerner, G. (2004). The Grimke sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for women’s rights and Abolition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. MacKinnon, C. A. (2013). From practice to theory or what is a White woman anyway? In R. Delgado & J. Stafancic (Eds.), Critical race theory: Cutting edge (pp. 370–375). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Midgely, C. (2007). British abolitionism and feminism in transatlantic perspective. In K. Sklar & J. B. Stewart (Eds.), Women’s rights and transatlantic slavery (pp. 121–141). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Painter, N. I. (1997). Sojourner Truth: A life, a symbol. New York, NY: Norton and Company. Pratt-Clarke, M. A. (2010). Critical race, feminism, and education: A social justice model. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Shklar, J. N. (1991). American citizenship: The quest for inclusion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Woyshner, C., & Schocker, J.B. (2015). Cultural parallax and content analysis: images of Black women in high school history textbooks. Theory and Research in Social Education, 43(4), 441–468.

CHAPTER 9

TEACHING THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT AS CITIZEN ACTION FOR RACIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE Todd S. Hawley Kent State University Andrew L. Hostetler Vanderbilt University Prentice T. Chandler Austin Peay State University

ABSTRACT In most cases, when teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott, teachers focus primarily on Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat at the front of a city bus. This version of the story hides Parks’ work preparing to be part of a collective movement in the fight for racial and social justice. Her decision to take action, to be arrested, sparked a movement that relied on the power of economic justice to advance the struggle for racial justice. Also embedded in the traditional story of Race Lessons, pages 155–169 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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156    T. S. HAWLEY, A. L. HOSTETLER, and P. T. CHANDLER the Montgomery Bus Boycott is the idea that it only involved Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While they are certainly central to the story, we highlight how they were part of a larger, collaborative movement that leveraged tactics to gain economic justice as part of the fight for greater civil rights. The use of counter-storytelling allows those who were there, whose actions made it a boycott, to tell the story, rather than relying on corporate textbooks, traditional narratives or movies. This chapter, and the set of activities that follow, is designed to explore the connection between economic justice and racial justice as seen in the events and actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The overall goal of this chapter is to empower teachers to engage students in the development of an argument for pursuing collective action for economic justice as a way to enable marginalized groups to gain greater justice today.

INTRODUCTION: TEACHING THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT In most cases, when teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott, teachers focus primarily on Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat at the front of a city bus. This version of the story hides Parks’ work preparing to be part of a collective movement in the fight for racial and social justice. Her decision to take action, to be arrested, sparked a movement that relied on the power of economic justice to advance the struggle for racial justice. Also embedded in the traditional story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is the idea that it only involved Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While they are certainly central to the story, we highlight how they were part of a larger, collaborative movement that leveraged tactics to gain economic justice as part of the fight for greater civil rights. The use of counter-storytelling allows those who were there, whose actions made it a boycott, to tell the story, rather than relying on corporate textbooks, traditional narratives, or movies. This chapter, and the set of inquiry-based activities included are designed to explore the connection between economic justice and racial justice as seen in the events and actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The overall goal is to empower teachers to engage students in the development of an argument for pursuing collective action for economic justice as a way to enable marginalized groups to gain greater justice today. Drawing on historical documents and artifacts, as well as other examples of collective action for economic justice, this lesson prepares students to write essays, develop digital short films, create podcasts, or blogs designed to highlight both the need for, and a strategy for collective action designed to pursue economic justice for marginalized groups today. When focusing on the content of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, teachers often draw exclusively on their textbooks or focus solely on Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat on the bus and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rise to prominence within the larger civil rights movement. Both are important and students can

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learn a great deal from both Parks and King. However, teaching this version of the Montgomery Bus Boycott dismisses the role sustained, collective social action and education played in helping to organize and support the idea of the boycott. This inquiry unit pushes teachers and students to go beyond the traditional narrative. While exploring the inquiry questions that frame this unit, students will investigate the role churches like the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Holt Street Baptist Church, members of the Women’s Political Council, the National Council for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), leaders such as Ralph David Abernathy played in and providing healing, inspiration, and organizational support that nurtured the boycott. CONNECTION TO CRITICAL RACE THEORY This inquiry lesson positions students to explore connections between civic action for economic justice and an overall greater level of civil rights. As such, students have the opportunity to bring together their new knowledge of the people, political actions, collaborative and strategic planning, community and religious networks and enactment of civil disobedience that are all part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At the same time, students will also draw on two tenets of critical race theory (CRT): racism as normal, and the use of narratives/counternarratives. Both enable teachers and students to confront traditional approaches to teaching about the civil rights movement in social studies classes, while incorporating the fight for economic justice into the study of economics and American history. Counter-narratives also allow the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to expand beyond only learning about Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Instead, students can pursue the voices of and actions of citizens who took collective civic action to shut down the public transportation system in an American city to gain greater civil rights for all citizens. Racism as Normal Far too often, teaching about the civil rights movement is framed as a long struggle to gain citizenship rights and freedoms for all people of color (Freeman, 1995). This traditional approach to teaching the civil rights movement ignores the reality that race and racism are “an intentional system of oppression . . . [that] should be viewed as a normal outgrowth of living in the United States—a country in which race has played the central role in social settings since the inception of the country” (Chandler, 2010, p. 37, emphasis in original). While engaging in this inquiry lesson, teachers and students both have the opportunity to explore both how the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is

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traditionally presented in corporate textbooks and to engage in honest dialogue about the ways that race is a normal part of the past and the present. Use of Narratives/Counternarratives Along with acknowledging that racism is a normal part of American life, CRT is also framed on the belief that race and racism can be dismantled through the use of counternarratives (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995). Matsuda (1995) highlighted how the power of using counternarratives and counter-storytelling puts the focus on those who have experienced racism first-hand. The use of narrative and counternarratives allows those who were part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, both before and after, to speak truth to power and bring real life and meaning to the traditional textbook version. Counter-narratives also enable social studies teachers to step outside the norm of traditional social studies and to honestly examine “the ways in which ‘Americans’ have interacted with each other” (Chandler, 2010, p. 50). As teachers and students ask powerful questions and listen to the voices of those who organized and carried out the boycott, our hope that their experiences will help provide a vision for future work to engage in civic action designed to confront racism and oppression. Content: Economics and U.S. History Connections to CRT: Racism as Normal, Use of Narratives/Counter-Narratives Connections to State and NCSS Content Standards Ohio New Learning Standards: American History 28 Following World War II, the United States experienced a struggle for racial and gender equality and the extension of civil rights. Ohio New Learning Standards: American Government 17 Historically, the United States has struggled with majority rule and the extension of minority rights. As a result of this struggle, the government has increasingly extended civil rights to marginalized groups and broadened opportunities for participation. Tennessee Standards: U.S. History–Modern U.S. History US.92. Describe significant events in the struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans, including the following: (C, H, P, TN) • Columbia Race Riots • Tent Cities of Haywood and Fayette Counties • Influence of the Highlander Folk School and civil rights advocacy groups, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) • Integration of Central High School in Little Rock and Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee •

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Montgomery Bus Boycott • Birmingham bombings 1963 • Freedom Rides, including the opposition of Bull Connor and George Wallace • March on Washington • Sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, boycotts, Nashville Sit-ins, Diane Nash • Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. TN State and Local Government GC.60. Describe how citizens can monitor and influence local and state government as individuals and members of interest groups. (P, TN) Civil Rights Students analyze the development and evolution of civil rights for women and minorities and how these advances were made possible by expanding rights under the Constitution.

SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

How and in what ways did the organizers and activists involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott demonstrate how the fight for economic justice could contribute to the struggle for racial justice?

Standards and Practices

Ohio New Learning Standards: American History 28 Following World War II, the United States experienced a struggle for racial and gender equality and the extension of civil rights. Ohio New Learning Standards: American Government 17 Historically, the United States has struggled with majority rule and the extension of minority rights. As a result of this struggle, the government has increasingly extended civil rights to marginalized groups and broadened opportunities for participation. Tennessee Standards: US History–Modern U.S. History US.92: Describe significant events in the struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans, including the following: (C, H, P, TN) • Columbia Race Riots • Tent Cities of Haywood and Fayette Counties • Influence of the Highlander Folk School and civil rights advocacy groups, including the SCLC, SNCC, and CORE • Integration of Central High School in Little Rock and Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee • Montgomery Bus Boycott • Birmingham bombings 1963 • Freedom Rides, including the opposition of Bull Connor and George Wallace • March on Washington • Sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, boycotts, Nashville Sit-ins, Diane Nash • Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. TN State and Local Government GC.60 Describe how citizens can monitor and influence local and state government as individuals and members of interest groups. (P, TN) Civil Rights Students analyze the development and evolution of civil rights for women and minorities and how these advances were made possible by expanding rights under the Constitution.

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Staging the Question

In most cases, the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott focuses primarily on Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat at the front of a city bus. Often Parks is seen as a “tired old woman” who just didn’t want to move to the back of the bus. This version of her story hides her work preparing to be part of a collective movement in the fight for racial justice. Her decision to take action, to be arrested, sparked a movement that relied on the power of economic justice to advance the struggle for racial justice. As the question highlights, this set of activities is designed to explore the connection between economic justice and racial justice as seen in the events and actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Together we will explore how this movement is meaningful and relevant for students and citizens today. Read Dr. King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott Speech.

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

Supporting Question 3

How and in what ways did Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prepare for the Montgomery Bus Boycott through their work at the Highlander Schools?

How and in what ways did the leaders of the Montgomery Bus boycott use collective citizen action and economic means to shut down the bus service and gain economic justice?

How and in what ways can the Montgomery Bus Boycott become a blueprint for the fight for both racial and economic justice today?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Students will write biographies of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that include their experiences at the Highlander School and their participation in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Students will create an interactive timeline that includes leaders in the movement, important court cases, and focus attention on the economic aspects of the movement. The interactive timeline will include voices from the movement.

Students will work collaboratively to create a “Blueprint for Economic Justice” document that highlights five takeaways from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. These takeaways look to the future and speak to those looking to take action against racial injustice.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: https:// worldhistoryproject. org/1955/12/1/rosaparks-refuses-to-give-upseat-on-bus Source B: http://www.history. com/topics/black-history/ montgomery-bus-boycott Source C: https:// kinginstitute.stanford. edu/

Source D: http:// kingencyclopedia.stanford. edu/encyclopedia/ encyclopedia/ enc_montgomery_bus_ boycott_1955_1956/ Source E: http://www. montgomeryboycott.com/ biographies/ Source F: http://www. beaconbroadside.com/ broadside/2013/12/a-timeline-of-the-montgomery-busboycott.html

Source G: http://www. huffingtonpost.com/ news/montgomery-busboycott/ Source H: http://www.npr. org/2015/12/05/4586120 60/the-lessons-of-themontgomery-bus-boycottset-to-a-modern-day-beat

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Argument

Students will develop an argument for pursuing collective action for economic justice as a way to enable marginalized groups to gain greater justice today. Drawing on historical documents and artifacts, as well as other examples of collective action for economic justice, students will write essays, develop digital short films, create podcasts, or blogs designed to highlight both the need for, and a strategy for collective action designed to pursue economic justice for a marginalized group today.

Extension

Students, working in small groups, will prepare entries for a class Activists’ Handbook. Using their knowledge of social movements and collective action working for economic and racial justice, each group will develop one strategy that can be used by activists seeking economic justice. The class can then present their entries to other classes or members of the local community, hold an “Activist Fair” or hold a “Teach In” where they present their entries.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Students will research the ongoing struggle for racial justice in the United States. Groups will generate a list of systematic racial injustices and develop connections between racial and economic justice within each case. Assess: Student groups will present their findings to their classmates. After the small groups present, the class will have a large-group discussion about the ongoing struggle for economic and racial justice in the United States. Act: Students will create art pieces (can include painting, sculpture, photography, scrapbooks, songs, poems) that document their new understanding of the connections between economic justice and the ongoing struggle for justice in the United States. The class can then host an art exhibit for their school and/or local community to bring attention to these issues and to advocate for change.

LESSON NARRATIVE: OVERVIEW AND DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPELLING QUESTION In most cases, when teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott, teachers focus primarily on Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat at the front of a city bus. Often, Parks is simply characterized as a “tired old woman” who just didn’t want to move to the back of the bus. This version of the story hides Parks’ work preparing to be part of a collective movement in the fight for racial and social justice. Her decision to take action, to be arrested, sparked a movement that relied on the power of economic justice to advance the struggle for racial justice. Also embedded in the traditional story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is the idea that it only involved Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While they are certainly central to the story, we also want to highlight how they were part of a larger, collaborative movement

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that leveraged tactics to gain economic justice as part of the fight for greater civil rights. This focus on the collaborative nature of the boycott enables teachers to draw on the CRT. The use of counter-storytelling allows those who were there, whose actions made it a boycott, to tell the story, rather than relying on corporate textbooks, traditional narratives, or movies. Staging the Question As the question highlights, this set of activities is designed to explore the connection between economic justice and racial justice as seen in the events and actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Together we will explore how this movement is meaningful and relevant for students and citizens today. To set the stage for the lesson, students will read Dr. King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott speech. Teachers can have students read the speech individually or in small groups, but the idea is to have them discuss their thinking about the speech. We suggest using a think–pair–share method to accomplish this. First, have students read the speech and write down their thoughts, questions. Then have students work in small groups to share out and discuss their impressions, questions. Finally, as a whole class, develop a set of guiding inquiry questions that the class has leading into the lesson on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The class can return to their initial inquiry questions throughout the lessons. Question 1, Formative Task, Featured Sources As part of answering the compelling question, teachers can follow up the exploration of Dr. King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott speech with an activity designed to establish connections between activist training and action. The first supporting question—“How and in what ways did Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prepare for the Montgomery Bus Boycott through their work at the Highlander School?”—positions students to develop a deeper knowledge of the work Rosa Parks and Dr. King put in before every actually taking action in Montgomery. Formative Task 1 The first formative performance task is designed to enable students to get a sense of both how and why Rose Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became two of the most visible leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Although we realize that the traditional narrative focuses exclusively on these two key figures, we felt that they were still the best lead into learning about the movement given their work at the Highlander School and their desire

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to learn about collective citizen action. In this formative task, students will write biographies of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that include their experiences at the Highlander School and establish their individual reasons for their participation in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This task is designed to have students do more than report the facts. They are positioned to make strong connections between the Highlander School, civic action, and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Featured Sources The three sources featured in Formative Task 1 are designed to spark curiosity and help teachers and students to deepen their knowledge about Rosa Parks and Dr. King. Source A features testimony from the U.S. House of Representatives as they honored the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. Students will develop their understanding of the significance of her actions and learn more about Parks as a leader for economic and racial justice. Source B is from History.com and focuses on the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and specifically on Rosa Parks. Teachers and students can access additional information on how the movement was built on collective social action by the African-American citizens of Montgomery. Source C is the website for the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. This source is included to provide teachers and students with access to information, news sources, speeches, and videos that both teachers and students can use as they develop their content knowledge as they prepare their biographies. This source should also provide valuable when students are developing their timelines and blueprints. Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources The second supporting question—“How and in what ways did the leaders of the Montgomery Bus boycott use collective citizen action and economic means to shut down the bus service and gain economic justice?”—is designed to engage students in an exploration of the actual people and events of the boycott. It also opens up the term leaders to include a wide-range of participants and pushes against the belief that the only leaders were Rosa Parks and Dr. King. Answering this question also encourages students to develop a deeper knowledge of collective, citizen-action. The boycott serves as a direct example that students can draw on as they develop their own voices. Formative Task 2 This formative performance task is designed to build on the first task and to enable students to make their learning about the collective action of the

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boycott visible within their classroom. To accomplish this, students will create an interactive timeline that includes leaders in the movement, important court cases, art, and artifacts that focus attention on the economic aspects of the movement. The interactive nature of the timeline will enable students to include voices of the leaders of the movement. As part of drawing on counterstorytelling, this task brings in and builds knowledge of the movement on the voices of those who were there, leading the boycott. Honoring the voices of the movement allows students to move beyond the traditional story of the Boycott and to expand their learning regarding ways to act collectively. Featured Sources The three sources featured in Formative Task 2 are designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop their knowledge of the boycott by focusing on the voices of those who lived it. Going beyond simply focusing on Parks and Dr. King, this task draws on the power of counternarratives to spark interest and to allow those who experienced the racism and systematic oppression of segregation to speak truth to power. Source D provides a detailed history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and highlights the role played by African-American churches, women and women’s organizations, national civil rights organizations and the federal and U.S. Supreme Court. Source E features biographies developed on the website Montgomerybusboycott.com. Students have the opportunity to focus on people like Claudette Coleman, who was also arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery. Additionally, students can explore a section called, “Voices from the Movement.” This source also connects to the use of counter-storytelling by bringing in the voices of those who lived the boycott to provide a more rich history of the struggle against racism and systematic injustice. Source F also provides access to a detailed timeline of Montgomery Bus Boycott. Students will be drawn to excerpt from Dr. King discussing the tense moments at the start of the boycott and the sense of joy he felt as he realized that the boycott was taking hold in Montgomery. Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources The third support question—“How and in what ways can the Montgomery Bus Boycott become a blueprint for the fight for both racial and economic justice today?”—is designed to bring the example of the Montgomery Bus Boycott into the present and future of students’ lived experiences. It is also presented to students as a challenge to further develop their thinking about how the fight for economic justice can become part of modern fights for civil rights. Teachers should provide time for students to consider both aspects of this question.

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Formative Task 3 In the final formative performance task, students will work collaboratively to create a “Blueprint for Economic Justice” document that highlights five takeaways from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. These takeaways look to the future and speak to those looking to take action against racial injustice. Examples of takeaways could include: organizing for a purpose is hard, coordinating the movement took a village, social action can be taught, everyday people made it happen, and the church supported the movement. Within each of the takeaways students would include stories, voices, examples, art, and artifacts from the boycott. The goal is to demonstrate to others that social action for economic justice can lead to greater levels of civil rights. Featured Sources The sources featured to support Formative Task 3 are designed to support students as they develop their blueprints and their takeaways from exploring the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Source G features quotes from Rosa Parks regarding her life and the influence the Montgomery Bus Boycott had on the larger fight for economic and civic rights. Students can draw on her words as they make connections to movements today. Source H is a story from NPR focusing on events in Montgomery commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The interviews with youth leaders are provided to spark curiosity in developing a greater awareness of the fight for civil rights today and to push students to see how they can draw on the voices and events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to develop their blueprints and final takeaways. Summative Performance Task The summative performance task is designed to engage students and provide multiple avenues for them to develop an argument for pursuing collective action for economic justice as a way to enable marginalized groups to gain greater justice today. Drawing on historical documents and artifacts, as well as other examples of collective action for economic justice, students will write essays, develop digital short films, create podcasts, or blogs designed to highlight both the need for, and a strategy for collective action designed to pursue economic justice for a marginalized group today. To extend the summative performance task, teachers can challenge students, working in small groups, to prepare entries for a class activists’ handbook. Using their knowledge of social movements and collective action working for economic and racial justice, each group will develop one strategy that can be used by activists seeking economic justice. The class can then present

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their entries to other classes or members of the local community by holding an “activist fair” or hold a “teach in” where they present their entries. Taking Informed Action Understand Students will research the ongoing struggle for racial justice in the United States. Groups will generate a list of systematic racial injustices and develop connections between racial and economic justice within each case. Assess Student groups will present their findings to their classmates. After the small groups present, the class will have a large-group discussion about the ongoing struggle for economic and racial justice in the United States. Act Students will create art pieces (can include painting, sculpture, photography, scrapbooks, songs, poems) that document their new understanding of the connections between economic justice and the ongoing struggle for justice in the United States. The class can then host an art exhibit for their school and/or local community to bring attention to these issues and to advocate for change. TIPS AND ADVICE Given that the goal of this lesson is to break away from traditional approaches regarding the teaching of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by drawing on the voices of the movement to encourage a deeper appreciation for activism, the challenge for teachers is to think about how they prepare their students for this type of lesson. By this we mean teachers need to structure their classroom and school as a space where students can learn to become activists. We realize that this isn’t the norm in schools and classrooms, and understand that teachers need to do some work with their students before enacting this series of lessons. To help prepare for this series of lessons, teachers should do several things. First, teach their students how to work in collaborative small and large groups. Second, provide students with experience practicing their ability to discuss social issues, to disagree and to listen across difference work as activists in their classrooms, school, and community. Finally, teachers should provide opportunities for students to conduct research, ask questions and develop their ability to expand upon their new knowledge and put it into action. After teachers have worked on these habits/skills (this is very much part

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of the “content” of social studies) with their students, then it is time to dig in deep and think about providing space for students to explore, learn, and take action. If the goal is to create engaged, action-oriented citizens, then social studies teachers need to give students both time and space to take informed action and to enact their new citizenship skills. SOURCE NOTES The sources used in this inquiry are all available online. We have provided the reference information for each source at the time this chapter was written. Staging the Question http://www.blackpast.org/1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery -bus-boycott Dr. King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott speech that was delivered on December 5, 1955 at the Hot Street Baptist Church. Dr. King’s speech was delivered just four hours after Rosa Parks was arrested. In his speech, Dr. King urges those in attendance to fight for justice and to end the humiliation and intimidation of Black citizens in Montgomery. Supporting Question 1 Source A https://worldhistoryproject.org/1955/12/1/rosa-parks-refuses-to -give-up-seat-on-bus This source from the World History Project focuses on Rosa Parks’ and features testimony from the U.S. House of Representatives as they were recognizing the 50th anniversary of her refusal to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. The testimony focuses on the events of the movement and the role Parks played. It also focuses on the sustained nature of the movement and ways that it inspired others to take civic action for greater civil rights. Source B http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott This source is from History.com and focuses on the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and specifically on Rosa Parks. There are many more resources and videos available on this website. There is also great

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information on how the movement was built on collective social action by the African-American citizens of Montgomery. Source C https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/ This is the website for the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. This site is a comprehensive source of information, news sources, speeches, and videos that teachers and students can use as they develop their biographies, timelines, and blueprints throughout the inquiry lessons. Supporting Question 2 Source D http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/ enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/ This source is a detailed history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott developed by the King Encyclopedia at Stanford University. This history focuses on Dr. King’s role and the role played by African-American churches, women and women’s organizations, national civil rights organizations, and the federal and U.S. Supreme Court. Source E http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/biographies/ This source features biographies developed on the website Montgomerybusboycott.com. This is an excellent source for teachers and students to explore to learn more about leaders in the boycott who are not normally featured in textbooks. Students have the opportunity to focus on people like Claudette Coleman, who also arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery. Additionally, the website provides an amazing section called “Voices from the Movement.” This source provides support for the goal of using counter-storytelling to bring the voices of those who lived the boycott to speak to students and to help provide a more rich history of the struggle against racism and systematic injustice. Source F http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2013/12/a-timeline-ofthe-montgomery-bus-boycott.html This source developed by as part of the Beacon Broadside Project provides a detailed timeline of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It also features

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an excerpt from Dr. King discussing the tense moments at the start of the boycott and the sense of joy he felt as he realized that the boycott was taking hold in Montgomery. Supporting Question 3 Source G http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeryl-brunner/celebrate-rosa-parksfebr_b_6595980.html This source features quotes from Rosa Parks regarding her life and the influence of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Students can draw on her words as they make connections to movements today. Students are encouraged to consider how her words and her reflections on her life can become part of their blueprints. Source H http://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/458612060/ the-lessons-of-the-montgomery-bus-boycott-set-to-a-modern-day-beat This story from NPR focuses on events in Montgomery commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Here a reporter interviews youth leaders about their thoughts on the influence of the Boycott on them as future civil rights leaders. REFERENCES Chandler, P. T. (2010). Critical race theory and social studies: Centering the Native American experience. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(1), 29–58. Delgado, R., & Stefanic, J. (1995). Why do we tell the same stories? Law reform, critical librarianship, and the triple helix dilemma. In R. Delgado (Ed.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 206–216). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Freeman, A. (1995). Derrick Bell—race and class: The dilemma of liberal reform. In R. Delgado (Ed.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 458–463). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Matsuda, M. (1995). Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. (pp. 63–79). New York, NY: New York Press.

CHAPTER 10

DOES GEOGRAPHY HAVE A VIOLENCE? Kenneth T. Carano Western Oregon University

ABSTRACT Geography has not been a priority in United States public schools and geography literacy, among many K–12 students, is not at the proficient level. When it is taught it has primarily been from a pro-White American lens and focused on rote learning. Critical race theory (CRT) can be tied to geography education to demonstrate how spatial relationships are shaped by power and molded by cultural groups. Additionally, by tying geography education to CRT, students can increase geography literacy and develop critical analytic skills. This chapter demonstrates how geography education can be taught within a CRT framework through an example inquiry-based activity that explores the geography of violence and its correlation to institutional spatial policies, such as redlining.

Race Lessons, pages 171–192 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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DOES VIOLENCE HAVE A GEOGRAPHY? My geography class that day had approximately 30 high school freshmen and sophomores sitting at desks finishing the urban landscape bell ringer question. As a student shared his answer, I made a comment about speaking proper English, which the school’s teachers had been focusing on in a misguided attempt at improving students’ grammar for the forthcoming state standardized testing. Suddenly, a female African-American student who rarely spoke and often feigned disinterest, said in an emphatic and pointed tone towards me, “People in my Neighborhood Ain’t Dumb! I’m so sick of all you teachers telling us we don’t talk right. Why you trying to make me think me and my family aren’t as good as you?” The words shook me. She continued, with tears welling up, talking about how she perceived that White teachers made her feel stupid and we must all be laughing at her mom and neighborhood, because we don’t think they speak “proper English.” Her facial expression, words, tone of voice, and the scene of other students nodding their head are still as clear to me today as they were at that moment years ago. The leadership qualities displayed were impressive. She overcame the feeling of non-support from her adult teachers and had the courage to share her voice rather than being silenced by our hidden curricula expectations. At that moment I was reminded of the power of perceptions and its power to influence us in a myriad of ways. Being a geography class, her words brought me back to a sense of place, mine being in my perceived safe White, middle-class neighborhood, hers in a neighborhood I did not perceive as safe, because of the gossip and stories I had heard. She came from a neighborhood with a history steeped in redlining, which is the act of refusing a loan to someone because they live in an area deemed to be a financial risk ( Johnson, 2012). I did not come from such a neighborhood. I now wondered what that and the power relationships that colored our perceptions meant to our meaning making and its correlation to sense of place. Research has exposed a pro-White American narrative largely silent on race in textbooks, standards, and classrooms (Shear, 2015). Social Studies, in the United States, continue to largely incorporate a pedagogy that avoids an inquiry-based understanding of race (Chandler, Branscombe, & Hester, 2015). While limited, race’s presence in social studies policymaking and curricula debates is growing (Chandler, 2015). Unfortunately, the presence has been slow to include geography teaching. This chapter addresses geography literacy, how it can be taught with critical race thoery (CRT) and provides an inquiry-based geography classroom lesson plan in a CRT framework.

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IMPORTANCE OF GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION While all U.S. states have K–12 geography standards (Edelson, Wertheim, & Schell, 2013), this has not translated into a geographically literate citizenship. In the most recent survey completed by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the nation’s sole ongoing representative sample survey of student achievement in core subject areas, only 20% of high school twelfth-graders scored at or above the geography proficient achievement level (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2011). Edelson, Shavelson, and Wertheim (2013) concluded that more than 70% of high school graduates have not gained the geographic reasoning skills necessary to be effective citizens. Further, students have difficulty identifying locations of current events and the scale and importance of these events (Milson & Kerski, 2012). Many scholars argue that geography educators should be spending more time focusing on critical aspects, such as spatial arrangement of phenomena, and less on the phenomena themselves. Unfortunately, U.S. geography education instruction has not been following suit, focusing primarily on rote knowledge, rather than skills encouraging students to become critical thinkers (Wertheim & Edelson, 2013). When geography focuses on spatial patterns and processes it provides a unique lens for viewing the world’s cultures, systems, and issues (Kenreich, 2010). In geography, through sense of place, these spatial patterns can be thought of in a myriad of ways, which can prompt new awareness. Many of these ways of thinking about place are attempts to rethink what constitutes power (Thrift, 2003). CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION CRT does not assume the existence of universal truths and rejects master narratives that attempt to encompass all phenomena or dictate the construction of lives. Instead, it is based on the following assumptions: Race is a social construction, race permeates all aspects of social life, and race-based ideology is threaded throughout society (Ortiz & Jani, 2010). Proponents are committed to social justice, promoting the marginalized voice, and the concept of intersectionality (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). John Dewey (1897) articulated the intersection between the ideas behind CRT and geography over one hundred years ago when he pointed out that geography is the way an “individual feels and thinks the world” (p. 168). Critical geography looks at how spatial relationships are shaped by power and how they mold culture, identity, and relationships (Harshman, 2013) and providing a place with value is inherently a political act. Therefore, place and space are relative constructs that must be partially understood as a reflection of existing power relations (Kenreich, 2010). Space and place are co-produced

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through many dimensions: race and class, urban and suburban, gender and sexuality, public and private, bodies and buildings (Ruddick, 2014). CRT and geography both seek to expose how social systems differ and marginalize. Spatial thinking provides the geographic lens for deconstructing these inequitable racial landscapes (Schmidt & Kenreich, 2015). PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS: VIOLENCE HAS A GEOGRAPHY Spatial thinking is about identifying, analyzing, and understanding the location, scale, patterns, and trends of the geographic and temporal relationships among data, phenomena, and issues (Kerski, 2013). In this geography lesson, spatial thinking is at the core of student exploration of power relationships, institutional policies and its correlation to violence in geographical areas. The lesson will use the inquiry design model (see The Inquiry Design Model, n.d.). Geography lies at the center of discussions of violence (Tyner & Inwood, 2014; Blomley, 2003). Many have taken for granted assumptions about identity, place, and power. These interpretations intersect with a particular kind of geographic formulation that often places it at the center of the violent structures of the nation. In this lesson, students employ spatial literacies using geographic data and inquiry literacies, such as selecting sources, gathering and evaluating sources, and constructing and adapting arguments and explanations. Through inquiry students use mapping tools and geographic resources to explore and evaluate complex issues underlying different places where racial uprisings and episodes of resistance occur in order to understand and articulate where such events happen and how narratives influence perceptions of these events and geographic places. Content: Geography Connections to CRT: Revisionism/Historical Context, Narratives/CounterNarratives Connections to State and NCSS Content Standards Oregon Social Science Standards HS.15: Analyze and illustrate geographic issues by synthesizing data derived from geographic representations. NCSS Content Standards III: People, Places, and Environments; VI: Power, Authority, and Governance

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SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

What is the correlation between institutional policies, practices, and societal perceptions related to types of violence or protest occurring in geographic places?

Standards and Practices

Oregon Social Science Standards HS.15: Analyze and illustrate geographic issues by synthesizing data derived from geographic representations NCSS Thematic Strands III: People, Places and Environments VI: Power, Authority, and Governance

Staging the Question

Discuss institutional policies correlation to societal perceptions and protests through the use of photographs that depict students protesting educational policies.

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

What is the correlation between redlining policies in St. Louis and Baltimore and modern-day demographics?

Where did documented instances of violence or protest take place following the Ferguson and Baltimore shootings?

How do media and our perceptions of place differ in these communities vs. a predominantly White, middle-class community?

Supporting Question 3

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Create a Venn diagram that compares the modern demographics of the redlining areas to nonredlining areas.

Task A: Create a three column t-chart that identifies key events, their locations, and the violence/protest category of each event. Task B: Using Google Maps students plot the points from the t-chart to delineate the general space within which the key events occurred.

Utilizing media literacy questions and an image analysis worksheet that requires them to cite evidence students analyze and interpret the photographs through a geographic lens.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: St. Louis and the American City—A series of historic interactive maps that show how zoning ordinances and redlining impacted the region. Source B: St. Louis Metro Census Data (https://www. fergusoncity.com/123/ Demographic-Information) Source C: Baltimore Residential Security Map—An historical 1937 map of Baltimore that shows redlining zones. Source D: Baltimore’s Demographic Divide (http://graphics.wsj.com/ baltimore-demographics/)

Source E: The New York Times article (2015), “What Happened in Ferguson?,” provides a timeline, descriptions, and locations of key events of Ferguson from Michael Brown’s death and through the aftermath. Source F: The Baltimore Sun article (2015), “Timeline: Freddie Gray’s arrest, death, and the aftermath” provides a timeline, descriptions, and locations of key events surrounding the Freddie Gray case and its aftermath.

Sources: A series of photos from the neighborhoods and areas in Ferguson and Baltimore in which the riots took place. Additionally, a series of photos from a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood will be viewed.

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Argument

Analyzing geographic information from the provided hypothetical scenario, make a prediction of future types of violence and protests and societal perspectives. Bring in data from your Ferguson and Baltimore analysis to defend your answer.

Extension

Place students in groups to investigate more than only the Ferguson and Baltimore uprisings (i.e., Detroit 1943, Watts 1965, Newark 1967, Rodney King Riots 1992) in order to get a more complete answer to the compelling question.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Research own community to investigate redlining. If this is not possible in students’ local area, then research other areas of the United States to investigate redlining. Assess: Examine how perceptions of these places and policies in these places lead to residential segregation. Act: Write an opinion piece that provides a counternarrative on how perceptions of place are influenced by power brokers, such as the media and institutional policies, that they send as letters to the editor of the local newspaper or other public forums in order to raise awareness.

LESSON NARRATIVE Approximately one-third of African-Americans live in neighborhoods that are more than nine-tenths Black (Quinn & Pawasarat, 2003). In U.S. cities, African-Americans are almost twice as likely as White Americans to be living in racially isolated neighborhoods. As a result, while White Americans perceive expanded opportunities in the multi-ethnic and integrated neighborhoods, Black Americans in these areas continue to experience segregation and the challenges associated with it (Keating, 2014). While this separation goes back to the country’s beginning days in the eighteenth century, it has been intensified in the last century by structural racism and factors leading to racial residential segregation, such as redlining (Pearcy, 2015). Helping students understand that a significant part of race relations in the United States, including violent incidents, is connected to this “institutional” division is a critical understanding within geography. Redlining is the practice that began in the 1930s when financial institutions made it nearly impossible for residents of poor inner-city neighborhoods to gain approval of loans or access to other financial services. In most cases, the rejection did not take an individual’s qualifications and creditworthiness into account, rather it focused on a neighborhood’s risk rating. The result was a vicious cycle that led to decreasing property values, increasing racial segregation, and the areas’ decline ( Johnson, 2012). The term, redlining, stems from financial institutions often literally drawing a red line on a map around the neighborhoods in which they

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did not want to offer financial services. Specifically, the term refers to “lending (or insurance) discrimination 
that bases credit decisions on the location of a property to the exclusion of characteristics of the borrower or property” (Hillier, 2003, p. 395). While policies, such as redlining, may have been instrumental in establishing racial segregation the resulting violence in some of the neighborhoods has often been perceived as becoming part of this segregation cycle. Overview and Description of the Compelling Question This inquiry leads students through an investigation of the violence of geography by using a case-study of the riots and factors leading up to them in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. By investigating the compelling question—“What is the correlation between institutional policies, practices, and societal perceptions related to types of violence or protest occurring in geographic places?”—students focus on previous institutional policies that had a factor in racial segregation, where racial rioting has taken place, and perceptions of power and response to riots. While investigating the Ferguson unrest in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the Baltimore riots that ensued after Freddie Gray’s death, students will create a timeline chart and an illustrated map that highlights locations and details of key events. Additionally, students evaluate governmental and institutional policies in these areas and the perceived power structures that influence policies and beliefs people have of these geographical places and the people inhabiting them. The inquiry should take three to four 55-minute class periods. The time frame could expand if teachers prefer their students have additional instructional experiences (i.e., supporting questions, formative performance tasks, and featured sources). Teachers are also encouraged to extend this lesson to allow students to investigate more geographic areas. This could entail adding days to the lesson or having students work in groups to investigate more than only the Ferguson and Baltimore uprisings (i.e., Detroit 1943; Watts 1965; Newark 1967) in order to get a more complete answer to the compelling question. Staging the Question Before introducing the compelling question in order to set the stage, pique interest, and draw them into the inquiry, students are shown photos of students protesting two types of educational policies in which they are likely to have familiarity, standardized testing opt-out movement and

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Figure 10.1  Student protesting use of standardized testing. Source: http://www. citizensforpublicschools.org/the-facts-on-opting-out-of-mcas-or-parcc/

Figure 10.2  Students protesting school segregation. Source: https://www.neh.gov/ humanities/2013/septemberoctober/feature/massive-resistance-in-small-town

school segregation (see Figures 10.1–10.3). For each photo, students are initially told to do three things. First, observe the photos by gathering evidence through identifying key details and describing the scene. After observing, students begin making interpretations about what the protest in the scene is referencing, and when and where it took place. Third, students hypothesize what educational policies are correlated to these protests. As

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Figure 10.3  White students protesting integration. Source: http://www.cabarrus.k12. nc.us/Page/48059.

the teacher facilitates the discussion to the students’ answers, she should provide opportunities for students to share whether they support any of the protests and, if so, which ones and why? Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources The first supporting question—“What is the correlation between redlining policies in St. Louis and Baltimore and modern-day demographics?”— helps students establish a foundational understanding of the connection between the focus on neighborhood risk ratings by realtors, urban planners and banks in the early 20th century, which led to redlining policies and modern day demographics. The formative performance task requires students to create a Venn diagram comparing modern demographics of the redlining areas to non-redlining areas in the St. Louis and Baltimore metropolitan areas. They should focus on the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in the metropolitan neighborhoods. This provides students with background knowledge of institutional policies in the geographic places being investigated during this inquiry, which when combined with the additional supporting questions that look at documented instances of violence and societal perceptions of these geographic places, offers students the necessary evidence to make correlations to answer the compelling question. There are four featured sources for this initial supporting question. Source A is “St. Louis and the American City” (http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa. edu/map/), which shows a series of historic interactive maps of the St. Louis

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metropolitan area that demonstrate how zoning ordinances and redlining impacted the region. The second source provided, Source B, is the City of Ferguson website (https://www.fergusoncity.com/123/Demographic-Information), which provides demographic data for Ferguson and surrounding communities in the St. Louis Metropolitan area. Source C is an historical 1937 map of Baltimore showing redlining zones,“Baltimore Residential Security Map” (https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/32621). The final source, Source D, is a Wall Street Journal article, “Baltimore’s Demographic Divide” (Yeip, 2015; retrieved from http://graphics.wsj.com/ baltimore-demographics/). The article includes maps and graphs providing detailed information of the racial divide and poverty levels across Baltimore neighborhoods. As students analyze the demographic data, they should begin to see correlations between historical redlining spaces, lower socio-economic areas, and larger African-American populations. Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources The second supporting question—“Where did documented instances of violence or protest take place following the Ferguson and Baltimore shootings?”—allows students to build on their understanding of the correlation between historic institutional residential spatial policies and demographics. The students examine the timeline and locations of key events surrounding the deaths and aftermath of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Freddie Gray in Baltimore through the featured sources. Source E is The New York Times article “What Happened in Ferguson?” (Buchanan et al., 2015) and provides a timeline, descriptions, and locations of key events of Ferguson from Michael Brown’s death and through the aftermath. Source F is The Baltimore Sun article, “Timeline: Freddie Gray’s arrest, death, and the aftermath” provides a timeline, descriptions, and locations of key events surrounding the Freddie Gray case and its aftermath. There are two formative performance tasks addressing the supporting question. For Task A, students need to create a three-column t-chart that identifies key events, their locations, and categories of violence or protests at the location (see Table 10.1). Since violence can come in many forms and be defined in a multitude of ways, it is recommended that prior to students reviewing the events, the teacher have the students categorize events in the following ways: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

violence as police brutality, violence as riot, violence as criminal activity, protest with participant violence, and peaceful protest.

Does Geography Have a Violence?    181 TABLE 10.1  Landmarks and Incidents Event

Location/Street Address

Violence/Protest Category

When identifying types of violence and protest for each event, students should be reminded that it is possible for multiple categories to take place in an event. By categorizing the types of violence and protest students will be able to further the interconnections and meaning of events. The second formative task, Task B, asks students to use Google Maps to plot the points from their t-charts to delineate the general space within which the key events occurred (see Figure 10.4 for an example). This enables students to learn to use geographic spatial concepts (e.g., distance, distribution, spatial interaction) and data to analyze the correlations of neighborhood demographics with locations and types of violence or protest. Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources Students start identifying possible counternarratives and the media’s role as a power broker in geography through the third supporting question: “How do media and our perceptions of place differ in these communities vs. a predominantly White middle class community?” While the

Figure 10.4  Google Maps layout of key riot point in Baltimore following Freddie Gray's death.

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majority of Americans consider their neighborhood to be a safe space (Dugan, 2014), this question begins to challenge students understanding of media perceptions and its role on societal perceptions on who has power in this place. The featured sources consist of photographs (see Figures 10.5–10.9 for examples that could be used. Additional examples of where to find photographs are listed in the source notes) taken in the neighborhoods where riots took place after the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and in a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood, which has not experienced similar violence or racial spatial policies. The formative performance task asks students to analyze and interpret the photographs from the different locations first using media literacy questions to look at the power this forum has to influence a story’s narrative. It is recommended that students answer the following media literacy questions adapted from the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) media literacy position statement (NCSS, 2016): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Who and why was this message made? Who is the target audience (and how do you know)? Who might benefit and be harmed from this message? What is left out of this message that might be important to know? How might different people understand this message differently?

Following a teacher facilitated classroom discussion of the media literacy questions and how the narrative changes based on the photos being viewed,

Figure 10.5  Ferguson resident wearing "Don't Shoot" t-shirt. Source: http://www. businessinsider.com/ferguson-missouri-riots-continue-2014-8

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Figure 10.6  Ferguson resident protesting in the neighborhood. Source: http:// www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/16/ferguson-missouri-michael -brown-rally-protests/14160469/

Figure 10.7  Baltimore riots after Freddie Gray death. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/11567364/Freddie-Gray-protestRiots-erupt-in-Baltimore-following-funeral-in-pictures.html

students begin the process of looking at the photos through a geographic lens. The example geographic questions in Table 10.2 could be used. The students will use an image analysis worksheet (see Table 10.3), which requires them to cite evidence. It is suggested that the teacher have the students use evidence from the image analysis worksheet to have a class critical analysis debate about the significance of how the media uses images to portray neighborhood residents’ perceptions of power relationships in

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Figure 10.8  Balitmore resident protesting. Source: http://www.i24news.tv/en/ news/international/americas/69377-150429-baltimore-braced-for-new-night-ofprotest-as-obama-warns-police

Figure 10.9  Coffee with the police in Salem, Oregon. Source: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/crime/2015/11/13/meet-and-greet-and-sip-salems -police-officers/75722600/

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Ferguson and Baltimore versus a White middle-class neighborhood who have not recently experienced the same instances of violence and how these images influence societal perceptions. In addition to getting students to look at multiple perspectives, having this debate will prepare them for the summative performance task. Summative Performance Task At this point, students have examined the correlation between redlining policies, racial segregation, and societal perceptions related to types of

TABLE 10.2  Image Analysis Geographic Questions Observe

Reflect

Question

• Describe who is in the image. • Are there objects in the image? Do you recognize them? What are they used for? • Describe the landscape and physical features in the image.

• What place or region does this image show? • Can you identify image’s geographic theme (region, place, movement, physical system, human environment interaction, etc.)? • Describe spatial patterns illustrated in the image. • What is most likely purpose (audience) for this image? • What inferences or connections can you make from the image? • What geographic event, issue, or problem does this image illustrate?

• How do the clothing, buildings, transportation and/or landscape reflect the economic, political, or societal conditions? • What is the bias or point of view of this image? • How is the image connected to other documents, maps, recordings, images, or artifacts? • Why is this image significant? • Why would certain people or characteristics of the landscape be missing from this image?

TABLE 10.3  Image Analysis With a Geographic Lens Observe

Reflect

Question

Choose an Item

Choose an Item

Choose an Item.

Answer:

Answer:

Answer:

Evidence:

Evidence:

Evidence:

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violence and protest occurring in these geographic places. Students should be able to demonstrate the breadth of their understanding and the ability to use evidence from multiple geographic representations to support their claims by building off the previous tasks. For example, students will be able to use examples from Task 1 of demographic correlations to previous redlining policies. Task 2 enables students to build off the initial task through developing spatial pattern arguments about the correlations of neighborhood demographics with locations and types of violence or protest. The third task provides students with tools to critically analyze and elaborate on how media can influence people’s perceptions through a geographic lens. In this task, students construct an evidence-based argument responding to the summative performance task that follows. Analyzing geographic information from the hypothetical scenario in Figure 10.10, write an essay that addresses demographics in geographic places, makes a prediction of future types of violence or protest, or lack thereof, if there is a police shooting of an unarmed citizen in the redlining area and addresses societal perspectives by using the following questions as your guide. You should bring in data from your Ferguson and Baltimore analysis to defend your answer. 1. How do you expect demographics to differ in the redlining area versus non-redlining areas?

Figure 10.10  Hypothetical redlining area. Source: http://www.summitllc.us/blog/ what-is-redlining-and-how-does-it-relate-to-hmda

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2. Identify and discuss type(s) of violence and/or protest that may occur as a result of the shooting described in the question and articulate how the type(s) of violence and/or protest may differ between the redlining and non-redlining places? 3. How do you anticipate societal perceptions of power relationships may differ about the redlining area and non-redlining places? Ultimately, through this lesson, students should be able to gain and demonstrate an understanding of the correlation between institutional policies and societal perceptions on geographic places. Additionally, they should learn critical analysis skills in order to articulate how these perceptions are often influenced by media image portrayals of geographic places. This understanding and skill set can be building blocks in helping to prepare students to become voices for the marginalized. Taking Informed Action Students should be acquiring a greater understanding on the role that institutional policies, such as redlining, have had on residential segregation. Additionally, students should have an increased awareness of the media and institutional policies’ roles on our perceptions of neighborhoods. These new understandings should aid them to make informed decisions in order to raise public awareness. Students begin by researching their own or a nearby community to investigate redlining, its history of types of violence and protests and media stories on the geographic space. If this is not possible, in students’ local area, then they can do a similar activity through researching other areas of the United States to investigate redlining (i.e., Detroit, Newark, San Francisco). Through researching media sources (i.e., newspapers, maps), students should examine how perceptions of these places and policies in these places lead to residential segregation. If they are able to do this activity on their local or nearby community, it would also benefit students to interview community members that feel they have been personally impacted by redlining policies and community members who have not. In addition to providing data for students to analyze people’s perceptions, these interviews may offer narratives and counternarratives. Students could use this data to write an opinion piece providing counternarratives on how perceptions of place are influenced by power brokers, such as the media and institutional policies, that they send as letters to the editor of the local newspaper or other public forums in the wider community in order to raise awareness.

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TIPS AND ADVICE When doing an inquiry-based lesson, instructor scaffolding is recommended. The instructor should be working through the early stages of the inquiry process by modeling each of the activities, pre-teaching, Some students may lack prior knowledge on how to do some of the activities. For example, Summative Question 2 includes dropping pins in Google Maps. Teachers who have not used this before may find the YouTube video “How to Drop a Pin in Google Maps: Google Tools” (https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aNordAqv_8) beneficial. The following link provides background on spatial concepts that can be utilized for student discussion after dropping pins in Google Maps: https://prezi.com/ abva8cw9fa46/9-spatial-concepts-of-geography/ This is also a lesson that would best be done after students have received sufficient background preparation on key concepts, such as redlining. If the teacher or students need more scaffolding on redlining, the following link provides background information on the concept: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html. Additionally, the teacher could also have students analyze their own preconceived perceptions on violence in geographic places by having students answer the question— “Does violence have a geography?”—prior to beginning the lesson and then having the students readdress their answer at the lesson’s conclusion. Limitations and Opportunities When discussing such a sensitive topic as race and geography it is important to discuss potential issues and opportunities that may arise. U.S. classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse. White students’ no longer make up half of the public school students. This changing landscape is expected to continue (Kena et al., 2014). Therefore, it is very likely that teachers incorporating this lesson will be engaging classrooms of various demographics in the inquiry. While this could lead to tensions, it also provides opportunities for students, who have spent time in neighborhoods similarly impacted to become voices in the narratives and counternarratives to the experience. It would also benefit students for the teacher to have her or his choice of sources used to be analyzed by students. This could be done using the same media literacy questions outlined in supporting question three and allow students to analyze how the teacher’s (as a classroom power broker) choices may have impacted their own conclusions. Additionally, there are extension opportunities to look at CRT through a geography lens by having students investigate zip codes, impacted by redlining, and the types of violence and protests. Students could also analyze the

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interconnections of the spatial and temporal through investigating how protests of an event sprawl to different geographic locations. Ultimately, much like I was prompted to self-analysis about how my perceptions were being influenced that day my student spoke out about the use of “proper English” in geography class, through this inquiry, students can learn how a narrative’s construction influences our sense of place. SOURCE NOTES This lesson includes sources from a variety of locations. This section provides information for teachers to locate necessary sources to teach the lesson. Supporting Question 1 Source A: “St. Louis and the American City” http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/map/) Source B: City of Ferguson website https://www.fergusoncity.com/123/Demographic-Information A series of historic interactive maps that show how zoning ordinances and redlining impacted the region. Source C: “Baltimore Residential Security Map” https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/32621 Source D: Yeip, R. (2015, May 1). Baltimore’s Demographic Divide. Wall Street Journal. http://graphics.wsj.com/baltimore-demographics/ The article includes maps and graphs providing detailed information of the racial divide and poverty levels across Baltimore neighborhoods. Supporting Question 2 Source E: Buchanan, L., Fessenden, F., Lai, R., Park, H., Parlapiano, A., Tse, A., . . . Yourish, K. (8/10/2015). “What Happened in Ferguson?” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html?_r=0 Source F: Timeline: Freddy Gray (4/12/2015). Timeline: Freddy Gray’s arrest, death, and the aftermath. The Baltimore Sun.

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http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/freddie-gray/ Supporting Question 3 Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com/photos/ferguson-missouri?s ort=mostpopular&excludenudity=true&mediatype=photography&phr ase=ferguson%20missouri&family=editorial Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonpremosch/ferguson-michaelbrown-darren-wilson-protests-photos-grand-j#.xyO64pqrr Hundreds of free images of protests and riots in Baltimore neighborhoods regarding Freddie Gray’s death, courtesy of the Baltimore Sun, can be located through the web site: http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2015/05/100-lasting-images-from-the-freddie-gray-protests-and-aftermath-in-baltimore/#4 Summative Question 3 consists of looking at photographs. Images are readily available by doing a Google search and clicking on “images.” Some keywords and phrases that teachers can use in a Google search to locate appropriate images for this lesson include: Ferguson neighborhood, graffiti Ferguson neighborhood, Freddie Gray, and Michael Brown. Additionally, free and powerful Ferguson images can be found through: REFERENCES Blomley N. (2003). Law, property, and the geography of violence: The frontier, the survey, and the grid, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93, 121–141. Chandler, P. T. (2015). What does it mean to “do race” in social studies? Racial pedagogical content knowledge. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. (pp. 1–10). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Chandler, P. T., Branscombe, A., & Hester, L. (2015). Using authentic intellectual work and critical race theory to teach about race in social studies. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 153–169). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Dewey, J. (1897). The psychological aspect of the school curriculum. Educational Review, 13, 356–369. Dugan, A. (2014, November 24). In U.S. 37% do not feel safe walking at night near home. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/179558/not-feel-safewalking-night-near-home.aspx

Does Geography Have a Violence?    191 Edelson, D. C., Wertheim, J. A., & Schell, E. M. (2013). Creating a road map for 21st century geography education: Project overview. The Geography Teacher, 10(1), 1–5. Harshman, J. R. (2013). Global education for critical geography. In L. Nganga, J. Kambutu, & W. B. Russell III (Eds.), Exploring globalization opportunities and challenges in social studies: Effective instructional approaches. (pp. 169–177). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Hillier, A. E. (2003). Redlining and the homeowners’ loan corporation. Journal of Urban History, 29(4), 394–420. Johnson, K. (2012). Why is this the only place in Portland I see black people? Teaching young children about redlining. Rethinking schools, 27(1), 19–24. Keating, D. (2014, November 21). Why Whites don’t understand Black segregation. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ wonk/wp/2014/11/21/why-whites-dont-understand-black-segregation/ Kena, G., Aud, S., Johnson, F., Wang, X., Zhang, J., Rathbun, A., . . . Kristapovich, P. (2014). The condition of education 2014 (NCES 2014-083). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014083.pdf Kenreich T. W. (2010). Power, space, and geographies of difference: Mapping the world with a critical global perspective. In B. Subedi (Ed.), Critical global perspectives: Rethinking knowledge about global societies (pp. 57–75). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Kerski, J. (2013, May 24.) A working definition of spatial thinking. Esri: GIS education community. Retrieved from https://blogs.esri.com/esri/ gisedcom/2013/05/24/a-working-definition-of-spatial-thinking/ Milson, A. J., & Kerski, J. J. (2012). Around the world with geospatial technologies. Social Education, 76(2), 105–108. National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2011, July). The Nation’s Report Card: Geography 2010. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/ main2010/2011467.asp National Council for the Social Studies. (2016). Media literacy: A position statement of the national council for the social studies. Social Education, 80(3), 183–185. Ortiz, L., & Jani, J. (2010). Critical race theory: A transformational model for teaching diversity. Journal of Social Work Education, 46(2), 175–193. Pearcy, M. (2015). “Redlining”: Teaching about racial residential segregation. Virginia Social Science Journal, 50, 40–50. Quinn, L. M., & Pawasarat, J. (2003). Racial integration in urban America: A block level analysis of African-American and White housing patterns. Milwaukee, WI: Employment and Training Institute, School of Continuing Education: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Ruddick, S. (2014). Diverse conceptions between people, place, and space. In J. J. Gieseking, W. Mangold, C. Katz, S. Low, & S. Saegert (Eds), The people, place, and space reader. (pp. 7–11). New York, NY: Routledge. Schmidt, S. J., & Kenreich, T. W. (2015). In a space but not of it: Uncovering racial narratives through geography. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 229–252). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

192    K. T. CARANO Shear, S. B. (2015). Cultural genocide masked as education: U.S. history textbooks’ coverage of indigenous education policies. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 13–40). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. The Inquiry Design Model (n.d.) Retrieved from http://wou.c3teachers.org/ inquiry-design-model/ Thrift, N. (2003). Space: The fundamental stuff of human geography. In S. L. Hollaway, S. P. Rice, & G. Valentine (Eds.), Key concept in geography (pp. 95–107). London, England: SAGE. Tyner, J., & Inwood, J. (2014). Violence as fetish: Geography, marxism and dialectics, Progress in Human Geography, 38(6), 771–784. Wertheim, J. A., & Edelson, D. C. (2013). A road map for improving geography assessment. The Geography Teacher, 10(1), 15–21. Yeip, R. (2015, May 1). Baltimore’s demographic divide: The city, like many urban centers, is one of stark contrasts when it comes to race and poverty. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://graphics.wsj.com/baltimore-demographics/

CHAPTER 11

DO PEOPLE GET TO CHOOSE WHERE THEY LIVE? A Case Study of Racial Segregation in Austin, Texas Victoria Davis Plano Independent School District Ryan Crowley University of Kentucky

ABSTRACT This inquiry lesson explores one aspect of whether or not people get to choose where they live. Situated within a world geography course, the lesson examines the causes and consequences of historical and contemporary racial segregation in U.S. cities. The lesson focuses specifically on Austin, Texas, a fast-growing city known for its vast cultural offerings and its quirky population. Unfortunately, these “hip” elements of Austin obscure a problematic racial past and present. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework, students will explore the course of Austin’s racial segregation as well as the city’s current struggles with gentrification.

Race Lessons, pages 193–211 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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NARRATIVE OVERVIEW Do people get to choose where they live? It is a deceptively complicated question. If we look back in history, the answer seems simple. Any textbook will report that the first cities and civilizations typically developed along river valleys that could support agriculture and livestock. These rivers then became important trade routes and encouraged further settlement. Overland trade routes led to settlements as well, typically near areas with vital natural resources. Although not all peoples around the world adopted urbanized lifestyles at the same point or in the same way, the general issue of where most people live has remained somewhat constant. A glance at a world map shows that many of today’s major cities around the world are located near water, either on rivers or along coastlines. Many other cities are located near resource deposits. Clearly, physical geography—the natural features of the land—played an important role in determining why people live where they do. But, what about human geography? Do the interactions of people in place and space impact where people live? Zooming in a bit closer on many major cities, particularly those in the United States, illuminates some peculiar settlement patterns. In terms of where people live within cities, there are often stark divisions along racial lines. If U.S. legislation and court rulings have made racial segregation illegal and unconstitutional, why are these cities still so segregated? Do people really get to choose where they live? These are questions that could be and should be answered in social studies classrooms. With the help of critical race theory (CRT), teachers can guide students through an analysis of the persistence of racial segregation in the United States. In order to provide an in-depth look at the path of segregation in one area, we offer a case study of Austin, Texas. While Austin’s current segregation patterns mirror those of many major cities, the city has a particular history that offers unique lessons on how racial segregation arises and remains. When people across the United States think of Austin, they imagine live music, good food, quirky people, and progressive politics. The city has become a hub of culture, technology, and innovation, often noted as a home to the “creative class” (Florida, 2002) of young professionals. 2015 U. S. Census data lists Austin as the 11th most populous city in the United States and as the fastest-growing large city in the nation (United States Census Bureau, 2015). However, Austin’s “hip” reputation and rapid growth obscure a problematic racial past and present. This inquiry will demonstrate how public and private sector efforts isolated and impoverished communities of color in Austin over a number of decades, creating a divide between Black and Latino “Eastside” neighborhoods and predominantly-White “West Austin” (Tretter, 2012).1 It also shows how Austin’s recent spate of growth and innovation has initiated a

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period of gentrification in Austin’s Eastside. An influx of new businesses and homebuyers—the vast majority of whom are White—have increased rent, property values, and property taxes on the Eastside (Busch, 2015). This increased cost of living has forced out many Black and Latino residents, but it has also led to grassroots resistance against gentrification (see Supporting Question 3 in Inquiry Design Model Blueprint). Throughout its history—from the first European colonization of the area up through the incorporation of Austin (originally called Waterloo) in 1839—Austin’s growth and prosperity has come at the expense of people of color. However, before we detail more about the specifics of segregation in Austin, it is important to discuss why CRT is a useful tool for analyzing the form, function, and consequences of segregation. Critical Race Theory and Racial Segregation The most basic premise of CRT is that racism is ordinary, rather than aberrant (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). An important corollary to this notion is that White people benefit from racism. Yet, due to the ordinary, status quo nature of racism, White people often do not recognize what racism looks like or how they benefit from it unless racism emerges in egregious ways. When many White people think about racism, they conjure images from the Jim Crow Era or think about White supremacist organizations like the KKK. They are less likely to consider how institutions such as schools reproduce racism through the curriculum (LadsonBillings, 2003) or how seemingly-benign orientations like color blindness can devalue the school experiences of children of color (Cochran-Smith, 1995). The covert, normalized aspects of racism are more difficult to identify and White people, like all dominant identity groups, tend to have an incomplete understanding of how the rules are stacked in their favor (Tatum, 2003). As a result, many White people feel that racism is something that happened a long time ago and that it is mainly perpetuated now by single actors, what Brown and Brown (2010) refer to as “bad men doing bad things” (p. 60). Critical race theorists contend that racism is very much alive and well today, albeit in a different form from the racisms of the past (Bell, 1992). Furthermore, while individual actions certainly perpetuate racism, it is more important to pay attention to the structural causes and consequences of racism (Winant, 2001). In the context of the United States, systematic efforts in the public and private sectors over time have created economic and social advantages for people of European descent (Marable, 2002). These structures created a “possessive investment in Whiteness” (Lipsitz, 1995, p. 369) that sustains racial inequality by encouraging White people to use race privilege

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to their advantage in a variety of ways. While egregious actions of White supremacy such as slavery, segregation, and expropriation of Native American lands are easy to recognize, the laissez-faire (Bobo & Smith, 1998) or color blind (Bonilla-Silva, 2010) racism of recent U.S. history operates in a more subtle ways. In order to analyze current racial inequality, one must understand the legacy of past actions as well as how current policies and practices help to sustain inequities. By looking at the persistence of racial segregation in U.S. cities, one can see how racism operates in overt and covert forms. Race-based policies (i.e., Jim Crow) and putatively race-neutral policies (i.e., urban renewal) have produced similar patterns of segregation despite taking different forms. In a racially hierarchical society such as the United States, the current state of de facto residential segregation produces real consequences. It forces many people of color into neighborhoods with underfunded schools, fewer economic opportunities, and greater environmental hazards (Lipsitz, 1995; Orfield & Lee, 2005). It also diminishes the ability of people of color to take advantage of one of the most effective wealth-creation strategies in the United States: homeownership (Oliver & Shapiro, 1997). The lower property values in neighborhoods with high percentages of people of color inhibit the accumulation of home equity. Additionally, as our case study of Austin shows, these areas can become prime sites for gentrification. While the influx of economic activity that gentrification brings can help minority neighborhoods in some ways, it can also lead to a higher cost of living (e.g., increased property taxes, rent costs, etc.) that drives out the original residents of the neighborhood. In addition to the material consequences of residential segregation, the physical separation of segregation also impacts the racial worldviews of White people and people of color. Massey and Denton (1993) suggest that the social and geographic isolation of one racial group from others will cause that group to develop different attitudes, values, and behaviors. These common values reinforce a sense of group belonging. For subjugated groups, this solidarity can be a positive and necessary response to oppression. However, the isolation shields dominant groups from a holistic understanding of how their domination shapes society. For White people, segregation leads to the development of a White habitus (Bonilla-Silva, 2010) that reinforces White solidarity and negative views toward people of color. Furthermore, because racism is the ordinary way of things in the United States, a White habitus tends to normalize and naturalize residential segregation. In other words: People just choose where they live, right? White people must have chosen to live on one side of town and Black people chose to live on the other. It’s just the way things are. Most White people find it unremarkable that they grew up in predominantly White neighborhoods and attended predominantly White schools. They feel that they live in normal

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neighborhoods while people of color live in neighborhoods that have particular—usually negative—connotations. They also feel that the lack of racial diversity in their friend and social networks is normal rather than the product of systematic historical and social processes (Bonilla-Silva, 2010). Segregation does not just impact the material outcomes of people’s lives. It also changes how they think about people from other racial groups. For White folks, the physical distance of segregation leads to greater emotional distance from the lives of people of color. The Case of Austin, Texas This race inquiry will take a closer look at the history of racial segregation in Austin, Texas, as a means of demonstrating the operation and impact of structural racism. Austin provides a compelling example of historical and contemporary segregation. We focus our analysis on Austin from the latter part of the 19th century through the present day. During most of this time period, Black, Latino, and White people comprised the vast majority of the city’s population.2 For this reason, we discuss how segregation impacted these three racial groups in particular. Austin moved from being relatively integrated in the late 1800s to being starkly segregated by the 1930s (Tretter, 2012). The 1928 “City Plan for Austin, Texas,” prepared by Koch & Fowler Consulting (A City Plan, n.d.), formalized the city’s segregationist policies. The plan called for closing African American schools and parks throughout the city in order to push the Black population into Austin’s Eastside, the only area of the city with a Black school and other facilities. The Latino population ultimately fell under the segregationist policy as well and both groups were pushed into Eastside neighborhoods during the 1930s and 1940s (Skop, 2010). In the 1960s, the city approved a route for the construction of Interstate 35 that cut off the Eastside from the rest of the city. People who inhabited the White neighborhoods, downtown corridor, and university area of West Austin rarely journeyed to the Eastside of I-35. Already deeply segregated, Austin now had a physical east-west barrier in the form of I-35 that exacerbated the city’s division. When Eastside neighborhoods understandably struggled due to economic isolation, the city turned to urban renewal and smart growth initiatives that paved the way for the gentrification of the Eastside (Skop, 2010; Tretter, 2012). Public and private sector efforts transformed the Eastside with new housing construction and business development. Increased property values rapidly increased property taxes, pushing out many longtime residents. A University of Texas study showed that real estate values in one Eastside neighborhood rose 400% and property taxes increased 123% in only a 6-year period (Busch,

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2015). These increases happened too rapidly for many Eastside residents to adjust, leading to a high rate of foreclosures. These foreclosures opened up more space for gentrification to occur, accelerating the process. The story of Austin’s segregation shows how racism operates at the structural and individual levels, through Jim Crow and race-neutrality, and through public and private initiatives. We situate this race inquiry within the discipline of geography. Within a geography course, this inquiry asks students to consider whether or not people get to choose where they live. The inquiry can be used to understand geographic concepts such as settlement patterns, urbanization, segregation, and gentrification. It also provides opportunities for practicing map skills. The inquiry uses several historical maps of Austin as well as the New York Times’ “Mapping Segregation” interactive website that draws from 2010 U.S. Census data (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/us/census-race-map.html). The race inquiry aligns with many important components of CRT: The notion of Whiteness as property (Harris, 1993), the practice of historical revisionism (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), analysis of structural racism (Marable, 2002), critique of liberalism and meritocracy (Crenshaw, 1988), and the commitment to social justice (Matsuda, 1991). Content: Geography, Segregation, Gentrification, Urbanization, Settlement Patterns CRT Concepts: Whiteness as Property, Historical Revisionism, Structural Racism, Critique of Liberalism and Meritocracy, Commitment to Social Justice Connections to C3, NCSS, and State Standards of Kentucky and Texas Content Standards C3 D2.Geo.5.9-12: Evaluate how political and economic decisions throughout time have influenced cultural and environmental characteristics of various places and regions. NCSS 3.1.A.1: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments in a spatial context. The student knows and understands spatial contexts including the meaning and use of spatial concepts, such as accessibility, dispersion, density, and interdependence.  The student is able to describe the spatial organization of people, places, and environments (where things are in relation to other things) using spatial concepts, as exemplified by being able to describe spatial concepts, such as population density, transportation networks or linkages, and urban or city growth patterns using paper or digital maps. Kentucky Academic Standards High School Geography 2.19 Enduring Understandings 1: Students will understand that patterns emerge as humans move, settle, and interact on Earth’s surface, and can

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be identified by examining the location of physical and human characteristics, how they are arranged, and why they are in particular locations. Economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict. Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills WG.2.A: The student understands how people, places, and environments have changed over time and the effects of these changes.  The student is expected to describe the human and physical characteristics of the same regions at different periods of time to evaluate relationships between past events and current conditions. Skill Standards C3: D2.Geo.2.9-12: Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics. NCSS: 1.4.A.1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information. The student knows and understands the use of geographic representations to ask and answer geographic questions. Therefore, the student is able to analyze printed and digital maps to observe spatial distributions and patterns to generate and answer geographic questions (e.g., use digital census data to determine demographic patterns in a state, or analyze census data and transportation routes to identify and locate services, such as a day care center or stores needed in a region). Kentucky Academic Standards High School Geography 2.19 Skills and Concepts 2.3: Students will investigate regions of the Earth’s surface using information from print and non-print sources (e.g., books, films, periodicals, Internet, geographic tools, news media) to evaluate reasons for stereotypes (e.g., all cities are dangerous and dirty; rural areas are poor) associated with places or regions. Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills WG.21.C: The student applies critical-thinking skills to organize and use information acquired from a variety of valid sources, including electronic technology. The student is expected to create and interpret different types of maps to answer geographic questions, infer relationships, and analyze change.

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SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question Standards and Practices

Staging the Question

Do people get to choose where they live? A case study of racial segregation in Austin, Texas. See previous section in chapter addressing standards. Using the New York Times Mapping Segregation site, students will explore racial segregation patterns in a number of cities in the United States (see Lesson Narrative section). Students will discuss whether or not these settlement patterns are products of individuals’ choices or the legacies of past segregation. This will serve as a starting point for examining racial segregation in Austin, Texas.

Supporting Question 1 What do various maps of Austin, TX tell us about where people of color live in this city?

Formative Performance Task Drawing from a series of maps, write a paragraph that describes what has happened to the Black and Latino populations of Austin over time.

Supporting Question 2

Supporting Question 3

What are the causes behind changes in location of people of color within Austin, TX?

Are grassroots movements— like the one resisting gentrification in Austin— effective?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Create a timeline of events and actions that pushed people of color into and out of East Austin and write a description of each event.

Research various grassroots movements and participate in a structured discussion on the effectiveness of grassroots movements both generally and in East Austin.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: Map of Austin’s Freedmen Communities (1866–1894). Source B: Series of maps of Black and MexicanAmerican households in Austin from (1910–1970). Source C: Changing AfricanAmerican Landscape in East Austin (1990–2000). Source D: New York Times Mapping Segregation (2010).

Source E: 1915 Hyde Park neighborhood advertisement, available in Tretter (2012). Source F: City Plan for Austin (1928). Source G: The House We Live In (2010) and 1935 Home Owner’s Loan Corporation street guide map, available in Tretter (2012). Source H: Transcript of National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (U.S. Congress, 1956) and Google map of Austin showing the location of I-35. Source I: What is Gentrification? (Grant, 2003) and statistics on East Austin gentrification.

Source J: Images of East Austin resistance. Source K: Voices of East Austin resistance. Source L: Videos of East Austin resistance. Source M: To be determined by students. See possible resources in the tips and advice section of the lesson narrative.

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Argument

Analyzing geographic information from the provided hypothetical scenario, make a prediction of future types of violence and protests and societal perspectives. Bring in data from your Ferguson and Baltimore analysis to defend your answer.

Extension

Place students in groups to investigate more than only the Ferguson and Baltimore uprisings (i.e., Detroit 1943, Watts 1965, Newark 1967, Rodney King Riots 1992) in order to get a more complete answer to the compelling question.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Research own community to investigate redlining. If this is not possible in students’ local area, then research other areas of the United States to investigate redlining. Assess: Examine how perceptions of these places and policies in these places lead to residential segregation. Act: Write an opinion piece that provides a counternarrative on how perceptions of place are influenced by power brokers, such as the media and institutional policies, that they send as letters to the editor of the local newspaper or other public forums in order to raise awareness.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Description of the Compelling Question This inquiry leads students through an investigation of policies and practices that create and maintain racial segregation in the United States. By investigating the question—“Do people get to choose where they live?”— students are asked to problematize their understandings of settlement patterns. Students should ultimately conclude that settlement patterns are not entirely formed via natural processes. Rather, there are historical and structural factors at play that allow for the persistence of racial segregation in the United States. By using Austin, Texas, as a case study, students will gain a deeper understanding of institutional racism and complete a more thorough analysis of the impact of human geography on settlement patterns. In terms of gains in skill set, students will be asked to critically think about the social and physical world around them in a similar fashion to academics, policy makers, and social activists. Additionally, students will be asked to consider what it means to be an active citizen by calling into question the policies of our government and local communities. Students will identify issues, collect evidence, and analyze solutions to real problems while also practicing their mapping skills and use and analysis of historical documents.

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Staging the Question The staging activity is designed to get students to consider the trends of where people live by having students examine different population maps. Although the focus of the inquiry will be on Austin, students begin by looking at a few select cities to see racial segregation patterns across the nation. Teachers could begin by having students examine a general population density map of the United States and discussing what factors influence where people live. The population density map could be coupled with a physical geography or climate zone map to help students identify physical features and climate types that influence settlement patterns. Then, to get students to consider the impact of human geography on settlement patterns, they should view the New York Times’ (2015) Mapping Segregation site (http:// www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/us/census-race-map.html?_ r=0) and zoom in on various cities. St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Washington D.C., or Los Angeles serve as powerful examples of the impact of human geography on settlement patterns. Students should be asked to brainstorm possible influences behind the racial settlement patterns of these cities. Student answers might include people choose to self-segregate or people are located in these spaces because of legal segregation of the past. However, as mentioned previously, if legislation and court rulings have made racial segregation illegal and unconstitutional, why are these cities still so segregated? Do people really get to choose where they live? The racial dot map (Dustin Cable, 2013) triggers students’ curiosity for the compelling question and allows for teachers to easily transition into the case study’s focus on the city of Austin as a means to answer the compelling question. Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources In order to understand why people live where they do and whether or not people have a choice in the matter, students will need to first understand the patterns of movement of people of color over time. The first supporting question is intended to help students visualize the processes of segregation and gentrification across space. This exercise requires students to identify a shift in the population distribution of Austin by asking students to describe the settlement patterns of people of color in the city over time. As explained above, this inquiry focuses on the experiences of Austin’s Black, Latino, and White populations, due to their historical predominance in the area. Starting with Source A, students should note the dispersion of people of color across the city. Continuing to work through the maps in Source B, students should begin to identify a drastic shift in the movement of people of color to East Austin between the years 1910 and 1940 (segregation).

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Finally, students should see a new shift of people of color out of East Austin between 1990 and 2000 (gentrification). The featured Sources C and D include a series of maps covering Austin’s population distribution from 1866–2010. Teachers could create a graphic organizer or a document to help students format their description of each map. Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources The second supporting question gets at the how Austin became segregated and the why people of color are moving out of East Austin. The sources should provide answers to what students see in the maps from Formative Task 1. At this stage in the lesson, students will be given evidence to problematize the assumption that people get to choose where they live. By analyzing a series of resources, students can begin to identify the process of institutional racism at play in Austin’s segregation. In the formative task, students examine both private (i.e., development of Hyde Park neighborhood) and public (i.e., city plans) efforts to keep Austin racially divided. Students should gather, interpret, and summarize the featured sources to create a history of Austin’s spatial development along lines of race. The idea here is to get students to begin to consider that people in Austin did not end up where they did based on individual choices. Rather, it was the policies of our social institutions that led to the segregation of the city. At this point in the lesson, it would be helpful to describe and define the term institutional racism with the class. For thorough definitions of different levels of racism (institutional, structural, individual, etc.), teachers can access the following resource online: http://www.intergroupresources.com/rc/Definitions%20of%20Racism.pdf

It would also be beneficial for students at this time to determine what evidence (i.e., quotes or ideas from the sources) they might later use in their argument. By making a timeline with descriptions of key events, students should conclude that institutional racism is something maintained over time and not simply a moment in history (i.e., slavery, segregation, etc.). Students should begin to understand why cities are still segregated even after the end of the Jim Crow Era and the advances of the civil rights movement.   The featured sources include documents specific to Austin (Sources E, F, and I) and broader documents related to nationwide policies (Sources G and H). The Hyde Park neighborhood advertisement and the 1928 City Plan both show overt forms of racism. The development of I-35 along the border of East and West Austin is a more covert expression of racism that

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has nonetheless served as “the physical barrier between minority and Anglo neighborhoods since its completion in 1962” (Busch, 2015, para. 2). The sources portraying the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation show students how federal loans were used to racially segregate not only in Austin but also across the United States. Neighborhoods populated by people of color were deemed hazardous and ultimately left these communities without the opportunity to reap the economic benefits of homeownership. The final source provides students with a description of gentrification. This last source should be used in tandem with Source C from Formative Task 1 to help students understand why people of color have recently shifted out of East Austin. To help students during the task, it might be useful to use a screenshot of the racial dot map and to label the location of these places identified in the sources (i.e., Hyde Park, I-35, etc.) on the racial dot map. Again, teachers might consider creating a graphic organizer or document to help students format their timeline. If students struggle to put the history together, it might be helpful to show them the Austin Statesman (Zehr, 2015) video Inheriting inequality (http://projects.statesman.com/news/ economic-mobility/). Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources The third supporting question moves students into the present. In the final formative performance task, students examine images, voices, and videos of people actively resisting the gentrification of East Austin. The goal here is for students to understand that while people may not always have a choice as to where they live due to structural and institutional constraints, they always have a voice and can push back against systems of oppression. People are not defined solely by the spaces in which they live. Rather, everybody has the innate ability to choose how to act as people living within the confines of various structures of power. The people of East Austin are not passively being defined by external elements. The task in this section will allow students the space to discuss whether or not they think grassroots efforts are effective. By discussing the effectiveness of the grassroots movements, students will begin to acquire the skills and mindset needed to meaningfully form their argument in the summative performance task. Summative Performance Task In the summative performance task, students will bring together the knowledge acquired in each of the three formative tasks to construct

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an argument that addresses the compelling question: “Do people get to choose where they live?” Students should process the information from the formative tasks in a logical manner—Task 1 addresses the what, Task 2 addresses the how and why, and Task 3 addresses the how to effectively solve the current problem. The bulk of evidence for their argument will come from the first two tasks. Students should be pressed to thread the events from task two together with the maps from task one. Additionally, students should be encouraged to draw upon information gained during the staging the question activity or any prior knowledge of settlement patterns. An example of a student claim from the staging activity could be that historically, people were limited in their choice of where to live because of a lack of technology (i.e., people needed to be within walking distance of a water source). While this lesson is intended to problematize the notion that people choose where they live, it is important to note that student arguments may vary. It is possible for a student to argue that in some cases people do have choice in where they live. Though perhaps simplistic, a student might state that with enough money, you can live in any neighborhood you choose. Furthermore, a student might leave the lesson maintaining a perspective that people of color choose to remain in certain neighborhoods because they wish to be in proximity to their community. These are just a few examples of how student answers may vary. The third task provides students with an important solution to a serious problem that is hopefully included in their argument. By finding hope within the confines of institutional racism, students can begin to see themselves as potential agents for change. This could be a jumping block for teachers as they move students towards the Taking Informed Action phase of the lesson. The extension activity is designed to provide teachers with a summative performance task that serves as an alternative to an argumentative exercise. By creating an annotated map that details the story of segregation and gentrification in East Austin, students will be given the opportunity to tie together the information and exercises from each stage of the lesson. Students will have to strategically think as to how to visually display information gathered from each of the featured sources. Teachers should be clear with students about the requirements of the annotated map. Taking Informed Action Students will be provided the opportunity to take informed action through the creation of a report on racial disparities related to college and career readiness or school discipline (see below for instructions on

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accessing the data). While this may seem distant from the lesson’s focus on segregation and gentrification, this exercise will allow students to meaningfully explore institutional racism at play within their own community. The thought behind approaching the taking informed action in this manner is that not all places have glaring issues of segregation and gentrification— particularly smaller communities. Ideally, through this exercise, students will publicly take a stand against institutional racism and begin to problematize a normalized or colorblind view of race. This would be a prime opportunity to encourage students that they too have a voice and can create and participate in grassroots movements. In order to find this information, go to http://ocrdata.ed.gov/ and select “School & District Search.” Once you have located the school or school district of your choice, statistics on school staffing, college/career readiness, and school discipline will appear. You can have students select from a number of these categories to see whether or not students of color in the school or district are over or underrepresented in certain areas. As an example, in the Fayette County School District in Lexington, Kentucky (location of Author 2), the Black student population is 23% but these students account for 46% of the in-school suspensions, 48% of the out-of-school suspensions, and 67% of the expulsions. Students can locate this sort of information (or draw from other categories on the site) to bring awareness to how the schools treat students of different racial backgrounds in inequitable ways. TIPS AND ADVICE For ease of reading, the tips and advice to help make this lesson successful are listed below: • There is a wealth of resources on the issues of segregation and gentrification in East Austin. A good place to start is the Austin American Statesman’s (n.d.) in-depth look at segregation in Austin (http://projects.statesman.com/news/economic-mobility/) or Andrew M. Busch’s (2015) article Crossing Over: Sustainability, New Urbanism, and Gentrification in Austin, Texas (http://southernspaces. org/2015/crossing-over-sustainability-new-urbanism-and-gentrification-austin-texas) • It would be wise to get a strong grasp on the story of segregation in Austin before teaching this lesson. In order to genuinely problematize the notion that people get to choose where they live, the teacher needs to be in a position to push back on student assumptions in a meaningful manner. In addition to the above sources, it would be useful to read Emily Skop’s (2010) work Austin: A City Divided

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(can be accessed through Google books) and Tretter’s (2012) work Austin Restricted: Progressivism, Zoning, Private Racial Covenants, and the Making of a Segregated City. See the reference list at the end of the chapter for information on how to access these sources. • There is some heady material addressed in this lesson and teachers may need to pause and break down some of the material for students or supplement the lesson with additional resources. For example, the lesson offers one map and one description of gentrification. It may be prudent to expand on the process of gentrification for students or to add additional resources. • It will be helpful for teachers to clarify the meaning of some important terms at the outset of this inquiry. At a minimum, teachers should provide concise definitions for the following terms: Jim Crow, segregation, urbanization, gentrification, public sector, private sector, property values, property taxes, foreclosures, institutional racism, grassroots movements, and man-made barriers vs. natural barriers. • Possible sources for student research in Section 3 of the lesson include: –– http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/how-build-grassrootsmovement –– http://www.teachingforchange.org/selma-bottom-up-history –– http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/activists-changingamerica_b_4209480.html –– http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/howone-law-banning-ethnic-studies-led-to-rise/398885/ SOURCE NOTES The sources for each of the three tasks in the inquiry are all available online via the URLs shared below. Supporting Question 1 Source A http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254216/m1/18/sizes/xl/ Source B http://hdl.handle.net/2152/21232 (maps on pages 90–97) Source C http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Planning/afr-amerpops-1990-2000.pdf

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Source D http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/us/census-racemap.html Supporting Question 2 Source E http://hdl.handle.net/2152/21232 (page 1) Source F http://www.eastendculturaldistrict.org/cms/politics-civic-engagement/ city-plan-austin-texas-1928 Source G http://hdl.handle.net/2152/21232 (page 88)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW764dXEI_8 Source H http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=88 Go to: https://www.google.com/maps and search for Austin, Texas. Zoom in and show how location of I-35 divides West Austin and the Eastside. Source I http://www.pbs.org/pov/flagwars/what-is-gentrification/ http:// southernspaces.org/2015/crossing-over-sustainability-new-urbanismand-gentrification-austin-texas (specifically statistics from the Human Rights Commission) Supporting Question 3 Source J http://southernspaces.org/2015/crossing-over-sustainability-new-urbanism-and-gentrification-austin-texas (Look for images under the section New Urbanism and New Urbanity in Austin) http://www.statesman.com/ news/news/local/lawyer-adam-reposa-claims-responsibility-for-white/ nkbgd/ Source K http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/2007-06-12/491242/ http:// www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/2005-11-28/314760/ Source L

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From Youtube site, search “Graveltooth gentrification video” or go to this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3O6srV2yw8&feature=youtu.be From Youtube site, search “What happened to Austin—Lench” or go to this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1m03-DlHu0&feature=youtu.be From Youtube site, search “East Austin Gentrification—Victims of our own successes” or go to this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czy0zsy3OzU NOTES 1. Due to the racial demographics of Austin, we focus our analysis on how racial segregation impacted the Black, Latino, and White populations. Historically, these three groups comprised nearly the entirety of the city’s population. 2. The authors recognize that focusing on these three groups obscures the experiences of Native Americans in Austin and, in more recent times, the experiences of Asian Americans and other immigrant groups. We focus on the Black, Latino, and White populations due to their statistical predominance throughout the city’s history and because many of the early racial maps of the city (see Supporting Question 1 of Inquiry Blueprint) identify the changing locations of these three racial groups.

REFERENCES A City Plan for Austin, Texas—1928 (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.eastendculturaldistrict.org/cms/politics-civic-engagement/city-plan-austin-texas-1928 Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bobo, L. D., & Smith, R. A. (1998). From Jim Crow racism to laissez-faire racism: The transformation of racial attitudes. In W. F. Katkin, N. Landsman, & A. Tyree (Eds.), Beyond pluralism: The conception of groups and group identities in America (pp. 182–220). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Brown, A. L., & Brown, K. D. (2010). Strange fruit indeed: Interrogating contemporary textbook representations of racial violence toward African Americans. Teachers College Record, 112(1), 37–61. Busch, A. M. (2015, August 19). Crossing over: Sustainability, new urbanism, and gentrification in Austin Texas. Southern Spaces. Retrieved from http:// southernspaces.org/2015/crossing-over-sustainability-new-urbanism -and-gentrification-austin-texas

210    V. DAVIS and R. CROWLEY California Newsreel. (2010, September 24). we live in [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW764dXEI_8 CathedralFilms. (2016, January 27). What happened to Austin? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1m03-DlHu0&feature=youtu.be Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answers: Confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 493–522. Crenshaw, K. W. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Dustin Cable. (July, 2013). The racial dot map: One dot per person for the entire United States [Map of 2010 racial census block data]. Retrieved from http://www. coopercenter.org/demographics/Racial-Dot-Map Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community, and everyday life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Grant, B. (2003). What is gentrification? Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/pov/ flagwars/what-is-gentrification/ GravelTooth. (2016, February 9). GENTRIFIED—A music video by GRAVELTOOTH [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3O6srV2yw 8&feature=youtu.be Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Lipsitz, G. (1995). The possessive investment in Whiteness: Racialized social democracy and the “White” problem in American Studies. American Quarterly, 47(3), 369–387. Marable, M. (2002). The great wells of democracy: The meaning of race in American life. New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books. Massey, D. M., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Matsuda, M. (1991). Voices of America: Accent, antidiscrimination law, and a jurisprudence for the last reconstruction. Yale Law Journal, 100, 1329–1407. Mears, M. M. (2010). An Important Legacy: the Freedmen Neighborhoods of Austin [Electronic version]. Heritage, 1, 18. Retrieved from http://texashistory. unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254216/m1/18/sizes/xl/ National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, Pub. L. No. 84-627, 70 Stat. 374 (1956). Retrieved from http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc. php?flash=true&doc=88 Oliver, M. L., & Shapiro, T. M. (1997). Black wealth/White wealth: A new perspective on racial inequality. New York, NY: Routledge. Orfield, G., & Lee, C. (2005). Why segregation matters. New York, NY: Peter Lang. O’Rourke, C. (2015, March 20). Austin lawyer appears to claim credit for “White people” stickers. Austin Statesman. Retrieved from http://www.statesman. com/news/news/local/lawyer-adam-reposa-claims-responsibility-for-white/ nkbgd/

Do People Get to Choose Where They Live?    211 Padilla, A. (2015, June 7). East Austin gentrification—Victims of our own success (EBT: USA) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czy 0zsy3OzU Skop, E. (2010). Austin: A city divided. In J. W. Frazier, J. T. Darden, & N. F. Henry (Eds.), The African diaspora in the United States and Canada at the dawn of the 21st Century (pp. 109–122). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Tatum, B. D. (2003). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York, NY: Basic Books. The New York Times. (2015). Mapping segregation [Map of 2010 Census Data]. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/us/censusrace-map.html?_r=0 Tretter, E. M. (2012). Austin restricted: Progressivism, zoning, private racial covenants, and the making of a segregated city. Urban Policy Research and Analysis. Retrieved from https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/21232 United States Census Bureau. (May 21, 2015). Ten U.S. cities now have 1 million people or Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2015/cb15-89.html Winant, H. (2001). The world is a ghetto: Race and democracy since WWII. New York, NY: Basic Books. Zehr, D. (2015) Inheriting inequality. Austin American-Statesman. Retrieved from http://projects.statesman.com/news/economic-mobility/

CHAPTER 12

STORIES, COUNTERSTORIES, AND TALES OF RESISTANCE Family History Projects in World History Classrooms Juan Gabriel Sánchez Boston College Raquel Y. Sáenz Boston College

ABSTRACT Inquiry-based family history projects, which allow students to create historical stories and counterstories, can be rich, generative, and valuable means through which Social Studies teachers can incorporate critical race theory (CRT) into their teaching. These projects provide students ways to develop individualized and unique research questions, build research skills, and examine the complexities and multiplicity of history. Within the framework of racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK), we provide a flexible plan for world history teachers to incorporate students’ counterstories into their teach-

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214    J. G. SÁNCHEZ and R. Y. SÁENZ ing, with the aim of generating engaging and meaningful work for students that also displaces the dominant narratives in western history and society.

As former social studies teachers who identify as Latino and predominantly taught students of color, we have long considered the role of a CRT lens in teaching students how to think about the past and its implications for the present. Several tenets of CRT have informed our often-concomitant work as students, teachers, and scholars—particularly those delineated by Delgado and Stefancic (2012), such as the fixedness or normalcy of race, interest convergence, and race as a socially constructed concept. This lens has helped us understand teaching as a political act, particularly in our society, which is structured to marginalize many of our students from a very early age. As de los Ríos, López, & Morell (2015) argued, “[s]ince the beginning of schooling, curricula have served as a tool for acculturation and a depository of White supremacist ideals and values” (p. 87). We conceptualize the role of teachers in part as resisting this trend, which includes teaching minoritized students to achieve in meaningful ways and to develop their own forms of resistance to oppressive structures. Overview and Rationale of Inquiry Project As part of our CRT-infused world history curricula, we have used “counterstorytelling” as a tool for unpacking the ways that race and racism impact global society and history. Delgado and Stefancic (2012) defined counterstorytelling as telling stories that challenge and displace the dominant narratives told in our society. According to Solorzano and Yosso (2001), counterstories serve four functions: first, to build community among historically marginalized populations; second, to “challenge the perceived wisdom of those at society’s center by providing a context to understand and transform established belief systems” (p. 475); third, to provide new possibilities for historically marginalized populations in conceiving of their reality; and lastly, to create a more complete and complex conception of reality. In addition, Solorzano and Yosso (2001) conceptualized counter-storytelling as an important means to recognize the “experiential knowledge of Students of Color” (p. 473). In examining past uses of counter-storytelling in education, we perceive a lack of literature on the use of students’ counterstories in history classrooms. Much of the work that uses a CRT lens in the classroom has focused on the identity of the teacher or ethnographic studies of students (Yosso, 2006; Downey, 2015; Roy and Roxas, 2011). Though valuable, these studies look less at using CRT in practice, at supporting students in creating inquiries about their own identities and positions in society. Furthermore, in considering the making of history, there is still a notable lack of “history from below,”

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which the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm (1998) postulated as the history of experience and perspectives of “ordinary people,” as opposed to the more traditional political history often taught in American classrooms. Student inquiries are a form of history from below. We have each developed inquiry projects that encouraged students to develop their own counterstories, driven by the compelling question: “How does my family’s story compare to the dominant stories in history and shift how I understand my role within history?” Exploring this question pushes students to not only draw concrete connections to history but also critically examine how they make sense of it. In world history classrooms, counterstories can also help teachers apply Chandler’s (2015) RPCK framework, which “require[s] that teachers be familiar with and infuse CRT into already existing content/disciplinary frameworks” (p. 5). Chandler’s (2015) framework informs our goal for this chapter: to provide guidance for teachers in implementing inquiry-based family history projects that allow students to develop counterstories. This work incorporates CRT into the “inquiry arc” of the C3 social studies state standards (NCSS, 2013). We intend that our work act as a roadmap for teachers who wish to “do” CRT while using the C3 Framework. Chandler (2010) claimed that, “[t]he primary tenet of CRT that is based on storytelling puts primary importance on the people who have experienced discrimination . . . as a focal point in the process of liberation, not as a sidenote” (p. 38, emphasis in original). Prioritizing the narratives of our students—especially historically marginalized students—has implications for supporting the larger struggle against racial oppression. In building understandings of systemic inequities, particularly racial inequities, it is important to historically contextualize the systems in which we live (racial, economic, political, etc.) using a CRT lens. Part of this contextualization includes a discussion of White privilege, which could help students from a dominant group interrogate the ways that their family narratives might be ones of dominance or power; this is a delicate but vital process (Margolin, 2015). Personal narratives as counterstories, in the tradition of authors such as Derrick Bell (1992), Richard Delgado (1994), and John Tehranian (2008), are an important element in CRT as a means of prioritizing the voices of non-dominant populations (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). Thus, a CRT lens often entails that students read, discuss, and create narratives. In the example of our family history projects, students are actively involved in rigorous historical inquiry, developing their own questions and conducting their own research. They begin by exploring the elements that differentiate counterstories from dominant narratives by reading excerpts from counterstories written by international authors who are members of historically oppressed groups, as well as authors from dominant groups who work to overturn dominant narratives. Depending on the demographics of the

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class, students might also have the option of reading texts in languages other than English. As part of this process, students reflect on larger-scale narratives and counternarratives, terms we use to describe broader syntheses of individuals’ stories or counterstories. Hegemonic groups in many countries, notably the United States, have historically used dominant (largely Western) racial narratives as “stories that . . . facilitate schematization of race and individuals as racialized subjects” (Perry, 2011, p. 44). Historically, these narratives have been essential in maintaining the status quo. In classes with large numbers of non-native origin students, the counternarratives created can provide insight into global migration patterns, as well as the social, economic, and political histories of multiple countries. Personal stories also provide a forum for addressing intersectionality. Students’ stories can uncover the ways that race, class, gender, and other identity markers converge in their own lives and/or the lives of family members. Intersectionality in this context is drawn from Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1991) work, which analyzed the complexities of power relations that play into the lives of immigrant women, working class Black women, and other women of color. In our own example, we conceptualize family history projects as complex personal stories that CRT-infused world history classes can use to shift the focus of world history classes from dominant narratives to counter-storytelling, providing richer perspectives on history and society. Logistically speaking, although counter-storytelling can be done in any history class, world history classes provide an ideal environment, particularly for classes with substantial numbers of immigrant origin or historically marginalized students, as a means to analyze the dominant and counternarratives that exist in various contexts around the globe. This project is useful at the beginning of the year to help students understand that history is never neutral. “Stories, parables, chronicles, and narratives are powerful means for destroying mindset—the bundle of presuppositions, received wisdoms, and shared understandings against a background of which legal and political discourse takes place” (Delgado, 1989, p. 2413). There is no absolute social reality, yet the subjectivity of history is often unaddressed in social studies classrooms. Finally, inherent to any well-planned lesson is knowledge of one’s student population. Knowing your students not only allows for important instructional tasks such as individualized differentiation but also for pedagogical planning decisions that allow for meaningful interactions and knowledge construction. Stories and counterstories can be powerful anti-racist tools for any student population, and teachers are key in making them so. In a classroom where most students are from a dominant social group, an examination of privilege should be an important element of the project.

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However, it is equally important to consider the fact that for such students, these ideas might come as a shock and be rejected. In contrast, for many students of color, there might be emotions of feeling jaded about living within systems of oppression and constantly facing microagressions and overt racism. It is difficult to incorporate both of these perspectives in class, but it is important to prioritize the narratives of minoritized students in these spaces, as this is done seldom and often superficially. In beginning these conversations with students from the dominant group, it is important to discuss examples of power in their own lives, even seemingly trivial examples such as, hypothetically, being a camp counselor. Teachers can scaffold these examples throughout the year towards more in-depth conversations on privilege by incorporating texts that clearly illustrate White privilege. Nurenberg (2011) and Flynn (2012) provide good examples of this process. Students of color can critically examine the ways in which their stories might compare with the dominant and counternarratives that teachers provide. Our own projects took place in two very different classrooms. We not only had different contexts and grade levels, but also different teaching styles. Juxtaposing the two will provide concrete examples of how other world history teachers might use a CRT lens that draws from the C3 Frameworks to teach about counterstories and counternarratives. Juan Gabriel worked in a project-based public high school in downtown Philadelphia, while Raquel worked in a South Texas public middle school; both were Title I schools. The Philadelphia school was demographically representative of the city, with an ethnically and economically diverse student body that had a slight African American majority. In the Texas school, 99% of students were either recent Mexican immigrants or the children of Mexican immigrants. About 20% were recent immigrants with an emerging knowledge of English. These differences have afforded us unique perspectives on the numerous forms a family history project can take, which we hope results in a rich but adaptable description of the family history project. Content: World History, Family Histories Connections to CRT: Counterstories, Counternarratives, Resistance Connections to the State and National Standards Texas State Content Standards TX.113.22 (6.1) History: The student understands that historical events influence contemporary events. TX.113.22 (6.15) Culture: The student understands the similarities and differences within and among cultures in different societies.

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TX.113.22 (6.21) Social Studies Skills: The student applies criticalthinking skills to organize and use information acquired from a variety of sources including electronic technology. TX.113.22 (6.22) Social Studies Skills: The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. Pennsylvania State Content Standards PA Standard 8.1.9.B: Compare the interpretation of historical events and sources, considering the use of fact versus opinion, multiple perspectives, and cause and effect relationships. PA Standard 8.1.9.C: Construct research on a historical topic using a thesis statement and demonstrate use of appropriate primary and secondary sources. (Reference RWSL Standard 1.8.8 Research) PA Standard 8.4.9.A: Compare the role groups and individuals played in the social, political, cultural, and economic development throughout world history. PA Standard 8.4.9.B: Contrast the importance of historical documents, artifacts, and sites, which are critical to world history. NCSS Content Standards C3.D1.4.9-12: Explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge. C3.D2.His.16.9-12: Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past. C3.D3.1.9-12: Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection. C3.D3.2.6-8: Evaluate the credibility of a source by determining its relevance and intended use. Performed critically and thoughtfully, the family history project should parallel the C3 (NCSS, 2013) “inquiry arc,” which aims to develop students’ history skills and deepen their curiosity about history. This project draws on all four dimensions of the C3 Frameworks. As part of Dimension 1, students conduct research on their families, which entails developing research questions and plans. With regards to Dimension 2, this project applies the disciplinary concept of historical thinking, which the frameworks describe as evaluating why and how events occurred and developments unfolded. It involves locating and assessing historical sources of many different types to understand the contexts of given historical eras and the perspectives of different individuals and groups within geographic units that range from the local to the global” (NCSS, 2013, p. 45).

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Students must then gather and evaluate the sources that they use to construct a coherent story of their family history, which fits Dimension 3 of the standards. The final dimension is one that teachers must be very careful about applying but is still possible to achieve with some students. Given the intimate nature of these projects, public sharing of findings is not something that teachers should expect all students to do. Still, many students enjoy talking about their histories and should be given the chance to do so if interested. This is a grey area that requires skilled teachers to make judgments about what is appropriate.

SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

How does my family’s story compare to the dominant stories in history and shift how I understand my role within history?

TX.113.22 (6.1) History: The student understands that historical events influence contemporary events. TX.113.22 (6.15) Culture: The student understands the similarities and differences within and among cultures in different societies. TX.113.22 (6.21) Social Studies Skills: The student applies criticalthinking skills to organize and use information acquired from a variety of sources including electronic technology. TX.113.22 (6.22) Social Studies Skills: The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. Standards and Practices

PA Standard 8.1.9.B: Compare the interpretation of historical events and sources, considering the use of fact versus opinion, multiple perspectives, and cause and effect relationships. PA Standard 8.1.9.C: Construct research on a historical topic using a thesis statement and demonstrate use of appropriate primary and secondary sources. (Reference RWSL Standard 1.8.8 Research) PA Standard 8.4.9.A: Compare the role groups and individuals played in the social, political, cultural, and economic development throughout world history. PA Standard 8.4.9.B: Contrast the importance of historical documents, artifacts, and sites, which are critical to world history. NCSS Standards: See previous chapter text.

Staging the Question

Think about events that you’ve experienced or heard about from friends or family concerning discrimination (racial, gender, language, etc.) and discuss how those experiences are similar or different from what you’ve read in history books or hear in the news. (It is important to build up to this discussion through previous analyses on historical systemic inequities.)

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Formative Performance Task Summarize the plot from a counternarrative novel that the student chooses from a list. Discuss what makes this narrative different from others that students have seen in history classes. Define both narrative and counternarrative.

Supporting Question 2 What questions, sources, and settings make a good interview?

Formative Performance Task Create a research question and supporting interview questions that aim at uncovering family histories. Plan the interviews (who, where, etc.).

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Counternarratives, including chapters of novels, short biographies, autobiographies, and histories. Examples (for middle school): Always Running by Luis J. Rodríguez, Shantytown Kid by Azouz Begag, Long Division by Kiese Laymon. Examples (for high school): Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen and A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Example interviews

Supporting Question 3

Supporting Question 4

How can we use interviews to learn about our family?

How can family interviews be used to construct counternarratives?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Conduct interviews with family members to answer a research question.

Featured Sources Family members as primary sources

Analyze interviews to find predominant themes. Compare and contrast viewpoints from different family members on certain events in the family history. Compare and contrast to the dominant narratives.

Featured Sources Interviews (notes or transcribed interviews). News sources (as points of comparison).

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Argument

Can your family history contradict and expand prevalent historical narratives? Create questions about your family’s history, and conduct interviews of one or more relatives to answer these questions. Compare family narratives to dominant narratives (majoritarian stories).

Extension

Piece together the results of your interview(s), and create a narrative of your family’s history, based on these first-hand accounts.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Understand your family’s history and how their journey brought you into this world. Assess: Compare and contrast the results of your interview(s) to what you read or hear in history books/classes and in current events. Act: After writing your narrative, revisit the interviews with your family, and share and discuss the results of what you learned and your new understandings of how this fits into bigger historical narratives.

LESSON NARRATIVE The family history project, as we envision it, draws from the unique context of one’s classroom, which means our lesson narrative aims to provide broad, adaptable insights for teachers. Our two classrooms used individualized but parallel steps in line with common goals. Each classroom endeavored to give students a sense of historical agency and to question dominant narratives told concerning regional and global histories, which privilege a hegemonic White perspective. In thinking about historical agency, we consider the Freirean model of helping students understand that, “to be in the world without making history, without being made by it, without creating culture . . . without being political, is a total impossibility” (Freire, 1998, p. 58). We also taught interview and analysis strategies that helped students conduct research and “do” history. Both projects followed similar steps: first, students read autobiographical and semi-autobiographical counternarratives, as well as history books focusing on counternarratives. Second, students created research questions about their families’ histories. Students then interviewed family members, analyzed the interview material, and wrote and/or orally presented their family histories. Students also compared these stories with dominant historical narratives.

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Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources This project includes four supporting questions, the first being: what is a narrative, and what is a counternarrative? The question here entails discussions on how history as information is constituted, as well as critical discussions about the subjectivity of history. In the related task, students read a counterstory—a novel or excerpts from history books that do not espouse dominant narratives. Students should have options, including those coming from historically underrepresented groups. The formative task is to read, summarize, and discuss a counterstory, then compare it to dominant narratives from school or the media. With teacher guidance, the class then works together to define the terms “narrative” and “counternarrative,” explicitly referencing sources provided by teachers. Our sources varied with students’ reading abilities and ages. In her middle school classroom, Raquel used Always Running by Luis J. Rodríguez (2005), Shantytown Kid by Azouz Begag (2007), and Long Division by Kiese Laymon (2013). In his 10th grade classroom, Juan Gabriel provided excerpts from both Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me (2007; including those about Thanksgiving and Christopher Columbus), and Zinn’s (2014) A People’s History of the United States. Additionally, Bell, Roberts, Irani, and Murphy (2008) provided a useful discussion of counterstories that might help teachers make curricular choices. Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources Next, teachers should provide context and skill building for the interview process with lessons about developing questions. Students should consider: what questions, sources, and settings make a good interview? Their task is to create research questions and supporting interview questions aimed at uncovering family histories. Students should also begin planning their interviews, considering whom to interview, where, when, etc. Teachers can also provide example interviews, which help students get a sense of how an interview might be structured, as well as how to create questions to ask their interviewees. Regarding questions, our processes should prove useful for teachers to replicate and adapt. Juan Gabriel’s students practiced creating interview questions in class and were each allowed to ask one question of him, conceivably any question. This activity acted as a hook and initiated metacognitive discussions about why students chose their questions and what they as individuals were interested in learning—a key part of the inquiry process. Students were thus prompted to consider positionality, which helps scaffold

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students towards critical perspectives (Zamudio, Bridgeman, Russell, & Rios, 2009). Similarly, Raquel’s students each developed a broad research question about their family’s history. For example, one student asked: What brought my family to Texas? Students were encouraged to take an intersectional approach in considering themes of race, gender, and class. In introducing these topics briefly, developmentally appropriate terminology was used to encourage students to consider who has power (boys vs. girls, Whites vs. Mexicans, etc.) and how this has changed over time. This section has no featured sources, as students created their own research and interview questions. In practice, we provided example topics for possible questions—based on discussions of the resources from Formative Task 1—but we allowed students to organically develop their own questions. Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources The third phase, in which students conduct the interviews, takes place outside of school. Students consider the supporting question: “How can we use interviews to learn about our family?” As students should have agency and draw on their curiosity in the inquiry process, the teacher is more coach than information source; therefore, students develop their own interview questions and protocols. Only after developing an overarching goal and a set of interview questions do students conduct the interviews. The interview processes may vary, depending on situations and resources. Juan Gabriel’s high school students transcribed and annotated interviews based on audio recordings, as the school provided them with laptops. Raquel’s middle school students took notes while conducting their interviews. Although the onus is primarily on students to conduct their own research, teachers play a vital role in developing qualitative research skills, such as through in-class practice interviews with peers, with teacher feedback and support. The featured sources here are, effectively, family members, as opposed to formal news or scholarly sources. We chose to move away from standardized interview processes, as we felt families-as-resources represented unique concepts that could ignite students’ curiosity and help them develop authentic, local disciplinary knowledge. In the next section, we discuss how students can then compare family stories to broader narratives. Question 4, Formative Task 4, Featured Sources This step is closely connected to the summative assessment, described in more detail below. The question is: “How can family interviews be used to

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construct counternarratives?” Students now analyze their interviews to find patterns and themes. They compare and contrast viewpoints from different family members on certain events in the family history, as well as to the dominant narratives they learn about in history. Students should be given class time to analyze data from the interview process. This stage involves learning basic coding procedures to find patterns and themes that arise in the interviews. Students would go through their interview notes or transcripts to circle recurring words and note key ideas. Prompts should be given to the students to help them focus on what the interviewee was feeling and what the main topics were in the conversation. At this stage, students can also write summaries of each interview, synopsizing central findings. Teachers of younger students might want to save these summaries for the final task, just focusing on coding for this section. To that end, two sources are required to complete an analysis and coding of the interviews. First, students should have notes or annotated transcriptions of their interviews, which requires that teachers provide scaffolds, such as an in-class annotation and think-aloud. Access to technology is not the only factor here, as notes are generally more appropriate for younger students; transcribing an interview would be an enormous task for many middle school students, particularly 6th and 7th graders. Second, teachers should provide examples of dominant narratives as points of comparison. News sources work well, as they are relatively short, and like the stories that students discuss in the first stage, they often reflect prevailing narratives. Teachers can provide articles about famous people, politicians, or accounts of various populations (see the Source Notes section), and students can compare those accounts to what they learned from their own families’ stories—practicing first through class discussions and short writing assignments, then individually as part of their projects. They should look for instances of similarity and divergence, to see concrete examples of how their families’ histories might reflect major narratives or depart from them. Topics for news sources should include stories relevant to students, for example, pieces related to the Black Lives Matter movements or those about immigration. History books and online historical accounts can also be used as points of comparison if family interviews discussed prominent events that occurred in their lifetime. Summative Performance Task Only after examining the different pieces of their data do students begin to synthesize their family histories and construct unique stories or counterstories, while also answering the initial research questions that they had individually created and sought to answer. Through this process, it is

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important to introduce or reintroduce the concept of intersectionality to think about the ways that issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, etc. appear in their family stories. Depending on grade level, students would use different levels of analysis and sophistication. In crafting arguments, students should consider the following question: Can your family history contradict or expand upon dominant historical narratives? As an extension of the summative task, students can be asked to synthesize the results of their interviews and create cohesive narratives of their families’ history, based on these firsthand accounts. Their analyses can include how these histories do or do not reflect more dominant narratives they hear in history or the news. Taking Informed Action Students should arrive at the following understandings and skills: they should each understand their family’s history and be able to use these stories to assess the concepts of narratives and counternarratives, including what these concepts mean to them. In terms of action, after analyzing and writing up their findings, students should revisit the interviews with their families and share and discuss what they learned and how it fits into broader historical narratives. They should try to make this an ongoing conversation with their own families. Students should also be given the optional opportunity to extend the conversation with their classmates, through presentations and class discussions. The class can listen and try to find patterns or themes in students’ findings, thus building even deeper understandings of historical narratives and counternarratives. Finally, teachers can continue to critique dominant narratives in future units. TIPS AND ADVICE There are a number of important tips for teachers designing an inquirybased family history project. First, although this project can carry with it a sense of pride for students, there are always concerns for student privacy when they are asked to investigate and recount personal stories. Teachers must be aware of such issues and ready to provide modifications or alternatives. In addition, teachers should consider the skills, knowledge, and attitudes they themselves need to help students truly engage with this project. Teachers require content knowledge about historical counternarratives, which can be gained from both reading counternarratives cited at the end of this document and actively seeking to learn about the stories of minoritized populations, especially those of their students. They must also be able

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to talk about race in the classroom. For teachers seeking to develop this skill, an open attitude is just as important as knowledge and experience. The multiplicity of people’s stories and counterstories is such that teachers can never know everything or anticipate all of their students’ perspectives; humility and a desire to learn from students—the give and take of teaching—should be an intentional stance that teachers take. Given the intimacy of this project, students and their families may experience dissonance with the process. At the start of the project, teachers should openly discuss this possibility and allow students to consider alternatives to digging into what could be a painful family history. We do not mean that students should avoid an uncomfortable lesson, but if the student or their family feels the project is inappropriate, alternatives should be readily available. Moreover, the presentation phase of this project should be voluntary, since many students unearth sensitive topics during these projects that they might not feel comfortable sharing with the class. To address these concerns, we each created exceptions for students. For example, one student researched her family name, rather than interview a family member, given parental concerns. This project allows students to build important skills for doing history but is also flexible enough to be adapted for multiple age groups and contexts. Though we believe that social studies skills are central to teaching in this content area, there are two related concepts that teachers should consider. Using counter-storytelling within the RPCK framework is a skill that requires both knowledge and the right mindset. In this case, knowledge consists of counterstories and counternarratives, which help teachers develop a collective language for tackling the complex issue of race in the classroom. Many examples exist, and a substantial but by no means exhaustive selection is provided in the Resources section below. Additionally, teachers and education scholars alike have provided examples of how to navigate the construction of diverse narratives in their classrooms and dealt with issues of race in productive ways (examples include Bolgatz, 2005; Campano, 2007; Pollock, 2008). Beyond knowledge, teachers must keep an open and inquiry-based stance when talking with their students about race and familial narratives. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) conceived of such a “stance” as an orientation and position—in essence, a way of carrying oneself and of being mindful of the need to listen and learn throughout the various acts related to one’s practice. Ignoring students’ identities and feelings of marginalization can silence students and be counterproductive to a project that is supposed to be about inquiry, collaboration, and sharing. Indeed, Tatum (2001) suggested that omissions and distortions of minoritized peoples contribute to prejudice and, by extension, systemic racism. She encouraged teachers to shine a light on racism and to talk about it, which necessitates a listening

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frame of mind. Teachers may find this a dissonant concept, in part because race is a contentious subject but also because teachers are often directed to “manage” our classrooms, or to keep them orderly in some sense. Yet, for students to have a voice and develop agency, teachers must be willing to cede at least some degree of authority. Doing so was a delicate balancing act and a skill that took years for each of us to refine, but the long-term benefits included students feeling more responsibility and ownership in class, increased confidence, and greater engagement. SOURCE NOTES Supporting Question 1, Task 1 Many resources can support student inquiries of counterstories. While teachers should make their own choices, the following are examples that we used successfully in our classrooms. Counterstories for Grades 6–7 Aquino, M., Bressane, R., Buzo, A., Carrascoza, J. A., Ciríaco Ferréz, R., Freire Sacolinha, M., & Saramago, V. (2013). Eu sou favela. Paris, France: Anacaona Editions. Lalami, L. (2005). Hope and other dangerous pursuits. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Books. Rodríguez, L. J. (2005). Always running: La vida loca: Gang days in L.A. New York, NY: Touchstone. Satrapi, M. (2003). Persepolis: The story of a childhood. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Counterstories for Grades 8–9 Alexie, S. (1993). The lone ranger and Tonto fist fight in heaven. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Begag, A. (2007). Shantytown Kid. (N. Wolf & A. G. Hargreaves, Trans.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press (Original work published in French in 1986). Laymon, K. (2013). Long division: A novel. Chicago, IL: Bolden Books. Lins, P. (2002). City of God. (A. Entrekin, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove/ Atlantic. (Original work published in Portuguese in 1997). Myers, W. D. (1994). Malcolm X: By any means necessary. New York, NY: Scholastic. Counterstories and Counternarratives for Grades 10–12 Balderrama, F. E., & Rodriguez, R. (2006). Decade of betrayal: Mexican repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque, NM: UNM Press.

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DuBois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. Chicago, IL: A.C. McClurg. Loewen, J. W. (2007). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong. New York, NY: Touchstone. X., M., & Haley, A. (1973). The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Zinn, H. (2014). A people’s history of the United States. London, England: Pan Macmillan. Supporting Question 4, Task 4 In looking for news sources, it is important to consider sources that represent multiple perspectives, as well as news sources specific to various regions. Several sources that feature international news include, but are not limited to: Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com A list of online news sources from Latin America can be found here, listed by country: http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/news/ A list of news sources from Africa can found here, listed by country: http://www.w3newspapers.com/africa/ A list of news sources from the Middle East and Asia can be found here, listed by country: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/asian-newspapers.htm

REFERENCES Bell, D. A. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bell, L. A., Roberts, R. A., Irani, K., & Murphy, B. (2008). The storytelling project curriculum: Learning about race and racism through storytelling and the arts. New York, NY: Barnard College. Bolgatz, J. (2005). Talking race in the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Campano, G. (2007). Immigrant students and literacy: Reading, writing, and remembering (p. 56). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Chandler, P. T. (2010). Critical race theory and social studies: Centering the Native American experience. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(1), 29–58.

Stories, Counterstories, and Tales of Resistance    229 Chandler, P. (2015). Doing race in Social Studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24(1), 249–305. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411–2441. Delgado, R. (1994). Rodrigo’s final chronicle: Cultural power, the law reviews, and the attack on narrative jurisprudence. Southern California Law Review, 68, 545. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. de los Ríos, C.V., López, J., & Morrell, E. (2015). Toward a critical pedagogy of race: Ethnic studies and literacies of power in High School classrooms. Race and Social Problems, 7, 84–96. Downey, C. A. (2015). “They kicked him out”: Teachers’ student stories as counterstories. Anthropology and Education, 46(1), 1–18. Flynn, J. E. (2012). Critical pedagogy with the oppressed and the oppressors: Middle school students discuss racism and white privilege. Middle Grades Research Journal, 7(2), 95–110. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Lanham, MD: Lanham, Rowman, & Littlefield. (Original work published 1974). Hobsbawm, E. (1998). On History. New York, NY: The New Press. Margolin, L. (2015). Unpacking the invisible knapsack: The invention of white privilege pedagogy. Cogent Social Sciences, 1, 1–9. National Council for the Social Studies (2013). College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Nurenberg, D. (2011). What does privilege have to do with me? A pedagogy of the privileged. Harvard Educational Review, 81(1), 50–63. Perry, I. (2011). More beautiful and more terrible: The embrace and transcendence of racial inequality in the United States. New York, NY: New York University Press. Pollock, M. (2008). Everyday antiracism: Getting real about race in school. New York, NY: The New Press. Roy, L., & Roxas, K. (2011). Whose deficit is this anyhow? Exploring counter-stories of Somali Bantu refugees’ experiences in “Doing School.” Harvard Educational Review, 81(3), 521–542. Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2001). Critical race and LatCrit theory and method: Counter-storytelling. Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(4), 471–495. Tatum, B. D. (2001). Defining racism: Can we talk? In P. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study (pp. 124–131). New York, NY: Worth. Tehranian, J. (2008). Whitewashed: America’s invisible Middle Eastern minority. New York, NY: New York University Press. Yosso, T. J. (2006). Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline. New York, NY: Routledge.

230    J. G. SÁNCHEZ and R. Y. SÁENZ Zamudio, M., Bridgeman, J., Russell, C., & Rios, F. (2009). Developing a critical consciousness: Positionality, pedagogy, and problems. Race Ethnicity and Education, 12(4), 455–472.

CHAPTER 13

TOWARD A LATIN@ CRITICAL RACE THEORY Examining Race, Racism, and Afro-Latinidad in World History and Human Geography Christopher L. Busey Texas State University

ABSTRACT Afro-Latin@ identity has received increased attention by scholarly and mainstream media outlets in the twenty-first century although Afro-Latin presence has been a mainstay in Latin America for centuries. Despite a significant presence, Afro-Latin@s have been marginalized and oppressed in historical and contemporary Latin American society. This chapter offers Latin@ Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a curricular framework for interrogating race and racism in Latin American society specifically as it pertains to the formation of Afro-Latinidad, Afro-Latin identity.

Race Lessons, pages 231–249 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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The United Nations (UN) declared 2015–2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent, with a major emphasis on African descendants who occupy the Americas. The UN’s focus on the Americas is due in large part to the historical and contemporary erasure, marginalization, and oppression of Black peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean. Approximately 130–150 million people of African descent live in present-day Latin America and the Caribbean (Morrison, 2007; Telles, 2014), however the power structures, mainstream societal portrayals, and curricular texts would indicate otherwise. This phenomenon is especially evident throughout Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Latin America, where Afro-Latin@s constitute a significant and sometimes majority population in many countries, yet experience societal marginalization (Adams, 2012; Telles, 2014; Wade, 2010). In fact, Afro-Latin@s are more likely to encounter overt racism as well as have less access to quality healthcare, education, housing, and employment opportunities (Morrison, 2007; United Nations, 2015). This is in addition to low political participation, a lack of representation in political positions, and other forms of socio-political inequity. Socio-environmental injustices also disproportionately affect Afro-Latin@s who experience displacement and dispossession as a result of development initiated by state-run industries (Mayes, 2014; Mollett, 2014; Vélez-Torres & Varela, 2014). There are even cases in which Afro-Latin@s are unable to identify their ethno-racial heritage on official country census, thus contributing to fluid population estimates in various Latin American countries (Maffia & Zubrzycki, 2014; Norman, 2010; Telles, 2014). How could such a significant demographic experience oppression? The answer lies in systemic racism, yet this inquiry warrants further exploration not just through international organizations such as the UN, but also through critical interrogation in social studies classrooms. It is a moral and intellectual imperative that social studies teachers promote racial literacy, which in the case of Afro-Latin@s means challenging monolithic racial portrayals of Latin@s in mainstream media as well as school curricula. Contextualizing Afro-Latin@ identity within the broader frameworks of historical and contemporary Latin American society is not just a form of racially-just teaching, but is merely reflective of the multiracial and multiethnic construction of Latin@ identity. This book chapter provides pre-service and in-service teachers with the racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015; King & Chandler, 2016) necessary to explore Afro-Latin@ identity, in particular, the raced experience of being Black in historical and present-day Latin America.

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AFRICAN PRESENCE, AFRO-LATIN@S AND RACISM: A BRIEF HISTORY Similar to the United States, the rich presence of African people would be cemented in Latin America through institutionalized slavery, albeit African presence in Latin America predates enslavement. Historians debate whether or not Africans had early contact with early Meso-Americans, namely the Olmec. Afrocentric scholars as well as other historians have argued that African portraitures in stone, clay, and pottery along with early Mexican architecture make it indelible that Africans had contact with the Olmec (Gaines, 2007; Van Sertima, 1977; Van Sertima, 1998). The resemblance of Negroid features on colossal Olmec stone heads would serve as the basis for the claims of Nubian contact with Olmec and other Meso-American groups (Van Sertima, 1977). Contrarily, other historians have contested the veracity of African presence in pre-Columbian America arguing that there is little historical validity to these claims. For example, Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano, and Barbour (1997) contend that the argument for African presence has little historical evidence for support, was furthered by “cultural nationalists in the African American community” (p. 419), and robs early Central American Indigenous groups of their intellectual and cultural contributions. Regardless of the veracity of African presence in early Meso-America, it is undeniable that Afro-Latin@s were the earliest African ethno-racial group to settle in North America (Román & Flores, 2010). Afro-Latin@s played a major role in the settlement of St. Augustine, FL as well as Mexico and the southwestern United States. Free Blacks such as Juan Garrido and Estevanico (also referred to as Esteban, Estabanico, or Estaban de Dorantes) would accompany Spanish conquistadors in early 1500’s conquests of the Americas. In 1539 Blacks would become the first non-Indigenous settlers in New Mexico and possibly Kansas as a result of an expedition with Vásquez de Coronado that traveled through present-day southwestern United States (Forbes, 2010). This is the impetus for a rich presence of Afro-Latin@s in Mexico and the southwestern United States which once included a majority Afro population in mid-eighteenth century California consisting of political elite who were Afro-Latino (Fisher, 2010). Like many other raced histories however, Afro-Latin@ presence in the southwestern United States would be erased by race mixing, the suppression of Black history, and Euro-American imperialism (Forbes, 2010). Beyond early contact and settlement in the Americas, the African Diaspora was influential in ensuring a massive demographic of Afro-Latin@s throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. As Andrews (2004) noted:

234    C. L. BUSEY During the period of slavery, ten times as many Africans came to Spanish and Portuguese America (5.7 million) as to the United States (560,000). By the end of the 1900s, Afro-Latin Americans outnumbered Afro-North Americans by three to one, and formed, on average, almost twice as large as a proportion of their respective populations. (22% in Latin America, 12% in the United States; p. 3)

Black presence however would not equate to the recognition of Black identity. Racism was—and continues to be—endemic throughout Latin American society. Even as slavery was abolished in most Latin American countries well before the United States, a lack of unified Black consciousness and agency succumbed to the construction and application of racial power. For example, Afro-Latin@s were already oppressed through enslavement, yet, racial hierarchy in Latin America kept Afro-Latin@s on the margins of society. Wealth, opportunity, and education were reserved for Whites in Latin America and Afro-Latin@s could only obtain power through the literal whitening of their bloodlines. In the United States, racial classification was rigid and set institutionally through policies such as the “one drop rule” whereas in Latin America Whiteness could be obtained through mestizaje, race mixing. Consequently there were negative associations with Black identity as it was not fixed, but rather fluid. As Busey (in press) noted, mestizaje “was not an interracial love affair” sparked by romantic curiosities, but rather a method for Afro-Latin@s to attempt to biologically erase their Blackness. De facto segregation ensured Afro-Latin@s would remain oppressed in nineteenth and twentieth century Latin America. In addition to social constructions of race such as mestizaje, blanqueamiento—whitening—also functioned as a social, political, and economic mechanism for upholding Whiteness as the racial predilection, thus minimizing the significance of Afro-Latinidad. For example, under the rule of Rafael Trujillo, who was half-Black himself, the Dominican Republic would aggressively adopt blanqueamiento policies such as the acceptance of Jewish refugees to enhance “Dominican stock” through White-European immigration (Metz, 1990). Overt systemic racism along with interest convergence would seek to eradicate Afro-Latinidad in Latin America. As the color line befittingly became the issue of the twentieth century, many Latin American countries embraced their mixed-race populations without accounting for the reasons as to why this was a phenomenon or troubling the racism levied against mixed Blacks such as mulattoes. Nonetheless, the notion of a “cosmic race” (Vasconcelos, 1925) was promoted in juxtaposition to a racially static and violent United States; hence social interest convergence. The identification of race in Latin America as ethno-racial mixed homogeneity was viewed largely as progress, but merely perpetuated what racial practices consisted of for centuries: being less Black (Wade, 2010).

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LATCRIT AND AFRO-LATIN@S Despite the significant presence of Afro-Latin@s in historical and contemporary Latin American society, Afro-Latin@s remain absent from school curricula (Busey & Cruz, 2015, 2017; Rogers, 2006). Subsequently, race discourse as it pertains to Latin America is omitted in social studies curriculum and textbooks (Busey, in press; Novoa, 2007). Henceforth I echo the call of Pino (2004) who wrote, “What is urgently needed is a curriculum for teaching Afro-Latin American history that makes it a richer experience for both instructors and students by exploring the concept of race and exploding it into multiple particles” (p. 40). I further the curricular treatise of Pino and argue that Latin@ critical race theory (LatCrit) provides a paradigm for interrogating this discourse of invisibility (Ladson-Billings, 2003) in addition to critically examining race, racism, and the Afro-Latin@ experience in Latin American society. While critical race theory (CRT) continues to grow as a construct used to respectively frame and influence race in social studies research and practice, LatCrit has been scantily explored if at all (Daniels, 2011).   LatCrit is a movement that spawned from CRT, but takes into consideration pan-ethnicity and the intersectionality of race with other issues such as language, immigration, ethnicity, culture, identity, phenotype, and sexuality (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001; Solorzano & Yosso, 2001). It is important to acknowledge that LatCrit and CRT are not “incompatible or competitive” (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001, p. 312) as they are complementary to one another. CRT is not intended to just deal with the binary, but CRT and LatCrit scholarship should work together to “engage in the ‘messiness’ of real life” (Ladson-Billings 2013, p. 40). In the same manner that one should not attempt to exclusively bifurcate LatCrit and CRT into two factions, Afro-Latin identity does not fit within static constructions of race; it involves the social construction of Blackness but also intersects with regional, cultural, and linguistic factors. LatCrit simply becomes ideal for exploring the social construction of multidimensional identities that Latin@s posses (Haney López, 1997; Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). While the intentions of LatCrit are to explore institutional and systemic racism as it pertains to Latin@s in the United States, I argue LatCrit is applicable to the critique of societal and institutional practices that perpetrate racial oppression in Latin America. The social construction of race and its spawn, racism (Omi & Winant, 1994), is not just unique to the United States but is equally endemic throughout society in Latin America. Afro-Latin@s especially experience racial oppression that is both systemic and institutionalized. Furthermore, the use of LatCrit functions as a pedagogical framework to interrogate how privilege, power and oppressive elements shape world history/geography curriculum. In addition, the use of LatCrit underscores how “deficit rationales silence constructive dialogue on differences

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that may actually exist within a particular culture or community and instead represent nation-states or cultures as being homogenous, traditional, and unchanging” (Subedi, 2013, p. 625). This chapter is not intended to divert attention away from race issues that affect Latin@s in the United States, but rather to expand the discourse on race, hegemony, and oppression of Afro-Latin@s beyond physical and social borders; a discourse that has been silenced in favor of linear racial constructions of Latin@s in Latin America as one, brown, cosmic race. To that extent, the following inquiry questions guided the formation of this social studies lesson presented in this chapter from a LatCrit framework: 1. How endemic is racism in Latin American society, historically and contemporarily speaking? 2. How has Afro-Latinidad (Afro-Latin identity) been historically and contemporarily oppressed as a result of systemic, institutional, and societal forms of racism? 3. In what ways have and can social justice aims be pursued to ensure the elimination of racism for Afro-Latin@s throughout Latin America? These inquiry questions are explored through the world history and human geography curriculum as these courses ostensibly address Latin American themes thus allowing for a fluid curricular exploration related to race, racism, and Afro-Latinidad. Also, it is important to consider that critical race pedagogy is little explored beyond U.S. history, and thus pre-service and in-service teachers must be able to perceive the possibility of applying racial knowledge and concepts across multiple content areas (Vickery, Holmes, & Brown, 2015). Lastly, I urge educators in implementing content pertaining to race, racism, and AfroLatinidad to be cautious of students’ potential for embracing mestizaje as more progressive when juxtaposing it against more rigid racial constructions such as the one-drop rule as both sought to suppress Black identity. Content: World History, Human Geography Connections to CRT: (a) Racism as Normal, Ordinary, and Endemic, (b) Race as a Social Construction, and (c) Voice or Counter-Narrative. Connections to the State and National Standards Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies: High School World Geography c.2.a-History: The student understands how people, places, and environments have changed over time and the effects of these changes. The student is expected to (A) describe the human and physical characteristics of the same regions at different

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periods of time to evaluate the relationships between past events and current conditions. World Geography c.5.a-Geography: The student understands how political, economic, and social processes shape cultural patterns and characteristics in various places and regions. The student is expected to (B) analyze how the character of a place is related to its political, economic, social, and cultural elements. World Geography c.16.c-Culture: The student understands how the components of culture affect the way people live and shape the characteristics of regions. The student is expected to (C) explain ways various groups of people perceive the characteristics of their own and other cultures, places, and regions differently. World Geography c.17.c.-Culture: The student understands the distribution, patterns, and characteristics of different cultures. The student is expected to (C) compare economic, political, or social opportunities in different cultures for women, ethnic and religious minorities; and other underrepresented populations. World History c.7.c.-History: The student understands the causes and impact of European expansion from 1450 to 1750. The student is expected to (C) explain the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on West Africa and the Americas.

Relevant NCSS Thematic Strands Theme 1: Culture Theme 2: Time, Continuity, and Change Theme 4: Individual Development and Identity Theme 5: Individuals, Groups, and Institutions Theme 9: Global Connections

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SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

How is Afro-Latinidad (Afro-Latin identity) constructed and treated in Latin America?

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Standards, C3 Standards, and Practices

World Geography c.17.c-Culture: The student understands the distribution, patterns, and characteristics of different cultures. The student is expected to (C) compare economic, political, or social opportunities in different cultures for women, ethnic and religious minorities; and other underrepresented populations. World History c.7.c-History: The student understands the causes and impact of European expansion from 1450 to 1750. The student is expected to (C) explain the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on West Africa and the Americas. D2.Geo.5.9-12: Evaluate how political and economic decisions throughout time have influenced cultural and environmental characteristics of various places and regions. Practices: Interpreting Multiple Sources, Visual Thinking Strategies, Communicating Conclusions, Contextualization.

Staging the Question

Using the video Sankofa: Part 1 produced by Mariona Lloreta, brainstorm and discuss with students the perceived physical, social, political, and economic privileges often associated with Whiteness. Eventually link the discussion to the intersection of colonization, colorism, and race.

Supporting Question 1 In what ways did the African Diaspora contribute to a significant Afro-Latin presence in historical and contemporary Latin American society?

Formative Performance Task Have students journal about the presence of AfroLatin@s in Latin America using information from their map analysis. Then discuss with students how this confirms and/ or contradicts their prior assumptions about AfroLatin presence and why.

Supporting Question 2 How have socio-political policies been used to socially construct and consequently erase Black identity (AfroLatinidad) in historical and contemporary Latin American society? What impact might this have on Afro-Latin@s willingness to identify as Black?

Supporting Question 3 How are Afro-Latin@s marginalized and oppressed in contemporary Latin American media, policies, and demographics as a result of mestizaje?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Develop a claim that explains how mestizaje (race mixing) and the notion of the cosmic race suppressed and continues to suppress AfroLatinidad.

Create a chart or list that describes how Afro-Latin@s continue to face social, political, and economic marginalization due to racism in Latin America.

Toward a Latin@ Critical Race Theory    239 Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: Slave Trade of Africa Map (www.inmotionaame. org) Source B: Map of the African Diaspora (Finkelman & Miller, 1998) Source C: Introductory Maps 1,7, & 8 from the Transatlantic Slave Database (Etlis & Richardson, 2010) (www.slavevoyages.org) Source D: Interactive Map from A Rising Voice: AfroLatin Americans (www. miamihearld.com)

Source E: Quotes from the Cosmic Race (Vasconcelos, 1925) Source F: Casta Painting (www. artstor.org) Source G: “The Grandma in the Closet”: Black in Latin America DVD (Gates, 2011) (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ black-in-latin-america/) Source H: Color Categories in Latin America: Black in Latin America Appendix (Gates, 2011)

Source I: Contemporary AfroLatin@ Caricatures: Black in Latin America (Gates, 2011) Source J: Article: “New Debate on Race Among Latinos” (Medina, 2015) (www. miamiherald.com) Source K: United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent “Background” Page (UN, 2015) (www.un.org) Source L: Article: “Negro? Prieto? Moreno?” (Archibold, 2014) (www. nytimes.com)

Argument

Why and how should Afro-Latin identity be recognized in Latin America? Formulate an argument in the form of an essay, poster, or government report that addresses the historical and contemporary construction of AfroLatinidad yet poses a counternarrative that fosters a more socially just contextualization of Afro-Latin@s. Use claims and evidence from sources to support your argument.

Extension Options

1. Create a mini-documentary that highlights the historical and contemporary construction of AfroLatinidad. 2. Conduct video or oral history interviews with an AfroLatin@ or multiple people about Afro-Latin identity. 3. Create a website or social media campaign that brings awareness to Afro-Latin identity.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Formulate a school, community, or citywide panel in which your class along with invited community members, scholars, guest speakers, and/or Afro-Latin@s discuss Afro-Latin identity from a contemporary and historical perspective. Record and edit your panel and make it accessible to the UN campaign or the general public through web.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Description of the Compelling Question As discussed earlier in the chapter, despite a large presence AfroLatinidad has been marginalized in Latin America due to racist policies. There are stories of agency and resistance to tell regarding Afro-Latin@s and the “taking informed action” aspect of this plan seeks to accomplish those aims. Yet, given the ahistorical treatment of race and racism in Latin

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America in school curricula it is imperative that students first understand Afro-Latin presence, the social construction of Afro-Latin identity, and what has/continues to influence that construction. This inquiry walks us through a historical understanding of Afro-Latinidad and positions that historical understanding as the foundation for analyzing contemporary issues facing Afro-Latin@s and the formation of Afro-Latin identity. Therefore I offer the compelling inquiry question: “How is Afro-Latinidad (Afro-Latin identity) constructed and treated in Latin America?” It is important that this inquiry is viewed as a phenomenological analysis rather than an argument as I advocate for initial exploration into the phenomenon of Afro-Latin personhood. Staging the Question The video Sankofa (Part 1; http://marionalloreta.com/sankofa/) captures the essence of this lesson as it shows a woman of African descent in white paint who begins to reclaim her African identity by washing off the white paint. Initiate discussion with students about the physical, social, political, and economic privileges often associated with Whiteness as opposed to Blackness. This video and subsequent discussion will help to frame just how significant anti-Blackness would be in the historical and contemporary construction of Afro-Latinidad. Supporting Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources Narrative for Supporting Question 1 Social studies research contends Afro-Latin presence is obsolete in history textbooks and when combined with the lack of representation in contemporary media, students might be unaware of Black populations in Latin America. The first supporting question—“In what ways did the African Diaspora contribute to a significant Afro-Latin presence in historical and contemporary Latin American society?”—is intended to provide a foundational understanding of the African Diaspora. With a basic understanding of the African Diaspora established, students will be able to think in more complex ways regarding the construction and treatment of Afro-Latin identity in Latin America. 1. Hand students a map of the slave trade in Africa (Source A; http:// www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm?migration=1&topic=10

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&id=1_009M&type=map) and have students discuss in pairs or small groups observations from the map and conclusions they can draw. 2. Then hand students a map of the African Diaspora (Source B) from www.slaveryimages.org along with introductory maps 1, 7, and 8 from the Transatlantic Slave Database (Source C). Students should then discuss in pairs or small groups the following questions: a. Where were a majority of enslaved Africans imported to? b. What impact would the diaspora have on African peoples? c. How do you think the diaspora would impact African presence in Latin America? 3. Project the interactive map from “A Rising Voice: Afro-Latin Americans” from the Miami Herald (Source D). Scroll over each country and have students take note of the estimated amount of African descendants in each Latin American country. Discuss how information from this interactive map matches the conclusions they reached from their multiple map analysis in Step 2. 4. Have students briefly journal about the presence of Afro-Latin@s in Latin America using information from their map analysis. Then discuss with students how this confirms and/or contradicts their prior assumptions about Afro-Latin presence and why. Supporting Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources Narrative for Supporting Question 2 There are two questions relevant to the second inquiry. The purpose of the second supporting question is to examine the social construction of race in Latin America, its political implications, and how this social construction encourages Black denial. With this supporting question, students will be able to use visual thinking strategies (VST) to analyze casta images and primary source analysis to develop a claim, which requires students to draw connections across multiple texts. Finally, the second supporting question is relevant to the construction of Afro-Latinidad aspect of the compelling inquiry. 1. Select several quotes from Jose Vasconcelos’ 1925 essay entitled The Cosmic Race (Source E). I would recommend selecting quotes from the essay that are specific to race mixing. For example, Hooker (2014) offers the following quote from Vasconcelos as an indicator of the inferior notions held about non-Whites in the creation of the “cosmic race”:

242    C. L. BUSEY The Indian, by grafting onto the related race, would take the jump of millions of years . . . and in a few decades of aesthetic eugenics, the Black may disappear, together with the types that a free instinct of beauty may go on signaling as fundamentally recessive and undeserving, for that reason, of perpetuation. (Vasconcelos 1925/1997, p. 32)

2. Discuss the quotes with students and ask students what some of the socio-cultural benefits and pitfalls associated with race mixing. 3. Explain to students that while miscegenation is not a bad thing, its purposes were not always rooted in love. Sometimes race mixing was used to obtain a certain social status by attempting to deny or retreat from Afro-Latin identity. 4. Hand students an image of a casta painting (Source F); preferably use the paintings that have at least twelve to sixteen frames. For each individual casta (or frame) have students use visual thinking strategies to answer the following questions: a. What is the race mixing proposed in each casta? b. How are the individuals in each casta portrayed? c. How are the castas ordered? Why do you think they are ordered this way? 5. After discussing the casta paintings, watch the chapter from Black in Latin America (Gates, 2011) entitled “La Abuelita in the Closet [The Black Grandma in the Closet]” (Source G). Discuss how Black identity is suppressed in contemporary Mexico despite claims of a racially homogenous society. 6. Then hand students a copy of race categories from several Latin American countries (Gates, 2011; Source H). Discuss how derogatory some of the terms are that reference Afro-Latin@s in addition to the sheer amount of terms present to indicate Afro-Latinidad. 7. Discuss with students how the casta paintings, information from the video, and list of color categories in Latin America contradict Vasconcelos’ claim of a cosmic race. 8. Lastly, have students develop a claim that explains how mestizaje (race mixing) and the notion of the cosmic race suppressed and continues to suppress Afro-Latinidad. Supporting Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources Narrative for Supporting Question 3 The third supporting question is relevant to the present-day treatment of Afro-Latin@ people and identity in Latin American society. Again, students are required to analyze visual sources in the form of Afro-Latin caricatures in

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addition to current events which clearly outline the social, political, and economic dilemmas African-descended people continue to face in Latin America. Students should be able to draw connections between the African Diaspora, the social construction of race, and the contemporary plights of Afro-Latin@s. 1. Project images of Memin Pinguin and Negro Mama (Source I) onto a large screen (these images can be found in the book Black in Latin America (Gates, 2011, pp. 85–102) or can be found through a Google search). Have students complete a quick-write where they express their reactions to the images. Discuss as a whole group. 2. Explain that Memin Pinguin and Negro Mama are just a few of the many distorted caricatures used to portray Afro-Latin@s in mainstream media. 3. Hand students the current event article from the Miami Herald entitled “New Debate on Race Among Latinos” (Medina, 2015; Source J). Have the students read the article either individually or as a class. Discuss how mainstream media outlets such as Univision or Telemundo are shaping Afro-Latin identity. 4. Explain to students that Afro-Latin@s face far more issues than harmful misrepresentations of their identity in media. Hand students a copy of the “Background” page from the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (UN, 2015; Source K). Also hand students a copy of the New York Times article authored by Randal C. Archibold (2014) entitled “Negro? Prieto? Moreno? A Question of Identity for Black Mexicans” (Source L). 5. Using the readings as well as prior discussion from the images, have students create a chart or list that describes how Afro-Latin@s continue to face social, political, and economic marginalization due to racism in Latin America. 6. Discuss the chart. Summative Performance Task As a summative assessment students will answer a new question that requires them to take a position of agency and social justice while simultaneously addressing the compelling inquiry question. The question—“Why and how should Afro-Latin identity be recognized in Latin America?”— asks students to utilize a social justice perspective while also participating in counter-storytelling, key tenets of LatCrit. Provide students with the opportunity to formulate an argument in the form of an essay, poster, or government report that addresses the historical and contemporary construction of Afro-Latinidad yet poses a counternarrative that fosters a more socially just

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contextualization of Afro-Latin@s. Students should support their claims using evidence from sources relevant to their argument. Extension The activities provided in this blueprint are aligned with the C3 Framework. Through analysis of multiple sources, development of claims, and the creation of arguments, students are asked to demonstrate twenty-first century civic competencies. Furthermore, the extension activities provide students with the opportunity to engage in higher order thinking, apply prior conceptualizations and continue to construct knowledge, and utilize various forms of disciplined inquiry beyond essay writing. Lastly, the assessment and extension activities have meaning beyond the classroom, which can position students as global agents of change. Taking Informed Action The lesson attempts to connect historical constructions of Afro-Latinidad with contemporary representations. Hence it is important that students are afforded the opportunity to reflect some of the current efforts to ensure a socially just representation of Afro-Latin people and Afro-Latinidad. Explain to students that as a result of this unit they will formulate a school, community, or city-wide panel in which your class along with invited community members, scholars, guest speakers, and/or Afro-Latin@s discuss Afro-Latin identity from a contemporary and historical perspective. Record and edit your panel and make it accessible to the UN campaign or the general public through the web. TIPS AND ADVICE Discussing race from a global context will naturally involve comparative analyses. As a form of culturally responsive teaching I recommend teachers use students’ funds of knowledge to inform your curricular and pedagogical decision-making. There are similarities as well as stark contrasts in the construction of race, extent of racism, and Black identity across Latin American and United States’ society. However, while I encourage critical comparisons, I caution teachers to limit the juxtaposition of oppression. For example, having students answer questions such as, “whose racial oppression was worse?” can be problematic. Furthermore, I encourage discussion about race using either “teachable moments” or current events. Afro-Latin@ identity is receiving increased attention in mainstream media outlets and these current events can

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serve as additional resources to elicit discussion among students about AfroLatinidad in both Latin America as well as the United States. SOURCE NOTES Sankofa Lloreta, M. (2015). Sankofa. Produced by Mariona Lloreta. Retrieved from http://www.marionalloreta.com/sankofa/ Video can be accessed using the password “grabwhatsyours.” Supporting Question 1 Source A: Slave Trade of Africa Map http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm?migration=1&topic=1 0&id=1_009M&type=map Instructions: Go to the website www.inmotionaame.org. Click on the link entitled “migrations” at the top of the webpage and then click on the “Transatlantic Slave Trade.” Select “maps” and then scroll to the map entitled Slave Trade of Africa. Source B: Map of the African Diaspora Finkelman, P., & Miller, J. (Eds.). (1998). Macmillan encyclopedia of world slavery. New York, NY: Thomson Learning Company. http://slaveryimages.org/details.php?categorynum=1&categoryName=M aps:%20Africa,%20New%20World,%20Slave%20Trade&theRecord=30 &recordCount=34 Instructions: Go to the website www.slaveryimages.org, click “explore the collection,” then “Maps: Africa, New World, Slave Trade,” and select the map of the African Diaspora located in the second to last row. Its reference is MILLERENC2. Source C: Introductory Maps From the Transatlantic Slave Database Etlis, D., & Richardson, D. (2010). Atlas of the transatlantic slave trade. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps Instructions: Go to the website www.slavevoyages.org, roll the pointer over “Assessing the Slave Trade” and click on “Introductory Maps.”

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Source D: Interactive Map from “A Rising Voice” http://media.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/afrolatin/multimedia/map.html Instructions: You can locate this multimedia resource by typing “A Rising Voice: Afro-Latin Americans” into the Google search engine and selecting the first link. Click on “multimedia” and then select “Interactive Map.”

Supporting Question 2 Source E: The Cosmic Race Vasconcelos, J. (1925, 1977). The cosmic race. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Instructions: You can find translated and abbreviated versions of Vasconcelos’ essay in PDF version for free through a Google Scholar search of the title of the essay and the author’s name. The essay in its entire length can also be purchased through online bookstore vendors. Source F: Casta Paintings Instructions: Casta paintings can be located by conducting a Google search of “casta paintings.” ArtStor (www.artsor.org) also has a large selection of casta paintings in their ArtStor Digital Library. Access to the digital library is usually free for K–12 educators but may require subscription by your school or school district. Source G: “La Abuelita in the Closet [The Black Grandma in the Closet]” Film and Gates, H. L. (2011). Black in Latin America. New York, NY: New York University Press. This book and DVD set can be purchased from www.pbs.org. Videos from the DVD are also accessible online but require a KLRU passport with a minimum donation of $5 per month. Source H: Race Categories From Several Latin American countries. Appendix. Gates, H. L. (2011). Black in Latin America. New York, NY: New York University Press. In the appendix there is a resource that provides race categories from several Latin American countries.

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Supporting Question 3 Source I: Memin Pinguin and Negro Mama Prints Gates, H. L. (2011). Black in Latin America. New York, NY: NYU Press. The prints can be found in p. 85 and 102. You can also do a Google Search for the prints. Source J: Article: New Debate on Race Among Latinos Medina, B. (2015, March 28). New debate on race among Latinos. Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/issues-ideas/article16303586. html Source K: United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent United Nations. (2015). Background: International Decade for People of African Descent. http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/background.shtml Instructions: Go to the webpage http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/index.shtml, scroll your pointer over the word “About” and click the link entitled “Background.” Source L: Article: Negro? Prieto? Moreno? Archibold, R. C. (2014, October 25). Negro? Prieto? Moreno? A question of identity for Black Mexicans. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/world/americas/negroprieto-moreno-a-question-of-identity-for-black-mexicans. html?emc=eta1&_r=3

REFERENCES Adams, R. L. (2012). Rewriting the African diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America: Beyond disciplinary and national boundaries. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 5(1), 3–20. doi:10.1080/17528631.2012.629430 Andrews, G. R. (2004). Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Busey, C. L. (in press). Más que esclavos (more than slaves): A Latcrit and BlackCrit analysis of Afro-Latin@s in world history textbooks. Manuscript submitted for publication. Busey, C. L., & Cruz, B. C. (2015). A shared heritage: Afro-Latin@s and Black history. The Social Studies, 106(6), 293–300. doi:10.1080/00377996.2015.1085824

248    C. L. BUSEY Busey, C. L., & Cruz, B. C. (2017). Who is Afro-Latin@? Examining the social construction of race and négritude in Latin America and the Caribbean. Social Education, 81(1), 37–42. Chandler, P. T. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Daniels, E. A. (2011). Racial silences: Exploring and incorporating critical frameworks in the social studies. The Social Studies, 102(5), 211–220. doi:10.1080/0 0377996.2011.558938 Fisher, D. M. (2010). Discovering early California Afro-Latino presence. Berkeley, CA: Heyday. Forbes, J. D. (2010). Black pioneers: The Spanish-speaking Afro-Americans of the Southwest. In M. J. Román & J. Flores (Eds.), The Afro-Latin@ reader: History and culture in the United States (pp. 27–37). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gaines, J. H. (2007). An indelible imprint of literacy: The Olmec and African presence in pre-Columbian America. International Journal of Learning, 14(4), 1–8. Haney López, I. (1997). Race, ethnicity, erasure: The salience of race to LatCrit theory. California Law Review, 85(5), 1143–1211. Haslip-Viera, G., Ortiz de Montellano, B., & Barbour, W. (1997). Robbing Native American cultures: Van Sertima’s Afrocentricity and the Olmecs. Current Anthropology, 38(3), 419–441. Hooker, J. (2014). Hybrid subjectivities, Latin American mestizaje, and Latino political thought on race. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2(2), 188–201. doi:10.10 80/21565503.2014.904798 King, L. J., & Chandler, P. T. (2016). From non-racism to anti-racism in social studies teacher education: Social studies and racial pedagogical content knowledge. In A. R. Crowe & A. Cuenca (Eds.)., Rethinking social studies teacher education in the twenty-first century (pp. 3–21). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Ladson-Billings, G. (2003). Lies my teacher still tells: Developing a critical perspective towards social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies (pp. 1–11). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (2013). Critical race theory—What it is not! In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixson (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 34–47). New York, NY: Routledge. Maffia, M. M., & Zubrzycki, B. (2014). Relationships, significations, and orientations toward a collective acting of the Afro descendants and Africans in Argentina. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 7(2), 177–187. doi:10.108 0/17528631.2014.908545 Mayes, A. J. (2014). African-descended Americans, displacement, and neoliberalism: Environmental justice as a human right. Latin American Perspectives, 41(6), 3–8. doi:10.1177/0094582X14552418 Metz, A. (1990). Why Sosúa? Trujillo’s motives for Jewish refugee settlement in the Dominican Republic. Contemporary Jewry, 11(1), 1–28. Mollett, S. (2014). A modern paradise: Garifuna land, labor, and displacement-in-place. Latin American Perspectives, 41(6), 27–45. doi:10.1177/0094582X13518756 Morrison, J. (2007). Race and poverty in Latin America: Addressing the development needs of African descendants. UN Chronicle, 44(3), 45–67.

Toward a Latin@ Critical Race Theory    249 Norman, K. (2010). Identity and public policy: Redefining the concept of racial democracy in Brazil. Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, 17, 29–41. Novoa, A. (2007). Teaching modern Latin America in the social science curriculum: An interdisciplinary approach. Social Education, 71(4), 187–190. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York, NY: Routledge. Pino, J. C. (2004). A twenty-first century agenda for teaching the history of modern Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin American Perspectives, 31(1), 39–58. Rogers, C. V. (2006). Improving the visibility of Afro-Latin culture in the Spanish classroom. Hispania, 89(3), 562–573. Román, M. J., & Flores, J. (Eds.). (2010). The Afro-Latin@ reader: History and culture in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Solorzano, D. G., & Delgado Bernal, D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through a critical race and latcrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36(3), 308–342. Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2001). Critical race and Latcrit theory and method: Counterstorytelling. Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(4), 471–495. Subedi, B. (2013). Decolonizing the curriculum for global perspectives. Educational Theory, 63(6), 621–638. Telles, E. (2014). Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, race, and color in Latin America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. United Nations. (2015). Background: 2015–2024: International decade for people of African descent. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/background.shtml Van Sertima, I. (1977). They came before Columbus: The African presence in ancient America. New York, NY: Random House. Van Sertima, I. (1998). Early America revisited-African civilizations. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Vasconcelos, J. (1925/1977). The cosmic race. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Vélez-Torres, I., & Varela, D. (2014). Between the paternalistic and the neoliberal state: Dispossession and resistance in Afro-descendant communities of the Upper Cauca, Colombia. Latin American Perspectives, 41(6), 9–26. doi:10.1177/0094582X14547515 Vickery, A., Holmes, K., & Brown, A. (2015). Excavating critical racial knowledge in economics and world geography. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 253–282). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Wade, P. (2010). Race and ethnicity in Latin America (2nd ed.). London, England: Pluto Press.

CHAPTER 14

ARE U.S. CITIZENSHIP TESTS RACIALLY MOTIVATED? Analyzing the Racial Implications of Citizenship “Tests,” Historically and Today William L. Smith University of Arizona

ABSTRACT In this civics and current events inquiry, students explore a central mechanism for determining access to citizenship: tests. Using a critical race theory (CRT) lens (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993) and notions of cultural citizenship (Rosaldo, 1994), this inquiry draws on the C3 model to guide students through an exploration of several instances of historical and contemporary citizenship exams (and exams regulating voting, a central aspect of citizenship). These exams include loyalty tests administered to interned Japanese Americans during World War II, literacy exams required to determine voter “qualification” in the Jim Crow South, and the recent “U.S. Citizenship Civics Test” adopted in states like Arizona. By critically engaging with the exams themselves, as well as other supporting documents, students will consider complex

Race Lessons, pages 251–268 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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OVERVIEW The state of Arizona recently became the first in the nation to require all high school students to pass a citizenship exam as a condition for graduation (Rojas & Rich, 2015). Though some attributed the test to Arizona’s recent history of conservative immigration and education policies, several other states have since followed suit in mandating these exams (Wong, 2015), including South Carolina, Louisiana, and Utah. Whether this exam represents the benign goal of “set[ting] the very basic standard for civic knowledge” (Joe Foss Institute, n.d., para. 2) or another step in a long history of racial exclusion from U.S. democratic institutions (Crowley, 2015), students have the opportunity to actively decide for themselves through document-based inquiry. In this civics and current-events inquiry, students explore a central mechanism for determining access to citizenship: tests. Using a critical race theory (CRT) lens (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993) and notions of cultural citizenship (Rosaldo, 1994), this inquiry draws on the C3 model to guide students through an exploration of several instances of historical and contemporary citizenship exams (and exams regulating voting, a central aspect of citizenship). These exams include loyalty tests administered to interned Japanese Americans during World War II, literacy exams required to determine voter “qualification” in the Jim Crow South, and the recent “U.S. Citizenship Civics Test” itself, promoted by the Joe Foss Institute and adopted in states like Arizona. By critically engaging with the exams themselves, as well as other supporting documents, students will consider complex questions with racial-political implications such as, “Are citizenship tests racially motivated?” and “What should a test of citizenship look like?” LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Within the social studies, citizenship education and preparing students for participatory democracy stand as central tenets of the field (Banks, 2004; Parker, 2003). Historically, U.S. citizenship is linked with the shifting definitions and borders of race and ethnicity (Brown & Urrieta, 2010; Gotanda, 1991). Several scholars (Haney-López, 1994; Harris, 1993; Mills, 1997) have demonstrated the myriad ways in which modern conceptions of race have been made and remade throughout U.S. history to maintain the political/

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civic influence of powerful White people. Those concerned with multicultural democracy (Marri, 2005), and countering a long history of disenfranchisement and disillusionment for people of color see social studies as a space for addressing past inequities (Ladson-Billings, 2003), and civic education specifically as a potential site for bridging some of these citizenship gaps (Banks, 2004). As Banks (2004) writes, “Individuals can develop a clarified commitment to and identification with their nation-state and the national culture only when they believe that they are a meaningful part of the nation-state” (p. 9), a civic identification that has historically been racially determined. Scholars have identified several ways of considering civic education and civic identity, and how society passes on civic values to young people (e.g., Parker, 2003; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). Most civic-education models tend to emphasize expressions of citizenship based on patriotism, voting, and equality (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006). Other frameworks, such as The Civic Mission of Schools (Levine, 2003), offer expanded visions of civic engagement that include community involvement and social responsibility. Unfortunately, the social studies, as the disciplinary home for citizenship education, has typically not prioritized multicultural notions of citizenship nor embraced racial and ethnic diversity more broadly (Chandler & McKnight, 2012; Tyson & Park, 2008). However, Ladson-Billings (2004) found that students of color often view their own citizenship differently from White peers, preferring ethnic or cultural affiliations to general “American” views. Cornbleth (2002) similarly highlighted differences along race and social-class lines, with students of color often less likely to express strong feelings of patriotism or belief in America’s pluralistic ideals, a disjuncture also noted in Rubin’s (2007) work. Fridkin, Kenney, and Crittenden (2006) documented quantitatively the significant disparity between students of color and White students in various measures of civic engagement, including positive feelings toward government and opportunities to practice democratic skills. For bicultural students, particularly first and second-generation Latino youth, civic identities often straddle the acculturating pressures of traditional civic education into the cultural mainstream and connections to home cultures and ethnically-rooted civic identities (Callahan & Obenchain, 2012; Salinas, 2006; Smith, 2011). Relevant to the racialized nature of U.S. citizenship (Gotanda, 1991) are alternate conceptions of civic identities. Namely, the cultural citizenship (Ong, 1996; Rosaldo, 1994) framework offers a model of citizenship for those on the historic margins of U.S. civic rights and access, offering what Rosaldo (1994) describes as both “the right to be different and the right to belong” (p. 402). Cultural citizenship calls for non-traditional visions of participatory democracy, wherein equality under the law does not come

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at the expense of whitewashing various cultural differences. Ong (1996) expands on Rosaldo’s (1994) definition, arguing that cultural citizenship involves consideration of a hegemonic, colonizing state and one’s place within that regime. “Becoming a citizen depends on how one is constituted as a subject who exercises or submits to power relations” and is “a dual process of self-making and being made within webs of power linked to the nation-state and civil society” (Ong, 1996, p. 738). Theories of cultural citizenship trouble the historically rooted tenets of the citizen—White, male, affluent, English-speaking—and seek to disrupt attempts to preserve this narrow conception of citizenship in the present. As students consider citizenship’s connections to political access and power, cultural citizenship creates space for agency; students can critique how citizenship laws and practices have historically been tied to racial exclusion and consider how or if that trend continues in the present. Considering both the policing of citizenship boundaries along racial lines (Brown & Urrieta, 2010) and the narrow conception of citizenship often promoted by school curricula (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006), the inquiry presented here asks students to consider a central mechanism for granting (and denying) access to citizenship: the test. The current test of civic knowledge adopted by states like Arizona has already drawn its share of critique (Hess, Stone, & Kahne, 2015; Wong, 2015). These critics suggest that the test itself—with fact-recall questions on subjects like the nation’s longest rivers and bordering countries—reduces civic knowledge, and citizenship in general, to its most superficial form. This inquiry invites students to take a similarly critical stance, though in this case paying particular attention to the racial implications of the exam and others like it in U.S. history. Through this approach, students consider the structural nature of racism in the United States and reject the ahistoricism central to neo-liberal racial projects (Bonilla-Silva & Embrick, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Matsuda et al., 1993). LESSON OVERVIEW This inquiry offers three separate case studies, each focused on a different instance of citizenship-related exams: loyalty tests administered during Japanese internment, literacy tests in the Jim Crow South, and the recent “U.S. Citizenship Civics Test.” Each case study consists of background information on the historical/political context in which the tests took place, a copy of the exam itself, and supplementary texts such as video interviews with African Americans attempting to participate in the literacy-test-votingprocess in the Jim Crow South. Each case study activity, and accompanying

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documents, will require specific document-based formative questions, though several key questions underlie each case: • What can you infer were the motivations behind requiring these tests? • Who would be included or excluded from citizenship by these tests? • Based on the requirements of the test, what type of citizen do you think the authors are promoting? What does a “good citizen” know or do? • Does this test promote Rosaldo’s (1994) description of cultural citizenship: “The right to be different and the right to belong” (p. 402)? This inquiry is designed for students to consider each “test” separately and within its own historical context. However, students should also be thinking about if and how these tests form a pattern of racialized exclusion across U.S. history. As a pedagogical note, teachers may find it helpful to pose these questions more formally after each case study. Students could record their responses to these questions in a chart that contains space for each case study. Teachers could also employ a variety of visual thinking techniques (http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org) to help students organize their processing of these questions. After the three case studies, students consider the aforementioned examples of citizenship “tests” as they answer the compelling question: “Are U.S. citizenship tests racially motivated?” As an extension activity, students design a citizenship “test” of their own based on how they define the virtues and requirements of responsible citizenship. Such tests could follow a traditional pen-and-paper design for assessment of crucial civic knowledge or a more experiential assessment of cultural citizenship, such as by participating in rally for the Black Lives Matter movement or testifying before a government body in support of the rights of undocumented immigrants. Finally, in the Taking Informed Action component, students conduct research on how other nations approach the task of assessing civic knowledge. Based on their findings from this research, students revise their “tests” and ultimately submit these revised citizenship exams to state officials as an alternative to existing, or potential, U.S. citizenship tests. For a generation growing up in an age of pervasive standardized testing (Grant, 2006) that typically reinforces broader racial and ethnic inequities (Ravitch, 2010), this inquiry fosters student agency by putting the tests into the students’ hands. By considering CRT principles and alternative conceptions of citizenship, students have an opportunity to examine, critique, and even re-write the nation’s civic expectations, following the C3 Framework’s (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) goal that “active and responsible citizens . . . influence institutions both large and small” (p. 19).

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Content: Civics, Current Events, Voting Rights Connections to CRT: Structural Racism, Rejecting Ahistoricism Connections to State and NCSS Content Standards Arizona’s Social Studies Standards: Concept 4: Rights, Responsibilities, and Roles of Citizenship PO 1: Analyze Basic Individual Rights and freedoms guaranteed by amendments and laws a. Voting rights in the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th Amendments; Native American citizenship and voting rights (Arizona, 1948); Voting Rights Act of 1965 PO 3: Examine the basic political, social responsibilities of citizenship a. Connections between self-interest, the common good, and the essential element of civic virtue (e.g., George Washington’s Farewell Speech), volunteerism b. Obligations of upholding the Constitution c. Obeying the law, serving on juries, paying taxes, voting, and military service d. Analyzing public issues, policy making, and evaluating candidates Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards—Reading Literacy in History/ Social Studies 6–12 11-12.RH.3: Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain. 11-12.RH.5: Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole. College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards D2.Civ.14.9-12: Analyze historical, contemporary, and emerging means of changing societies, promoting the common good, and protecting rights. D2.Civ.2.9-12: Analyze the role of citizens in the U.S. political system, with attention to various theories of democracy, changes in Americans’ participation over time, and alternative models from other countries, past and present.

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SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Are U.S. citizenship tests racially motivated?

Standards and Practices

D2.Civ.14.9-12: Analyze historical, contemporary, and emerging means of changing societies, promoting the common good, and protecting rights. D2.Civ.2.9-12: Analyze the role of citizens in the U.S. political system, with attention to various theories of democracy, changes in Americans’ participation over time, and alternative models from other countries, past and present.

Staging the Question

In small groups, discuss the question: What ideas or skills, if any, do you think is important that all U.S. citizens know/have by the time they are 18, regardless of racial and cultural background?

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

What kind of people do you think would have been most affected by Georgia’s New Registration Law? How would this law have affected them?

What do you think was the purpose of the “Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry”?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Write a legal brief providing your opinion on if and how literacy/voting tests violated the 15th Amendment.

Create a pro and con chart to weigh the benefits and dangers of taking the questionnaire for interned Japanese Americans.

Featured Sources Source A: 15th Amendment to the Constitution Source B: Summary of Georgia’s New Registration Law (1958) Source C: “It’s Easy to Register!” Georgia Voter Registration Training

Featured Sources Source D: Executive Order 9066 Source E: “Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry” (Loyalty Questionnaire) Source F: Loyalty Questionnaire Video Interviews (Resource) Source G: Rabbit in the Moon, Documentary and Accompanying Website (Resource)

Supporting Question 3 What kinds of knowledge is deemed important for citizenship, according to this test? What kinds of students would find this test most challenging? Formative Performance Task Create an annotated image of what a citizen should know, do, think, feel and say. Featured Sources Source H: Arizona’s U.S. Citizens Citizenship Test

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Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Argument

Students will create an argumentative paper, poster, or presentation that answers the compelling question, “Are citizenship tests racially motivated?” In answering this question, students should consider the following supporting questions: “What do you think is the purpose of citizenship exams, historically and today?,” “Do you think they are fair or constitutional?,” “What kinds of people have been excluded from civic life through these tests?,” “Do citizenship tests allow for American’s cultural differences, such as differences in language, religion and traditions?,” and “How could these tests be considered part of a long history of excluding and marginalizing non-White people in the U.S.?”

Extension

Create your own citizenship “test.” Explain your justification for why you have constructed the test in this manner.

Understand: Conduct research into how other countries approach testing civic knowledge. Assess: Discuss the benefits and limitations of each country’s approach to testing civic knowledge. Take Actions: Revise your citizenship test based on your research into other nations’ approach to citizenship tests. Submit your alternative test to your state officials, along with a cover letter explaining how you designed your test and why.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Description of the Compelling Question In this inquiry, students will examine how the United States has, historically and today, sought to influence the exercise of citizenship rights and status. Students will examine three different circumstances across three time periods: literacy tests used to determine voting access in the Jim Crow South, loyalty tests administered to interned Japanese Americans during World War II, and the U.S. citizenship test required of all graduating high school students in states such as Arizona. By examining each of these tests individually, students will ultimately consider the extent to which these tests suggest a pattern of racialized exclusion in the United States. Students will also make personal determinations regarding what they think U.S. citizens should know (and be able to do). Staging the Question As an introduction to the broader inquiry into how the United States has, historically and today, influenced access to citizenship, teachers should

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open with an opportunity for students to consider the nature of civic knowledge in general. Since citizenship exams have often been promoted as necessary for creating an informed citizenry, teachers should provide an opportunity for students to consider the nature of common civic knowledge as a condition for voting. In small groups, students should discuss the question: What ideas or skills, if any, do you think it is important that all U.S. citizens know/have by the time they are 18, regardless of racial and cultural background? These discussions could be used to generate a list of ideas or skills that all U.S. citizens should possess and/or as an opportunity to explore the usefulness of having common civic knowledge at all. Finally, teachers may consider returning to this question of common skills and knowledge at the end of the inquiry to gauge if students’ opinions on the matter have changed. Supporting Question 1: Literacy Tests for Voting in the Jim Crow South In this segment of the lesson, students will examine the use of literacy tests to limit African Americans’ access to voting in the Jim Crow South. The 15th Amendment (Source A) sets up the lesson and acts as a guide as students later evaluate the constitutionality of such literacy requirements. The other two documents—the Summary of Georgia’s New Registration Law from 1958 (Source B) and the “It’s Easy to Register” training guide (Source C)—will give students an opportunity to examine the nature of these literacy tests and to draw inferences about what affect they would have on a population of historically disenfranchised voters. Through this analysis, students should be encouraged to try the test questions themselves and determine how much discretion voting officials would have in administering these tests (i.e., who received the tests, which questions were asked.). As in the case of the all three sets of “test” documents, students should be encouraged to consider the exams on two levels. First, students should notice the test questions themselves, potentially trying out the tests and experiencing the test-taking process. And second, students take an aerial view and look at the test questions as representative of a larger message. What do these questions say about what was important knowledge at the time? What were the tests likely designed to do? As students analyze the documents, teachers may consider posing such probing questions as “How does the 15th Amendment expand voting rights in the United States?,” “How would you describe the requirements for voting in Georgia in 1958?,” and “How would you describe the questions asked of Georgian’s who could not prove they were literate?” In answering these questions as they review the documents, and by approaching the tests at multiple levels of analysis, students

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should gain a deeper sense of the tests as documents within a specific historical context and representatives of broader themes in U.S. history. Finally, in the formative performance task, students write a legal brief to the U.S. Justice Department explaining their position on the constitutionality of literacy tests and making a case for if/how they limit access to voting. For additional background information on the history of vote suppression during the Jim Crow Era, see PBS’ website “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/tools_voting.html). Supporting Question 2: Loyalty Oaths and Japanese Internment In this segment of the inquiry, students will examine the experiences of interned Japanese Americans during WWII. Executive Order 9066 (Source D), federally authorizing the detainment of this population, will provide some context for how President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1942 order placed Japanese Americans in this interned situation. The loyalty tests administered to the interned citizens in the camps (Source E) will form the bulk of students’ analysis. These tests/questionnaires were administered to all those interned Japanese Americans who were over the age of 17. Students’ attention should be drawn particularly to questions 27 and 28 on the questionnaire, as these questions caused the greatest upheaval in the camps. Question 27, about one’s willingness to serve in the U.S. military, presented the Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrant) with a challenge, as they were likely too old for service but nonetheless likely wanting to demonstrate cooperation and loyalty. Question 28 asked, Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any of all attack by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization? (The Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry, 1943)

The Nisei found this question particularly offensive, as they were Americanborn and had never before needed to prove commitment or loyalty to their own country, nor shown any commitment to a foreign government (Questions of Loyalty, 2002). Throughout this section, students should be encouraged to relate to the perspective of the interned individuals, answering questions like, “How do you think people felt when they were required to take these questionnaires?” Students should also be guided to consider the broader implications of a loyalty test, particularly for U.S. citizens. Are there other times or contexts in which U.S. citizens are asked to prove their

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patriotism or national commitment? In the Pros-and-Cons-Chart Formative Performance Task, students try to imagine the moral and practical considerations of an Issei or Nisei who has been interned during WWII and is faced with taking the loyalty questionnaire. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the significance of the loyalty questionnaires to the interned Japanese Americans by creating a pros and cons chart in which they list possible benefits and possible dangers of taking the loyalty test. This activity should help students recognize the fraught nature of such a civic requirement and the moral and ethical questions it raised regarding the nature of American-ness. For additional information on the time period and the internment camps themselves, check out the National Asian American Telecommunications Association’s website on the subject (https://caamedia.org/jainternment/index.html). Two additional resources may be useful in this section as well. First, the Densho Encyclopedia website (http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty_questionnaire/) offers several videos of experts discussing the loyalty oaths in the internment camps (Source F). And second, the documentary film “Rabbit in the Moon” (Source G), produced by PBS, explores this issue in depth, also touching on Japanese American resistance to the loyalty oaths. Showing clips from this film, or even just the trailer, may provide important context for students (http://www.pbs.org/pov/ rabbitinthemoon/). Supporting Question 3: The Arizona U.S. Citizens Citizenship Test In this final segment, students will examine a modern-day citizenship exam, the Arizona’s U.S. Citizens Citizenship Test (Source H), which the state recently mandated all high school students in the state pass before graduating (Note: tests of this kind are becoming common across the country. Teachers should feel free to use a copy of a different, similar exam to make the experience more personally relevant for their students). As with the previous documents, students should be encouraged to take the exams and consider the questions as part of their analysis. However, it is critical that students also take a step back from their role as test-takers and consider the test itself as a significant historical document. In other words, teachers should use the supporting questions listed here, as well as other probing questions, to encourage students to think about what kind of knowledge is valued by the state, as demonstrated by this citizenship exam, and how certain students, such as late-arrival immigrants, may not already possess the knowledge the pass the exam. If the state deems this exam as a necessary step to graduating high school, what inferences can students make about

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the knowledge and skills that the state feels all students should have? Also, encourage students to consider what ideas or skills they feel are missing from the test but are important to know. For instance, do the questions seem basic or superficial? Patriotic? Are there questions about protesting unfair laws? In the formative performance task, students will put these inferences together into an annotated “ideal citizen.” Students could draw the outline of themselves for this assignment, or teachers could provide students with a generic template of a human body. Then, students will “annotate” the figure with the conclusions they have drawn about what the state, in this case Arizona, deems important for U.S. citizens to know, think, say, do, and feel. Students can write these annotations next to the corresponding parts of the body (e.g., What a citizen should feel could be written next to the heart, what a citizen should do could be annotated by the hands). For classrooms with access to hand-held devices like the iPhone and iPad, the program iAnnotate (www.iannotate.com) can also be used to have students annotate a human body template digitally, an approach that may open up additional possibilities for editing, collaboration, and sharing finished products with others. Summative Performance Task Students will create an argumentative paper, poster, or presentation that answers the compelling question. This argument should take into account the three different citizenship “tests” across three time periods and should draw supporting evidence from the associated documents. Students’ arguments should clearly answer the compelling question—“Are citizenship tests racially motivated?”—and include evidence from the three sets of documents in supporting their responses. Extension As an extension/conclusion to the inquiry, provide students with an opportunity to redesign the U.S. citizenship test. This activity could be completed individually or collaboratively. The key here is for students to apply what they have learned from the three “tests” that they have examined as part of this inquiry. Students should then consider what kinds of knowledge or skills they feel are critical for all U.S. citizens to possess. Students should be encouraged here to think outside the box, taking into consideration alternative conceptions of citizenship, such as cultural citizenship (Rosaldo, 1994) or The Civic Mission of Schools framework. For

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example, if a student feels that an essential component of U.S. citizenship is ensuring that all eligible citizens exercise their right to vote, they may recommend a citizenship exam that includes participating in a voter registration drive. Or a group of students may determine that the essential test of citizenship is the ability to communicate about an issue with elected officials. In this case, students may develop a “test” that requires a test-taker to interact with elected officials and convey his or her perspective on a given issue. In summary, these “tests” do not need to follow a paper-and-pencil design but rather could require actions from test-takers, or some combination of action and recalling particular concepts from U.S. history, government, and civics. In whatever form the “tests” take, students should be encouraged to think about the citizenship exam—historically a mechanism for exclusion and disenfranchisement of people of color—as a potential tool to critique the nation’s history of marginalization and/or take steps to reverse historical inequities. In other words, students can think about how social studies as a discipline, and citizenship exams as a feature of the discipline, can become a means for promoting diverse, culturally inclusive notions of what it means to be American. Taking Informed Action Finally, as part of their “taking action” for the inquiry, students will conduct basic Internet research into how other countries teach and assess civic knowledge. Australia’s National Assessment in Civics and Citizenship (http://www.civicsandcitizenship.edu.au/cce/national_assessment,9011. html) and Singapore’s curricula for Character and Citizenship Education (https://www.moe.gov.sg/education/syllabuses/character-citizenshipeducation) are two examples that students could explore as part of this inquiry. Teachers could then organize a class discussion on students’ findings, including the strengths and weaknesses of each exam researched and the extent to which other nations promote broader conceptions of cultural citizenship. Based on this research and discussion, students can revise the citizenship “tests” they created earlier if they so choose. Finally, as part of the Taking Action segment, students submit their re-designed citizenship tests, along with a cover letter explaining and justifying the merits of their tests, to the relevant state officials. For example, in Arizona, students could submit their proposals to the State Superintendent for Public Instruction or the state House and Senate members who spearheaded the passing of the Civics Education Initiative requiring this particular citizenship exam requirement.

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TIPS AND ADVICE The Internet abounds with other related primary source documents. Feel free to explore other literacy and voting tests, such as the one used in Alabama (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/voting_literacy.html). Teachers can also find several examples of individuals speaking about their experiences with loyalty tests in internment camps and literacy tests and other voter suppression mechanisms (http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty_ questionnaire/). Including these first-hand accounts may enrich the experience for students, as they provide opportunities for students to construct historical narratives from source material and to evaluate the significance and reliability of these sources (Barton, 2008). Finally, as students think about the racial implications of contemporary citizenship exams, encourage them to consider the tests as part of a longer history of suppressing citizenship rights for people of color. Ask students what kinds of young people in the United States might be most adversely affected by a policy that makes passing the U.S. Citizens Citizenship Test a graduation requirement. By connecting these contemporary policies to historical precedents, students can take a perspective rooted in CRT, rejecting ahistoricism and recognizing the ways in which race-based structures govern opportunities in the United States. SOURCE NOTES Supporting Question 1 Source A: The 15th Amendment to the Constitution Can be found through the Library of Congress, as well as a number of other online sources and classroom textbooks. Source B: Summary of Georgia’s New Registration Law (1958) Can be found through the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website, http://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm or by conducting an Internet search for “Veterans Civil Rights Movement Literacy Tests.” This website contains links to literacy tests used in other states as well, including Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Source C: “It’s Easy to Register!” Georgia Voter Registration Training The two primary source documents, as well as a range of other documents related to literacy tests and voting, can be found through the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website, http://www.crmvet.org/ info/lithome.htm

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Supporting Question 2 Source D: Executive Order 9066 http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=219 or by conducting an Internet search for “Executive Order 9066.” Source E: The Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry http://encyclopedia.densho.org/media/encyc-psms/en-denshopdp72-00004-1.pdf or by conducting an Internet search for “Statement of Japanese Ancestry pdf.” Source F: Expert Interviews on the Loyalty Questionnaire http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty_questionnaire/ or by conducting an Internet search for “Densho loyalty questionnaire.” Source G: “Rabbit in the Moon” Documentary and Accompanying Website http://www.pbs.org/pov/rabbitinthemoon/ A website dedicated to this documentary features a thorough description of the film as well as an interview with the filmmaker. The first ten minutes of the documentary can be streamed online at https://vimeo. com/120026074 or by conducting an Internet search for “Rabbit in the Moon Part 1.” The full documentary can be purchased through Amazon and may be available to borrow from some local libraries. Supporting Question 3 Source H: Arizona Citizenship Test Questions A list of the 100 possible questions for Arizona’s U.S. Citizens Citizenship Tests can be found through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration website. Retrieved from https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learners/ study-test/study-materials-civics-test/100-civics-questions-and-answersmp3-audio-english-version In addition, several news outlets offer samplings of the test questions, such as the Washington Post and AZ Central. The Civics Education Initiative also offers a shortened version of the test in an online format: http://civicseducationinitiative.org/take-the-test/

ADDITIONAL SOURCES REFERENCED 100 civics questions and answers with MP3 audio (English Version). U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Retrieved from https://www.uscis.gov

266    W. L. SMITH Barton, K. C. (2008). Students ideas about history. In L. S. Levstik C. A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 239–258). New York, NY: Routledge. Camps Experience: Questions of Loyalty. (2002). Center for Asian American Media. Retrieved from https://caamedia.org Character and Citizenship Education (2016). Ministry of Education, Singapore. Retrieved from https://www.moe.gov.sg/education Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the relocation of Japanese. National Archives. Retrieved from http://archives.gov Exploring Japanese American internment through film & the Internet: It happened in America . . .  February 19, 1942. Center for Asian American Media. Retrieved from http://caamedia.org Hartford, Bruce. Voting rights are you “qualified” to vote? Take a “literacy test” to find out. Civil Rights Movement Veterans. Retrieved from http://crmvet.org iAnnotate. Retrieved from http://iannotate.com National assessment in civics and citizenship. Retrieved from http://www.civicsandcitizenship.edu.au/cce/national_assessment,9011.html Omori, E. (Filmmaker). (1999). The rabbit and the moon [documentary film]. USA: POV. Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry (1943). Retrieved from http://encyclopedia.densho.org Take the test. Civics Education Initiative. Retrieved from http://civicseducationinitiative.org The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Voting Then, Voting Now. (2002). Educational Broadcasting Organization [video]. Retrieved from http://pbs.org Visible thinking. Project Zero. Retrieved from http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org

REFERENCES Abowitz, K. K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses of citizenship. Review of Educational Research, 76(4), 653–690. doi:10.3102/00346543076004653 Banks, J. A. (2004). Introduction: Democratic citizenship education in multicultural societies. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 3–16). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bonilla-Silva, E., & Embrick, D. G. (2006). Racism without racists: “Killing Me Softly” with color blindness. In C. A. Rossatto, R. L. Allen, & M. Pruyn (Eds.), Reinventing critical pedagogy: Widening the circle of anti-oppression education (pp. 21– 34). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc. Brown, A. L., & Urrieta, L. (2010). Gumbo and menudo and the scraps of citizenship: Interest-convergence and citizen-making for African Americans and Mexican Americans in U.S. education. In A. DeLeon & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Critical theories, radical pedagogies, and social education: New perspectives for social education (pp. 65–84). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Are U.S. Citizenship Tests Racially Motivated?    267 Callahan, R. M., & Obenchain, K. M. (2012). Finding a civic voice: Latino immigrant youths’ experiences in high school social studies. High School Journal (Chapel Hill, N.C.), 96(1), 20–32. http://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2012.0013 Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2012). Race and social studies. In W. Russell III (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader (pp. 215–242). Information Age. Cornbleth, C. (2002). Images of America: What youth “Do” know about the United States. American Educational Research Journal, 39(2), 519–552. Crowley, R. M. (2015). Interest convergence and “looking to the bottom:” Critical race theory and voting rights. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in the social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 167–190). Charlotte: Information Age. Fridkin, K. L., Kenney, P. J., & Crittenden, J. (2006). On the margins of democratic life: The impact of race and ethnicity on the political engagement of young people. American Politics Research, 34(5), 605–626. Gotanda, N. (1991). A critique of “Our Constitution is Color-Blind.” Stanford Law Review, 44, 1–68. Grant, S. G. (2006). Introduction: Measuring history. In S. G. Grant (Ed.), Measuring History: Cases of State-Level Tests Across the United States (pp. 1–8). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Haney-López, I. (1994). Social construction of cace: Some observations on illusion, fabrication, and choice. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 29(1), 1–62. Harris, C. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106, 1707–1791. Hess, D. E., Stone, S., & Kahne, J. (2015). Should high school students be required to pass a citizenship test? Social Education, 79(4), 173–176. Joe Foss Institute. (n.d.). U.S. citizenship civics test. Retrieved from http://joefoss institute.org/civics-curriculum/us-citizenship-test/ Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24. http://doi.org/10.1080/095183998236863 Ladson-Billings, G. (2003). Lies my teacher still tells: Developing a critical race perspective toward the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on the social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum (pp. 1–14). Greenwhich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). Culture versus citizenship: The challenge of racialized citizenship in the United States. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 99–126). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Levine, P. (2003). The civic mission of schools. National Civic Review, (Winter), 63–65. Marri, A. R. (2005). Building a framework for classroom-based multicultural democratic education: Learning from three skilled teachers. Teachers College Record, 107(5), 1036–1059. Matsuda, M. J., Lawrence III, C. R., Delgado, R., & Crenshaw, K. W. (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the first amendment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

268    W. L. SMITH National Council for the Social Studies (2013), The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Ong, A. (1996). Cultural citizenship as subject-making: Immigrants negotiate racial and cultural boundaries in the United States. Current Anthropology, 37(5), 737–751. Parker, W. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life (Vol. 14). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Rojas, R., & Rich, M. (2015, January 27). States move to make citizenship exams a classroom aid. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com/2015/01/28/us/states-move-to-make-citizenship-exams-a-classroomaid.html?_r=0 Rosaldo, R. (1994). Cultural citizenship and educational democracy. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 402–411. Rubin, B. (2007). “There’s still not justice”: Youth civic identity development amid distinct school and community contexts. Teachers College Record, 109(2), 449–481. Salinas, C. (2006). Educating late arrival high school immigrant students: A call for a more democratic curriculum. Multicultural Perspectives, 8(1), 20–27. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327892mcp0801_4 Smith, R. M. (2011). Living in a promiseland?: Mexican immigration and American obligations. Perspectives on Politics, 9(3), 545–557. Tyson, C., & Park, S. C. (2008). Civic education, social justice, and critical race theory. In J. Arthur, I. Davies, & C. Hahn (Eds.), The sage handbook of education for citizenship and democracy (pp. 29–39). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. Wong, A. (2015, September 17). Why civics is about more than citizenship. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/ 2015/09/civic-education-citizenship-test/405889/

CHAPTER 15

COUNTERING SINGLE STORIES Inquiring Into the Confederate Battle Flag With Students Jessica F. Kobe University of Georgia Ashley Ann Goodrich North Oconee High School

ABSTRACT The Confederate battle flag has a long, raced and racist history. Throughout history it has been situated alongside narratives that defend slavery, White supremacy, hate crimes, and segregation. Teachers can use critical race theory (CRT; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 2003) and racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015) to help students complicate how they (a) see and interpret the flag and (b) define and position themselves as racial beings. During this multi-day lesson high school students are challenged to explore the following compelling question: “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?”

Race Lessons, pages 269–295 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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270    J. F. KOBE and A. A. GOODRICH This inquiry lesson invites students to study the flag by engaging them in (a) an analysis of the discourses that surround the battle flag, (b) an investigation of the historical and contemporary events that help contextualize the battle flag’s raced and racist history, (c) an examination of the responses to calls for the battle flag’s removal from public spaces, and (d) a discussion of whether or not it should have a presence in contemporary society.

OVERVIEW The Confederate battle flag has a long, raced and racist history. Since its design during the Civil War, the flag has been positioned alongside discourses that situate Blacks as inferior to Whites. Originally Confederate General Lee’s army used the flag in battle. Eventually the flag came to represent the Confederacy as a whole and consequently was associated with the Confederate cause. As Coates (2015) explains, The Confederate flag is directly tied to the Confederate cause, and the Confederate cause was White supremacy. This claim is not the result of revisionism. It does not require reading between the lines. It is the plain meaning of the words of those who bore the Confederate flag across history. These words must never be forgotten. Over the next few months the word “heritage” will be repeatedly invoked. It would be derelict to not examine the exact contents of that heritage.

He quotes the secession papers themselves illuminating that the war was undeniably fought over the issue of slavery. While this narrative was pervasive before and during the war, it started to fall out of favor in the 1870s, at which point Neo-Confederates started “rewriting” history, no longer arguing that threats to the institution of slavery accounted for their secession (Loewen & Sebesta, 2010). After the war until mid-1900, the flag was primarily used by Confederate heritage groups to preserve Confederate history and commemorate southerners’ service in the war (Montagne & Coski, 2015). While the flag’s use was infrequent, racist ideologies were on the rise. Racist laws, hate crimes including lynchings, and segregation flooded the United States. Many Whites who lived in the North and South were doing everything in their power to restrict the civil and economic rights of African Americans (Loewen, 2010). This trend continued until the 1940’s. The genocide of Jewish citizens during World War II pushed the U.S. government and its citizens to reconsider how African Americans were being treated. As the civil rights movement gained traction, laws that suggested Whites belonged to the superior race were called into question. In response, Dixiecrats, segregationists, and White supremacists including the

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KKK started using the flag to spread racist narratives. It was during this period in American history when the flag was explicitly used to symbolize White supremacy, hate crimes, and segregation. In an interview with NPR correspondent Renee Montagne, Coski explained, “whether their motivation was states’ rights and constitutional liberties or racism, the result was always the same. They were using it as a symbol of defiance to the federal government and in the face of African Americans marching for civil rights” (Montagne & Coski, 2015, para. 8). Others, including the descendants of those who fought for the Confederacy, argue that the flag has a very different meaning: southern heritage. They argue that when flown today, the battle flag under which General Lee led his troops pays tribute to their ancestors who fought in the war. They maintain that the war was fought for a “just cause” and the “just cause” for which they were fighting was state’s rights not slavery. Since the flag has become the most recognized symbol of the Confederacy, they use it to symbolize Confederate history and commemorate their ancestors’ service in the war. In an attempt to distinguish themselves from groups who use the flag to forward a racist agenda, the Sons of the Confederate Veterans (SCV) formally denounced what they refer to as misuses of the flag. For example, at their annual reunion in 2010 they released a battle flag resolution that proclaimed, “the misuse of the Confederate Battle Flag by any extremist group or individual espousing political extremism and/or racial superiority degrades the Confederate Battle Flag and maligns the noble purpose of our ancestors who fought against extreme odds for what they knew was just, right, and constitutional . . .” (Barrow, 2010, para. 8). They maintain their argument that the flag represents heritage not hate. How could both of these narratives withstand the test of time? In an interview with The Civil War Monitor (2015), Tony Horwitz invites people to recognize “that no symbol is static; the time, context, and audience all matter” (para. 7); thus acknowledging that the flag means different things to different people. He continues, “The Rebel flag may have been seen as a battle standard to a soldier charging behind it at Gettysburg in 1863. The same flag signaled something very different a century later, when Governor George Wallace hoisted it above the Alabama State House. One person’s heritage is another person’s hate” (para. 7). While, southern heritage groups like the SCV attempt to distance themselves from individuals and groups who use the flag for racist purposes, they fail to recognize that their interpretations of the flag cannot be divorced from its raced and racist trajectory. Civil War historian John Coski (2005) explains that Descendants of Confederates are not wrong to believe that the flag symbolized defense of constitutional liberties and resistance to invasion by military forces determined to crush an experiment in nationhood. But they are wrong

272    J. F. KOBE and A. A. GOODRICH to believe that this interpretation of the flag’s meaning can be separated from the defense of slavery. They need only read the words of their Confederate ancestors to find abundant and irrefutable evidence. (p. 26–27)

Loewen and Sebesta (2010) agree that the flag has come to mean different things to different people because they are relying on different sources to form and defend their interpretations. In the introduction of their edited book, Loewen (2010) explains, people who believe the flag represents heritage not hate subscribe to a particular neo-confederate historiography of the past that alleges the Civil War was fought about state’s rights rather than slavery (Loewen & Sebesta, 2010). Loewen (2010) continues, the particular state’s rights for which the Confederacy was fighting were about slavery. The reason Lincoln’s election sparked their secession was because his platform and party-affiliation threatened the institution of slavery. And the institution of slavery was built on racist ideals: ones that suggests that Blacks were not only inferior to Whites but also less than human. Today, people use what they have been socialized to think about the flag to interpret its meaning and defend its place in contemporary society. While a growing number of people recognize that the flag is racist and argue it should be removed from public spaces, others continue to argue it symbolizes heritage not hate and therefore should remain. According to Loewen (2010) these competing narratives persist because “most Americans do not know and have never read key documents in American history about the Confederacy” (p. 3) including state secession papers. And since the information upon which they are basing their opinions has been rewritten to tell a particular story about the South’s secession, the Civil War, and race relations in America, its perpetuation is not surprising. The pervasiveness of these dominant, yet competing narratives has helped preserve the flag’s contentious place in American society. Leo Twiggs, an African American artist, argues that all Americans need to inquire into the flag’s raced history (Shearer, 2015). For years, he has painted the Confederate battle flag, hoping his work would invite contemplation and critique. Instead of depicting the flag as brand new and ready to adorn a flagpole, his version appears blood-stained and worn, causing people to wonder whose blood is on it. He recognizes that the flag is not just part of White southern heritage, but also the heritage of enslaved and free African Americans. We, the authors, would add that it is a part of every American’s history, whether they live in the North or South, whether they recently immigrated to America or have been here for centuries. Twiggs argues, “ . . . you have to confront that history. You have to confront it and you have to understand it for what it is” (Twiggs quoted in Shearer, 2015). His paintings of the flag, hang in art galleries across the country as a reminder

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that raced symbols like the flag and their painful history, cannot be erased from United States history and still impact life today. Therefore, tracing how the flag has been narrated and produced across space and time, helps contextualize the most recent debate about whether the flag should be flown in public spaces. Horwitz articulates, “There’s been low-grade warfare over the Confederate flag for decades” (The Civil War Monitor, 2015, para. 2). The debate about the flag’s place in contemporary society is nothing new. But when self-proclaimed White supremacist, Dylan Roof massacred nine people during a Bible study meeting in Charleston, South Carolina (Eversley, 2015) a heated discussion about what the Confederate battle flag represents and where it belongs in contemporary American society erupted across the nation. In response, calls to remove the flag from public spaces flooded media outlets. State and federal legislators on both sides of the aisle were challenged to field public outcry and take a stand on if and where the flag should be displayed. The White House commented that our nation’s president believed the flag “belongs in a museum” (Fabian, 2015). The NAACP and civil rights activist groups petitioned for the flag’s removal. Confederate “flaggers” and southern heritage groups defended its place in contemporary society. Some citizens revealed their deep-seeded emotional attachments to the flag, whereas others articulated their repulsion. In an interview with the Civil War Monitor (2015), Tony Horwitz synthesized, We’re clearly witnessing a watershed moment in the memory of the Confederacy and of our history generally. What started as a movement to furl a piece of cloth has exploded into a national debate over remembrance and memorialization of the Civil War. Until recently, I suspect, most Americans didn’t give much thought to driving down Jeff Davis Highway, serving at military bases named for generals who fought against the U.S., or passing statues to ardent advocates of slavery and secession. This was all just part of our landscape, like McDonald’s Golden Arches. Now, many Americans are at least pausing to reflect on these names and symbols and whether they’re appropriate. (para. 6)

The flag’s tumultuous history had become foregrounded in America’s consciousness. Using critical race theory (CRT; Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 2003) and their racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015) teachers can help students inquire into history and historiography of the flag and the discourses that have narrated it. In this lesson, students will explore the compelling question—“Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?”—by examining current and historical events, critiquing primary and secondary sources, and engaging in dialogue about the battle flag’s place in contemporary society. Confronting the flag’s raced and racist history is likely to help students grow their understanding of how

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“ . . . race and racism have been negotiated in American consciousness . . . ” (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiv). This lesson also creates opportunities for students, no matter their racial identit(ies), to recognize that they are racial beings (Milner, 2007). Although CRT traditionally has been used “to recover and revitalize the radical tradition of race-consciousness among African-Americans and other people of color . . . ” (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiv) teachers can extend this definition, raising the racial consciousness of all their students (Milner, 2007). In other words, doing this kind of work allows all students to recognize how race informs the ways people see, participate in, and experience the world. Consequently, what the students learn about the flag’s contested place in contemporary and historical America, is likely to transcend the classroom. This lesson can help students recognize how racism is pervasive in American society. While students often learn about the evils of overt racism, they rarely have opportunities to explore the covert, institutional, societal, and civilizational forms of racism that sustain America’s racial stratification (Scheurich & Young, 1997). Further, this inquiry pushes students to make more informed arguments about the flag’s place in contemporary society. Delgado and Stefancic (2012) explain, “we rarely challenge our own preconceptions, privileges and the standpoint from which we reason” (p. 82). This lesson gives students the opportunity to do just that. Educators must realize that when inquiries about the ways racism is embedded within American society are absent from classrooms, it becomes possible for students to unconsciously perpetuate it themselves. As Scheurich and Young (1997) note, “one of the worst racisms . . . for any generation or group is the one that we do not see, that is invisible to our lens— the one we participate in without consciously knowing or intending to” (p. 12). Allowing students to leave our classrooms without understanding how people have used and narrated the Confederate battle flag to forward racist agendas will increase the likelihood that students will unknowingly contribute to the legacy of racism in America themselves. Content: U.S. History, U.S. Civics and Government, Multiple Perspectives, Political Polarization, Discourse, Current Events Connections to CRT: Historical and Contemporary Racism, Raced Symbols and Discourse, Racial Consciousness, Racial Identities, Overt and Covert Racism Connections to State and National Standards The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) C3 Framework (2013) suggests that students need opportunities to: (a) apply disciplinary concepts

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and tools, (b) evaluate sources and use evidence to support arguments, (c) communicate conclusions, and (d) take informed action. We made a concerted effort to attend to these standards throughout our multi-day lesson. Since we work in Georgia, we analyzed the state standards (Georgia Department of Education, 2011; Georgia Department of Education, 2012a; Georgia Department of Education, 2012b) to identify how this lesson might be situated within high school social studies courses. This lesson could be integrated into American government/civics and United States history curricula. In these contexts, teachers would also have the opportunity to teach the reading and writing skills students need in order to read and interpret primary and secondary sources. It is likely that teachers in other states would be able to make similar connections to their state’s standards. Connections to the NCSS C3 Framework Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools: History D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras. D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives. D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. D2.His.10.9-12: Detect possible limitations in various kinds of historical evidence and differing secondary interpretations. Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence D3.1.9-12: Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection. D3.3.9-12: Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims. D3.4.9-12: Refine claims and counterclaims attending to precision, significance, and knowledge conveyed through the claim while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both. Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action D4.1.9-12: Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses. D4.2.9-12: Construct explanations using sound reasoning, correct sequence (linear or non-linear), examples, and details with significant and pertinent information and data, while acknowledging

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the strengths and weaknesses of the explanation given its purpose (e.g., cause and effect, chronological, procedural, technical). D4.4.9-12: Critique the use of claims and evidence in arguments for credibility. D4.5.9-12: Critique the use of the reasoning, sequencing, and supporting details of explanations. Connections to the Georgia Standards American Government/Civics Social Studies Georgia Performance Standards SSCG7: The student will describe how thoughtful and effective participation in civic life is characterized by obeying the law, paying taxes, serving on a jury, participating in the political process, performing public service, registering for military duty, being informed about current issues, and respecting differing opinions. United States History Social Studies Georgia Performance Standards SSUSH9: The student will identify key events, issues, and individuals relating to the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War. SSUSH24: The student will analyze the impact of social change movements and organizations of the 1960s. Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies Grade 9–10 (RH) Craft and Structure L9-10RHSS6: Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts Integration of Knowledge and Ideas L9-10RHSS7: Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis in print or digital text. Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Grade 9–10 (WHST) Text Types and Purposes L9-10WHST1: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form and in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.

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Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies Grade 11–12 (RH) Craft and Structure L11-12RHSS6: Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas L11-12RHSS7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Grade 11–12 (WHST) Text Types and Purposes L11-12WHST1: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases.

SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Social Studies Georgia Performance Standards and Reading/Writing Standards for Literacy

Why is the Confederate Battle Flag divisive? American Government/Civics 7: The student will describe how thoughtful and effective participation in civic life is characterized by...being informed about current issues, and respecting differing opinions. U.S. History 9: The student will identify key events, issues, and individuals relating to the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War. U.S. History 24: The student will analyze the impact of social change movements and organizations of the 1960s. Reading 6: Evaluate authors’ differing points of view. Reading 7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information. Writing 1.b: Develop claim(s) and counterclaims with relevant data and evidence.

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Staging the Question Featured Sources

Respond to an African American artist’s painting of the Confederate Battle Flag and reflect on questions to start thinking about the controversy that surrounds the flag. Source A: “Flag,” painting by Leo Twiggs, 2000.

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

Supporting Question 3

What discourses contextualize the Confederate battle flag?

How do events throughout American history parallel the Confederate battle flag’s raced and racist trajectory?

What were the responses to calls for removal of the Confederate battle flag from public spaces?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Identify claims and counterclaims made by the author. Mine the text for relevant and specific evidence that supports the author’s argument.

Create an annotated timeline of five to eight events throughout American history that help contextualize the raced and racist trajectory of the Confederate battle flag.

Supporting Question 4 Should the battle flag have a presence in contemporary society?

Formative Performance Task

Create a t-chart Participate in a that lists reasons Socratic Seminar provided by to discuss the supporters and treatment of the opponents of flag in public removing the flag spaces. from public spaces.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source B: Ta-nehisi Coates’s (2015) article in The Atlantic concerning the racist history of the flag

Source C: An interactive timeline of how the flag has been used to resist the expansion of civil rights to African Americans. Source D: PBS interactive timeline of important events related to the civil rights movement.

Source E: NBC news segment about the Charleston massacre. Source F: AP news segment about calls to remove the flag. Source G: Excerpts from Washington Journal callers who support and oppose removal of the flag from the South Carolina State Capitol Source H: Statements from politicians about the flag.

Featured Sources Source I: Excerpt from NAACP chairperson’s speech at 106th annual convention. Source J: The Civil War Monitor (2015) interview with journalist Tony Horwitz about the display of Confederate symbols.

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Argument

Craft an argumentative essay that addresses the compelling question: “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?” Support claims with evidence from the primary and secondary documents explored, acknowledging counterpoints to the argument.

Extension

Curate a museum exhibit of the Confederate battle flag that: (a) describes how the flag’s story should be told, and (b) illustrates what the exhibit should look like.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Interview community members who have witnessed or experienced individuals, groups, or organizations using the Confederate battle flag to promote hate. Produce news articles and videos that highlight the stories shared.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Description of the Compelling Question Often, talk about the Confederate battle flag’s place in contemporary American society is transformed into a debate about whether or not the Confederate battle flag should be banned from public spaces. Such debates often lead to single-storied, unexamined, ill-informed, or polarizing yes/ no responses. People often talk with other people who share their beliefs and discount the ideas, beliefs, and values of people who think differently. In order to disrupt this pattern, we designed an inquiry lesson that invites students to explore the compelling question: “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?” Students will inquire into this question by (a) analyzing the discourses that surround the battle flag, (b) investigating historical and contemporary events that help contextualize the battle flag’s raced and racist history, (c) examining responses to calls for the battle flag’s removal from public spaces, and (d) discussing whether or not it should have a presence in contemporary society. Throughout this multi-day lesson, students will have many opportunities to expand and deepen how they understand the raced and racist history of the Confederate battle flag by interacting with a number of primary and secondary sources and engaging in dialogue with their peers. The staging activity that follows, introduces the compelling question, and the diverse perspectives and emotional responses the battle flag produces.

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Staging Activity To begin, the teacher will project one of Leo Twiggs’ batik paintings from his Confederate battle flag series. The students should be given an opportunity to respond to the painting using the “See, Think, Feel, Wonder” protocol (adapted from Harvard Project Zero, n.d.). See

Think

Feel

Wonder

This protocol is designed to challenge the students to use their critical thinking and analysis skills. In the first box the students should describe what they see in the painting. Depending on students’ familiarity with analyzing paintings, the teacher might want to provide some additional prompts like: “What do you notice?,” “What colors did the artist use?,” and “What medium was used to create the painting?” In the second box, the students should describe what they think about the painting. In order to help the students answer this question, the teacher might ask: “What message(s) do you think the artist is trying to convey?,” “Who do you think is the intended audience?,” “Why do you think the artist created this painting?,” and “Why do you think the artist chose to use this particular medium?” Then, in the third box the students should reflect on how they feel as they look at the painting. Some students might ask if they are supposed to respond to this question by sharing what they think the artist wants them to feel. This question is not designed for the students to respond in this way. Rather, the teacher should emphasize that the students should share any and all emotions the piece of art evokes. The teacher should also encourage the students to describe any connections or disconnections they experience as they view the painting. Finally, in the last box the students should describe what they wonder. The teacher might want to model intellectual curiosity by posing some questions about the artist, the painting, when it was painted, and where it is on display. The teacher may want to conclude this activity by encouraging students to turn and talk to someone next to them about the painting and/or facilitate a whole group sharing session that is designed to give the students an opportunity to hear and acknowledge their peers’ diverse interpretations. In the second part of the staging activity, the teacher will pose a series of reflection questions, encouraging students to start thinking about the controversy that surrounds the flag. The teacher should create and hang

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three large posters around the classroom. Each poster should be titled with one of the following questions: (a) “What associations do people have with the Confederate battle flag?,” (b) “When you see images of the Confederate battle flag, what is your emotional response?,” and (c) “Why does the Confederate battle flag make you feel a certain way?” The teacher should have the students respond anonymously to each of these questions on a separate post-it note. Remind the students to put a one, two, or three at the top of their post-it note to indicate which question they are answering. As the students finish, the post-it notes should then be transferred to posters around the room. Alternatively, the students could use an online platform like PollEverywhere or Padlet to respond to these questions. Next, the students will work with a partner to survey and analyze their peers’ responses to one of the questions by identifying trends and outliers. Since more than one pair of students will be assigned to each data set, the students will be able to see how different people analyze the same data. Each pair will report their findings to the class. During the sharing session the teacher should encourage the students to explain how they identified patterns and outliers, and offer perspectives that are missing from the students’ responses. At this point in the staging activity, the students will have had access to diverse viewpoints and perspectives thus making it a perfect time to introduce the compelling question: “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?” The teacher can draw on the first two activities to help the students understand how the flag means different things to different people, thus rendering it divisive. Lastly, students will work with a partner to brainstorm some reasons why the battle flag has recently sparked an intense national debate. The students will collaborate, building a class list, until all possibilities are exhausted. To close, the teacher will explain that throughout the multi-day lesson, the students will continue to explore the battle flag controversy. Featured Source A The staging activity’s source is a painting of the Confederate battle flag that Leo Twiggs, an African American artist, fashioned using the traditional African dye and resist process known as Batik. As described in our opening narrative, his portrayal of the flag is unique. It’s worn and bloodstained appearance invites students to unpack what they see and why they think he might have depicted the flag in this way. As the students brainstorm many literal and metaphorical interpretations of his painting, they will begin to recognize the diverse ways the flag is perceived and used in society.

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Supporting Question 1 To engage in an inquiry about the divisive battle flag, students will need to have an understanding of the discourses that produced it and were produced by it. The supporting question for this task—“What discourses contextualize the Confederate battle flag?”—asks students to read a secondary analysis of primary source documents from the pre-Civil War era to the civil rights movement that debunks and problematizes the “heritage not hate” stance toward the battle flag. Since “discourse” and “contextualize” may be new words to students, the teacher may want to define these terms and provide examples of each before engaging in the formative performance task. It may be helpful for the teacher to encourage students to rewrite the question in another way to make sure they understand what it’s asking. Formative Task 1 In the first formative performance task, students will read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s (2015) article in The Atlantic entitled “What This Cruel War Was Over: The Meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag is Best Discerned in the Words of Those Who Bore It.” To preview the article, the teacher can ask students to predict the author’s claims based on the words used in the title. Depending on the reading levels in the class, the teacher may want to bold and define words before students read it or ask students to skim the article for words they are unsure about. After previewing the article with students, the teacher will read the first two paragraphs aloud to the class. Together they will identify the claims and counterclaims the author is making. Then the students should read the rest of the article looking for relevant and specific evidence that supports the author’s claims. Again, depending on the students’ reading levels, the teacher might ask students to work individually or in pairs. Alternatively, the teacher could assign pairs or small groups of students shorter sections of the article. After each set of students finishes dissecting their part, they could share their findings with the class. The teacher will then lead the students in a discussion that addresses the supporting question—“What discourses contextualize the Confederate battle flag?”—highlighting the discourses the author introduces and how they have influenced the flag’s raced and racist trajectory. Featured Sources For Supporting Question 1, Featured Source B is an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates, published in The Atlantic on June 22, 2015, just a few days following the Charleston church massacre. In the article, Coates claims that the Confederate battle flag can not be separated from the South’s secession and the South’s secession was about slavery. Therefore, since its conception the battle flag has had a racist identity. Coates argues that even when

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people suggest the flag represents heritage not hate, it is not devoid of its racist associations. He supports these arguments using selections from primary sources that span more than one hundred years. Evidence from these documents demonstrates that racist discourses helped produce the battle flag and were produced by it. Supporting Question 2 The students understanding of why the Confederate battle flag is divisive will be incomplete unless they examine how events throughout American history have helped produce the flag’s contentious place in contemporary society. As the students explore the supporting question—“How do events throughout American history parallel the Confederate battle flag’s raced and racist trajectory?”—they will have opportunities to learn about how different groups of people have used the flag across time and space. Paying attention to what was happening in America at certain points in history will help the students understand how people have interpreted the flag’s purpose and place in divergent ways. Formative Task 2 In the second task, the students will use two interactive timelines to examine how events throughout American history have paralleled the flag’s raced and racist trajectory. The teacher can either present major events on the timelines to the whole class or reserve computers for students to analyze the timelines individually or in partners. If the students are going to engage in individual or partner work the teacher should familiarize the students with the platform before they begin. The content and format of the interactive timelines can be overwhelming. By showing the students how they might navigate the timelines by skipping ahead and back in time and deciding which events to focus on, will help them be more successful. One way the teacher might facilitate this task is by constructing a large class timeline that the teacher and students collaboratively build, highlighting selected events that help narrate the flag’s raced and racist trajectory. The timeline should date back to 1620. Since it is unlikely the teacher and students will build the entire timeline during one class period, the teacher should create the timeline on butcher paper or using virtual platform rather than on the whiteboard. In order to begin building the timeline, the teacher should introduce Source A, an interactive timeline that documents the more recent history of the flag. The teacher should begin by modeling how the timeline works and how its contents help people understand why the flag is divisive. The teacher should choose one of the events listed on the timeline. We recommend

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the teacher choose the first event (in 1946) to help set the tone, but any event will work. After selecting an event the teacher will read the text aloud and show the students how to summarize the event into one to two sentences. She will then record the summary on a large class timeline. Then the students will work with a partner or in a group of three to summarize one of the other eleven events included on the timeline. The teacher should assign a different event to each group to ensure that every event is covered. The students should write a one to two sentence summary that describes their assigned event. When the students finish, they will share their summary with the class and each event should be added to the class timeline. In order to inquire further back in time, the teacher should return to the first event listed on the timeline. She should explain that many things happened prior to 1946 that helped make the events they discussed possible. The teacher should explain that the students are going to have a chance to explore another interactive timeline that includes events dating back to 1620, before America was even a country. The teacher should explain that the students will again work with a partner or in a group of three to explore the history of the flag. This time they are required to choose five to eight events throughout history that help them understand why the flag is divisive. The teacher should require the students to choose at least one event from each century. This will encourage them to explore relevant events that span American history rather than selecting events that all occurred during a particular time period. With their peers, they should plot each event on their group timeline, annotating how each moment in history helps them better understand the flag’s contested meaning. The teacher may want to provide the students with a timeline template to record their selected events and annotations. The teacher should conclude this task by having the students share one to two of the events they chose, explaining their significance. These events should also be added to the class timeline. Featured Sources Both of the sources the students will use during task three are interactive timelines. Together, they shed light on historical and current events that have influenced how the flag is narrated and experienced. Source C: Interactive Timeline http://battleflag.us/# It documents how the Confederate battle flag has been used since the 1940’s as a symbol of intimidation to promote segregation, encourage racial violence towards African Americans, and resist the expansion of civil rights to African Americans by dismantling integration efforts that advocated African Americans should have the same rights, liberties, and access to resources as Whites.

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Source D: Interactive Timeline Produced by PBS www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/ It highlights many important events related to civil rights that have played a significant role in America’s history. This timeline is comprised of images, text, and video clips (2 to 10 minutes in length) that narrate events that took place between 1620 and 1968 at which point Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lead the March on Washington. Supporting Question 3 In order to answer the compelling question—“Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?”—students will need background information about the Charleston church massacre that sparked a national debate surrounding the display of the Confederate battle flag in public spaces. The supporting question—“What were the responses to calls for removal of the Confederate battle flag from public spaces?”—exposes students to differing perspectives on where the flag belongs in contemporary society. Formative Task 3 This formative performance task provides students with background information about the Charleston church massacre and gives them an opportunity to hear from citizens and politicians who support or oppose the flag’s removal from public spaces. The first news segment provides students with background information about the mass shooting carried out by Dylann Roof, a self-proclaimed White supremacist, who murdered nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a Bible study on June 17, 2015. The teacher will show the news segment and ask students to explain who was involved, what happened, when and where the shooting occurred, and why the shooting led to calls for removal of the flag from the South Carolina State Capitol. The second news segment connects the church shootings to images of Roof with Confederate battle flag and the subsequent uproar over its display at the state capitol. After students understand how the Charleston church massacre set off the national debate about the flag, the teacher will select segments from C-SPAN’s Washington Journal of callers from the general public who support and oppose the flag’s removal from South Carolina’s statehouse grounds and highlights from politicians providing their opinions about the flag’s meaning and place. Students will list reasons for and against the flag’s removal provided by the callers and politicians on a t-chart.

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Featured Sources The featured sources in Task 3, include an NBC news segment the day after the murders of the members of a Bible study group in Charleston and a series of news articles and news clips that illuminate whether or not people believe the Confederate battle flag should be removed from public places. Source E: NBC news segment from the day after the Charleston mass killing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHS-0WaokFA) The story provides details of the shooting, Dylann Roof’s arrest, interviews with friends and family of the victims, and coverage of press conferences with the Charleston mayor and South Carolina’s governor. Source F: Associated Press news segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS8msjVkijk It highlights the various calls for removing the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds following the Charleston shootings and provides a brief description of the tumultuous nature of the flag. Source G: Episode from C-SPAN’s political call-in show The Washington Journal http://www.c-span.org/video/?326658-6/washington-journal-viewer-calls It focuses on the question of whether or not the Confederate battle flag should be removed from the South Carolina State Capitol. Several callers from the general public provide their input on the question. The teacher should show clips from the episode highlighting different viewpoints on the issue. Source H: Online article and video from the New York Times http://nyti.ms/1JRZQ6V) Each source provides excerpts from the debate in the South Carolina legislature concerning the potential removal of the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol. The governor of South Carolina, the U.S. president, and other politicians speak. Supporting Question 4 Thus far students have explored how people think about the flag, how events throughout history have helped narrate its raced and racist trajectory, and how people have responded to calls for its removal from public spaces. It is also important for students to examine their own thinking about the

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divisive nature of the Confederate battle flag. By exploring the supporting question—“Should the battle flag have a presence in contemporary society?”—the students will be pushed to consider the most recent way the flag has been debated in society. Doing so allows them to articulate their own informed opinions and hear their peers’ ideas and perspectives. This question encourages the students to consider the interests of diverse groups as well as what place the flag should have in contemporary American society. Formative Task 4 Instead of having students take sides and participate in a debate, this Formative Task requires the students to participate in a Socratic Seminar. The seminar format encourages students to explore the complexities of the Confederate battle flag with peers and discuss whether or not it should have a presence in contemporary society. In order to prepare for the dialogue, students will work in groups to complete a document analysis worksheet. Teachers can access examples of analysis worksheets on the National Archives website (https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/ worksheets/). Examining each document using an analysis worksheet as a guide, will help the students deepen their understanding of the controversy over the presence of the flag in public and private spaces. Once the students have analyzed the sources, the students will come together as a class and participate in a Socratic Seminar. Here is when the students will have a formal opportunity to engage in dialogue about the flag. The students should use what they learned from the featured sources and earlier formative performance tasks to participate in the Socratic Seminar. Specifically they should use what they have learned to ask informed questions and make evidence-based points. The teacher should provide the students with a rubric before the seminar commences. This rubric should explain what is expected of them during the discussion. It should encourage them to pose burning questions, respond to questions beyond a yes/no answer, demonstrate active listening, and reference the multiple sources explored throughout the inquiry. Featured Sources The featured sources in Task 4 include a speech condemning the battle flag’s use in contemporary society and an interview with a journalist during which he shares his nuanced stance towards the presence of the battle flag and other Confederate symbols in public and private spaces. Source I: Excerpt from the NAACP chairperson Brock’s speech at their 106th annual convention http://www.naacp.org/latest/full-text-chairman-roslyn-m-brocks-addressto-the-106th-naacp-annual-conve/

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In part of her speech she argues the flag never represented a “proud heritage” for African Americans. To them the flag has consistently represented White supremacy and attempts to degrade the dignity, worth, and rights of African American people. She explains how more and more White people are starting to recognize how they experience the flag and thus are advocating that it be removed from public spaces. Source J: Interview conducted by The Civil War Monitor with Tony Horwitz (2015), the author of Confederates in the Attic (year/citation) http://www.civilwarmonitor.com/commentary/embattled-banner In the interview, Horwitz (2015) comments on the long history of the “embattled banner,” provides insight on how historians might interpret the renewed debate over the flag in the future, and shares his views on how the flag and other Confederate symbols should be treated in contemporary society. Summative Performance Task The work the students did throughout the lesson is designed to prepare them to formulate a response to the compelling question: “Why is the Confederate battle flag divisive?” Students will demonstrate what they have learned by crafting an argumentative essay. Students will support their response with evidence from the primary and secondary sources they engaged throughout the lesson, acknowledging counterpoints to their argument. Extension As an extension, students will have the opportunity to curate a museum exhibit of the Confederate battle flag. The teacher will explain to students how some public figures, including President Obama, have expressed that the battle flag belongs in a museum. The teacher will invite students to curate an exhibit that (a) describes how the flag’s story should be told, and (b) illustrates what the exhibit should look like. It will be important for the teacher to make sure students are familiar with museum exhibits and understand what curating entails. Visiting a museum, exploring virtual exhibits, or interviewing a curator from a museum may help the students produce higher quality work. Students can complete this extension activity alone or in small groups. This activity will encourage the students to apply, in a new context, what they learned about the raced and racist history of the battle flag.

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Taking Informed Action People across the United States have been engaged in an ongoing debate about whether or not the battle flag should be displayed in public spaces (Bradner, 2015). This ongoing debate has created new opportunities for people to examine its racist underpinnings. The activity we introduce here, invites students to engage in a community project that connects these national conversations with the lived experiences of people in their community. First, the students will have conversations with community members who have witnessed or experienced individuals, groups, or organizations using the Confederate battle flag to promote hate. Students will work alone or with partners to interview community members. Alternatively, teachers could bring in one or more guest speakers to share their experience(s) with students. Following these conversations, teachers should help the students draw connections between the stories they heard and the content of the inquiry lesson. Then, the students will work in pairs or small groups to produce news articles or two-minute videos that highlight the stories the interviewees and/ or speakers shared. The students should use the discourses, events, and perspectives they explored during the inquiry lesson to contextualize their work. Next, teachers will support the students in developing a format for presenting their work to a wider audience. For example, the students might post their news articles and videos to a class website or social media page and distribute flyers with the link for people to visit. This community project provides the students with an authentic opportunity to (a) empathize with the lived experiences of people in their community, (b) produce news articles and videos that weave these firsthand accounts into the national conversation, and (c) feature their news articles and videos in a student-created space for a wider audience to explore. TIPS AND ADVICE Since we knew engaging with this politically-charged, divisive topic could lead students to become further entrenched in their longstanding beliefs and traditions, we discouraged debate, rather foregrounding dialogue and exploration. We also wanted students to sincerely listen to their classmates’ opinions, emotional responses, and understandings resulting from the Charleston church massacre recentering the flag debate. Before teaching this lesson, we found it was necessary to develop parameters with the students that would guide our discussion about the Confederate battle flag. We introduced to the students, each of the following guidelines for holding

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a classroom discussion: A classroom discussion is (a) a dialogue, not a debate; (b) an opportunity to share and explore ideas, not shut them down; and (c) a space for us to reflect on our thinking and be open to challenging our prior ideas, not closing ourselves to change. We asked students to share reasons why each guideline would help them successfully participate in a discussion. We also spent time sharing examples and non-examples. Describing how certain behaviors and responses could cause the discussion process to breakdown helped the students recognize the value of these guidelines. Modeling what a discussion looks like when these parameters are followed helped them internalize what was expected and they participated successfully in the dialogue. Discussing the process of dialogue pushed the students to engage in more respectful ways and consider their peers’ ideas and perspectives. This also helped us achieve our goal of pushing the students to develop more complicated and nuanced understandings of the flag and the discourses and practices that produce it. Creating opportunities for the students to explore some related content including the Civil War and civil rights movement also helped the students participate more successfully in this inquiry lesson. Having this background knowledge enabled them to understand the history of the flag and how it has been storied throughout time and across spaces. SOURCE NOTES Staging Activity Source A: “Flag,” painting by Leo Twiggs, 2000 You can access the painting by following this link: http://thejohnsoncollection.org/leo-twiggs/ An image of “Flag” will be located in the left sidebar. If the link above does not work, you can locate Leo Twiggs’ painting titled “Flag” by typing “Leo Twiggs Johnson Collection” into the google search bar. You can view some of his other flags from his Commemoration/Revisited series by visiting his website: www.leotwiggs.com On his site click the “Image Gallery” tab and then select the “Commemoration” collection. Additional Resources for Staging Activity Harvard Project Zero. (n.d). See think wonder. Visible Thinking. Retrieved from http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_ files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_Core_routines/SeeThinkWonder/ SeeThinkWonder_Routine.html

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Supporting Question 1 Source B: Coates, T. (2015). What this cruel war was over: The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/ what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/ To locate the article, visit The Atlantic homepage (www.theatlantic.com). Click on the search engine. Then type “Coates” and “Confederate cause” into the search bar. On the results page, the article has a different title, “The Confederate Cause in the Words of Its Leaders.” Supporting Question 2 Source C: Jaffe, L., & Sigelko, Z. (Producers). (2015). Battle flag: An ongoing documentary about the place and meaning of the Confederate battle flag, 150 years after the civil war [digital documentary]. Retrieved from http://battleflag.us/# The interactive timeline of how the flag has been used to resist the expansion of civil rights to African Americans is embedded within the digital documentary amongst a number of other sources. Teachers should scroll about one-third of the way down the page to locate the timeline. It is under the header: “The Flag as Intimidation.” There are many other interesting perspectives and resources that have been compiled on this site. Teachers might consider exploring the other resources available. Source D: Gould, K. (Teacher Resource Producer for PBS NewsHour Extra). (2015). The Civil Rights Movement: A time for change—lesson plan. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons_plans/the-50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington-lesson-plan-a-time-for-change/ The interactive timeline of important events related to the civil rights movement is embedded in the lesson plan above. You can also access the interactive timeline using the search terms “PBS newshour extras.” Enter the website (www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/). Select “Subject Areas” and then choose “Government and Civics.” In the archive you should see a lesson plan titled: “The Civil Rights Movement: A Time for Change—Lesson Plan.” It was published on February 18, 2016. About halfway down the screen you will see the timeline. Underneath the timeline you will see a link that says, “Access a full-screen version of this timeline.” This is the most user friendly version.

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Supporting Question 3 Source E: NBC News (Producer). (2015, June 19). Dylann Storm Roof Arrested in Charleston Church Shooting. [Video File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHS-0WaokFA To locate the news video, visit the YouTube page. In the search bar, type “Dylann Roof” “Charleston Church Shooting” “NBC”. The teacher should use the video uploaded by NBC News. Source F: Associated Press. (Producer). (2015, June 22). SC Governor: Confederate flag should come down. [Video File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS8msjVkijk To locate the news video, visit the YouTube page. In the search bar, type “SC Governor” “Confederate Flag” “Associated Press.” The teacher should use the video uploaded by the Associated Press. Source G: CSPAN. (2015, June 23). Washington Journal [Video File]. http://www.c-span.org/video/?326658-6/washington-journal-viewer-calls The teacher will select excerpts from callers in opposition to and in support of the flag’s removal from South Carolina’s capitol. To find the show, type “CSPAN video library” in the Google search bar. Visit the C-SPAN Video Library page. At the top of the page, search the following keywords to locate the video “Should South Carolina remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol grounds?” The results should reveal two clips. This is because the video is divided into two parts. Although the teacher should review the entire show to decide which excerpts would be best to use for the class, we have included two clips from the second half of the show that may be especially helpful. These excerpts give the students an opportunity to hear two perspectives that are less frequently represented. One caller opines that the flag memorializes Confederate soldiers and removing it risks erasing history. This excerpt can be found at 14:38–15:38. Another caller emphasizes the issue of the flag representing slavery and segregation, thus dividing rather than uniting people. This excerpt can be found at 16:58–18:41. Teachers can also select and clip other parts of the call-in show before this class session. To learn how to create a video clip, visit the YouTube page. In the search bar, type “how to” “CSPAN” “video clip”. This CSPAN “how to” video will help teachers learn how to create video clips from their shows.

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Source H: Prentke, C. (2015, July 9). Highlights from Confederate Flag Debate [Video File]. New York Times. http://nyti.ms/1JRZQ6V To locate the online video, type “highlights from Confederate flag debate” “New York Times” “video” the Google search bar. The video should show up in the top results. Blinder, A., & Fausset, R. (2015, July 9). Excerpts from the Confederate flag debate in the South Carolina House. New York Times. http://nyti.ms/1JUoJw7 To locate the article, type “excerpts” “Confederate flag debate” “New York Times” the Google search bar. The article should show up in the top results. Supporting Question 4 Source I: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (2012). Chairman Roslyn Brock’s speech at the 106th annual NAACP National Convention. http://www.naacp.org/latest/full-text-chairman-roslyn-m-brocks-addressto-the-106th-naacp-annual-conve/ To locate her speech, visit the NAACP’s homepage (www.naacp.org). Then type “Chairman Brock’s Speech” and “106th” into the search bar. A video and transcript of her speech will pop-up. In order to choose excerpts for the students to read, the teacher can locate where Chairman Brock discusses the Confederate battle flag by using the “find” function in the menu bar. After opening up “find” the teacher should type: “battle flag”. This will allow the teacher to select the quotes he/she would like the students to read. Teachers can also access the video recording on by following this link: https://youtu.be/fJQyUKNsFA8 Source J: The Civil War Monitor. (2015, October 8). Embattled banner: A conversation with Tony Horwitz. http://www.civilwarmonitor.com/commentary/embattled-banner To locate the article, visit The Civil War Monitor homepage (www.civilwarmonitor.com). Click on the search engine. Then type “Tony Horwitz” and “conversation” into the search bar. The article should be found at the top of the results page. A longer version of the article can be found in the Fall 2015 (Vol. 5, No. 3) issue, but requires a subscription to the magazine.

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Additional Resources for Supporting Question 4 Education Staff, National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.) Document analysis sheets. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/ education/lessons/worksheets/ Taking Informed Action Bradner, E. (2015, June 30). Confederate flag debate: A state-by-state roundup. CNN Politics. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/29/ politics/confederate-flag-state-roundup/ REFERENCES Barrow, C. K. (2010, September). Battleflag resolution from Anderson reunion. Columbia, TN: General Headquarters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Retrieved from http://www.scv.org/documents/genworks/scvres.pdf Chandler, P. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Coates, T.-N. (2015, June 22). What this cruel war was over: The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/ what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/ Coski, J. (2005). The Confederate battle flag: America’s most embattled emblem. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K., (1995). Introduction. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. (pp. xiii–xxxii). New York, NY: The New Press. Delgado, R. & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Eversley, M. (2015, June 17). 9 dead in shooting at black church in Charleston, S.C. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/ nation/2015/06/17/charleston-south-carolina-shooting/28902017/ Fabian, J. (2015, June 19). Obama thinks Confederate flag “belongs in a museum.” The Hill. Retrieved from http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/ 245579-obama-thinks-confederate-flag-belongs-in-a-museum Georgia Department of Education. (2011). 11th–12th grade literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects common core Georgia performance standards. Retrieved from https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Documents/11-12%20literacy%20history,%20science,%20and%20technical%20subjects%20pdf.pdf Georgia Department of Education. (2012a). American government/civics. Retrieved from https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/Georgia%20Performance%20 Standards/American-Government.pdf

Countering Single Stories    295 Georgia Department of Education. (2012b). United States history. Retrieved from https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/georgia%20performance%20 standards/united-states-history.pdf The Civil War Monitor. (2015, October 8). Embattled banner: A conversation with Tony Horwitz. Retrieved from http://www.civilwarmonitor.com/commentary/ embattled-banner Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Loewen, J. W. (2010). Unknown well-known documents. In J. W. Loewen & E. H. Sebesta (Eds.), The confederate and neo-confederate reader: The “great truth” and about “lost cause” (pp. 3–21). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Loewen, J. W., & Sebesta, E. H. (Eds.). (2010). The confederate and neo-confederate reader: The “great truth” and about “lost cause.” Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Milner, H. R. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational Researcher 36(7), 388–400. Montagne, R. (Interviewer), & Coski, J. (Interviewee). (2015, June 23). The long and divisive history of the Confederate flag [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from National Public Radio Morning Edition Website: http:// www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416736897/the-long-and-divisive-history-of-the -confederate-flag National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Shearer, L. (2015, June 29). Confederate flag painting in UGA museum not what it seems. Athens Banner Herald. Retrieved from http://onlineathens.com/ uga/2015-06-29/confederate-flag-painting-uga-museum-not-what-it-seems Scheurich, J. J., & Young, M. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies racially biased? Educational Researcher 26(4), 4–16.

CHAPTER 16

WHAT IS RACE? A Compelling Question With a Complex Response Samina Hadi-Tabassum Northern Illinois University

ABSTRACT This inquiry lesson focuses on how to teach the concept of race and racial theories in a high school social studies classroom. The lesson study begins with a series of inductive reasoning exercises in which students attempt to define race on their own but through the teacher staging and posing compelling questions. Then, on the last day of the unit, the students arrive at generalizations based on their findings and come to conclude that race is a social construct that we human beings have created for ourselves in order to classify and sort ourselves into hierarchies, just as Darwin did with the natural world. In the end, race is a fluid concept that cannot be solely defined by one’s biology and physical appearance.

Race Lessons, pages 297–318 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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NARRATIVE OVERVIEW The definition of race has changed over time and is dependent on historical context. In order to teach the concept of race to secondary students, it is best to begin this unit of study with the overarching question “What is race?” Over three 90-minute block lessons, the students will begin an inquiry process in which they will interrogate the meaning and definition of race. The lesson study begins with a series of inductive reasoning exercises and performance based tasks in which students attempt to define race on their own but through the teacher staging and posing supporting questions. Then, on the last day of the unit, the students should arrive at generalizations based on their findings and come to conclude that race is a social construct that we human beings have created for ourselves in order to classify and sort ourselves into social hierarchies, just as Darwin did with the natural world. In the end, the argument posed is that race is a fluid concept that cannot be solely defined by one’s biology and physical appearance. The three supporting questions addressed in this unit of study include the following: (a) “Can you tell someone’s race by solely looking at her/his physical appearance?,” (b) “Do people from the same racial group have the same color of skin?,” and (c) “How did we group ourselves racially in ancient times versus how we group ourselves today?” In order to find answers to these three supporting questions, students will use historical sources to come to final generalizations. Some lessons will use hands-on materials such as mustard seeds to help demonstrate how these seeds were used to determine race-based notions of intelligence. Other lessons will use secondary sources such as books like The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Gould (1996) and Michael Banton’s Racial Theories (1998). Ancient definitions of race will be grounded through Herodotus’ classic text The Histories (1987) and even the Bible, Torah and Koran in order to compare and contrast notions of race over human history. In terms of skills developed in this unit of study, students will make personal connections to events of the past and develop a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events. Students will use both critical and analytical thinking skills as they read and examine documents and objects and come to conclusions based on the synthesis and evaluation of information from multiple sources. Students will move from “concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials” (Library of Congress, 2017, p.  1). By using an inquiry-based approach to the lessons, students will wrestle with contradictions and compare multiple sources that represent differing points of view, therefore confronting the complexity of race. In the end, they will construct knowledge of race by integrating their own personal and prior knowledge of race with the different theories of race and historical sources gained from this unit of study.

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Critical Race Theory and Racial Theorizing This unit of study is grounded in critical race theory (CRT); it delves into the definition of race, the history of race, the biology of race, the formation of racial categories and the illusion of race as a construct. The students will grapple with the meaning of race, the fluidity of race as a concept, and how race markers have changed over human history. As members of contemporary society, the students will examine how racial differences and racial complexions play into notions of power and politics, even in their own everyday world. However, in order to prepare for this unit, a teacher needs to gain content knowledge related to the history of racial theorizing. The teacher will begin the study by reading Michael Banton’s second edition of Racial Theories (1998), which is a featured source for this lesson study and should be introduced to the students as well. Banton’s (1998) chapters follow an ontological order that begins with race as lineage, race as a type, race as subspecies, race as status, race as class, and finally race as a social construct. The word “race” entered the English language in the 1500s by a Scottish writer, William Dunbar, and was used to explain how different groups of people were dispersed by God after the Great Flood and after the Tower of Babel, even though the Bible itself does not mention the term “race” (Banton, 1998). Race then became a monotheistic term used to trace human origin and lineage back to Adam and Eve. Over time, the term race was still used for classifying human beings but the purpose of that specific classification system varied across history. By the 1700s, the social scientific revolution marshalled the Linnaean classification system by which anatomical features (width of nose, hair texture) became biological racial markers. Race was used to establish hierarchies amongst various cultural groups across the globe but from a European perspective of superiority (Caucasian vs. Mongolian) as well as differences by class (e.g., the Irish race). Eventually racial difference was used to justify slavery (i.e., the inferior culture of the Africans) and the American Eugenics movement that led to the Nazi agenda of racial extermination. By the time genetics entered the scientific landscape in the twentieth century, what was once held to be scientifically true about human biology slowly came undone. We now know that the amount of genetic variation amongst human groups is quite small and that all our ancestry traces back to Africa. Content: The Science of Race, the History of Race, the Etymology of Race Connections to CRT: Race as a Social Construct, Racial Hierarchy, Race Theory Connections to the NCSS and C3 Standards This unit of study integrates history, and science and is grounded in these learning objectives: (a) students evaluate how political and economic

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decisions throughout time in regards to race have influenced cultural and environmental characteristics of various places and regions; (b) students evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts in relation to the concept of race; (c) students analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras in relation to race; (d) students explain how the perspectives of people in the present in relation to race shape interpretations of the past; (e) students analyze how current interpretations of the past are limited by the extent to which available historical sources in relation to race represent perspectives of people at the time; (f) students detect possible limitations in various kinds of historical evidence and differing secondary interpretations of race; (g) students integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations about race into a reasoned argument about the past; (h) students explain the interaction of biology and experience (i.e., nature and nurture) and its influence on behavior; (i) students identify the role psychological science can play in helping us understand differences in individual cognitive and physical abilities; ( j) students explain how social, cultural, gender, and economic factors influence behavior and human interactions in societies around the world; and (k) students identify common patterns of social inequality in relation to race. The lessons highlighted below are targeted for a 9–12 grade span; however, the lessons can be adapted for the middle school level. Furthermore, if the school does not have a 90-minute block period schedule, then each of the three lessons below can be broken into smaller mini-lessons. The description of the lessons indicates that the lessons have been implemented before with real students. Content Standards This unit focuses on the following themes and standards from the NCSS: Time, Continuity, and Change • Understand that historical knowledge and the concept of time are socially influenced constructions that lead historians to be selective in the questions they seek to answer and the evidence they use. • Investigate, interpret, and analyze multiple historical and contemporary viewpoints within and across cultures related to important events, recurring dilemmas, and persistent issues, while employing empathy, skepticism, and critical judgment. Individual Development and Identity • Compare and evaluate the impact of stereotyping, conformity, acts of altruism, discrimination, and other behaviors on individuals and groups.

What is Race?    301

• Understand how individual perceptions develop, vary, and can lead to conflict. • Understand the concepts of role, status, and social class and use them in describing the connections and interactions of individuals, groups, and institutions in society. Power, Authority, and Governance • Apply concepts such as power, role, status, justice, democratic values, and influence to the examination of persistent issues and social problems. Science, Technology and Society • Identify, describe, and examine both current and historical examples of the interaction and interdependence of science, technology, and society in a variety of cultural settings. • Make judgments about how science and technology have transformed the physical world and human society and our understanding of time, space, place, and human-environment interactions. • Analyze the way in which science and technology influence core societal values, beliefs, and attitudes and how societal attitudes influence scientific and technological endeavors. • Evaluate various policies proposed to deal with social changes resulting from new technologies. More specifically, this unit of study builds on these Common Core C3 Standards (College, Career, and Civic Life) that focus on the teaching of History D2.His.1.9-12: Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts. D2.His.2.9-12: Analyze change and continuity in historical eras. D2.His.3.9-12: Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context. D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras. D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives. D2.His.6.9-12: Analyze the ways in which the perspectives of those writing history shaped the history that they produced. D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. D2.His.9.9-12: Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.

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D2.His.10.9-12: Detect possible limitations in various kinds of historical evidence and differing secondary interpretations. D2.His.11.9-12: Critique the usefulness of historical sources for a specific historical inquiry based on their maker, date, place of origin, intended audience, and purpose. D2.His.14.9-12: Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past. D2.His.16.9-12: Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past. D2.His.17.9-12: Critique the central arguments in secondary works of history on related topics in multiple media in terms of their historical accuracy. Skill Standards From the C3 Framework Developed in This Unit D1.2.9-12: Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question. D1.3.9-12: Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a supporting question. D3.1.9-12: Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection. D3.3.9-12: Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims. D4.4.9-12: Critique the use of claims and evidence in arguments for credibility. SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Standards and Practices

What is race? Content Standards This unit focuses on the following themes and standards from the NCSS (National Council of Social Studies): Time, Continuity, and Change • Understand that historical knowledge and the concept of time are socially influenced constructions that lead historians to be selective in the questions they seek to answer and the evidence they use.

What is Race?    303 • Investigate, interpret, and analyze multiple historical and contemporary viewpoints within and across cultures related to important events, recurring dilemmas, and persistent issues, while employing empathy, skepticism, and critical judgment. Individual Development and Identity • Compare and evaluate the impact of stereotyping, conformity, acts of altruism, discrimination, and other behaviors on individuals and groups. • Understand how individual perceptions develop, vary, and can lead to conflict. • Understand the concepts of role, status, and social class and use them in describing the connections and interactions of individuals, groups, and institutions in society. Power, Authority and Governance • Apply concepts such as power, role, status, justice, democratic values, and influence to the examination of persistent issues and social problems.

Standards and Practices (continued)

Science, Technology, and Society • Identify, describe, and examine both current and historical examples of the interaction and interdependence of science, technology, and society in a variety of cultural settings. • Make judgments about how science and technology have transformed the physical world and human society and our understanding of time, space, place, and human-environment interactions. • Analyze the way in which science and technology influence core societal values, beliefs, and attitudes and how societal attitudes influence scientific and technological endeavors. • Evaluate various policies proposed to deal with social changes resulting from new technologies. More specifically, this unit of study builds on these Common Core C3 Standards (College, Career, and Civic Life) that focus on the teaching of History: D2.His.1.9-12: Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts. D2.His.2.9-12: Analyze change and continuity in historical eras. D2.His.3.9-12: Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context. D2.His.4.9-12: Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras. D2.His.5.9-12: Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives. D2.His.6.9-12: Analyze the ways in which the perspectives of those writing history shaped the history that they produced. D2.His.7.9-12: Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past. D2.His.9.9-12: Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.

304    S. HADI-TABASSUM D2.His.10.9-12: Detect possible limitations in various kinds of historical evidence and differing secondary interpretations. D2.His.11.9-12: Critique the usefulness of historical sources for a specific historical inquiry based on their maker, date, place of origin, intended audience, and purpose. D2.His.14.9-12: Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past. D2.His.16.9-12: Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past. D2.His.17.9-12: Critique the central arguments in secondary works of history on related topics in multiple media in terms of their historical accuracy.

Standards and Practices (continued)

Skill Standards From the C3 Framework Developed in This Unit D1.2.9-12: Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question. D1.3.9-12: Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a supporting question. D3.1.9-12: Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection. D3.3.9-12: Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims. D4.4.9-12: Critique the use of claims and evidence in arguments for credibility. The following questions will be displayed in the first “staging” lesson and will be used to carry this inquiry through each of three supporting questions:

Staging the Question

• Is race based on one’s physical appearance and what you look like on the outside? • Is race based on one’s geography and country of origin or where you are born? • Is race based on the color of one’s skin? • Is race based on who are your parents and ancestors? • Is race based on your cultural heritage and what your community values through its traditions, rituals and customs? • Is race based on your hair texture? • Is race based on common bonds between individuals in a social group? • Is race a social construct that we human beings have created for ourselves?

Supporting Question 1 Physical Appearance: Can you tell someone’s race by solely looking at her/his physical appearance? Can someone “pass” for another race? Can some people look as if they

Supporting Question 2 Color of One’s Skin: Can someone who is racially Black have light skin? Can someone who is racially White have darker skin than someone from another racial group?

Supporting Question 3 Social Construct: How did we group ourselves in ancient times versus how we group ourselves today? Does it matter who decides the categories of race? Did the

What is Race?    305 Supporting Question 1 (contined) belong to many different races? Can you change your physical appearance to look like a person from another race? Can you look like one race on the outside but feel that you belong to another race on the inside? What role does genetics play in one’s physical appearance? How different and the same are the different races from each other in physical appearance? What accounts for the differences in physical appearance?

Formative Performance Task The teacher pairs up the students and gives them each a measuring tape and a sheet of questions to complete about her/his partner. The questions ask students to measure their partner’s anatomy in inches and to define major traits: the width of their nose, the width of their lips, the distance from the forehead to the chin, the types of eyes, the slope of the forehead, the shape of the skull, the flatness of their abdomens, the translucency of their skin, the demeanor of their walk, etc.

Supporting Question 2 (contined) Can the color of your skin change on its own? When looking at the patches of our skin at the forearm, how different do the races look within our classroom? Can you tell someone’s race always by looking at her/his skin? Can someone’s skin really be all white, black, yellow, brown, etc.? Or are there various shades and colors that can be found on one person’s skin?

Supporting Question 3 (contined) definition of race change over time? What does it mean to be of the Irish race? How is race different from ethnicity? What role did modern science play in defining race? Why and how does race cause social and political tension in our world? Why is the mixing of races seen as a taboo?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

1. The teacher walks around the room and takes a photograph of every student’s forearm at the exact same location in the dorsal and lateral areas [m. flexor digitorum superficialis].   The teacher displays a second large chart paper with photos of their arms from the previous day cut out into small blocks. Their goal is to come to the front of the room and properly identify whose arm it is and what race is the person by labeling each block. 2. As the students walk into the classroom, the teacher asks them to cut off a tiny piece of their hair and tape it in a column fashion on a large sheet of charter paper placed at the front of the room.   The next day the students move onto the hair chart paper and once again properly identify each person and her/his race by hair type and texture.

The students write a short response as to whether we still see evidence of the Eugenics movement in our social world. What messages do the movies, TV, music and social media send out about racial preference?

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Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: Angier, N. (2000, August 22). Do Races Differ? Not Really, Genes Show. The New York Times. Source B: Bellitto, C. (2008). 101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Source C: Pounder, C. C. H., Adelman, L., Cheng, J., Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T. H., Smith, L., & Ragazzi, C. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion [Television episode]. San Francisco, CA: PBS California Newsreel. Source D: Smith, E. (March 12, 2010). Who Do You Think You Are? by NBC [Television episode]. Retrieved October 12, 2016 on the TLC Channel [http://www. tlc.com/tv-shows/who-doyou-think-you-are/].

Source E: Banton, M. (1998). Racial Theories (2nd Edition). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Source F: Gould, S. (1996). The Mismeasure of Man. NYC, New York: W.W. Norton Company. Source G: Herodotus (1987). The History, translated by David Greene. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Source H: Shakespeare, William (1947). The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. (Eds. Tucker Brooke and Lawrence Mason). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Argument

Construct a written argument explaining what is race using specific claims and evidence from historical sources while acknowledging competing views.

Extension

Create a historical timeline of how race was used as a category in the history of the United States starting in the 1600s and up until 2016.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: (a) Research another country such as Brazil and South Africa and explain how this country defines and uses racial categories in comparison to the United States; (b) research how our criminal justice system uses race to disproportionately incarcerate young Black men; and (c) research the school-to-prison phenomena and determine which high schools in the state send the largest numbers of students to prisons and why there are such pipelines in place. Assess: (a) Examine the benefits and challenges of collecting demographic data based on race in the United States; (b) collect data examining which students are expelled and suspended at school and whether there is a pattern based on race; and (c) Examine TV commercials and shows to assess how different racial groups and characters are depicted. Act: (a) Write a letter to a newspaper editor in relation to a current event that addresses race relations in our country such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the presidential elections, the policing of racial minority communities, the prison pipeline, etc.; (b) meet with a local ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) chapter and talk about racebased cases being addressed by the ACLU; and (c) meet with the school administration and ask for a school-wide assembly addressing race based concerns.

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LESSON NARRATIVE Staging: Begin the Inquiry Process The teacher needs to create a PowerPoint presentation with four slides for the teaching of this unit. On Slide 1, the compelling question will be posted as the students walk into the classroom: “What is race?” As students think silently of an initial response to this compelling question, the teacher then moves onto Slide 2 after 10 minutes and now asks all students to define race based on the select answers listed on Slide 2. The students can choose only one answer from these possible eight responses: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Physical appearance The color of one’s skin Parents and ancestors Cultural heritage Hair texture Common bonds amongst individuals A social construct

As the students are deciding on their answer, the teacher should simultaneously read aloud these supporting questions on Slide 3 in order to further clarify the compelling question: 1. Is race based on one’s physical appearance and what you look like on the outside? 2. Is race based on one’s geography and country of origin or where you are born? 3. Is race based on the color of one’s skin? 4. Is race based on who are your parents and ancestors? 5. Is race based on your cultural heritage and what your community values through its traditions, rituals, and customs? 6. Is race based on your hair texture? 7. Is race based on common bonds between individuals in a social group? 8. Is race a social construct that we human beings have created for ourselves? The supporting questions posed on Slide 3 are reflective of the various racial theories that have come to define the concept of race. Once the students vote anonymously on a piece of paper and select only one definition for “race,” the teacher starts tallying the responses. The results are often mixed and there is variation amongst the students; however, the amount of variation depends on each individual classroom

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and its demographics. Yet, students often cling to the idea of race as being defined by one’s biology rather than race being defined by one’s social environment. Therefore, in this staging activity, how the students respond to the initial compelling question—”What is race?”—can define the direction of the remaining days and whether more time needs to be spent on undoing the misconception that we are born into a race of people and that these separate races of people then determine why one group is different from another. It is imperative to reiterate that only 0.01% of our DNA determines our phenotype—what we look like on the physical outside (Angier, 2000). Even when students focus heavily on skin color and eye shape, for example, as differing variables amongst human beings, research on the human genome points to a very small number of genes responsible for such difference. It is challenging for students to understand that human variation does not amount to much and that it serves no functional purpose other than to show how our bodies have evolved when we migrated out of Africa in small tribes about 100,000 years ago—a very recent phenomenon. Here the teacher should further discuss how a term like “race,” which is being used more often in our daily vernacular, has differing perspectives within one classroom of students. Subsequently, the teacher takes the students along an inquiry based train of thought in which “race” starts off as an Aristotelian unknown known—the things you think you know but then it turns out you did not know them well at all. Instead of giving the students an immediate answer to the definition of race, the teacher keeps moving students on this inquiry journey with a final staging question on Slide 4: “How many African Popes have we had in the Vatican?” Here the students have to choose a response from 0 to 5; however, the teacher can tally the votes orally in front of everyone because this question is often an unknown for high school students and there is no shame in not knowing the answer. The students tend to pick “zero” as their most common response. A few skeptics in the room might look puzzled and choose a safer choice of at least one African Pope. Once again, the teacher does not tell the students the answer immediately; rather, the teacher keeps leading students along this inquiry train. [According to the Liber Pontificalis, three popes—Pope St Victor I (ca186–198), Pope St Miltiades (311–314), and Pope St Gelasius (492–496)—were Africans. Victor was from North Africa and brought Latin into the church and moved away from Greek, while Miltiades and Gelasius likely were born in Rome to immigrant families of African origin (Bellitto, 2008).] In our contemporary mindset, we often see European institutions such as the Vatican Church as racially White. Christianity, of course, was born in the Middle East and North Africa was the Bible belt of Christianity in ancient times, where the Roman Empire also had a stronghold. Even though the image of Jesus Christ today is often depicted

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as White, blue-eyed, blond hair, the reality is that Jesus Christ was a Sephardic Jew and looked more closely like a modern day Sephardic individual with dark hair and dark skin. In the next part of the staging lesson, the teacher pairs up the students and gives each pair a measuring tape and a sheet of questions on a piece of paper to complete about her/his partner. The questions ask students to measure their partner’s anatomy in inches and to define major physical traits: • • • • • • • • •

The width of their nose The width of their lips The distance from the forehead to the chin The types of eyes The slope of the forehead The shape of the skull The flatness of their abdomens, The translucency of their ski The demeanor of their walk

While the paired students are working on their questions, the teacher walks around the room and takes a digital photograph of every student’s forearm at the exact same location in the dorsal and lateral areas [m. flexor digitorum superficialis]. The last activity for staging the compelling question is to place tiny mustard seeds on each pair’s table. Then the teacher asks the students as a whole this supporting question: “How can these mustard seeds be used to determine whether you are smarter than your partner?” The answers that students give for this puzzling question can be amusing; therefore, it is interesting to note down their blind responses on a chart paper and return to them the second day of the lesson study, as they move from an inductive to deductive reasoning of race as a concept.

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Supporting Question 1 and 2 When students come into class the second day, they immediately want to know what the answers are from the previous day’s inquiry as well as how these activities are connected. However, the teacher continues the inquiry process with more supporting questions focusing on the color of one’s skin and hair texture in relation to the definition of race. As the students walk into the classroom, the teacher asks them to cut off a tiny piece of their hair and tape it in a column fashion on a large sheet of charter paper placed at the front of the room without any labeling. While the students are taping their hair onto the chart paper, the teacher displays a second large chart paper with color photos of their forearms from the previous day cut out into small blocks. Their goal is to come to the front of the room and properly identify whose arm it is and what race is the person by labeling each block. After labeling the chart paper with arms, the students move onto the hair chart paper and once again properly identify each person and her/ his race by hair type and texture. Capturing the conversation at the front of the room through a digital audio recorder might be a good idea, and by playing back the recording at the end of the unit, students can self-examine how their understanding of race has changed over the three-day period. Next, the teacher goes back to the staging lesson’s completed activities. Slide 1 is brought up again with the compelling question—“What is race?”—and the response options available to the students are posted next from Slide 2: physical appearance, color of one’s skin, parents and ancestors, cultural heritage, hair texture, common bonds amongst individuals, and a social construct. Here the teacher walks through each option and poses a counter argument with the idea that eventually the teacher wants students to converge onto one true response: race as a social construct. Here is the series of questions to pose to students orally with a few minutes wait time in between: 1. Physical Appearance: Can you tell someone’s race by solely looking at her/his physical appearance? Can someone “pass” for another race? Can some people look as if they belong to many different races? Can you change your physical appearance to look like a person from another race? Can you look like one race on the outside but feel that you belong to another race on the inside? What role does genetics play in one’s physical appearance? How different and the same are the different races from each other in physical appearance? What accounts for the differences in physical appearance? 2. Color of One’s Skin: Can someone who is racially Black have light skin? Can someone who is racially White have darker skin than someone from another racial group? Can the color of your skin change on its

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3.

4.

5.

6.

own? When looking at the patches of our skin at the forearm, how different do the races look within our classroom? Can you tell someone’s race always by looking at her/his skin? Can someone’s skin really be all white, black, yellow, brown, etc.? Or are there various shades and colors that can be found on one person’s skin? Parents and Ancestors: Can everyone trace their race back to their parents and ancestors? How far back can you trace your ancestry and how do you know whether your earlier ancestors were not of a different race? How far back can you trace your ancestry to see the effects today? Can someone have mixed ancestry and not know it? Can all African Americans trace their ancestry back to Africa? Can all Native Americans trace their ancestries back to their original tribes and even back to the Asian continent? Do we all have essentially the same African ancestry? Is the role of our parents’ ancestry much stronger than our social environment in determining who we are? Are there certain “desirable” and “undesirable” traits we inherit from parents? Cultural Heritage: How much of our race is defined by culture? What does it mean to be culturally White and to “act White”? What does it mean to be culturally Black and to “act Black”? Can you identify with another race if you adopt the cultural heritage of that other race? Can one cultural group be composed of different races such as within the Hispanic community? Is the Black culture in America different from the Black culture in other countries like Britain, France, and in the Caribbean? Do we place value on people’s cultures and believe that some cultural groups are better than others? Is Black culture seen differently depending on whether you identify yourself as a Black individual versus someone from a different race? How does the culture of race change across time and vary across context? Hair Texture: Does everyone from the same race have the same hair texture? Is there greater variation in hair texture across a racial group rather than between racial groups? Can you tell someone’s race by examining a strand of her/his hair? Can the texture of your hair vary across the year? Is your hair texture dependent on the climate? Can we change our hair texture easily? What types of value do we place on hair texture? Do we value straight, blond hair more so than any other type? Why or why not? Common Bonds: Can you identify yourself as a member of race by sharing common bonds with them? If you were a White student who attended an all-Black school for your whole life, then can you identify yourself as Black? If you were a Black student who attended an all-White school for your whole life, then can you identify

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yourself as White? If you are White but were raised on a Native American reservation, then can you identify yourself as Native American? If you were adopted from China and grew up in an Italian American home, then can you identify yourself as Italian and not Chinese? Can some siblings from a mixed race family identify themselves as one race while other siblings identify themselves as a different race? 7. Social Construct: How did we group ourselves in ancient times versus how we group ourselves today? Does it matter who decides the categories of race? Did the definition of race change over time? What does it mean to be of the Irish race? How is race different from ethnicity? What role did modern science play in defining race? Why and how does race cause social and political tension in our world? Why is the mixing of races seen as a taboo? Since the topic of race can be sensitive, students might not be as willing to share answers in a whole class setting. Therefore, the teacher might pose the above supporting questions orally at first and then have students discuss the answers in pairs and/or small groups. There could be a summary of comments and responses at the end. Another idea is to have students jot down quick answers on a piece of paper with the questions already listed and have them submit it as an exit slip at the end of the day and use their responses for small group discussions. Nonetheless, the teacher should push forward the argument that one’s race is not solely defined by biology. At the end of the first and second compelling questions inquiry, the teacher shows a few short video clips. The first is a clip (Source D) of Emmett Smith, the famous football player who students often initially identify as Black, on the show “Who Do You Think You Are?” (2010) in which he finds out that through his slave genealogy and a DNA test he’s 81% African, 12% European, and 7% Asian, which is most likely Native American ancestry. The students are often shocked to find out that even though Emmett Smith appears to be Black that in fact he has a small percentage of White and Asian ancestry. The next clip (Source C) is from the PBS series titled “Race: The Power of an Illusion” (2003). In Part I of the three-part series, the students listen to a series of experts who argue that human beings are genetically the same inside even though their physical appearances are quite different in phenotype while fruit flies who look the same on the outside have a higher degree of internal genetic variation between themselves than we do. The scholars go on to explain that the physical differences we see on the outside can be best explained by genetic mutations which occurred throughout our migration out of Africa over thousands of years: skin becomes lighter in parts of the world with less sunlight due to our biological need for Vitamin D

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from the sun and the argument that translucent skin captures sunlight better; eyelids change shape due to the need to thwart blinding sunlight from snow-capped altitudes. In the end, only 0.01% of our DNA accounts for differences in physical appearance. The second day ends with the teacher reviewing the answers from the classification of their own skin colors and hair textures. Here students realize that their skin color might be of the same hue as someone from a different racial group and that someone of one race might have hair texture often indicative of another race. However, the results will vary and depend on the racial heterogeneity of students within the class. Supporting Question 3 The last inquiry ends the unit of study with final “aha” conclusions— therefore moving students from inductive to deductive reasoning. “How did we group ourselves in ancient times versus how we group ourselves today?” The theoretical focus is on the historical role of modern science and the Eugenics movement as well as chattel slavery in determining how we see and define race today in the present era. Going back to the Pope question on Slide 3, the teacher reveals that we had 3 known African Popes in ancient times when migrants from Europe and Africa moved back and forth across a fairly short physical distance controlled by various empires [Persian, Greek, Roman], even though we see this metaphysical distance between Europe and Africa as quite large today. Why then can we have an African Pope in ancient times but cannot imagine an African Pope in modern times? The teacher can read excerpts from William Shakespeare’s play Othello (Source H) which grapples with the idea of a Moor governing a premodern European society, a parallel narrative to an African Pope ruling over the Vatican. The word Moor now refers to the Islamic Arab inhabitants of North Africa who conquered Spain in the eighth century, but the term was used rather broadly in the Shakespearean period and was sometimes applied to Africans from other regions. The theoretical thread of comparing the ancient to the modern continues with Herodotus’ Histories (Source G) written in 440 BCE which shows how human beings used to organize themselves according to tribes as a sorting mechanism rather than the sorting category of “race” that we have today, even though he does mention people with burnt skin and dark curly hair. Herodotus traveled throughout Northern Africa, Greece, Persia, Asia Minor, and Russia and noted the various tribes along the way and how they differed: the Ammonites, the Nasamones, the Atarantes, the Garamantes, the Atlantes, the Gyzantes, the Macae, the Auses, etc. Passages from the Bible, Torah, and Koran also refer to groups of people by tribal affiliation

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rather than by their racial phenotype. Biblical scholar Brent Landau, for example, translated the 1,700-year-old story of the Three Wise Men from Syriac into English and stated the three men are noted to be descendants of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth; they lived in a far eastern land and the ancient text calls the land “Shir,” and from other ancient texts, it seems likely the place it had in mind is China, which connected to Jerusalem through the ancient spice routes (Landau, 2010). Moreover, it is the introduction of modern slavery by Europeans through the African slave trade in the 16th century that begins to change our definition of race. The onset of chattel slavery was founded on the misconception that Africans and Indigenous Native peoples are biologically inferior to Europeans and therefore slavery can be justified in order to Christianize the savage other. A PowerPoint presentation on slavery throughout human history, starting in ancient civilizations within nearly every culture (e.g., Maya, Sumer, Qin) to ever increasing contemporary forms of bonded slavery, can demonstrate how in ancient times slaves and slave owners were from all backgrounds and that chattel slavery in modern times attached slavery to the categories of race that we still have today. The historical tie between slavery and capitalism also needs to be emphasized in this last culminating lesson along with a distinction between an indentured servant of Irish descent from an African slave versus a freed slave and how the European desire for commodities like sugar and cotton led to both slavery and servitude. The website for the National Archives in Washington, DC has many historical documents pertaining to the slave trade that can be utilized for the PowerPoint presentation, as well as the Georgetown University Slavery Archive and the Library of Congress websites. Next, the American Eugenics Movement, a dark beginning to the genetics field, is examined and how it created a modern “science” out of measuring human bodies using calipers, scales, and rulers and formed a stratified system of categorization in which European “races” were on top due to their higher measurements. Even within the European races, there was a hierarchy in which the Germans, French, and British came out on top, due to the fact that the scientists conducting these measurements were mostly from Germany, France, and England while Southern and Eastern Europeans were at the bottom. The taxonomy of races was put into a table format by the 1930s in the United States and soon adopted by the Nazi Party by the 1940s (Gould, 1996). By measuring the cubic volume of human skulls using mustard seeds, American scientists in the late 1800s and early 1900s argued that races with a larger cranial volume are more intelligent, just as men who have bigger brain mass are smarter than women who have smaller skulls and brains; the concept of proportionality was not taken into account. The American and European Eugenists were adamant that the extra mass must mean

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something—greater intelligence—along with the shape and size of the skull. The measurements students took in the Staging Lesson are the same measurements taken at Auschwitz to determine who lives and who dies in the concentration camps (Gould, 1996). Once students realize the purpose of that previous performance task, they begin to critically analyze whether the measurements supporting the Nordic Race (tall, thin, translucent skin, narrow lips, blond hair, blue/gray eyes) continue to be valued in our society, regardless of the historical context and why we continue to do so. At this point, the teacher needs to stop and ask the students to write a short response as to whether we still see evidence of the Eugenics movement in our society. What messages do the movies, TV, music, and social media send out about racial preference? The use of Stephen Gould’s text The Mismeasure of Man (1996; Source F) is therefore essential to Supporting Compelling Question 3 and needs to be read by the teacher and shared with the students through a close reading of specific pages and images. Gould, a renowned evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, wrote the seminal text to refute the arguments in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s (1994) The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, which argued that we are determined by our biology and that our biology becomes our destiny. However, Herrnstein and Murray (1994) also argued that our social environment plays a strong role in determining our intelligence along with heredity. Critics of The Bell Curve (1994) nonetheless state that the authors made claims about racial minority groups without substantial supporting data. Gould (1996) offers a counter argument in which he states that it is challenging to measure an abstract concept such as “intelligence” through culturally and linguistically biased paper-pencil I.Q. tests and that the science behind Eugenics and its measurement of bodies was also flawed. The illustrations and graphs in Gould’s (1996) book are primary documents and one data chart in particular shows the various measurements of cranial capacity across the different racial groups. Gould shows how the data were distorted when more female skulls and older skulls were added into the pool of measurements for racial minority groups. Students are often shocked to hear that the cranial measurements occurred with the very same tiny mustard seeds used in our performance task. The skulls were filled with mustard seeds and then the mustard seeds were transferred into a measuring vessel and the inches cubed was noted. Calipers can also be used in the lesson study as a resource to show how yet another “scientific” device was flawed in its measurement of human intelligence. At the end of the unit, here are the final student outcomes: (a) race is a social construct that we humans have created to sort ourselves into hierarchies and that these categories looked different a few thousand years ago (Nubian, Spartan, Qureshi), a hundred years ago (Caucasoid, Negroid,

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& Mongloid), and from today (African American, Asian American, Native American); (b) race is defined differently from one country to another (Brazil vs. United States vs. South Africa); and (c) race is not equivalent to our biology and our physical appearance. Rather, race is a socialized term that has immense political power but it has less to do with our biology than our social environment. It is recommended that the teacher develop a PowerPoint presentation on Banton’s (1998; Source E) various theories of race at this time, which can provide a ballast for the final conclusions. Summative Performance In order to measure whether these student outcomes have been met, the teacher can create a series of short writing prompts at the end of the lesson study that focus on the essential understandings and compelling questions: “What is race?,” “How do we determine race?,” and “How does the concept of race change over time?” The students would need to provide supporting evidence from the course texts and course discussions in their written responses. In conclusion, the series of lessons described in this chapter uses an inquiry approach; therefore, at the end of this lesson study, another set of inquiries can develop. Students may determine that the next series of inquiries might be related to the role of race in the media or the role of race in our everyday life. These initial lessons will inevitably lead to another set of compelling questions related to race. Taking Informed Action Once students have gained a theoretical foundation of race theory, they can take informed action by applying these racial theories to real-world contexts and to places close to home by pulling it all together. In order to enhance a deeper understanding of racial theory, students can address race-based issues affecting their community—both local and national through the lens of understand, assess, and act. Here are a few examples of extension activities and lessons: Understand: (a) Research another country such as Brazil and South Africa and explain how this country defines and uses racial categories in comparison to the United States; (b) Research how our criminal justice system uses race to disproportionately incarcerate young Black men; and (c) Research the school-to-prison phenomena and determine which high schools in the state send the largest numbers of students to prisons and why there are such pipelines in place.

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Assess: (a) examine the benefits and challenges of collecting demographic data based on race in the United States; (b) collect data examining which students are expelled and suspended at school and whether there is a pattern based on race; and (c) examine TV commercials and shows to assess how different racial groups and characters are depicted. Act: (a) write a letter to a newspaper editor in relation to a current event that addresses race relations in our country such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the presidential elections, the policing of racial minority communities, the prison pipeline, etc.; (b) meet with a local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter and talk about race-based cases being addressed by the ACLU; and (c) meet with the school administration and ask for a school-wide assembly addressing race based concerns.

TIPS AND ADVICE • Make sure to read as much as possible on the topic of race theory before beginning this unit of study. • Talk to your science teacher and use texts to help teach Eugenics. • Inform the parents about the content of the unit beforehand in order to avoid possible conflict. • Start collecting local newspaper articles related to race based issues. • Listen to the students during their informal conversations in hallways and lunchrooms to gauge how students talk about race in their lingua franca. • Be prepared to address multiple emotions that might come from the teaching of this unit—from anger to guilt to resistance to apathy.

SOURCE NOTES Staging the Question Source A: Angier, N. (2000, August 22). Do Races Differ? Not Really, Genes Show. The New York Times. Source B: Bellitto, C. (2008). 101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

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Supporting Question 1 and 2 Source C: Pounder, C. C. H., Adelman, L., Cheng, J., Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T. H., Smith, L., & Ragazzi, C. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion [Television episode]. San Francisco, CA: PBS California Newsreel. Source D: Smith, E. (March 12, 2010). Who do you think you are? by NBC [Television episode]. Retrieved October 12, 2016 on the TLC Channel [http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/who-do-you-think-you-are/]. Supporting Question 3 Source E: Banton, M. (1998). Racial Theories (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Source F: Gould, S. (1996). The Mismeasure of Man. New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company. Source G: Herodotus (1987). The History [David Greene, Trans.]. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Source H: Shakespeare, William (1947). The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. (T. Brooke and L. Mason. Eds.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. REFERENCES Herrnstein, R., & Murray, C. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York, NY: Free Press. Landau, B. (2010). Revelation of the magi: The lost tale of the wise men’s journey to Bethlehem. San Francisco, CA: Harper One. Library of Congress (2017). Using primary sources. Retrieved from http://www.loc. gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/whyuse.html

CHAPTER 17

ON THE MATTER OF BLACK LIVES Using CRT and C3 Inquiry to Examine Current Events John P. Broome University of Mary Washington Jason Endacott University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

ABSTRACT In this chapter, students use critical race theory (CRT) and College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) inquiry to explore the compelling question, “If all lives matter, why do we need the #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) movement?” Students investigate what the movement is, it’s “herstory,” and historical, social, and political foundations through a political cartoon, readings, websites, and videos. They are challenged to understand the promise of storytelling, the danger of perpetuating stereotypes, and the examine difference between being racist, non-racist, and anti-racist. Using a satirical poem from the perspective of a 1800s slave owner, students are prompted to analyze poetry to identify

Race Lessons, pages 319–340 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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320    J. P. BROOME and J. ENDACOTT White privilege through humor. Using evidence from the lesson, students create a political cartoon arguing against the “all lives matter” perspective, and share it through social media using hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Lastly, students are encouraged to explore current #BLM projects, discuss ways they can take action, and contribute their opinion in an editorial for the school, local newspaper or on an appropriate blog. I don’t know [how they could convict Tom Robinson], but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do—seems that only children weep. —Atticus talking to Jem, To Kill A Mockingbird, p. 225

NARRATIVE OVERVIEW The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri shook our nation August 9, 2014. He was an unarmed 18-year-old, African-American male killed by a White police officer, Darren Wilson. His death sparked conversations and questions about race, racism, and privilege in the United States. The media flocked to the St. Louis suburb and captured the aftermath—protests, riots, the exoneration of Officer Wilson and the emergence of the #BlacksLivesMatter movement. Throughout our country, Americans discussed and debated the causes, significance, and lessons from this event. Many Americans immediately came to the defense of Officer Wilson, placing responsibility for Brown’s death on his failure to comply with Wilson’s commands. Many others, including those in the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, argued that the shooting of an unarmed and fleeing Black man was yet another example of racist police practices and the systematic elimination of Black lives. Our conversations played out in our homes, churches, on the news and through social media outlets. These are all agencies of political socialization, where youth and adults develop knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions (Campbell, 2008; Torney-Purta, 2002). Youth have access to these domains but they are also influenced by the agency of schools. Part of the “civic mission of schools” is to provide students opportunities for the discussion of controversial issues and current events for 21st century citizenship (Hess, 2009). The tenets of critical race theory (CRT) can transform these discussions by adding a dimension of criticality that exposes the hypocrisy of the racial status quo and informs efforts towards social justice. Inquiry learning is ideal for preparing students for critical social discourse because inquiry methods place students at the center of developing questions, investigating and synthesizing source material, using evidence and reason to reach conclusions, and presenting ideas to others for critique. The college, career and civic life (C3) framework (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) provides an instructional design process for

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creating student-driven inquiries, and the attendant inquiry design model (IDM; The Inquiry Design Model, n.d.) serves as a blueprint teachers can use to organize questions, tasks, and sources for use during instruction. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the confluence of CRT tenets and C3 inquiry design can lead to critical and justice oriented student inquiry and discussion. Race is part of the fabric of American history and yet is one of the most politicized, polarized, and problematic parts of the social studies curricula (Chandler & McKnight, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Tyson & Park, 2008). The narrative is often overly simplified and “African-Americans are virtually invisible” (Ladson-Billings, 2003, p. 3). It avoids controversy through notions of “multiculturalism” and the “colorblind perspective” and positions events such as the Civil War, the civil rights movements, and a Black president as evidence of a nearly post-racial America (Chandler & McKnight, 2010, 2012). This is further complicated by the fact that many teachers are fearful of teaching about race (Ladson-Billings, 1996, 2003) and would rather teach through a form of multiculturalism (Sleeter, 1994). Here we come at a paradox—the desired civic goals for the discussion of controversial current events and the apprehension to teach about a highly charged racial incident. Following the exoneration of Officer Wilson we conducted an explanatory survey study in which we queried 375 middle and high school social studies educators to see if they had discussed the death of Michael Brown and subsequent events in Ferguson with their classes (Endacott & Broome, 2015). We then followed up with those who indicated that discussion of Ferguson occurred to ascertain the qualities of these conversations (e.g., format, length, source material, purpose . . . etc.). Although not generalizable, these findings provide a troubling snapshot of U.S. social studies educators not initially prepared to teach about issues like Ferguson. The majority of discussions were unplanned, relatively short, under resourced, and focused on students defending opinionated positions rather than engaging in interest conscious dialogue or deliberation. Our developing citizens require a style of teaching and learning that encourages engagement with social issues in a critical and justice oriented manner, and the social studies classroom is the ideal space for this to occur. Following the recommendations of Tyson and Park (2008), critical race theory (CRT) can be used in the classroom to go beyond traditional civic education and the focus on civic competence, standards, and pedagogy and educate for a more activist and “justice-oriented citizen” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004, p. 239). CRT places “race as the unit of analysis instrumental in discussing the role of race, racism and power in civic education” (Tyson & Park, 2008, p. 29). Core to CRT is that racism is normal in our society (Delgado, 1995) and oppression is prevalent and common practice in the United States. In an effort to expose racism in our culture and curricula, it

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is important that narratives and counterstories of those victimized are present (Ladson-Billings, 1995). When teaching current events through a critical lens, this can be accomplished through culturally responsive teaching and addressing the “societal curriculum” (Cortez, 2000; Gay 2002). “This is the knowledge, ideas, and impressions about ethnic groups that are portrayed in the mass media” (Gay, 2002, p. 106). These representations are often inaccurate, stereotypical, prejudicial, and negative. Students access news and social media everyday and see their own populations as “menacing, dangerous social outcasts . . . relatively insignificant to the growth and development of our democracy . . . and represent a drain on the resources and values” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 4). This is damaging to our youth of color and calls for action through social justice in social studies classroom instruction. CREATING C3 INSPIRED INQUIRY THROUGH THE LENS OF CRT The C3 Framework provides an organizing structure for creating inquiries in which students investigate the answers to compelling and supporting questions tied to curricular objectives. There are four dimensions to such an inquiry: (a) developing questions and planning inquiries, (b) applying disciplinary concepts and tools, (c) evaluating sources and using evidence, and (d) communicating conclusions and taking informed action. The four dimensions of C3 present an excellent opportunity for social studies students to generate critical investigations into events that happen around the world. In order to understand how this is possible and how to develop this process in the classroom, we demonstrate how C3 and CRT might coalesce into classroom practice. Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries The first step in creating an inquiry is the development of compelling questions and supporting questions to guide students’ inquiry. The indicators for Dimension 1 focus on the creation of mutually reinforcing questions and the identification of appropriate source material. It is important to note that we are writing this chapter with the study of current events in mind, therefore our example questions are generalized for flexibility purposes. However, it is possible with little effort to envision how these questions could be made specific to an event in the present or to one in history.

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The central tenets of CRT are described in varying ways though Delgado and Stefancic (2012, pp. 7–10) provide a comprehensive description of the five tenets most commonly found in the literature: 1. Ordinariness—Racism is difficult to address or cure because it is not acknowledged despite the fact that it is “normal, not aberrant, in American society” (Delgado, 1995, p. xiv). CRT should be used to unmask and expose it (Ladson-Billings, 2003). 2. Interest Convergence—Since racism advances the interests of both White elites (materially) and working-class Caucasians (psychologically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it. Therefore, it has been argued that, “achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of Whites” (Bell, 1995, p. 22). 3. Social Construction—Race and races are products of social thought and relations. It is a social invention that does not correspond to biological or genetic reality. 4. Differential Racialization—Racialization is not objective, inherent, or fixed. As a social construction, race can be manipulated or retired when convenient for the dominant group. 5. Narrative Voices of Color—People of color have histories and experiences with oppression that their White counterparts are unlikely to know. Their voices provide a counter narrative based in experiential knowledge that “dispute myths of meritocracy and destabilize supposed norms and values of behavior based on White middleclass families and values” (Chapman, 2011, p. 221). The tenets of CRT can be used to generate general critical compelling questions (see Table 17.1 for a list) that can be used as guidance when creating questions specific to individual events. Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools Dimension 2 draws from the primary social studies disciplines to identify indicators related to disciplinary specific concepts and tools. For the purposes of this chapter, we have culled a number of indicators from civics that can be easily connected to Critical Questions (see Table 17.2). The focus on power, citizenship, rules, laws, processes, and institutions can serve as a fulcrum for connecting the tenets of CRT to the broader aspects of civics and citizenship that are codified in the C3 Framework as well as state standards around the nation. These questions are still relatively generic in that they were designed to fit any number of events or situations.

324    J. P. BROOME and J. ENDACOTT TABLE 17.1  Potential Critical Compelling Questions Based on Tenets of CRT CRT Tenet

Potential Questions

Ordinariness

How has the “ordinariness” of this event obscured racism or left it unacknowledged? How are racial problems being portrayed as something else? What language is used to skirt the issue of race?

Interest Convergence

How does racism or racist policies protect the interests of the dominant class in this situation? Why would large segments of society have little incentive to eliminate racism or racist policies in this situation?

Social Construction

How are people being racialized in this situation? How is race being used to create or promote differences between groups of people?

Differential Racialization

How is racialization being used for personal, political or economic gain in this situation? How might the experiences of various nonwhite racial groups differ in relation to this event? How is the media portraying various racial groups in this situation?

Narrative Voices of Color

What do voices of color tell us about this event? What do voices of color from this event tell us? How do these voices reveal masked or unacknowledged racial inequities?

TABLE 17.2  Potential Compelling Questions Based on C3 Civics Indicators C3 Indicator

Potential Compelling Question(s)

D2.Civ.1.6-8: Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media in a variety of governmental and nongovernmental contexts.

How does the unequal distribution of power affect the actions of citizens, interest groups, government and media in this situation?

D2.Civ.2.6-8: Explain specific roles played by citizens (such as voters, jurors, taxpayers, members of the armed forces, petitioners, protesters, and office-holders).

What is an effective protest? Who is allowed to decide what it means to be a citizen?

D2.Civ.7.6-8: Apply civic virtues and democratic principles in school and community settings.

Is the absence of personal racism enough to ensure equity and social justice?

D2.Civ.9.6-8: Compare deliberative processes used by a wide variety of groups in various settings.

How does one obtain justice? Do our deliberative processes allow voices of color to be heard on equal footing?

D2.Civ.10.6-8: Explain the relevance of personal interests and perspectives, civic virtues, and democratic principles when people address issues and problems in government and civil society.

How have people of color been racialized in this situation? How does racism or racist policies protect the interests of the dominant class in this situation? Why would large segments of society have little incentive to eliminate racism or racist policies in this situation?

D2.Civ.13.6-8: Analyze the purposes, implementation, and consequences of public policies in multiple settings.

How has the ordinariness of institutional racism hidden the consequences of systemic racist public policies in this situation?

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The unique characteristics of each event should be used to sharpen these questions and make them more relevant to the inquiry. Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence Dimension 3 provides indicators for evaluating sources and using evidence to answer the compelling and supporting questions that guide the students’ inquiry. It is important to be mindful, when using CRT as a lens, that the gathering and evaluation of sources should keep the tenets of CRT in mind. Sources should reveal the ordinariness of racism, promote voices of color from the event under study, point out the stakes for the dominant class, and provide evidence of racialization. Students should also be mindful of the strength and weaknesses of their source material. Dimension 3 emphasizes relevance, support, evidentiary limitations and claims. We have used these criteria to develop some potential questions for students to consider as part of their inquiry (see Table 17.3). Dimension 4: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action Dimension 4 is where students display what they have learned through the course of their inquiry, ideally followed taking informed action. Depending on the nature of the compelling question, students generally construct arguments or explanations followed by taking informed action based on their conclusions. The C3 Framework emphasizes using evidence from multiple sources, accounting for the relative veracity of the source material, presenting conclusions using a variety of mediums, and critiquing the TABLE 17.3  Guiding Questions for Dimension 3 Criteria

Questions

Relevance

• Do your sources represent a balance of power and authority? • Are the origin, authority, structure, and context appropriate for this inquiry? • What are their strengths and weaknesses of your evidence?

Support

• How do these sources support your claim or thesis? • Do your resources address racism, power, and include voices of color? • How did you account for weaknesses in your evidence?

Evidentiary Limitations

• What are the overall limitations of your source material? • How will these limitations affect your claim or thesis?

Claims

• What other possible claims or theses did you consider? • What are some possible counterclaims? • How would you respond to these counterclaims?

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conclusions of others. When evaluating students’ work, teachers should account for the strength of claim/thesis, use of evidence and pertinent details, organization, and consideration for relative strengths and weaknesses. Democratic deliberation happens in the public sphere and students need experience with reasoned and evidence-based deliberation in the democratic classroom if we are to expect it elsewhere. Dimension 4 is an extremely important aspect of the inquiry because CRT emphasizes activism. CRT “tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it; it sets out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies but to transform it for the better” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012, p. 7). As the students will learn in the lesson that follows, doing nothing is not enough. Content: Civics and Government, Current Events Connections to CRT: Ordinariness, Narrative Voices of Color, Social Construction Connections to Virginia Standards of Learning and NCSS Content Standards Virginia Standards of Learning: Virginia and U.S. Government (High School) US1. The student will develop the social studies skills responsible citizenship requires, including the ability to 1. examine and interpret primary and secondary source documents; 2. create and explain maps, diagrams, tables, charts, graphs, and spreadsheets; 3. analyze political cartoons, political advertisements, pictures, and other graphic media; 4. identify a problem, weigh the expected costs and benefits and possible consequences of proposed solutions, and recommend solutions, using a decision-making model; 5. formulate an informed, carefully reasoned position on a community issue; and 6. select and defend positions in writing, discussion, and debate. NCSS Content Standards Standard 1: Culture Standard 2: Time, Continuity, and Change Standard 3: People, Places, and Environments Standard 5: Individuals, Groups, and Institutions Standard 6: Power, Authority, and Governance Standard 10: Civic Ideals and Practices

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SAMPLE LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

If all lives matter, why do we need the #BlackLivesMatter movement?

Standards and Practices

Virginia Standards of Learning: US1. The student will develop the social studies skills responsible citizenship requires, including the ability to: 1. examine and interpret primary and secondary source documents; 2. create and explain maps, diagrams, tables, charts, graphs, and spreadsheets; 3. analyze political cartoons, political advertisements, pictures, and other graphic media; 4. identify a problem, weigh the expected costs and benefits and possible consequences of proposed solutions, and recommend solutions, using a decision-making model; 5. formulate an informed, carefully reasoned position on a community issue; and 6. select and defend positions in writing, discussion, and debate.

Staging the Question

Discuss the political cartoon of “Lady Liberty—Choked To Death by Racism and Oppression” from the New York Daily News (Bramhall, 2014) with students and its connections with the #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) movement.

Supporting Question 1 What is the #BLM movement?

Formative Performance Task Respond to the writing prompt “What is the #BLM movement?” on a piece of paper. As a class, discuss and collect knowledge of the movement on a KWL graphic organizer.

Supporting Question 2 What are the historical, social, and political underpinnings that lead to the development of the #BLM movement?

Supporting Question 3 What is the distinction between #BLM and “all lives matter”?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

List the historical, social, and political underpinnings that lead to the development of the #BLM movement.

Dissect the “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” poem with a partner using a poem analysis form.

328    J. P. BROOME and J. ENDACOTT Featured Sources Source A: “Not one more Darren Wilson, Not one more Mike Brown” Video by Democracy Now (www. democracynow.org) Source B: #BlackLivesMatter Website (www. blacklivesmatters.com)

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source C: TED talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s, “The Danger of a Single Story” (www.ted.com) Source D: “Black lives matter: A movement takes shape” (Petersen-Smith, 2015) in International Socialist Review

Source E: Watch youtube video “Are You a Racist?” (James, 2016) (youtube.com) Source F: Read “Bursting the White Bubble of Colorblindedness” (Halstead, 2016) from huffingtonpost.com Source G: Anthony McPherson’s (button poetry, 2015) poem “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” (youtube.com)

Argument

If all lives matter, why do we need the #BlackLivesMatter movement? Construct a political cartoon that addresses the compelling question, using specific claims and relevant evidence, while acknowledging and arguing against the competing view “all lives matter.”

Extension

Express these arguments using a blog or social media with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Have students compare their political cartoons to those in social media and reflect on similarity and differences in messaging.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Investigate a current project the #BLM movement is involved in. Assess: Engage students in small group and whole group discussions in which they deliberate on the manner in which they can take action in a variety of arenas based upon their conclusions. Act: Write an editorial for the school, local newspaper or a blog on a current event activity. Within the piece, students could discuss their positions on the efforts of those engaged and how it fits into the current #BlackLivesMatter movement.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Descriptions of the Compelling Question In this unit, students examine the compelling question: If all lives matter, why do we need the #BlackLivesMatter movement? To answer this question, they explore what the movement is and is not, learn the historical, social, and political underpinnings that gave birth to the movement, and investigate the difference between the movement’s unique intent and goals and the non-racist views of the “all lives matter” response. Students learn through engaging activities to build their knowledge and comprehension of the movement’s principles, purpose, and origins through readings, websites,

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and videos. They are then challenged to question the “all lives matter” narrative through a critical poem analysis. Students make their argument to the compelling question through the creation of an original political cartoon which is to be displayed or shared physically or virtually through the hashtag “#blacklivesmatter.” Students are asked to take informed action by investigating a current BlackLivesMatter activity or event and developing an evidence-based editorial to be shared for instructional or social purposes. Staging the Question: Political Cartoon of #BlackLivesMatter Introduce the lesson with the first supporting question: What is the #BLM movement? First, have students brainstorm individually on a piece of paper. As a class, have students create a KWL chart and fill in the “Know” column with their existing knowledge of BLM. Discuss their answers and transition into the next phase by providing students with an engaging political cartoon. The cartoon should provide an overarching theme such as injustice or activism. Introduce students to the purpose of political cartoons, the use of messaging and point of view of the illustrator. Have students complete a political cartoon analysis form (see Source Notes) and discuss findings as a class. Complete the “What I Want to Learn” column of the KWL chart with the questions that arose from the cartoon analysis and that students would like to know more about. The “Know” column of the chart should be added to as students discover new information about the BLM movement. Supporting Question 1 The first supporting question asks students to read, watch, and analyze various forms of information to determine what the #BLM movement is and is not. By considering this question, students will come to know more about the purpose of the movement, its origins and activities, and desired outcomes. Formative Performance Task The formative performance task has students develop a KWL graphic organizer (see Figure 17.1) about what students know, want to know and learn about the #BLM movement. Students will have varying understandings of the movement. As students complete the KWL graphic organizer, there are some questions to consider: Have you ever seen this hashtag?, Do you know what it stands for?, What do you know about it?, Do you know when it started and why?, How did it start?, What is the purpose of the

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What I Want to Know

What I Learned

Figure 17.1  KWL chart for #BlackLivesMatter.

movement?, What activities are involved in it?, When did it become mainstream?, What do we know are facts?, What are we concerned are myths?, and How do you feel about it? The formative performance task is an important first step because it begins to frame the students’ previous knowledge, current understandings and interests. After the KWL has been initially filled out, students should watch the “Not one more Darren Wilson, Not one more Mike Brown” video by Democracy Now (Source A). While they watch the video students should take notes on: the messages of the movement, the various examples of the kinds of activities that are displayed and the interviews. Students should have the opportunity to discuss what they viewed as a class. Does the video confirm or refute their understandings? After discussion, students should have access to the #BlackLivesMatter website (Source B). They should explore the movement’s origins, history, guiding principles, events, and ways to become involved. As a class, students should have an opportunity to reflect on what they came into the class knowing that day and any changes in their understandings about the movement. These should be recorded in the KWL graphic organizer. Additionally, the KWL be used throughout each of the supporting questions as a place to “touch base” and reflect on what they have learned each day and through the unit. It is a graphic organizer that promotes students’ curiosity and questions through the “Want to Know” column, and provides space to gather what they have learned throughout the process in the “What I Learned” column. Lastly, students can correct their previous knowledge, misunderstandings and myths (from the “What I Know” column) as they learn new facts, perspectives, and experiences throughout the lesson. Featured Sources The sources for this first formative performance task include a video on the movement from Democracy Now (Source A) and the #BlackLivesMatter website (Source B). These sources provide foundational knowledge of the movement and it’s connection to relevant events in U.S. history. Students

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have the opportunity to explore the movement through their website and explore the “herstory,” guiding principles, and activities of #BLM movement. Supporting Question 2 The second supporting question asks students to learn the historical, social, and political underpinnings that lead to the development of the #BLM movement. The movement builds on over 400 years of oppression of the Black peoples from slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement until today. By answering this question, students should be able to see the numerous evidences and voices that lead up to the development of the movement. Formative Performance Task The second formative performance task asks students to create a threecolumn chart of the historical, social, and political events and experiences that led to the #BLM movement (see Figure 17.2). Students should first view Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s (2009), “The Danger of a Single Story” TED Talk (Source C) to open a class discussion on the importance of using multiple sources to create knowledge and understandings of others. As they watch the video, students should take note on the speaker’s main themes and examples she uses comparing Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Students should discuss these themes after the film and provide examples from their own experiences. After students can work individually, in pairs or groups (a jigsaw is recommended) students are asked to read the “Black Lives Matter: A Movement Takes Shape” article (Petersen-Smith, 2015) in the International Socialist Review (Source D). This piece is rich in description, information, and narratives about the various events that lead to and impact the movement. Students should use paraphrasing and direct quotes to populate the chart as they read and gather information. After completing the chart students should discuss as a class what they learned while also comparing their new

Foundations of the #BlackLivesMatters Movement Historical

Social

Political

Figure 17.2  Graphic organizer for the foundation of the BLM movement.

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content to the first supporting question. The KWL chart should be revisited by students to update and debrief as a class. Featured Sources The sources for this second formative performance task include a video developing understandings and an article on the historical, social, and political underpinnings of the #BLM movement. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s (2009), “The Danger of a Single Story” (Source C) focuses on the inherent power of storytelling, and the danger of a “single story” in the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes. In “Black Lives Matter: A Movement Takes Shape” (Source D), students explore the complex underpinnings of historical, social, and political foundations that lead to the #BLM movement. Supporting Question 3 The third supporting question asks students to identify the argument between #BLM and “all lives matter.” By considering this question, students will identify what it means to be “colorblind,” the non-racist versus antiracist argument, systematic racism, and the unique principles of the #BLM movement. Formative Performance Task The third formative performance task asks students to create a poetry analysis of Anthony McPherson’s (2015) poem, “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” (Source G). Leading up to this activity, students should watch the short video “Are you a racist?” (James, 2016) from The Guardian (Source E). • • • • •

Suggested Discussion Questions: What is the difference between racist, non-racist, and anti-racist? Can you provide examples of each? Do you have examples from your own experiences? Do you agree or disagree?

Students should then read, “Bursting the White Bubble of Colorblindedness” (Halstead, 2016; Source F). This article provides a White man’s perspective on learning about his whiteness, systematic racism, non-racism vs. anti-racism, the fallacy of saying “all lives matter,” and the need for the #BLM movement. Suggested Discussion Questions: • What is the “White bubble”?

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• Explain the concept of systematic racism using the example of “school heat.” • What is colorblindness? • What is the difference between racial consciousness and racism? • How does privilege impact your life? Lastly, students will watch and then read the 2015 poem, “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” by Anthony McPherson (2015). Students should first watch and listen to the poem before they read it. They should discuss with a partner the meaning and alternative meanings to the poem. Students will individually create a poem analysis using a poetry analysis form. Featured Sources The sources for this third formative performance task include a video on racism, a reading on colorblindness and a video of a poetry slam from the perspective of a 1800s White slave owner. The “Are you a racist?” video (Source E) provokes students to question the difference between being racist, non-racist, and anti-racist, and the risks of remaining a bystander. In “Bursting the White Bubble of Colorblindedness” (Source F), students explore the concept of colorblindness and the role White privilege in the life of the author. Lastly, McPherson’s 2015 satirical poem of a 1800s White slave owner (Source G), uses humor to help students understand the concept of privilege.

Summative Performance Argument If all lives matter, why do we need the #BlackLivesMatter movement? Construct a political cartoon that addresses the compelling question, using specific claims and relevant evidence, while acknowledging and arguing against the competing view “all lives matter.” Present political cartoon vocabulary such as: caption, caricature, personification, exaggeration, symbolism, and provide examples. Students should brainstorm the purpose of their cartoon, messaging, identify how to visualize their claim, and any wording. They should include evidence from answers to the supporting questions, formative performance tasks, featured sources, and classroom discussion from the unit. Students should clearly answer the compelling question and successfully convert claims and evidence into illustrations.

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Extension Express these arguments using a blog or social media with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Have students compare their political cartoons to those in social media and reflect on similarity and differences in messaging. They can be also be submitted in a political cartoon contest by media organizations like The New York Times. Taking Informed Action Understand Investigate a current project the #BlackLivesMatter movement is involved in. The movement has several activities and projects around the country, students should use the #BLM website to explore one or more that interests them. Assess Place students in small groups and ask them to deliberate on their capacity to take action and affect change in relation to the BLM movement. Pose specific questions adapted from Dimension 4—D4.7 to help guide their discussions. • Is this an issue that is best addressed locally, regionally, nationally, or globally? • What are the possible “levers of power” that could be pulled to affect change? • What strategies would be most effective to use? • What are the potential outcomes you are hoping for? The students’ discussions should consider what is best and what is within their capacity for taking informed action. Act Write an evidence-based editorial for the school, local, regional, or national newspaper or a blog on a current event activity. Within the piece, students could discuss their positions on the efforts of those engaged and how it fits into the current #BlackLivesMatter movement. Students should provide a personal stance on the need for the project and what it would impact locally, regionally, or nationally.

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TIPS AND ADVICE Planning Your Lesson • Establish a routine in your curriculum mapping and pacing for the current events instruction and activities. • Establish a routine connecting current events and themes in your curricula. • Teach media literacy skills. • Create an open and safe classroom climate. • Model the discussion of controversial issues and practice. Working With Students • These conversations can be uncomfortable. That is exactly why we need to have them. • Allow students to express what they know and how they feel. Allow them to make mistakes and learn from them. • This is an emotional lesson, allow students to process how it best suits them. • Use activities that are appropriate for your students’ academic and maturity levels. • Know your class. Do not ask students to be “experts” of their race. • Don’t perpetrate the hatred of any group in this movement. • Have students focus on positive outcomes and social change. SOURCE NOTES Staging Question Bramhall, B. (2014, December 4). Bramhall’s world: The justice system and Eric Garner [drawing]. New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/bramhall-cartoons-december2014-gallery-1.2028602?pmSlide=1.2032159. The political cartoon, “Lady Liberty—Choked to Death by Racism and Oppression” by Bramhall’s World—Editorial Cartoons is in the New York Daily News from December 4, 2014. To find this and other political cartoons use a search engine, search in images: “Bramhall and Lady Liberty.”

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We recommend using the National Archives Cartoon Analysis Worksheet to analyze the cartoon. Go to http://www.archives.gov/ and enter “document analysis worksheets” in the internal search engine. Supporting Question 1 Source A: Democracy Now. (2014, December 1). “Not one more Darren Wilson, not one more Mike Brown”: National Protests continue Ferguson Struggle [video]. Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/1/not_one_more_darren _wilson_not Democracy Now provides a snapshot of the activities of the movement as well as an interview with founder Alicia Garza. Students can watch and debrief on the video or the transcript provided on the website. To find this video enter www.democracynow.org. From the search engine, search using the video’s title: “Not one more Darren Wilson, not one more Mike Brown.” Source B: #Black LivesMatter website www.blacklivesmatter.com The #BlackLivesMatter website is a rich resource for learning about the movement’s origins, history, guiding principles, events, and ways to become involved. The organization’s founders own it: Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. Supporting Question 2 Source C: Adichie, C. N. (2009, July). “The danger of a single story” [presentation]. TEDGlobal 2009. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_ single_story?language=en Prominent Nigeran writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie provides a TED Talk on growing up in Africa and moving to the United States for college. In this lecture she cautions the viewer not to develop an understanding of others based on single events and experiences. To find enter www.ted.com. From the search engine, search using the video’s title: “The danger of a single story.”

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Source D: Petersen-Smith, K. (2015, March 26). Black lives matter. A movement takes shape. International Socialist Review, 96. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter This article provides an overview from the movement and pays specific attention to the origins of the movement, the impact of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the civil rights and Black power movements, the mass incarceration of Blacks, the role of a Black president and progress the movement has made.

Supporting Question 3 Source E: James, M. (2016). Are you racist? ‘No’ isn’t a good enough answer [youtube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm5DWa2bpbs This video provides perspective on what it means to be racist, not-racist, and anti-racist. To find this video enter www.youtube.com. From the search engine, search using “Are you racist guardian” Source F: Halstead, J. (2016, March 8). “Bursting the white bubble of colorblindness” [blog]. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-halstead/white-bubble-ofcolorblindness_b_9293086.html? This blog provides a White man’s perspective on learning about his whiteness, systematic racism, non-racism vs. anti-racism, the fallacy of saying all lives matter, and the need for the #BLM movement. To find this source enter the article’s name: “Bursting the white bubble of colorblindness” and “Huffington Post” into a search engine. Source G: Button poetry. (2015 Oct 12). Anthony McPherson—“All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” [youtube]. https://youtu.be/eGR0ihYux6w Anthony McPherson is a slam poet whose performance is a sarcastic satire of “all lives matter” from the perspective of a 1800s White slave owner. To find the video and text enter https://youtu.be/eGR0ihYux6w from button poetry (2015) or in www.youtube.com enter the poem title: “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” in the search tool.

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We recommend using a poem analysis worksheet from Read.Write.Think. org. An example: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson1160/poetry_analysis.pdf From the search engine, search using “read write think poetry analysis sheet” Summative Performance Task • We recommend using the New York Times’ The Learning Network to develop and evaluate the political cartoon. Enter www.nytimes.com and “Drawing for Change: Analyzing and Making Political Cartoons” in the search tool.

Taking Informed Action • Understand/Assess: Enter www.blacklivesmatter.com”. Click on “events” or “get involved.” • Act: We recommend using the New York Times’ The Learning Network to develop and evaluate the evidence-based editorial. Enter www.nytimes.com and “Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials” in the search tool. RECOMMENDED SOURCES Websites/Social Media • Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org/education-outreach/ curriculum-resources/ • PBS Newshour Extra: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra • Rethinking Schools: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml • Teaching for Change: https://www.teachingforchange.org/ • Teaching Tolerance: http://www.tolerance.org/teaching-aboutferguson • Follow “#FergusonSyllabus” on Twitter, launched by Dr. Marcia Chatelain, Georgetown University

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Books Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press. Coates, T. N. (2015). Between the world and me. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau. Delpit, L. D. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. (Second edition). New York, NY: New Press. Hess, D. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of discussion. London, England: Taylor & Francis. Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to black liberation. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. REFERENCES Bell, D. (1995). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest convergence dilemma. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York, NY: New Press. Campbell, D. E. (2008). Voice in the classroom: How the open classroom climate fosters political engagement among adolescents. Political Behavior, 30, 437–454. Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2010). The failure of social education in the United States: A critique of teaching the national story from White “colorblind” eyes. Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies, 7(2), 218–248. Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2012). Race and social studies. In W. Russell (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader (pp. 215–242). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Press. Chapman, T. (2011). Critical race theory. In S. Tozer, B. Gallegos, & A. Henry (Eds.), Handbook of research in the social foundations of education. (pp. 220–232) New York, NY: Routledge. Cortez, C. (2000). Our children are watching: How media teach about diversity. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Endacott, J., & Broome, J. (2015, November). Teaching Ferguson in the social studies classroom. Paper presented at the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies, New Orleans, LA. Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106–116. Hess, D. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of discussion. London, England: Taylor & Francis. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Just what is critical race theory and what is it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24.

340    J. P. BROOME and J. ENDACOTT Ladson-Billings, G. (1996). Multicultural issues in the classroom: Race, call, and gender. In R. Evans & D. Sax (Eds.), Handbook on teaching social studies. (pp. 101–110). Washington, DC: NCSS. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Lewis, J. (2001). Social justice, social studies, and social foundations. Social Studies, 95(5), 189–192. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (c3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Sleeter, C. (1994). Resisting racial awareness: How teachers understand the social order from their racial, gender, and social class locations. In R. Martusewicz & W. Reynolds (Eds.), Inside-out: Contemporary critical perspectives in education (pp. 239–264). New York, NY: St. Martin’s. The Inquiry Design Model. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.c3teachers.org/ inquiry-designmodel/ Torney-Purta, J. (2002). The school’s role in developing civic engagement: A study of adolescents in twenty-eight countries. Applied Developmental Science, 6(4), 203–212. Tyson, C., & Park, S. C. (2008). Civic education, social justice, & critical race theory. In J. Arthur, I. Davies, and C. Hahn (Eds.), SAGE handbook of education for citizenship and democracy. (pp. 29–39). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Education Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269.

CHAPTER 18

HAS SOCIAL MEDIA PROVIDED COMMUNITIES OF COLOR A PLATFORM FOR SHARING COUNTERNARRATIVES? Jennifer E. Killham University of Cincinnati

ABSTRACT This inquiry lesson explores the ways in which social media has provided communities of color, such as Black Lives Matter, a platform for sharing counternarratives. Situated within a social studies or global perspectives course, the lesson examines expressions of resilience and turmoil shared through social media texts and images, as well as the historical connections between present-day social movements and the civil rights movements in the sixties. The lesson focuses on Black Lives Matter, an activist movement in America that raises awareness about systemic racism and other social injustices. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework, students locate, analyze, and reflect on the power of social media posts to facilitate the sharing of counternarratives.

Race Lessons, pages 341–360 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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NARRATIVE OVERVIEW Background Knowledge The date February 26, 2012, marked the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American male. Trayvon Martin’s passing struck a chord in his Florida community. News of the high schooler’s death spread rapidly on mainstream media (Hodges, 2015) and social media (Yartey, 2016). Accusations that Trayvon Martin’s death was a result of systemic racism were dismissed. In fact, much of the discourse surrounding the shooting sidestepped conversations of race and racism, ascribing to a more neutral, non-racist stance. Instead, mainstream media maintained tragedies like this one are often isolated incidents or individual error. This “non-racist stance” is placed in opposition to an “anti-racist stance,” in which the hegemonic and institutional structures of racism can be called into question (King & Chandler, 2016, pp. 4–6). Still, public mourning related to the shooting persisted on social media (Bell, Jones, Roane, Square, & Chi-Ying Chung, 2013; Blackmon & Thomas, 2015). While Trayvon Martin was not shot by a police officer, people used social media in similar ways to speak to the alarming number of men and women of color who had their lives ended during a police conflict (e.g., Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Natasha McKenna, Freddie Gray, and Mario Woods). For example, male students of color enrolled at Howard University filmed a video of themselves in hoodies, similar to the one worn by Trayvon Martin on the night of his death, asking the viewer “Am I suspicious?” (Court Scrub, 2012). In mid-July 2013, the court hearing Florida v. George Zimmerman was announced. Neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, was acquitted in the fatal shooting for Trayvon Martin. The public grieving continued, anger mounted, and social activists cried out “Black Lives Matter!” One could not be logged on social media without seeing evidence of this strife. Consequently, as the new school year drew closer, educators across the country began to wonder about the ways in which young people were making sense of these tumultuous times of racial unrest, a concern that would once again repeat with the shooting of another unarmed Black man, Michael Brown, of Ferguson, MO. Critical Frame This chapter asserts the possibility to leverage social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) as a means to engage with contemporary world issues required in social studies curricula. This lesson is an investigation into

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modern-day racial unrest in America through counternarratives shared on social media. Young people often approach social media platforms as a means of keeping in touch with friends. However, social media has increasingly become an arena for political discourse, as evidenced with the rise of online postings about the continued killing of unarmed Black men described above. In particular, social media presents a backdrop for the recognition and understanding of silenced voices and their firsthand accounts (Childs, 2014; Killham & Chandler, 2016; Krutka, 2014). The lenses of critical race theory (CRT; Delgado, 1995; Ladson-Billing, 1999) and racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; King & Chandler, 2016) situate the curricular decisions in this lesson. King and Chandler (2016) have suggested the need to “move past conceptualizing social studies as objective . . . and view each area as possessing its own racialized histories that influence the ways in which we understand them” (p. 12). Therein, counternarratives and counterstories serve as critical components of this lesson as an avenue to shed light into the sociology of race (Solorzano, & Yosso, 2002). In the context of this critical frame, students practice their perspective taking skills with the counternarratives from communities of color who have used social media to share their real-life experiences with racial unrest. Social Media Platforms Social media platforms are technology-mediated spaces, often regarded as interactive, instantaneous, fluid, but sometimes asynchronous and unpredictable. Social media has used multimedia to connect, share, inform, summon, organize, and coordinate multimedia information. In this lesson, young people delve into a treasure trove of shared personal accounts in order to construct narratives from multiple voices whom are often silenced or underrepresented in their face-to-face communities. For the purpose of this lesson, Twitter is used most often because of its accessibility and increased implementation in educational settings (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014; Evans, 2014; Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). Twitter is a popular social media service, akin to Facebook and Instagram. Twitter, however, restricts posts to 140-character microblogs. Twitter posts, also called “tweets,” allow the user to craft text-based statements, upload images, share hyperlinks, and link related conversations with hashtags. Hashtags, denoted by a pound sign (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter1), offer social media users a window into trending events (cf. Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl halftime show performance in Figure 18.1).

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Figure 18.1  Tweet connecting Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl halftime show performance to #BlackLivesMatter.

Twitter’s Use in the K–12 Classroom There are a growing number of creative ways to support teachers’ use of Twitter in their classrooms (Blair, 2013). Suggestions range from posting about upcoming assignment due dates to maintaining a livestream of questions occurring during a lecture (cf. Samantha Miller’s (n.d.) list of “50 ways to use Twitter in the Classroom” that has been reposted on TeachHub. com). Supporting teachers with the implementation of Twitter to discuss serious sociopolitical issues is fundamental. In our media-rich society, honing the ability to be a critical consumer of various forms of media has become an essential literacy practice. Killham and Chandler (2016) propose how teachers can begin to use social media to talk about serious content. In their article, From tweets to telegrams: Using social media to promote historical thinking, Killham and Chandler (2016) include practical suggestions on the use of Twitter as a primary source, specifically in relation to searching for sources, data preservation and loss, and ensuring the quality of content (e.g., teachers should familiarize themselves with the social media user’s activity prior to sharing with students). As a primer for this lesson, teachers are encouraged to review Killham and Chandler’s (2016) limitations and recommendations, as well as ensure the selected social media artifacts are relevant, retrievable, and appropriate (i.e., contain school appropriate language). Project Look Sharp, a media literacy initiative through Ithaca College, offers a guide to developing habits of inquiry called The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy: Critical Thinking in a Multimedia World (Scheibe & Rogow, 2012). This guide furnishes the building blocks of media literacy skills and critical consumption (e.g., the ability to analyze and evaluate posts on social media). This lesson draws both from trending social media postings, such as the stories of famous people youths may recognize (e.g., politicians in the news such as President Barack Obama and popular musicians such as Beyoncé)

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or posts from ordinary individuals and community leaders. A diverse collection of firsthand experiences can enable students to gain a richer picture of how racial unrest transpired in America. Throughout this inquiry, the complexity and subjectivity of racial unrest should become apparent. Teachers should take special note that since race can be difficult for young people to grapple with (Chandler, 2010), young people may need assistance determining and analyzing different viewpoints and understand legislative inequalities. Techniques included in this lesson, such as spoken word, can permit young people to make sense of their social media exposure and, further, cultivate youth citizenship (Ingalls, 2012; Weiss & Herndon, 2001). Content: Contemporary World Issues, Participatory Democracies, Media Literacy Connections to CRT: Racial Unrest, Counternarratives, Social Construction of Stories, Alternative Ways of Knowing Connections to State and NCSS Content Standards Ohio State Standards in the Area of Contemporary World Issues Civic Participation and Skills CWI.CP.3: Individuals can evaluate media messages that are constructed using particular tools, characteristics and conventions for unique purposes. Different communication methods affect how people define and act on issues. Civil and Human Rights CWI.HR.9: Nations and international organizations pursue their own interests on issues related to civil and human rights, resulting in both conflict and cooperation particularly as it relates to injustices against minority groups. Technology CWI.T.14: The development and use of technology influences economic, political, ethical, and social issues. Ohio State Standards in the Area of American History Historical Thinking and Skills Students apply skills by using a variety of resources to construct theses and support or refute contentions made by others. Alternative explanations of historical events are analyzed and questions of historical inevitability are explored. HS.AH.1: Historical events provide opportunities to examine alternative courses of action. HS.AH.1.1: Analyze a historical decision and predict the possible consequences of alternative courses of action.

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LESSON Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™ Compelling Question

Has social media provided Communities of Color a platform for sharing counternarratives? Ohio State Standards in the Area of Contemporary World Issues Civic Participation and Skills: CWI.CP.3: Individuals can evaluate media messages that are constructed using particular tools, characteristics and conventions for unique purposes. Different communication methods affect how people define and act on issues. Civil and Human Rights CWI.HR.9: Nations and international organizations pursue their own interests on issues related to civil and human rights, resulting in both conflict and cooperation particularly as it relates to injustices against minority groups.

Standards and Practices

Technology CWI.T.14: The development and use of technology influences economic, political, ethical and social issues. Ohio State Standards in the Area of American History Historical Thinking and Skills Students apply skills by using a variety of resources to construct theses and support or refute contentions made by others. Alternative explanations of historical events are analyzed and questions of historical inevitability are explored. HS.AH.1: Historical events provide opportunities to examine alternative courses of action. HS.AH.1.1: Analyze a historical decision and predict the possible consequences of alternative courses of action.

Staging the Question

Use a KWL chart and the ABCs brainstorming method to determine students’ prior knowledge about racial unrest in America and how racial unrest has been shaped by social media.

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

Supporting Question 3

How has social media been used as a source of strength and resilience for the Black Lives Matter movement?

How have images been used to convey counternarratives on social media?

In what ways was the social messaging of the Black Panther Party of the Sixties similar and different to the Black Lives Matter movement?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Identify sources of strength and resilience in the Cobb and Kang articles, and then annotate these sources of strength with social media posts as primary sources.

Complete the Library of Congress’s Guide to Analyzing Photographs and Prints based on a tweeted image posted during the Ferguson unrest.

Construct a Venn diagram comparing the Black Panther’s use of social messaging with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Social Media and Racial Unrest    347 Featured Sources Source A: The New Yorker article titled “The Matter of Black Lives” (Cobb, 2016) Source B: New York Times Magazine article titled “Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us” (Kang, 2015) Source C: The Black Lives Matter website with links to official Black Lives Matter social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr (www. blacklivesmatter.com)

Featured Sources Source D: Select an image retrieved on social media that was used in the annotations for the first supporting question OR Select media tweeted by Twitter user Purvi Shah @ leftinmiami (or similar)

Source E: Twitter post of Beyoncé’s dancers during Super Bowl 50 (Dreamdefenders, 2016) Source F: Black Panthers: Art and History (Gedal, 2015) Source G: 27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About the Black Panthers (Workneh & Finley, 2016)

Argument

Construct a digital timeline on how racial unrest impacted People of Color after 2013. Use social media postings as contemporary primary sources documenting racialized oppression.

Extension

Inspired by the voices of Communities of Color, write a spoken word poem that challenges traditional claims made by mainstream media about racial unrest in America.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Featured Sources

Understand: Determine the ways social media can be used to discredit or silence counternarratives about racial unrest. Assess: Identify microaggressions (e.g., micro comments that contribute to feelings of marginalization) within material sharing during this lesson. Students propose transformative strategies to minimize microaggressions. Act: Deliver the spoken word poem aloud to a live audience.

LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Description of the Compelling Question Compelling Question During this lesson, students build content knowledge regarding civic participation, civil and human rights, technology, and historical thinking. The lesson asks students to consider how social media, as contemporary primary sources, might be used as a platform to support the sharing of counternarratives about racial unrest in America. To thoughtfully consider this compelling question, students examine the use of the hashtag

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#BlackLivesMatter, experience counterstories through images, and compare social messaging used by the Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter. Staging the Question Allow students five minutes to individually pre-write in the “Before the Lesson” section of the provided KWL chart (see Table 18.1). This brainstorming exercise will (a) determine prior knowledge, (b) uncover where students get their news, (c) elicit potential misconceptions about racial inequality, and (d) enable more tailored conversations about racial unrest. Teachers may wish to dispel the myths of neutrality with news coverage. Students should be encouraged to revisit the KWL chart at the end of the lesson in order to articulate what can be gleaned about racial unrest in America through social media postings and generate further inquiry. Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources After students have crafted written responses on the KWL chart, transition to the first supporting question of “How has social media been used as a source of strength and resilience for the Black Lives Matter movement?” introduce students to two readings that will help them better understand the history of the Black Lives Matter movement: (a) “The Matter

TABLE 18.1  Counternarratives KWL Chart—Racial Unrest in America: What You Know, Want to Know, and Have Learned Before the Lesson Section

Know

Want to Know

Questions

Initial Prompt

What do you know about racial unrest in America?

Identify Sources

What social media postings or news coverage have you already seen on racial unrest?

Perspectives on Racial Unrest

Whose perspectives or personal account do you want to learn more about?

Determine Credibility

What should be considered when determining the credibility of the personal stories that have been shared on social media? After the Lesson

Section

Learned

Questions

Closing Prompt

What can be gleaned about racial unrest in America through social media postings?

Revisit Sources

Which social media postings generate further questions? Explain the remaining questions.

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of Black Lives” (Source A) and (b) “Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us” (Source B). Additional informational readings on Black Lives Matter can be found in the Source Notes. For the assigned articles, teachers should assess the length and difficulty of the articles; timing should be adjusted accordingly. Utilize digital annotations to document how people’s social media has been used to strengthen the resolve and resilience for Black Lives Matter. Encourage students to identify actual words shared by people from communities of color, helping to give voice to those who have experienced feelings of marginalization in mainstream media reports and American society. Require three to five voice-centered annotations in order to encourage a nuanced understanding about the personal impact of racial unrest. Annotations may be social media artifacts, sharing the lived experienced, feelings, and reactions of communities of color, or the students’ critical analysis of racial discourse. Teachers may consider separating the class into two groups, tackling the articles separately, and having the students work in pairs. There are a number of digital annotation tools available, including Diigo (www.diigo.com). Diigo offers a free service option and downloadable Chrome extension, through which students may save and share their work. Provide the following example from The New Yorker article that cited Mckesson (@deray) tweeting about meeting with @POTUS (i.e., President Obama). Direct students to the advanced Twitter search (https://twitter. com/search-advanced) using keywords cited in the article. To access additional social media postings, consider the Black Lives Matter website (Source C; www.blacklivesmatter.com), which contains links to the official Black Lives Matter accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Selecting school appropriate social media postings has been one of the most commonly reported challenges shared by the educators using Twitter (see Killham & Chandler, 2016 for suggestions). Lastly, the article, “How Twitter Posts Have Been Used and Misused,” is offered in the Additional Resources section as a critical media literacy extension reading. Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources The second supporting question—“How have images been used to convey counternarratives on social media?”—delves into the power of images to raise awareness about racial unrest and share the stories of people who often feel their voices are marginalized in mainstream media and society. Students may use images found while annotating the first supporting question (Source D), or they may use a tweeted image from Twitter user Purvi Shah (@leftinmiami). Shah served as the Bertha Justice Institute Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-creator of the Twitter

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account @ law4blacklives. As an extension of her legal advocacy initiatives, Shah used Twitter to document her experience with the protests in Ferguson, MO after the death of Michael Brown, as well as the protests in Baltimore, MD regarding the treatment of Freddie Gray. Shah’s tweets have been offered as pre-screened examples with school appropriate content and language; however, it would behoove teachers to confirm Shah’s tweets at the time the lesson is delivered. For the second performance task, students use the Library of Congress’s Guide to Analyzing Photographs and Prints as a form of systematic inquiry. This guide has been broken down into three sections: (a) observe, (b) reflect, and (c) question. Under “observe,” students describe what they notice. Under “reflect,” students generate hypotheses about why the image was made, who the intended audience was, and what can be learned from the image. Under the “question” section, students generate a list of topics for further inquiry. Upon completion, explain the tendency for people and curriculum to assume racial innocence and that they will, therefore, be asked to revisit the guide through the lens of race and racism. By doing this, teachers will intentionally engage the constructs of RPCK. Ask students (a) how their original description of the image contained racial discourse, (b) in what ways did their initial observations increase racial awareness, (c) how might their answers reflect prejudices, and (d) in what ways are wider systems of domination and competing power structures acknowledged? For example, in revisiting the “question” section, teachers should ask students to ponder (a) how race, as a social construct, can impact lived experiences of communities of color, and (b) in what ways shooting of unarmed Black boys and men might be a reflection of a hegemonic structure against communities of color? Through this, teachers adopt the positionality King and Chandler (2016) termed “anti-racist,” enabling students to see the rise of racial unrest “through a historical prism that includes a legacy of dehumanization, slavery, genocide, lynching, and brutal treatment from institutions (i.e., schools) that have told these communities that, in fact, their lives don’t matter” (p. 5). Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources For the third supporting question—“In what ways was the social messaging of the Black Panther party of the sixties similar and different to the Black Lives Matter movement?”—The intention here is for the racial unrest of times past (e.g., the Black Panther movement of the sixties) to be juxtaposed with modern day racial unrest (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter). Developing the ability

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to draw historical connections is important because data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) suggests that young people may need assistance as they deepen pre-existing surface-level knowledge about racial unrest, from both the past and present (Journell, 2014). Explain to the students that the Sixties was a decade which marked the height of the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam war protests. Public figures such as Helen Keller and Martin Luther King Jr. were still alive. This time period gave birth to the Miranda rights. Legislative advancements led to the legalization of interracial marriages, alongside entertainment feats such as the airing of the first episode of Star Trek, the playing of the first Super Bowl, and an introduction to pirate radio. Riots broke out across the East in cities like Detroit and Cleveland. Responding to the racial unrest, the Black Panthers, a far-left revolutionary political organization, outlined the party’s platform called the Ten-Point Program (the Black Panther TenPoint Program, 1968) to implore “an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people” (Point 7). Next, segue to the featured sources. Share the image of Beyoncé’s dancers dressed in black berets and giving the Black power salute (Source E). Explain that on Sunday, February 7, 2016, at San Francisco Bay area’s Levi Stadium, Beyoncé performed Formation2 during halftime at Super Bowl L. Facilitate connections between Beyoncé’s performance, Shah’s tweet of Alicia Garza (Source D), and the social movements of the sixties. When comparing, the aspect that should capture the students’ attention is Garza’s fist in the air. As a result, teacher should facilitate connections to the Black Panthers of the sixties in order to scaffold the similarities and differences across social movements. Further, teachers should encourage consideration of women of color in leadership in both movements and potential contributors to structural racism. If time permits, teachers may consider how their class can draw from a wider range of people who posted on social media, in turn increasing the diversity of voices represented. Next, ask students to read about the Black Panthers party. The article “Black Panthers: Art and History” (Gedal, 2015) talks about how the Black Panthers used posters and other forms of social messaging (Source G). Further readings can be found at #BlackPanthersSyllabus and additional political posters can be found on the Library of Congress website. The Huffington Post offers an easy to skim article titled, “27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About the Black Panthers” (Workneh & Finley, 2016), which allows the reader to gain insight into how the Black Panthers used social messaging (Source G). Students should apply the above information to the construction of a Venn diagram comparing the social messaging of the Black Panther Party with Black Lives Matter.

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Summative Performance Task Earlier in the lesson, students built on the tenets of curiosity, knowledge, and skills—now these tenets are put into action. Prior to the summative performance task, students have been exposed to a variety of social media postings on racial unrest. For the “argument” portion of this task, students call upon the knowledge gained from the three supporting questions to locate and examine reputable social media postings as contemporary primary sources. Students are asked to pay particular attention to sources that have documented racialized oppression for communities of color. Sources are then utilized to interpret these counterstories in the form of a digital timeline. The use of freely available web 2.0 timeline makers are encouraged (e.g., Knightlab, HSTRY, TimeToast). As a required “extension” activity, students will compose a spoken word poem that challenges traditional claims made by mainstream media about racial unrest in America. Students will take on the role of what Ingalls (2012) calls the “poet-citizen,” one who uses poetry as a rhetorical conduit to inspire the civic engagement of society” (p. 101). Teachers help students find inspiration in the voices of communities of color and have their students draw directly from the collected contemporary primary sources to revisit their KWL charts. Spoken word was chosen because it has increased interest from youth and a rich tradition of being able to provide voice to those who are often voiceless as it unpack difficult topics (Zitlow, 2003). Katzew (2003) asserts that spoken word is “focused on the politics and poetics of oppressed people” (p. 484). For teachers or students who have limited background knowledge on spoken word, Weiss and Herndon’s (2001) book, Brave New Voices: The YOUTH SPEAKS guide to teaching spoken word poetry may serve as a resource. Taking Informed Action In this final section, students will reject the normalcy of racist systems through informed action. First, students will demonstrate their understanding. Students synthesize prior work in the form of a graphic organizer in order to determine the ways social media can be used to discredit or silence counternarratives about racial unrest. Graphic organizers assist students in sorting facts and position statements, as well as genuinely hearing another person’s perspective. Teachers may find Barbieri’s (2011) graphic organizer titled “Hear My Voice!”—A People in Conflict” beneficial because it sorts what was said, the positionality of who spoke, and what beliefs the individual conveyed and why.

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Next, for the “assess” section of the lesson, students identify microaggressions (e.g., micro comments that contribute to feelings of marginalization) within social media postings or news articles shared during this lesson. Students will propose strategies to minimize microaggressions. Following this, students act. The recommended action is to deliver a spoken word poem to a live audience. In preparation for delivering their spoken word, students should watch the video recording of Sarah O’Neal’s (2015) performance of the poem An Overreaction, where O’Neal tackles race-neutral rhetoric. TIPS AND ADVICE Using social media in the classroom can challenge even the most technologically savvy of teachers. However, no matter how tricky a lesson with social media may seem, teachers should trust in the potential for a rewarding outcome. The Source Notes have been carefully curated to (re)engage students with RPCK and to permit students see themselves as agents of social change. SOURCE NOTES Supporting Question 1 Source A: Cobb, J. (2016). The Matter of Black Lives. The New Yorker. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black -lives-matter-headed3 To retrieve Jelani Cobb’s (http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/ jelani-cobb) article in the March 14, 2016 issue of The New Yorker titled “The Matter of Black Lives” go to The New Yorker website (www.newyorker. com/) and search the title of the article, or use the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/8YH5jf Source B: Kang, J. (2015, May 4). Our demand is simple: Stop killing us. New York Times Magazine. http://nyti.ms/1OTiMoy To locate Jay Caspian Kang’s article in the New York Times Magazine article titled “Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us” go to the New York Times Magazine website (www.nytimes.com/section/magazine) and search the title of the article, or use the following permalink: http://nyti. ms/1OTiMoy

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Source C: Black Lives Matter website www.blacklivesmatter.com Their official social media channels are linked to the website. Supporting Question 2 Source D: Twitter user @leftinmiami’s (2014 Aug 30) original image of the cofounder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza, while in attending the protests in Ferguson, MO. To retrieve the tweet, do an advanced Twitter search for this exact phrase “@aliciagarza marching in #ferguson” or at https://twitter.com/ leftinmiami/status/505745550902173696 Supporting Question 3 Source E: The Dream Defenders’ Twitter image of Beyoncé’s backup dancers wearing black berets at Super Bowl L posted by @Dreamdefenders (2016, Feb 7). https://twitter.com/dreamdefenders/status/696523685776195585 To retrieve the tweet, do an advanced Twitter search for this exact phrase “Beyoncés dancers in black berets at #SB50” or at https://twitter.com/ dreamdefenders/status/696523685776195585 Source F: Gedal, A. (2015, June 24). Black Panthers: Art and history. http://behindthescenes.nyhistory.org/black-panthers-art-history/ To locate the article “Black Panthers: Art and History,” conduct an Internet search for the words “New York Historical Society Museum and Library Black Panthers: Art and History” or go to http://behindthescenes. nyhistory.org/black-panthers-art-history/ Source G: Workneh, L., & Finley, T. (2016, February 18). 27 Important facts everyone should know about the Black Panthers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/27-important-facts-everyoneshould-know-about-the-black-panthers_us_56c4d853e4b08ffac1276462 The cited article, “27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About the Black Panthers” can be found at the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/nXqByc

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Narrative Overview The “Am I Suspicious?” Campaign Court Scrub. (2012, March 25). Howard University Trayvon Martin “Am I suspicious? [video]. Campaign video.” https://youtu.be/rH5bB8HUWFs Use the Internet search terms “Howard University Trayvon Martin Am I Suspicious? Campaign Video” to locate the YouTube video https:// youtu.be/rH5bB8HUWFs Twitter in the Classroom Miller, S. (n.d.). 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom. http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom Go to www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom or the TeachHUB website (www.teachhub.com), then search “50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom,” then click on the search result for Miller’s article.

Overview and Description of the Compelling Question The Hashtag #BlackLivesMatter A social media hashtag is denoted by a pound sign in front of a word or series of words. A hashtag allows for the grouping of social media postings with similar topics. The Black Lives Matter hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) can be searched on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Staging the Question Project Look Sharp’s KWL chart The KWL chart provided in this chapter was adapted from a Project Look Sharp’s KWL charts (Scheibe & Rogow, 2008). Locate this resource by going to the Project Look Sharp website (www.projectlooksharp.org), click on the left tab “Media Literacy Handouts,” and click on the title “12 Basic Ways to Integrate Media Literacy and Critical Thinking into Any Curriculum” or the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo. gl/92OGK6

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Question 1 Additional Resources Additional Background Information on the Black Lives Matter Movement The web posting titled, “Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to Movement” offers a lesson plan with resources on teaching about the Black Lives Matter movement. It can be found at the Anti-Defamation League’s website (www.adl.org), then searching “Black Lives Matter,” or at the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/safpyy Mark Engler shared a relevant classroom lesson on Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility’s Teachable Moment project titled, “Has Black Lives Matter had an impact?” that can be found by going to the Morningside Center website (http://www.morningsidecenter.org), then going to “Classroom Lessons,” then searching lessons by “Area.” Select “Current Events” in the Area category, then select “Activism” for the Subject, then “High School” for Grade Level, and keywords “Black Lives Matter impact.” Click on Mark Engler’s post (2016 Aug 20). Engler’s post can also be found at the hyperlink http://www.morningsidecenter.org/ teachable-moment/lessons/has-black-lives-matter-had-impact Diigo The free online annotation tool can be found at www.diigo.com. Advanced Twitter Search The advanced Twitter search (https://twitter.com/search-advanced) enables filters based on word usage, accounts, locations, and dates. For example, The New Yorker article cited Mckesson tweeting about meeting with @POTUS (i.e., President Obama). To locate this tweet using the advanced search, enter the keywords cited in the article (i.e., “Why did I go to the mtg w/ @POTUS today? B/c there are things we can do now to make folks’ lives better today, tomorrow, & the day after.”). The search will yield the following Twitter post: https://twitter.com/deray/ status/700487036105392128 Misuse of Twitter Miller, S. (n.d.). 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom. http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom This New York Times article stressed cautionary notes on how people have used Twitter and exposed limitations based on algorithmic filtering. The permalink for this article is http://nyti.ms/1tEI6C1

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Question 2 Additional Resources Analyzing Photographs and Prints The Library of Congress’s guide offers a systematic approach to inquiry with easy to follow prompts. To locate the guide, go to the Library of Congress website (www.loc.gov), click on “Education” on the top navigational bar and then “Teacher Resources” under “Teachers.” Next, click on “Using Primary Sources” on the left navigational tab, then “Teacher’s Guides and Analysis Tool.” The Guide to Analyzing Photographs and Prints will appear as a selection option. It can also be retrieved from the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/6CT4z5 Question 3 Additional Resources National Assessment of Educational Progress Journell, W. (2014). Teaching politics in the U.S. history classroom. History Teacher, 48(1), 55–69. The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program The Black Panther Ten-Point Program. (1968). The Black Panther TenPoint program. The North American Review, 253(4), 16–17. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/stable/25116819 To preview the original version of the Black Panther Ten-Point Program go to the Zinn Education Project website (zinnedproject.org), search “What We Want, What We Believe: Teaching with the Black Panthers Ten Point Program” or visit http://zinnedproject.org/materials/ black-panthers-ten-point-program/ Beyoncé’s Backup Dancers The Twitter post of Beyoncé’s dancers in black berets at Super Bowl L (#SB50) can be found at https://twitter.com/dreamdefenders/ status/696523685776195585 Purvi Shah’s Twitter Posts Locate Twitter user @leftinmiami’s original image of the co-founder of Black Lives Matter while in attending the protests in Ferguson, MO. To retrieve this tweet, do an advanced Twitter search for this exact phrase “@aliciagarza marching in #ferguson” or at https://twitter.com/ leftinmiami/status/505745550902173696

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Black Panther Party Readings To locate the article “Black Panthers: Art and History,” conduct an Internet search for the words “New York Historical Society Museum and Library Black Panthers: Art and History” or go to the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/ZOdATU. The second cited article, “27 Important Facts Everyone Should Know About the Black Panthers” can be found at the following shortened goo.gl URL: https://goo.gl/ eXM57A. Additional readings and political posters can be found on the Library of Congress website (www.loc.gov), or through the hashtag #BlackPanthersSyllabus on social media platforms, or at www.aaihs.org/ blackpanthersyllabus Summative Performance Task Additional Resources Digital Timeline Makers Several open source timeline generators exist, including Knightlab (https://timeline.knightlab.com/), HSTRY (www.hstry.co), TimeToast (www.timetoast.com). Spoken Word Katzew, A. (2003). Brave new voices: The youth speaks guide to teaching spoken word poetry. Harvard Educational Review, 73(3), 483–485. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/do cview/212337735?accountid=2909 Zitlow, C. S. (2003). Talking, writing, inquiring, performing literature. English Journal, 93(1), 109. Retrieved from http://search.proquest. com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/237295126?accountid=2909 See additional references on spoken word including Weiss and Herndon (2001), Ingalls (2012), and O’Neal’s spoken word (2015). Access the video of O’Neal delivering the spoken word poem through Genius.com, which presents the video with the full lyrics in annotated format (http:// genius.com/Sarah-oneal-an-overreaction-annotated). Genius’s annotation feature adds an interactive dimensionality to O’Neal’s lyrics by allowing additional discussion and cross-referenced hyperlinks. Take Informed Action Graphic Organizer Barbieri, K. E. (2011). Hear my voice! Teaching difficult subjects with graphic organizers. Social Education, 75(6), 301–309.

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Microaggressions A brief video from the New York Times about how microaggressions are surfacing on social media platforms. Locate the video through an Internet search for “Microaggressions that Sting” or at the permalink http:// nyti.ms/1d08Bwy NOTES 1. Through the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, social activists Alicia Garza (@aliciagarza) and Pattrisse Cullors (@osope) extended conversations related to this case to salient, systemic issues involving the treatment of African Americans boys and men in America. 2. Formation was a provocative and political hit single she released one day prior to the Super Bowl. 3. Due to the length of some of the URLs, they have been printed with extra spaces or hyphens. If you experience difficulty with the links, please try the search instructions or the shortened link.

REFERENCES Bell, R. N., Jones, T. J., Roane, R. A., Square, K. M., & Chi-Ying Chung, R. (2013). Reflections on the murder of Trayvon Martin. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5(1), 88–102. Blackmon, S., & Thomas, A. (2015). African Americans and Trayvon Martin: Black racial identity profiles and emotional responding. Journal of African American Studies, 19(3), 279–297. doi:10.1007/s12111-015-9306-0 Blair, A. (2013). Democratising the learning process: The Use of Twitter in the Teaching of Politics and International Relations. Politics, 33(2), 135–145. doi:10.1111/1467-9256.12008 Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2014). How and why educators use Twitter: A survey of the field. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(4), 414–434. doi:10.1080/15391523.2014.925701 Chandler, P. (2010). Critical race theory and social studies: Centering the Native American experience. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(1), 29–58. Childs, D. J. (2014). “Let’s talk about race”: Exploring racial stereotypes using popular culture in social studies classrooms. Social Studies, 105(6), 291–300. doi:10 .1080/00377996.2014.948607 Court Scrub. (2012, March 25). Howard University Trayvon Martin “Am I Suspicious? Campaign Video” [video]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v =rH5bB8HUWFs&feature=youtu.be Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

360    J. E. KILLHAM Evans, C. (2014). Twitter for teaching: Can social media be used to enhance the process of learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(5), 902–915. doi:10.1111/bjet.12099 Hodges, A. (2015). Ideologies of language and race in U.S. media discourse about the Trayvon Martin shooting. Language in Society, 44(3), 401–423. doi:10.1017/ S004740451500024X Ingalls, R. (2012). ‘Stealing the air’: The poet-citizens of youth spoken-word. Journal of Popular Culture, 45(1), 99–117. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00913.x Killham, J. E., & Chandler, P. (2016). From tweets to telegrams: Using social media to promote historical thinking. Social Education, 80(2), 118–122. King, L., & Chandler, P. (2016). From non-racism to anti-racism in social studies education: Social studies and racial pedagogical content knowledge. In A. Crowe, & A. Cuenca (Eds.), Rethinking social studies teacher education for twenty-first century citizenship. New York, NY: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-22939-3_1 Krutka, D. G, & Carpenter, J. P. (2016). Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 16(1), 38–59. Retrieved from http://www. citejournal.org/vol16/iss1/socialstudies/article1.cfm Krutka, D. G. (2014). Democratic Twittering: Microblogging for a more participatory social studies. Social Education, 78(2), 86–89. Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In L. Parker, D. Deyhle, & S. Villenas (Eds.), Race is ... race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 7–30). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scheibe, C., & Rogow, F. (2012). The teacher’s guide to media literacy: Critical thinking in a multimedia world. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Weiss, J., & Herndon, S. (2001). Brave new voices: The youth speaks guide to teaching spoken word poetry, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Yartey, F. A. (2016). Race, solidarity and dissent in the Trayvon Martin case: A critical analysis. Visual Studies, 31(1), 50–62. doi:10.1080/1472586X.2015.1128846a

CHAPTER 19

EXAMINING THE POWER STRUCTURES THAT IMPACT FRIENDSHIPS Jennifer Burke Millersville University

ABSTRACT This chapter features an inquiry based social studies unit created for an elementary classroom. The unit entitled—Who Has the Power to Pick Your Peers?— is created around the Foucauldian concept of power flowing through both individuals and institutions. Using this theoretical framework, children apply a simplistic form of critical race theory (CRT) when they begin to consider factors outside of themselves, such as their parents and their schools, to understand what impacts who they are able to befriend. This chapter focuses on the importance of including lessons about race in an elementary classroom as a way to combat color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2003) starting at an early age. In addition, it highlights the marriage of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework with CRT. Several of the lessons from the unit were implemented as part of the author’s dissertation study, allowing the author to provide authentic tips for implementation.

Race Lessons, pages 361–376 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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NARRATIVE OVERVIEW Race? You mean like a race car? —Johnny

This quote above comes from Johnny (pseudonym), a first grade male that his school identified as biracial. Some adults would smile and coo that this student’s quote is proof that young children are innocent, colorblind beings, who lack a strong notion of race or ethnicity. The problem is that children do not share adult’s reluctance to talk about race. In that same classroom, earlier that month, some first grade classmates were overheard debating if a Black Santa could be real. There was also a conversation between two students who were eager to engage their classmates in a discussion on the recent murder of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed in Cleveland on November 22, 2014 while holding a toy gun that shoots plastic pellets (Williams & Smith, 2015). Another classmate was seen shoving aside a picture book featuring two dark skinned children picking apples and declared, “I don’t want to read this Indian book!” Research shows early childhood educators are reluctant to bring up issues of race and ethnicity with young children (Copenhaver-Johnson, 2006; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001). Adults may be reluctant to discuss race and racism with children, but children are having the discussion without them. Not only are young children already attune to race in ways that adults may not recognize, but they use race in discriminatory ways. Van Ausdale and Feagin (2001) witnessed preschool children using derogatory racial terms, and witnessed White children refusing to allow a Black child access to their white baby doll. Nesdale and Flesser (2001) found five-year-olds in a mixed ethnic community developing an awareness of which ethnic groups are more financially secure and more highly regarded than others. Children are comparing their standing as a member of one group versus other ethnic groups in their community. This sophisticated use of systemic racial inequality indicates the need for adults to assist young children as they develop their understanding of the role race plays in society and in their personal lives. Early childhood educators who take on this challenge need a comprehensive method that takes children’s natural curiosity and focuses it on exploring complex societal issues. This is what the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) provides. The C3 Framework is a blueprint for teachers to organize inquiry based units. This unit was created using the C3 Framework to allow children the space to explore the role race plays in children’s lives: both presently and historically through structured questions, tasks, and featured sources (The Inquiry Design Model, n.d.).

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USING CRITICAL RACE THEORY TO COMBAT COLORBLIND RACISM Young children are often taught in school to “make good choices.” At the elementary level, encouraging children to see their lives as a series of choices is a useful tool for teaching them to self-regulate their behavior and make pro-social choices. For instance, they learn to “use their words” instead of screaming, crying, or physically harming their classmates. But perhaps this gives children a false sense of empowerment? What factors outside of the individual have power over children’s young lives? This unit is carefully designed to get children to examine the concept of power in regards to creating personal relationships across racial lines. The critical examination of power is a defining characteristic of critical race theory (CRT). Philosopher and theorist Michel Foucault (1972) asserts that individuals do not possess power in a society, but power is embodied and utilized by and through both individuals and institutions. Through scaffolded activities, this unit allows students to see the application of Foucault’s abstract concept in a concrete manner as they consider the various power structures that directly impact their selection of friends. Students will begin to explore the role race plays in their own personal lives, and then expand out to explore the historical context of race. This marks an important change in how most schools currently address race (Polite & Saenger, 2003). In order to avoid the unpleasantness of modern day racism, schools present racism an eradicated problem that was fixed by the civil rights movement (Copenhaver-Johnson, 2006). The message that race is no longer relevant is one example of how colorblind racism is spread in schools (Swindler Boutte, Lopez-Robertson, & PowersCostello, 2011). Color-blind racism is the term created by Bonilla-Silva (2003) to explain the racism that is prevalent in America today. In color-blind racism, some people (particularly White people) claim that America is a post-racial society where everyone is allegedly treated the same, without any regard for race or ethnicity. Language is used to minimize racism and situate it as “a thing of the past.” Differences that exist between the races today are considered “cultural” or “natural” therefore they are no one’s fault and little can be done to change the status quo (Bonilla-Silva, 2003). An example of how children inadvertently use color-blind racism can be seen in the following quote, taken from a study done in a second grade classroom. The students were asked if they saw racism happening today, and a little White boy responded, “No, because MLK changed everything” (Rogers & Mosley, 2006). Color-blind racism is directly combated in this unit when children are given the chance to practice using racially sensitive language while exploring the role race plays when they select peers. Bonilla-Silva (2003) uses Foucault’s concept of power to explain that color-blind racism is a systemic problem that allows

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White people to maintain a privileged position of power in society. Through this unit the children will explore where power lies in society, particularly in relationship to their personal lives and the people they consider friends. This unit is designed to have children compare the segregation experienced in the 1950s–1960s to their lives today. Many students will realize that when it comes to choosing friends, their lives are still extremely segregated. While educators are encouraging children to critically examine their own lives, they will be incorporating several strands from the C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS, 2013) in the areas of civics and history. Content: U.S. History, Segregation, Civics, Sociology Connections to CRT: Institutional Racism, Color-Blind Racism Connections to Pennsylvania State Standards and the C3: Framework for Social Studies (2013) Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards Aligned System Standard 8.3.3.D Identify and describe how conflict and cooperation among groups and organizations have impacted the history and development of the United States. C3 Framework: D2.Civ.6.3-5: Describe ways in which people benefit from and are challenged by working together, including through government, workplaces, voluntary organizations, and families. D2.Civ.14.3-5: Illustrate historical and contemporary means of changing society. D2.His.2.3-5: Compare life in specific historical time periods to life today. D4.2.3-5: Construct explanations using reasoning, correct sequence, examples, and details with relevant information and data SAMPLE LESSON Who Has The Power to Pick Your Peers? Compelling Question Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards Aligned System

Who has the power to pick your peers? Standard 8.3.3.D Identify and describe how conflict and cooperation among groups and organizations have impacted the history and development of the United States. –– Ethnicity and race

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Staging the Question

Students will participate in a “pick a friend activity” where they are shown a field of pictures of children their own age (Figure 19.1). They are to pretend they are alone on the playground and they are forced to pick a peer to play with. Then, students should share and justify their selections. Next, the teacher should ask the students to identify which child in the group looked the most like them. They should ask if this is the one they picked for a peer and examine the reasons behind that choice.

Supporting Question 1 for lesson titled: Do my parents pick my friends? What power do parents have in their children’s choices for friendships?

Supporting Question 2 for lesson titled: Have parents always acted this way?

Supporting Question 3 for lesson titled: Why do schools and pools matter?

Has the role adults play in What types of institutions their children’s friendships have power over who a changed over time? child is friends with?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Participate in a structured discussion where the children consider the role their parents and race plays in their friendships.

Create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the role the parents played in Courtney’s Birthday Party and The Other Side

Formative Performance Task Make a chart of all the external factors that impact a child’s choice in their peer relations.

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Featured Sources

Source A: CNN YouTube clip on race (https://youtu. be/h55plaSVkkw) Source B: Courtney’s Birthday Party by Loretta Long (1998)

Source C: The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson (2001)

Source D: Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles Source E: Ruby Bridges materials

Argument

How does race impact personal friendships? Create a poster, diorama, skit, song, or essay that discusses the role of individual, parental, and institutional power in creating friendships.

Extension

Share the materials created with parents or peers in a “Friendship Forum” and hold an open discussion on the role race plays in their daily lives.

Summative Performance Task

Taking Informed Action

Understand: As a class, analyze the data collected at the Friendship Forum. Hold whole class and small group discussion on what the data reveals and who the data should be shared with to enact change. Assess: Write a letter to someone who did not participate in the class discussion about everything you learned in class and explain how the information you learned also pertains to them. Act: Mail the letters. Post letters and data collected at the Friendship Forum on a class webpage.

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LESSON NARRATIVE Overview and Introduction to Compelling Question The compelling question of this unit—Who has the power to pick your peers?—allows elementary students to investigate race. The unit begins by exploring the concept of individual’s choice in selecting peers, then examines the role parents/guardians play, and finally considers larger social structures such as schools. This unit plan was designed for elementary school use. Using the resources provided, it could easily be adapted to Grades 2–5. The initial staging activity (Lesson 1: Pick a Friend) has been successfully used with children as young as first grade, to problematize the issue of selecting peers based on race and ethnicity. Each individual lesson might be broken up into small lessons and done over several days, to accommodate prolonged multi-day discussions and the hectic overcrowding of elementary classroom scheduling. Staging the Question The unit begins with this important staging activity called Pick a Friend. Prior to the lesson, the teacher should do a quick Google search to find a field of images representing males and females from various racial groups that are around the age of the students in the class. The set of images the author used with 7–9 year olds is shown in Figure 19.1. The teacher should display the images and set up the following scenario for the students: pretend you are alone on a playground. The children in the pictures are already playing on the playground. Who would you go up to and ask to play? The children should silently think about their choice and write down their answer on a piece of paper. They should then pair up with a peer or small group to discuss their choices and provide justification for their selection. Finally, have the students share their choices with the whole class. This could be treated as a cross-curricular mathematical activity, and the data could be represented in a graph. When analyzing their data, explore which children were selected the most often and discuss possible reasons why. Point out which children were not selected at all, and have the children explore why they believe that is. Based on the multicultural images you have selected, this is an opportunity to familiarize children with appropriate racial terminology, such as Black, White, Hispanic, Native American, Indian, etc. It is also a chance to point out racial and gender biases that the children might display.

Figure 19.1  “Pick a Friend” activity.

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Next, have the children look at the field of pictures again and find the one child that they believe is the most like themselves. Often, these will align with their previously selected friend. Discuss how children and adults tend to favor individuals that remind them of themselves, and explore how that could be detrimental (Aboud, 2003). For example, if the majority of children in an area are White it ostracizes people of color. It also does a disservice to White children who will miss out on an opportunity to learn about other people and cultures. Over the course of this activity, many children may decide they want to change their friend selection, or pick a secondary friend to play with also. The teacher should encourage this, and explain that it is never a bad thing to change your mind about a person. The teacher should conclude the conversation with these exit questions: What are the most important qualities when selecting a friend? Does a friend have to look like you to be a good friend? Supporting Question 1: Do My Parents Pick My Friends? Question 1: What power do parents/guardians have in their children’s choices for friendships? In the first lesson, the children begin to problematize their own choices for peers. They start by considering if they were limiting themselves by selecting mostly peers who resembled themselves. Now, it is time for them to consider the role their parents/guardians play in selecting peers. Formative Performance Task The formative performance task for this first question is a structured discussion. The lesson begins with the students watching the CNN video Kids and Race (link: https://youtu.be/h55plaSVkkw). After the video, have the class define the terms race and racism. Write their definitions down and display them on an anchor chart1 for the remainder of the unit. When creating the definitions, try to use the children’s terms so the definitions become child friendly. Something along the following lines would be appropriate for 7–9 year olds: • Race: A way to describe people and used to separate various groups of people based on physical characteristics (such as skin color). • Racism: The belief that human races have unique characteristics, which creates separate cultures. This usually means people think their own race is better than others.

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Once definitions are agreed upon, read the students the book Courtney’s Birthday Party by Dr. Loretta Long (1998; Source B). This book features a little Black girl, Diana, who is not invited to her White best friend’s birthday party, because the White mother does not think she will “fit in.” Following the story, have the children participate in a structured discussion. Set up a continuum in the classroom, where one side of the room is labeled “no,” the other side is marked “yes,” and the middle is marked with “maybe/sort of/sometimes.” Post-its notes or masking tape can be used to create a line and the yes, maybe, no labels. Ask the children a series of yes or no questions about their own experiences with race. Have the children go stand on the spot in the classroom that represents their answer, yes, no, or somewhere in the middle.

Yes

Maybe/Sort of/Sometimes

No

Some questions might include: • Do all of your best friends look like you? • At your last birthday party did you invite people from other races/ ethnicities? • Do your parents have any friends who are from different races? • Do your parents like people that are not the same race as them? • Do your parents want you to play with people who are not the same race as you? Once the children pick their spot allow a few children to share why they chose their spot to stand on. This structured discussion must be a respectful dialogue, where several children are given time to talk. The students should be encouraged to listen silently to their peer’s experiences before commenting. Through this lesson children will be forced to consider whether their own friendships are racially diverse. They will begin to examine why this might be, and the use of the book will allow them to consider the role their parents/guardians play in this decision. Featured Sources The sources for the first formative performance task are a CNN video (Source A) and Courtney’s Birthday Party by Dr. Loretta Long (1998; Source B). The video serves as a way to introduce the concept of race and racism. Courtney’s Birthday Party (Long, 1998; Source B) features a story about racism as experienced by children. This allows students the opportunity to see how racism affects children, and to share if they have ever been personally

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affected by it. This book allows children to explore the idea that parents/ guardians have power over who they select as a friend. Supporting Question 2: Have Parents Always Acted This Way? Question 2: Has the role adults play in their children’s friendships changed over time? The second supporting question asks students to consider the role parents have historically played in deciding who their children can befriend. By answering this question, they will see that racism is not a new problem, but has deep historically roots in American society. Formative Performance Task The second formative performance task asks students to continue the role parents/guardians have in selecting peers, but now they are asked to create a Venn diagram to consider it historically. First, the teacher needs to read the book The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson (Source C). Explore with them the role the parents played in this story. Then, either as a whole class, a small group, or as an individual activity, have the students create a Venn diagram comparing Courtney’s Birthday Party (Source B) to The Other Side (Source C). Using their Venn diagrams, the students should be ready to discuss if much has changed with racial relationships over time. The continuum from the previous lesson could be used to structure the discussion, beginning with the targeted question—Has much changed with the way parents feel about the race of their children’s friends?

Yes, things have changed

Things have changed a little

No, things have not changed at all

Featured Sources The featured source for this book is The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson (Source C). This book works well for examining power, because the young White child and young Black children decided to interact despite their parent’s warnings. In this way the students can explore the power parents have, and contrast it to the autonomy the children in the book ultimately displayed.

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Supporting Question 3: Why Do Schools and Pools Matter? Question 3: What types of institutions influence whom a child befriends? The final supporting question takes the examination of power from the personal level to the institutional level. Formative Performance Task Over the rest of this unit, the class will work together to create a running list of all the external factors that impact an individual’s ability to choose their friendships. Begin by having each child brainstorm a list of their “best friends” for 1 minute. When one minute is up, ask the students to label where they met that friend. For example, is the “best friend” a family member (cousin/sibling/etc.) or someone they met at school, or church, or in their neighborhood. The teacher should list the answers on a class anchor chart so the students can begin to notice a pattern. Featured Sources For this formative performance task, the teacher should read books that show segregation. The two featured sources are Freedom Summer (Source D) and any book/movie that features the Ruby Bridge’s narrative (Source E). Point out to the children the institutional structure that was limiting the children from associating with each other and therefor forming friendships. For instance, in Freedom Summer (Source D) the neighborhood pool was segregated, therefore, it limited who could go there and make friends. In the Diary of Ruby Bridges (Source E), both Ruby’s neighborhood and original school were segregated. Using the chart the class made, compare the places the students make friends, to the places that were historically segregated. It should be noted that this lesson could be extended by reading several books to explore the many ways both de jure and de facto segregation impact children and their friends. See Table 19.1 for a list of recommended additional picture books. Summative Performance Task Argument At this point in the unit the children have been able to deeply examine their own lives, and have discussed several different layers of power (self, parental, societal, institutional) that impact their ability to select friends. The students will be given the chance to synthesize the knowledge they gained through the formative performance tasks and featured sources to

372    J. BURKE TABLE 19.1  List of Recommended Picture Books About the Civil Rights Movement Children of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton (2009)

This book is written from a child’s perspective on the civil rights movement. Her father was an activist and her uncle was Martin Luther King Jr. This book examines the individuals who worked collectively for societal change.

Freedom on the Menu: The Greesnboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford (2007)

This book focuses on the lunch counter as the public space that is denied to the eight-year old female protagonist named Connie. Connie finds a way that she and her young siblings can participate in the movement by making signs.

Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mensex and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh (2014)

This is the story of Sylvia Mendez, an American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, whose family fought to end segregated schooling in California.

creating a project framed around the question: How does race impact personal friendships? Their project will be showcased or implemented during the extension activity, which is to host a “Friendship Forum.” In order to personalize this experience, students should be given several project options to explore this question. One option could be for students to create a survey that could be done during the Friendship Form. The young sociologists can decide to collect data on how the racially diverse the visitors consider their own personal group of friendships to be. They should come up with survey questions and a plan for displaying the data. Another idea would be for the students to create a list of suggestions to improve racial integration, and survey the attendee’s thoughts on which suggestion would be the most effective at the forum. Creatively minded students might wish to answer the question—How does race impact personal friendships?—by creating their own song, poem, skit, or piece of art that would reflect their current understanding of race and power structure that impact friendships. One poetry format that students could implement is an “I am” poem. A template can be accessed on the Freeology website, http://freeology.com/wp-content/files/iampoem.pdf. The young artists should display or perform their work at the Friendship Form. Extension The students will be responsible for hosting parents, community members, and perhaps other classes at a Friendship Forum. The students will share their projects and conduct their surveys. Hopefully, the projects and conversations in the Friendship Forum could lead to some innovative solutions for creating cross-cultural connections within the community.

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Taking Informed Action Understand There should be a class session spent debriefing the Friendship Forum. The class should analyze the data collected in surveys and create a visual to display it. They should also draw or write reflections from the forum, to document the conversations they engaged in with forum participants. Assess After the students analyze their data, they should write a letter to someone who did not participate in the Friendship Forum. On a micro scale, these letters could be sent to relatives or peers who were unable to attend the forum. On a macro scale, these letters could be addressed to individuals with power in an effort to enact change. Act The students should share the data that they collected. This could be done publically on a school or class website. TIPS AND ADVICE When implementing this unit, teachers must be prepared for children to display racial biases. The following transcript is an excerpt from the staging lesson that was done as part of the author’s dissertation study. The study was done in a first grade classroom in central New Jersey with a diverse student population. The student’s racial/ethnic information is included below because it factors into how they responded to the image of this child. Me: I don’t think anybody picked this friend and I was wondering why? Jovan (biracial White/Black): Aw! Angelo (Mexican): Boo! thumbs down gesture Michelle (Latina) sticks her tongue out and grimaces. Me: What do you think Aiden? Aiden (Costa Rican): Cause he’s mean. Damon (biracial White/Black): No he’s not. Gavin (Filipino): Common on, he’s smiling. Aiden: (shakes his head no) His . . . his hair. It’s not like the same as us. This conversation occurred in the presence of the entire class, and two teachers. Both of the teachers are White females, but the class is comprised

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of many races and ethnicities. Yet Aiden still felt justified in saying that the little boy with cornrows was not like “us.” Here Aiden’s use of the word “us,” is a marker of how he has constructed whiteness as normative. The boy in cornrows aligns with the images they have seen in the media where Black males are constructed as wild, deviant, and criminal (DeLeon, 2006). Pointing out this bias is imperative to the students. If children normalize Whiteness with terms like “us” or “them” ask the student to clarify whom “us” and “them” refers to. Get the children to realize those terms leave children out and can be hurtful. In this situation it was explained to the class that several of them judged this boy harshly before they even got to know him. The teacher might want to create a scenario where this boy is the smartest student in his class and just won a citizen of the month award, to emphasize that Black males do not deserve to be criminalized. SOURCE NOTES The picture books in this unit can be found at local libraries. Several of the books can often be found as read alouds on YouTube if you search the title and author. Supporting Question 1 Source A: YouTube video “CNN Kids and Race” The YouTube video on Kids and Race can be accessed via this link (https://youtu.be/h55plaSVkkw) or a YouTube search using the phrase “CNN Kids and Race.” Source B: Courtney’s Birthday Party Long, L., (1998). Courtney’s birthday party. East Orange, NJ: Just Us Books. Supporting Question 2 Source C: The Other Side Woodson, J. (2001). The other side. New York, NY: Putnam’s. Supporting Question 3 Source D: Freedom Summer Wiles, D. (2001). Freedom summer. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

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This book features a Black woman who works for a White family. Through this un-equal socio-economic relationship the woman’s Black son befriends the White child. The town is forced to desegregate the swimming pool, but instead chooses to fill it in with cement. This book can be used to examine the unequal working opportunities for people of color, and the ways in which a public institution can be racist. Source E: Ruby Bridges Bridges, R. (1999). Through my eyes. New York, NY: Scholastic Press. Coles, R. (1995). The story of Ruby Bridges. New York, NY: Scholastic. Disney’s Ruby Bridges: A real American hero [Motion picture]. (1998). The Ruby Bridge’s movie can be found on YouTube (https://youtu.be/ QZgnDbSQ4Io) These materials tell the story of how first grader Ruby Bridges was part of the desegregation of the New Orleans’ school system. They can be used to show both individual racism, since White parents pulled their children from school rather than exposing them to Ruby, and structural racism, since the federal government had to send the National Guard to escort Ruby to school since the state of Louisiana still supported segregation. NOTE 1. Anchor chart is the term used for a colorful chart co-created with a class to display in the classroom during an instructional unit. Anchor charts contain only simple icons and graphics so that they are easy to understand. The anchor chart makes current content, strategies, and guidelines visible during the learning process for students to refer back to.

REFERENCES Aboud, F. E. (2003). The formation of in-group favoritism and out-group prejudice in young children: Are they distinct attitudes? Developmental Psychology, 39(1), 48–60. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.39.1.48 Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Copenhaver-Johnson, J. (2006). Talking to children about race: The importance of inviting difficult conversations. Childhood Education, 83(1), 12–22 DeLeon, A. P. (2006) Beware of Black the ripper! Racism, representation, and building antiracist pedagogy. The Social Studies, 97(6), 263–267

376    J. BURKE National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Nesdale, D., & Flesser, D. (2001). Social identity and the development of children’s group attitudes. Child Development, 70(2), 506–517. Polite, L., & Saenger, E. B. (2003). A pernicious silence: Confronting race in the elementary classroom. The Phi Delta Kappan, 85(4), 274–278. Rogers, R., & Mosley, M. (2006). Racial literacy in a second-grade classroom: Critical race theory, whiteness studies, and literacy research. Reading Research Quarterly, 41(4), 462–495. Shelton, P. Y. (2013). Children of the civil rights movement. New York, NY: Dragonfly Books. Swindler Boutte, G., Lopez-Robertson, J., & Powers-Costello, E., (2011). Moving beyond colorblindness in early childhood classrooms. Early Childhood Education, 39, 335–342. The Inquiry Design Model. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.c3teachers.org/inquiry -design-model/ Tonatiuh, D. (2014). Separate is never equal: Sylvia Mendez and her family’s fight for desegregation. New York, NY: Abrams. Van Ausdale, D., & Feagin, J. R. (2001). The first r: How children learn race and racism. Lanbam, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Weatherfor, C. B. (2007). Freedom on the menu: The Greensboro sit-ins. New York, NY: Puffin Books. Williams, T., & Smith, M. (2015, December 28). Cleveland officer will not face chargers in Tamir Rice shooting. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www .nytimes.com/2015/12/29/us/tamir-rice-police-shootiing-cleveland.html?_r=0.

SECTION III VOICES FROM THE FIELD

CHAPTER 20

NOTES ON UNDERSTANDING AND VALUING THE ANGER OF STUDENTS MARGINALIZED BY THE SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM Lisa Gilbert Saint Louis University

In this chapter, I intend to evoke the anger on the part of students from oppressed groups, especially students of color, who are faced with the attempted erasure, silencing, and flattening of their experiences and identities through the social studies curriculum.1 This kind of anger, I submit, is beautiful, something which speaks to students’ humanity and intelligence, and which is often a part of a struggle to maintain an authentic voice. To think—and teach—in this way is to go against the grain. American society has tended to see the anger of people of color as pathological (hooks, 1995; Kim, 2013), and the dominant discourse in K–12 education tends to view student anger primarily as a problem for classroom management (for an example, see Wilde, 2002). Yet there are substantial grounds for viewing Race Lessons, pages 379–395 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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anger as a lucid and healthy response to a variety of situations, and this view may have more positive associations than many may anticipate. For Freire (1998), anger joins with love as a “motivational foundation” for struggle. Both emotions are worthy of expression. Freire lays claim to a right to be angry as based in a belief that we “live in history at a time of possibility”: If reality were pure determinism because it was thus decided or planned, there would be no reason at all to be angry. My right to be angry presupposes that the historical experience in which I participate tomorrow is not a given but a challenge and a problem. My just anger is grounded in any indignation in the face of the denial of the rights inherent in the very essence of the human condition. (Freire, 1998, p. 71)

Psychologist Nico Frijda sums it up succinctly when he states, “Anger implies hope” (quoted in Kim, 2013, p. 13). The type of hope we need to keep in mind is not a naïve hope but a critical one (Bozalek, Leibowitz, Carolissen, & Boler, 2014), the kind Freire (1998) has in mind when he writes that hope is an “ontological dimension of our human condition” (p. 58) and concludes that the absence of hope represents a “distortion” of humanity (p. 69). In these pages I will thus trace out an understanding of student anger as a hopeful phenomenon. To build this argument, I will draw from critical race theory (CRT), feminist epistemology, and critical pedagogy. First, I will offer an overview of critical race studies of the social studies curriculum to indicate there is a good basis for anger, and then turn to examine the broader education literature on emotion to provide a conceptual framework. Next, I will utilize feminist epistemology to offer a proposal for an alternate view of anger. Finally, I will sketch out strategies for social studies educators who want to value their students’ experienced and expressed anger. In keeping with the difficult nature of the problem at hand, the goal of this chapter is not to suggest quick fixes but rather to provide conceptual material for teachers’ ongoing reflection as professional educators. JUSTIFIED ANGER: CRT AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM Anger often arises as a response to hurt and harm. All too often, the typical social studies curriculum creates the conditions for hurt and harm through a bias toward White supremacy. Critical race studies provide insights into this tendency. For example, Howard (2003) demonstrates that social studies education diminishes and even silences salient issues of race and racism, despite being tasked with developing students’ identities as democratic citizens. Chandler and McKnight (2009) similarly draw attention to the

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field’s preference for a “colorblind” approach, describing the avoidance of race and racism as a critical failure that perpetuates injustice through the schools. Further, textbooks and curriculum standards often silence salient aspects of historical race relations. Wills (2001) shows that the influence of power relations in interactions between people of color and Whites is largely absent from the historical narratives taught in schools. Likewise, Brown and Brown (2010a, 2010b) demonstrate that the historical reality of violence towards African Americans is frequently erased in textbooks. Unfortunately, the social studies teachers tasked with deploying this curriculum often struggle with the critical knowledge needed to recognize its shortcomings. This problem starts in teacher education programs, which all too often tolerate anti-racism education as a “supplement” to the core program, a stance made possible by a society that often views social justice work with suspicion. This is especially problematic as the work involved in unlearning oppressive beliefs and behaviors is difficult and frequently follows a nonlinear path. Research indicates White pre-service teachers often resist rethinking subconscious and deeply held beliefs. For example, Solomona, Portelli, Daniel, and Campbell (2005) conducted a study of 200 teacher candidates that revealed they used three main strategies to protect whiteness from critical interrogation. In a similar qualitative study of White pre-service teachers, Picower (2009) showed that participants did not merely resist anti-racism education but actively protected Whiteness as a dominant ideology, leaving stereotyped beliefs about students of color in place. Thus, while the social studies curriculum engenders a distorted view of history, many social studies teachers graduate from their teacher education programs having failed to learn the skills needed to engage critically with racial discourses in contemporary society. Even those teachers who self-identify as “culturally responsive” often re-enact dominant ideologies (Matias, 2013). Taken together, the combined factors of curriculum and teacher preparation create the ideal circumstances in social studies education for racism to thrive. However, this bias toward White supremacy is not inert, something that rests (however uneasily) between the covers of textbooks and codified in state standards. Nor is it experienced as an abstract concept by the students targeted by these conditions (Chapman, 2013; Epstein, 2001). Rather, it represents an instance of violence against students. In this regard, Freire (1998) explains how a teacher’s refusal to take students’ worldviews seriously can constitute abuse. This harm is perpetrated not only by the obstacle to learning posed by the teacher’s resistance to the students’ subjectivity, but also because students are in the process of making sense of “a world that is progressively in the making, culturally and socially” (p. 109). Social studies education should offer all students the resources to understand the intelligibility of their present experiences through the lens of their communal

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history. Yet a biased curriculum denies these essentials to students of color—a denial that, I argue, is violent and causes epistemic harm. Understanding the CRT studies in terms of hurt and harm helps us to see the human costs of curricular violence. Even while remaining on the level of content,2 we are better able to see the justifications for student expressions of anger. It also provides a paradigm shift: whereas before we might have expressed concern that students are “sabotaging themselves” by alienating teachers, we can redirect our concern more properly to the ways that, however well intentioned, school systems nevertheless frequently sabotage students. We can begin to understand students’ anger as an intelligible response to this hurt and harm. Further, we can honor the ways that, as human beings, emotions are part of the way we relate to the world and process our experiences (Frijda, 1986). Social studies education is aimed in part at helping students to develop a healthy sense of civic identity (Rubin, 2012). In this context, a teacher who does not believe in a student’s right to experience and express a full range of human emotions is being violent. Re-evaluating the way emotions are often conceived of in educational spaces and coming to a different understanding of student anger are two steps social studies teachers can take toward helping the discipline fulfill its proper role in a democratic society. (UNDER)VALUING EMOTIONS IN EDUCATION While the discounting of student anger is a particularly acute case, more broadly emotion itself has been overlooked in education. Western thought has tended to propose a dichotomy of cognition and emotion, with emotion being devalued (Jaggar, 1989). Given this, education has tended to privilege cognition, and research likewise tends to focus on cognitive processes (Decuir-Gunby & Williams, 2007, p. 207). Social studies education in particular has failed to engage emotion on a theoretical or practical level (Sheppard, Katz, & Grosland, 2015).3 Reidel and Salinas (2011) note that, in the social studies literature on classroom discussions, emotions are “rendered either invisible or solely as a problem” (p. 6). Research on historical empathy has included critical examination of when and how students might experience emotions similar to what historical figures might have felt (Davis, Yeager, & Foster, 2001; Endacott, 2010), but there is less consideration given to students’ contemporary emotions and evaluations of their own experiences (for an exception, see Helmsing, 2014). Fortunately, CRT offers a lens with a particularly sharp focus for understanding emotion in education, and especially those feelings that carry negative associations. Decuir-Gunby and Williams (2007) utilized CRT to analyze the impact of racism on students’ emotions, showing that students

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felt pressure to silence their responses of anger. In this, they argue that emotions became “prime targets of social control” and that students “often develop an increased anxiety about their social setting” (Decuir-Gunby & Williams, 2007, p. 207). The point that emotions are a site of social control has been explored by Boler (1999), who explains that in educational settings emotions such as shame and humiliation are key tools in teaching students to internalize messages about authority, and are applied differentially based on children’s “gendered, raced, or social class standing” (p. 32). Lorde (1984) provides such an example from her childhood: The Story Hour librarian reading Little Black Sambo. Her white fingers hold up the little book about a shoebutton-faced little boy with big red lips and many pigtails and a hatful of butter. I remember the pictures hurting me and my thinking again there must be something wrong with me because everybody else is laughing and besides the library downtown has given this little book a special prize, the library lady tells us. SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, ANYWAY? DON’T BE SO SENSITIVE [emphasis in original]! (p. 148)

Here, Lorde describes her emotions as rooted both in her perception of racist content and in the way she is subjected to special social control because her emotional reaction was not what the educator desired. Thus, while the use of emotions for social control might seem to be most relevant when considering classroom management, we can also bring our attention to the ways these dynamics are present in teachers’ pedagogy and students’ engagement with the curriculum. In the context of social studies content, which often intersects with group identity, it is especially important to theorize the characteristics of a just approach to students’ emotions. However, this project may prove elusive, particularly for educators who are attached to the exercise of authority as part of their professional sense of self. While it is perhaps unsurprising that the dominant discourse in education considers student anger as something to be “managed” and often dehumanizes students under a guise of care, what may be more surprising is the way that this error can show itself even amongst critical pedagogues. Ira Shor, for example, is right when he states that “[a]ggression is inevitable because passivity is not a natural condition of childhood or adulthood. There is a ‘symbolic violence’ in school and society which imposes silence on students” (Shor & Freire, 1987, p. 123, emphasis in original). Yet Shor’s awareness of societal violence does not seem to translate to empathy, despite his description of aggression as “inevitable” given the circumstances. Instead, Shor explains that he “regularly” asks “aggressive” students to leave his course (p. 94), a dramatic exercise of power that silences students through exclusion and which he justifies through the self-congratulatory excuse that “all my reasoning and ingenuity and good intentions are not

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always enough” (p. 94). In this, Shor takes a strikingly cynical view of students, indicating that they are “very clever in the power struggle of the classroom” (p. 93) and that when challenged he remembers “all the ways students learned to manipulate the teacher” (p. 94). Indeed, distrust and containment seem to be the order of the day, despite Freire’s (1970) famous insistence that education is “an act of love” for those dedicated to critical pedagogy. The impression is that Shor is more concerned about the disruption to the classroom space (what he calls “student sabotage,” p. 128) than to the student’s arc of development. There is little recognition of the way anger is a healthy response to the imposition of an unnatural violence, nor how students may express this anger in multiple ways as they seek to process the hurt and harm they have experienced. This is an especially troubling lacuna for a critical pedagogue as it is particularly in a space intended to be liberatory that such processing might be triggered. Nowhere does Shor ask: What are the consequences of so much anger that is left without validation and unresolved? Instead, students’ “aggression” seems to be viewed as a personal challenge—revealing a kind of authoritarianism that can be rooted in an educator’s feelings of insecurity in the classroom. It is often easier to dismiss student anger as “inappropriate” (a move that inherently reaches for power) than to engage in the soul-searching demanded by CRT. Taken as a whole, this dynamic should be of special concern for social studies educators who hope to dedicate their classrooms toward social justice. Liberatory intentions do not prevent the unjust exercise of power, although they may mask the true nature of a situation even from its perpetrator. This risk is particularly strong in cases such as student anger where the dominant discourse encourages control rather than humility. It is thus important to note the salience of the relative positioning of students and teachers when considering these pedagogical interactions. In particular, Boler (1999) notes the rules underlying student–teacher relationships “governing who can express anger to whom, and a climate of fear and respect for authority [emphasis in original]” (p. 22). I suggest building on this in the following way: in considering our responses to students’ expressions of anger, we should keep in mind that students’ very presence in schools (and hence our classrooms) is coerced. Thus, while “authority” is often recognized as an inherent aspect of student–teacher relationships, I believe this term does not go far enough: more theorizing is needed about coercion as a basic underpinning of the relationship between K–12 teachers and students—an insight which helps us to perceive the violence inherent in denying, minimizing, or seeking to control students’ expressions of justified anger. Seeking ways to subvert this dynamic should be an essential project for social studies educators who hope their classrooms will be community spaces where students learn what it might feel like to be recognized as a full citizen in a democratic society.

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FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY AND ALTERNATE VIEWS OF ANGER Once committed to valuing the emotions of students marginalized by the typical social studies curriculum, it is important for educators to be able to articulate alternate conceptions of anger. Fortunately, feminist epistemology provides a rich theoretical base for understanding anger differently. Thanks to its focus on anger as something “often produced by collective, structural phenomena” (Kim, 2013, p. 5), feminist theory possesses many potential points of intersection with CRT. Both insist on the importance of critical interrogation of systems of oppression. Further, just as women are not permitted to express anger (Spelman, 1989), the anger of people of color is something that is often feared or dismissed (hooks, 1995; Kim, 2013). Here, I will explore four main themes in the feminist literature on anger. First, anger is valued positively in feminist theory. Lorde (1984) describes how her anger “served [her] in classrooms without light or learning, where the work and history of Black women was less than a vapor” (p. 131). For her, anger is “loaded with information and energy” (p. 127) and may serve not just as a tool but as a liberatory weapon: “every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being” (p. 127). Lugones (2003) suggests that her initial distrust of her own anger meant she was not yet liberated: “I put my anger down, I tortured it, failing to understand it. In this, I colluded with the oppressors’ logic that would understand my rage as madness” (p. 117). Similarly, hooks (1995) writes that her anger at the racial injustices she has experienced “burns in [her] psyche with an intensity that creates clarity. It is a constructive healing rage” (p. 18). She insists that an uncompromising hold on one’s anger is important ballast to the destructive force of racism: “Racial hatred is real. And it is humanizing to be able to resist it with militant rage” (p. 17). Ultimately, for hooks (1995), rage is linked to “a passion for freedom and justice that illuminates, heals, and makes redemptive struggle possible” (p. 20). Anger is thus a positive force. Secondly, feminist epistemologists have paid close attention to the experience of anger itself. Lugones (2003) suggests even anger that “endangers one’s hold over convention” (p. 107) can bring mental clarity: I have been taught that in a fit of anger one is cognitively at a loss. Yet, when I have observed women in hard-to-handle anger, they have been outrageously clearheaded; their words clean, true, undiluted by regard for others’ feelings or possible reactions. (p. 107)

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Lugones (2003) acknowledges that what she calls “hard-to-handle” anger can “feel like a fit” to the “official self”—a reference to her theory that individuals have multiple “selves” which are able to travel between “worlds” (roughly, social and cultural contexts; Lugones, 1987). She thus draws a distinction between what she terms “first-order” and “second-order” angers (Lugones, 2003). First-order angers seek recognition in the outside world, whereas second-order angers are known to the self that is unable to enter “official world of sense” (p. 108). First-order angers thus belong to the self that “tr[ies] to make sense within the confines of official reality,” whereas experiences of second-order anger point towards “a self who is doing the work of resistance’’ (p. 104). The experience of anger is, of course, not limited to the one expressing the emotion, but also includes those to whom the expression of anger is directed. Teachers who tend to see their students’ anger as problematic should take note that, according to Lugones (2003), second-order anger “is unexpected much of the time, out of context, and out of character from the point of view of the oppressor” (p. 116). While “the oppressor may be caught emotionally off-guard” (p. 116) teachers should bracket their own responses to students’ emotions enough to consider that anger conveys meaning, even if that meaning is difficult to put into words. As Lugones (2003) cautions, “[t]he fact that the cognitive content of across-worlds anger is not understood does not mean that the anger is cognitively empty or expressed as cognitively empty. It means, rather, that it cannot be intended across worlds as cognitively straightforward” (pp. 116–117). There may be surprising pedagogical power in delaying one’s immediate defensive response in order to create the space necessary for reinterpreting students’ expressions of anger. Further, by valuing students’ emotions without first demanding justification for their expression, teachers can demonstrate both their respect for students and their grasp of the epistemic potential inherent in anger. Building on Lugones’ (2003) work in “second-order angers,” McWeeny (2010) argues that anger is not just an emotional experience that can spur action, but is itself a form of knowledge. She suggests that at times the body is aware of the disjuncture between the self’s humanity and its denial in social space before the mind is: “As experiences of disharmonies between our bodily orientations and the uptake they receive from their situating world of sense, our angers are our realizations of these dissonances” (p. 306). Students’ expressions of anger may remain on this somatic level, known to the body but unable to be discursively described or explained by the mind—a point resonant with Decuir-Gunby and Williams’ (2007) observation that, for students of color responding to racism, emotions like “shock, fear, anger, and anxiety” can all be triggered before rational thinking takes place (p. 209). McWeeny (2010) argues that angers “express our obvious claims to agency

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and self-worth, even if our situating world of sense does not acknowledge those claims” (p. 307)—an important point for students of color in schools that routinely attempt to slight or deny their humanity (McKenzie, 2009). Third, feminist theory has paid particularly close attention to the meanings and effects of responses to anger. Frye (1983) details a concept of “social uptake,” that is, when a hearer validates a speaker’s right to be angry. The need for uptake points to the communicative nature of expressions of anger, which are claims to the self as a being worthy of respect (pp. 89–90). When students express anger, they are expressing their sense of self-worth. When this expression is blocked, the result is the same as a teacher telling students that their very selves are somehow unworthy of respect—thus triggering a second experience of anger at having been wronged, or an alternative experience of acquiescence and shame. Again, feminist epistemology deftly traces the contours of this reaction. Building on Frye (1983), Campbell (1994) writes to redeem “bitterness,” the term she gives for anger that has not been given social uptake. The dismissal of anger is a move designed to silence the person expressing the anger. This is not just an interpersonal move but a political one, as Campbell (1994) explains that: Those most likely to be called bitter, moreover, belong to groups that already have the least support and validation for their personal memories and group history, groups for whom actively not forgetting may be the only way to establish a sense of history [emphasis added]. The accusation of bitterness may further undermine the struggle for group memory by failing again to provide the uptake that leaves the recounting of incidents established as public record. (p. 53)

The implications for social studies education should be clear: students of color, whose marginalization in the curriculum is part of the lack of support and validation for their communal memories, are doubly wounded by the silencing of their anger. This dismissal of anger has effects both for a “sense of history” and for a sense of self-efficacy; Campbell (1994) indicates that those whose anger is dismissed face many negative repercussions, including shame and a tendency to believe there is something wrong with the self when in fact there is something wrong with the situation (Campbell, 1994, pp. 48–49).4 Indeed, Burrow (2005) notes that a classic tactic of emotional abuse is to convince victims there is something wrong with how they have expressed themselves. This diverts attention from the content of their expression and serves to control the terms under which communication can take place (pp. 30–31). Applied to an educational context, these descriptions are highly resonant with McKenzie’s (2009) searing study of the emotional abuse of children of color in K–12 schools, in which teachers blamed students for their harsh disciplinary responses.

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Feminist theory provides grounds for understanding the meaning of this dynamic. A parallel can be drawn with CRT, in which whiteness is a property that can be assigned or denied at will, in that the right to experience and express anger may be similarly granted or withheld. Spelman (1989) indicates that excluding anger from subordinate groups is a method of domination that denies the status of moral agency to those targeted. Lugones (2003) concurs, adding that [i]n excluding anger from their personality profile, dominant groups exclude subordinates from the category of moral agents, since to be angry is to make oneself a judge and to express a standard against which one assess the person’s conduct . . . In becoming angry, subordinates signal that they take themselves seriously; they believe they have the capacity as well as the right to be judges of those around them. (p. 110)

Students who lay claim to anger also lay claim to personhood. For teachers to deny the right to express this anger thus means denying students’ rights to take themselves seriously as legitimate moral agents. In the context of social studies, where students’ anger may be rooted in an active struggle to establish a sense of history and identity, a teacher’s denial of emotional expression can also imply a denial of citizenship. Finally, feminist theory provides a context for understanding why the devaluing of anger matters. Fricker (2007) outlines two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice occurs when a hearer discounts a speaker’s words due to prejudice. This kind of injustice is committed when a teacher dismisses a student’s expression of anger (which may take the form of ignoring students’ words, discounting the validity of their perspectives, or reprimands and escalating forms of disciplinary action).5 This situation is not merely “unfair” but unjust: Fricker (2007) explains that one consequence of testimonial injustice is that “it can cramp self-development, so that a person may be, quite literally, prevented from becoming who they are” (p. 2). These implications should be especially concerning for social studies teachers who believe their discipline should be aimed at preparing students for active citizenship. The second form of epistemic injustice is hermeneutical injustice. Fricker (2007) indicates it occurs when “a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences” (p. 1). Hermeneutical injustice is thus found in school systems and curricula that systematically devalue the experiences of students of color and history of their communities. In contrast, social studies education ought to provide opportunities for students to process their societal experiences as well as nurture their efforts to develop a full, human sense of identity. As it stands, however, the collective devaluing of student anger may result in the further hermeneutical injustice of

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students being unlikely to see the value in their anger, unable to use it as a positive force, and possibly doubting their very selves. STRATEGIES FOR VALUING STUDENT ANGER While this theoretical understanding of anger can be valuable in its own right, knowing how to translate it into educational practice is a key step. Here, I propose three strategies for valuing students’ anger that draw on the epistemological perspectives shared above. Throughout, I will utilize an ethic of love and care for students as a guiding principle (hooks, 2003; Thompson, 1998). First, social studies educators can value anger as a mode of knowing by drawing on these concepts as part of their own dispositions in the classroom. As the potentially transformative nature of anger is only seldom grasped, teachers like these can serve as a rare role in students’ lives. hooks (1995) describes how, in her initial encounters with rage, she “seemed alone in understanding that [she] was undergoing a process of radical politicization and self-recovery,” simultaneously experiencing the loss of home and estrangement from friends and family even as she “witness[ed] the way [her rage] moved [her] to grow and change” (p. 16). For a student who feels similarly alone, a teacher who validates experiences and expressions of anger can reach through a sense of isolation. However, dedicating oneself to honoring students’ anger may be easier said than done, especially as students may not only be unable to describe the reasons for their anger, but also their anger may be displaced. Toni Morrison (1970) provides an example in her novel The Bluest Eye, following a scene in which the little girl Pecola visits a candy shop. Pecola is humiliated by the White shopkeeper who mocks her shyness in his presence and then does not want to touch her black skin to take the coins she offers as payment. For Pecola, the experience initially produces a strong sentiment of shame, until her toe meets a sidewalk crack and she trips. Pecola is then filled with an anger that “opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame” (Morrison, 1970, p. 50). Far from being an entirely negative experience, Pecola’s anger gives her a sense of clarity: Morrison tells us that Pecola realizes “anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger, a reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It’s a lovely surging” (p. 50). But Pecola is unable to sustain this feeling of power, as her anger’s “thirst is too quickly quenched. It sleeps. The shame wells up again, its muddy rivulets seeping into her eyes” (p. 50). While it is clear that an interpretation of Pecola’s anger as “really” being about the sidewalk would be a bizarre one, we might ask if, as social

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studies educators, we too often engage in similarly fragmentary readings of students. Valuing students’ anger as a mode of knowing may lead us to ask questions that probe below the surface: What if our students’ anger is not about the trivial things it often seems to be? What if the oppressive structures of the school mean that it is too dangerous to express one’s anger at its true source, and so students naturally redirect their anger at safer targets? What if our collective devaluing of emotion puts students at a disadvantage in knowing their own anger? Likewise, as social studies educators we can learn from the clarity Pecola experiences when she is angry. What kind of love for Pecola is the liberatory one—that which asks for a quiet child whose shame makes her tractable, or that which recognizes her anger is rooted in her own “awareness of worth” (Morrison, 1970, p. 50)? Secondly, social studies educators can view students’ expressions of anger as an invitation to deepen the student–teacher relationship. As Thompson (1998) notes, “When grounded in relationship—in the expectation of responsiveness—anger is the call for a response [emphasis added]” (p. 543). Similarly, Lugones (2003) describes anger as “a form that the passion for communication takes” (p. 103). In a study utilizing narrative inquiry to understand persistently disciplined middle school students, Kennedy-Lewis, Murphy, and Grosland (2016) describe a girl named Haley who alternates between emotions of anger and depression (pp. 11–15). The researchers developed a relationship with Haley over several months of interviews that consistently valued her voice and story. Ultimately, they discovered that Haley’s anger and depression stood in relation to her sense of hope—something many educators in the building had missed as they labeled her as withdrawn and unmotivated, and suspended her for fights. This example shows the value of a pedagogy rooted in love and care. The chance to discover how Haley’s anger was tied to hope was only available to the researchers because they responded to her emotions as intelligible forms of communication. Rather than validating a system that had effectively written her off through practices of labeling and punishment, they validated Haley as a person by consciously seeking to build a relationship with her. This stance did not go unnoticed; Haley’s interviews revealed her keen observations of teachers and administrators whose actions contradicted their words, as well as her appreciation for those teachers who supported her despite her label as a “problem” student (Kennedy-Lewis et al., 2016, p. 13). Respecting students’ emotions, even and especially when they are challenging, can be a key step in building relationships. This being said, we should be cautious in our expectations for how students will respond to us when we respond to them. This is difficult for many of us who recognize the structural and interpersonal inequities built into the educational systems in which we work. There is often a real attraction in receiving this validation from students. However, although we might hope

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for students to view us this way, it is important to recognize their agency in deciding whom to trust. As Boler (1999) points out, In education . . . resistance is complicated as young people find themselves in a climate where one of their few spaces of power available to them is to resist authority. Thus however well-meaning or liberatory one’s educational directive, sometimes the most creative option for students is to resist. (p. 4)

Similarly, CRT has emphasized the importance of resisting a “savior” complex for educators (Straubhaar, 2015; Cammarota, 2011). Likewise, feminist theory has distinguished between loving perception (Frye, 1983) and that which is arrogant even though it purports to be loving (Ortega, 2006). Finally, students’ anger can be valued as a springboard for motivating deeper inquiry into social studies content. Reidel and Salinas (2011) advocate that “[s]ocial studies educators also can choose to engage in inquiry with their students about the ways in which attending to emotion can deepen our understanding of diverse perspectives” (p. 18). For this to happen, teachers need to signal to students that they are open to a wider range of emotions in their classroom, including “outlaw emotions” (Jaggar, 1989) such as anger. Engaging with history provides an obvious foothold for this work; teachers might even intentionally evoke anger as a way to hook students into material. (Indeed, any number of historical documents should provoke outrage. Building on the political dictum “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention,” we might ask: When bringing up the ThreeFifths Compromise in the classroom, if your students aren’t angry, are you really teaching?)6 This signaling could also happen when engaging content related to contemporary society. For example, a cross-curricular decision to utilize poetry could provide one invitation to humanize sociological data; one could imagine a greater depth to a conversation about students’ racial experiences when Toi Derricotte’s (1989) poem The Furious Boy or Claudia Rankine’s (2014) collection Citizen: An American Lyric are utilized as springboards to discussing statistics on American society. The work of visual artists may likewise provide jumping-off points for history and current events alike; for example, social studies teachers might start with Titus Kaphar’s (kapharstudio.com) Behind the Myth of Benevolence (2014), The Jerome Project (2014), and Another Fight for Remembrance (2015), or consider Dread Scott’s (dreadscott.net) Stop (2012), On the Impossibility of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slavery and Genocide (2014), and A Man Was Lynched By Police Today (2015). This work is complex and ever-unfinished, unlikely to result in neat cause-and-effect scenarios. Yet it is also an essential endeavor. As human beings, we need community; often it is in the recognition of our experiences

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in those of others that we are able to understand and value emotions that we have been taught to discount. This represents an opportunity for powerful, even life-changing social studies education. Just as Burrow (2005) discusses the value of communities of interpretation and Scheman (1980) draws attention to the importance of consciousness-raising groups for helping women understand angers they have suppressed, social studies educators can choose to use their classrooms as similar places for witnessing, healing, and growth. NOTE 1. The defensive anger of White students when exposed to perspectives that challenge their privilege is of a different sort, and has been aptly described by Leonardo and Zembylas (2013). For handling this anger, Boler (2014) offers a compassionate strategy which would transfer well to the K–12 level. 2. A salient contextual factor is found in the way discipline is often used to target students of color (United States Department of Education, 2012; Losen & Martinez, 2013)—a situation that further compounds the hurt and harm students often experience in schools. 3. For this reason, this chapter necessarily draws on unconventional sources, such as memoirs and other forms of literature, as well as research on emotions in education more broadly. 4. Here we can recall Lorde’s (1984) childhood experience hearing Little Black Sambo at storytime: “I remember the pictures hurting me and my thinking again there must be something wrong with me, [emphasis added]” a point she makes immediately prior to describing the educator reprimanding her (p. 148). 5. There are many sociocultural forces that make it easy for teachers to fall prey to this error; for example, the positioning of teachers as authorities puts students at an inherent disadvantage when expressing something unknown or unusual for the teacher’s worldview and experience. This is especially important when considering the whiteness of the teaching force (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005). 6. This anger is slightly different from the anger that has been described in this chapter, however, as it may be experienced by all students (although differently).

REFERENCES Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power: Emotions and education. New York, NY: Routledge. Boler, M. (2014). Teaching for hope: The ethics of shattering worldviews. In V. Bozalek, B. Leibowitz, R. Carolissen, & M. Boler (Eds.), Discerning critical hope in educational practices (pp. 26–39). London: Routledge. Bozalek, V., Leibowitz, B., Carolissen, R., & Boler, M., (Eds.). (2014). Discerning critical hope in educational practices. London, England: Routledge.

Understanding and Valuing the Anger of Marginalized Students    393 Brown, A. L., & Brown, K. D. (2010a). Strange fruit indeed: Contemporary textbook representations of racial violence toward African Americans. Teachers College Record 112, 31–67. Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2010b). Silenced memories: An examination of the sociocultural knowledge on race and racial violence in official school curriculum. Equity & Excellence in Education 43, 139–154. Burrow, S. (2005). The political structure of emotion: From dismissal to dialogue. Hypatia 20, 27–43. Cammarota, J. (2011). Blindsided by the avatar: White saviors and allies out of Hollywood and in education. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 33, 242–259. Campbell, S. (1994). Being dismissed: The politics of emotional expression. Hypatia 9, 46–65. Chandler, P., & McKnight, D. (2009). The failure of social education in the United States: A critique of teaching the national story from “White” colorblind eyes. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 7, 218–248. Chapman, T. K. (2013). You can’t erase race! Using CRT to explain the presence of race and racism in majority White suburban schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 34, 611–627. Davis, O. L., Yeager, E. A., & Foster, S. J. (Eds.). (2001). Historical empathy and perspective taking in the social studies. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Decuir-Gunby, J. T., & Williams, M. R. (2007). The impact of race and racism on students’ emotions: A critical race analysis. In P. A. Schutz & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in education (pp. 205–219). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press. Derricotte, T. (1989). Captivity. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Endacott, J. (2010). Reconsidering affective engagement in historical empathy. Theory & Research in Social Education 38(1), 6–47. Epstein, T. (2001). Racial identity and young people’s perspectives on social education. Theory Into Practice 40, 42–47. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Seabury. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage (P. Clarke, Trans.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Frye, M. (1983). The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press. Helmsing, M. (2014). Virtuous subjects: A critical analysis of the affective substance of social studies education. Theory & Research in Social Education 42(1), 127–140. hooks, b. (1995). Killing rage: Ending racism. New York, NY: H. Holt and Co. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York, NY: Routledge. Howard, T. (2003). The dis(g)race of the social studies: The need for racial dialogue in the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on the social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum (pp. 27–43). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.

394    L. GILBERT Jaggar, A. (1989). Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology. Inquiry 32, 151–176. Kennedy-Lewis, B. L., Murphy, A. S., & Grosland, T. J. (2016). Using narrative inquiry to understand persistently disciplined middle school students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 29, 1–28. Kim, S. J. (2013). On anger: Race, cognition, narrative. Austin: University of Texas Press. Leonardo, Z., & Zembylas, M. (2013). Whiteness as technology of affect: Implications for educational praxis. Equity & Excellence in Education 46, 150–165. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister/outsider: Essays and speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press. Losen, D. J., & Martinez, T. E. (2013). Out of school and off track: The overuse of suspensions in American middle and high schools. Los Angeles, CA: The Center for Civil Rights Remedies. Lugones, M. (1987). Playfulness, “world”-travelling, and loving perception. Hypatia, 2, 3–19. Lugones, M. (2003). Pilgrimages/peregrinajes: Theorizing coalition against multiple oppressions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Matias, C. E. (2013). Check yo’self before you wreck yo’self and our kids: Counterstories from culturally responsive white teachers  . . .  to culturally responsive white teachers! Interdisciplinary Journal of Teaching and Learning, 3, 68–81. McKenzie, K. B. (2009). Emotional abuse of students of color: The hidden inhumanity in our schools. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22, 129–143. McWeeny, J. (2010). Liberating anger, embodying knowledge: A comparative study of María Lugones and Zen Master Hakuin. Hypatia, 25, 295–315. Morrison, T. (1970). The bluest eye. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Ortega, M. (2006). Being lovingly, knowingly ignorant: White feminism and women of color. Hypatia, 21, 56–74. Picower, B. (2009). The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: How White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies. Race Ethnicity and Education, 12, 197–215. Rankine, C. (2014). Citizen: An American lyric. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press. Reidel, M., & Salinas, C. (2011). The role of emotion in democratic dialogue: A self study. Social Studies Research and Practice, 6, 2–20. Rubin, B. C. (2012). Making citizens: Transforming civic learning for diverse social studies classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge. Scheman, N. (1980). Anger and the politics of naming. In S. McConnell-Ginet, R. Borker, & N. Furman (Eds.), Women, language, and society (pp. 174–87). New York, NY: Praeger. Sheppard, M., Katz, D., & Grosland, T. (2015). Conceptualizing emotions in social studies education. Theory and Research in Social Education, 43, 147–178. Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Solomona, R. P., Portelli, J. P., Daniel, B., & Campbell, A. (2005). The discourse of denial: How white teacher candidates construct race, racism and “White privilege.” Race Ethnicity and Education, 8, 147–169.

Understanding and Valuing the Anger of Marginalized Students    395 Spelman, E. V. (1989). Anger and insubordination. In A. Garry & M. Pearsall (Eds.), Women, knowledge, and reality: Explorations in feminist philosophy (pp. 263–273). New York, NY: Unwin Hyman. Straubhaar, R. (2015). The stark reality of the “White savior” complex and the need for critical consciousness: A document analysis of the early journals of a Freirean educator. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 45, 381–400. Thompson, A. (1998). Not the color purple: Black feminist lessons for educational caring. Harvard Educational Review, 68, 522–554. United States Department of Education. (2012). Office for Civil Rights data collection: Discipline. Washington, DC: Author. Wilde, J. (2002). Anger management in schools: Alternatives to student violence (2nd ed). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Wills, J. S. (2001). Missing in interaction: Diversity, narrative, and critical multicultural social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education. 29, 43–64. Zumwalt, K., & Craig, E. (2005). Teachers’ characteristics: Research on the demographic profile. In M. Cochran Smith & K. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education (pp. 111–156). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

CHAPTER 21

COUNTERNARRATIVES IN U.S. HISTORY Race Lessons in a Social Studies Methods Course Emilie M. Camp University of Cincinnati

ABSTRACT This chapter focuses on the design of a social studies methods course framed by core concepts of critical race theory (CRT). The chapter situates both the reflections of the teacher educator and specific elements of the course as working in tandem to develop racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK) in pre-service social studies teachers. Specific strategies used to develop such understandings are highlighted as well as the role of the instructor to continuously engage in the praxis of critical race pedagogy.

Each fall semester, I enter into a university classroom of pre-service middle childhood social studies teachers expecting to learn how to teach social studies. Clearly, the expectation is built into the course title: Methods of Teaching Social Studies I, with Methods of Teaching Social Studies II following in

Race Lessons, pages 397–408 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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the spring. What they learn upon the introduction to the course, however, is that the, “methods,” will wait until spring; the fall semester examines the “what” and “why” of social studies (Parker, 2012). After all, Howard (2006) reminds us that “we can’t teach what we don’t know.” And like Parker, I argue that social studies teachers also must know why they teach their content. Such is how our year-long journey in social studies methods begins each academic year. COURSE CONTEXT While a significant focus of the fall course is couched in Parker’s (2012) notion of teaching social studies for civic efficacy and social understanding, an undercurrent of race slices through this framework. Considering Chandler’s (2015) construct of racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK), the fall methods course aims to further develop pre-service teachers’ social studies content knowledge by developing a “working racial knowledge of how race operates within” their content (Chandler, 2015, p. 5). Considering this construct, one cannot develop social understanding and act accordingly as a citizen (Parker, 2012) without deeply understanding the ways in which racism has functioned to distort the very notion of social studies itself (Ladson-Billings, 2003). In this spirit, course readings, assignments, and in-class activities advance the conviction that social studies teachers have a responsibility to re-examine content, confront how their assumed knowledge of social studies is deeply rooted in racism and White supremacy, and pursue new ways of knowing by situating this pursuit within a frame of critical race theory (CRT). This chapter describes the structure of the course, how assignments are designed to engage students in interrogating social studies content for its White supremacist master narrative, and potential to be uplifted to a RPCK framework. Further, as a White teacher educator, I offer my own reflections on the complexity, vulnerability, and challenge of avoiding the pitfalls of the “White savior complex” (Straubhaar, 2015) in teaching and modeling how to do race in social studies. CONSIDERING RACE IN ESTABLISHING THE CLASSROOM COMMUNITY As a culturally relevant teacher educator working within a CRT framework, my students’ identities and experiences matter to the development of the course; these identities establish their entry-point to the CRT content. My institution has an “urban mission,” professing to prepare our students to

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teach in “high-needs” schools reflecting the diverse demographics of our urban center. Yet, our student enrollment continues to mirror the broader national landscape of teacher demographics: primarily White, primarily women (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.). With this in mind coupled with a degree plan that has placed the “diversity course” at the end of the four-year program, I approach the planning with an expectation that the course will be the first encounter to CRT for most students. Despite this expected make-up of the course, I have learned to expect one or two students of color in the class as well. This dynamic has made me mindful of the importance of establishing a classroom environment rooted in cultural humility and rigorous academic discourse. It is a precarious balance struck in this context; I want my White students to confront their Whiteness and how it intersects with their colonized “understandings” of social studies content (Merryfield & Subedi, 2006). Yet, I also want my students of color to feel free to express their own experiences, to advance their own understandings of social studies without feeling as though they must be the “spokespersons” for their racial group. These concerns are deeply rooted in the power dynamics of teaching and learning (Freire, 2003), an issue with which I continue to wrestle. My identity and experiences are also significant to the dynamics of the course, as they too intersect with my philosophical stance toward embedding CRT into the social studies methods course. I am White, raised middle class in suburbia, and did not encounter much of anything antithetical to my worldview of unchecked privilege through my own preparation as a teacher; it was not until after I became a licensed teacher that I came to understand my work as a teacher was an intellectual endeavor (Giroux, 1988), a responsibility as a professional to continuously seek renewed knowledge, to challenge my belief systems as I searched for ways to meaningfully teach my students who were different from me. My formative moments in developing a critical race theoretical lens of teaching occurred during those early years of teaching, informed by radically different and formative experiences on the U.S./Mexico border and in the southwest United States in general. Now, 15 years into the profession, and 6 years into teaching in higher education, I strive to establish at least a foundation of intellectual inquiry into the profession that dislodge unexamined White privilege, if not provide formative moments in my students’ development in terms of how they view themselves as stewards of racial justice within their profession. I wonder each semester who students “see” in front of them on the first day of class, and how that image changes as I gradually reveal formative moments in my own journey, and openly share how it continues. Through this intersection of students and instructor, I find tremendous responsibility in standing as a model for them as an educator of intellectual and cultural humility who continuously and intentionally reflects on the role of Whiteness

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and privilege in terms of my work. Herein lies the risk of falling into the trap of the “White savior complex,” described as the “sense that . . . Westerners have the unique power to uplift, edify, and strengthen,” (Straubhaar, 2015, p. 384). While I am conscious of this concept and openly discuss this risk with my students, I am also painfully conscious that the course has been inherently designed to cater to the needs of the White students to deconstruct their whiteness on the path to developing RPCK. Consequently, this can imply that any transformation of social studies education towards RPCK depends upon White teachers, rather than the collective work of ALL teachers, led by the voices and racial knowledge of students of color. Leonardo and Porter (2010) challenge me to “take advantage of the deep competencies that students of color have to offer [rather than] rely on the shallowness of whiteness” (pp. 153–154). This reflection has resulted in recent revisions to assignments and readings to more centrally locate the voices of people of color in readings, assignments, and assessments; being vigilant of the difference those revisions make along with my own consistent self-vigilance will be critical to ensure the course continues toward fully imagining the goals of RPCK. HOW WE “DO” RACE: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE COURSE As the central focus of the course is on transforming student belief-systems about the purposes for teaching social studies and the content of social studies itself, the development of student dispositions is as important as the development of key knowledge and skills of social studies (Parker, 2012). Thus, while readings, assignments, and activities may shift from year to year in response to student feedback, performance, and developments in the field, there are elements that have become the backbone of the course to demand and support deep levels of inquiry into the development of RPCK (Chandler, 2015). Guiding Principles Sensoy and DiAngelo (2012, p. 166) offer a structure for articulating expectations for engaging in a course on social justice pedagogy (see Table 21.1). I find it to be particularly useful to present at the onset of the semester and plan for a lengthy discussion for students to dive deep into this framework to process its implications for their participation in this course on social studies. I recently revisited these “guidelines” to examine how they might be construed by both students of color and White students, asking myself if these

CounterNarratives in U.S. History     401 TABLE 21.1  Principles for Constructive Engagement You don’t know what you don’t know: Strive for intellectual humility. Everyone has an opinion. Opinions are not the same as informed knowledge. Let go of personal anecdotal evidence and look at broader societal patterns. Notice your own defensive reactions, and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for gaining deeper self-knowledge. Recognize how your social positionality (such as your own race, class, gender, sexuality, ability-status) informs your reactions to your instructor and those whose work you study in the course. Source: Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012, p. 166

core principles functioned to empower all students to participate in a collective struggle toward RPCK, of if they simply help White students feel “safe” to work through their own whiteness in the context of their academic content. Leonardo and Porter (2010) offer insight on this question in their critique of “safety” in academic racial discourse, insights I continue to study and work into how I frame the guidelines and classroom discourse. Rather than aiming for “safety,” Leonardo and Porter (2010) challenge critical race pedagogues to invoke a “humanizing form of violence . . . a pedagogy and politics of disruption that shifts the regime of knowledge about what is ultimately possible as well as desirable as a racial arrangement” (p. 140). Further, they offer, “by redefining classroom space as a place of risk, educators encourage students to experiment with their self-understanding, and to promote the audacious notion that they may change their minds by the end of a term” (p. 153). I have, and continue to view these principles as disruptive and political in their own right, insisting on students taking an inward examination as they encounter the critical race theoretical foundation of the course; the work of Leonardo and Porter (2010) gives new language and meaning to these principles as I work with students to process them. Weekly Readings and Journals The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework through the inquiry design model (IDM; The Inquiry Design Model, n.d.) establishes that inquiry be a foundation for teaching and learning social studies. Layering a frame of CRT on top of that for a social studies methods course requires a careful selection of readings from which such critical inquiry will begin. I select readings to jolt students awake to the theme of the course. Early readings offer insights from Ladson-Billings (2003); Au (2016); Loewen (2007); Agarwal-Rangnath, Dover, and Henning (2016); Zinn (2003); and Bell (2010) and are paired with readings from Social Education and Rethinking Schools (and

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other journals) that provide authentic instructional examples of doing race in social studies (Chandler, 2015). The rationale of reading selections is to simultaneously introduce the theory and framework of CRT while enticing my students to its hard work in classrooms through the examples of others. Echoing Hawley’s (2015) call for “rationale development” (p. 305), this synchronization of types of readings “brings meaning, structure, and direction to the work of social studies teachers” (p. 305). Anecdotally and through course evaluation comments, students express a high level of satisfaction with the balance of theory and practice from these reading pairings. They especially appreciate the examples of “real” teachers from the readings. Additionally, weekly reading journals serve as an essential anchor to the course. I have found that requiring the journal entries, which aim to engage students in self-reflection associated with the main concepts of the readings, to be submitted 24 hours prior to class, offers me insight into areas of student resistance, confusion, concern, compliance, etc. It is only then that I am able to prepare for the class session in order to intentionally respond to students, and meet them where they are while gradually, yet deliberately moving them through the process of shifting from assimilationist to culturally relevant teacher (Martell, 2015, p. 57; Milner, 2010). Examining Current Events and Controversial Issues As noted in the introduction, a fundamental theme that informs the course is the notion that the purpose for teaching social studies is to develop students’ civic efficacy and social responsibility as democratic citizens. Hess (2009) argues that teaching controversial and political issues is paramount to this democratic development: “If there is no controversy, there is no democracy . . . If we want democratic education to be both democratic and educational, then we have to teach young people about controversial political issues” (p. 162). Controversial current issues are a bedrock of the course; students are regularly required to select local, national, and global issues for class discussion and analysis. While not all current events shared by students raise the issue of racism, many do; Black Lives Matter, police shootings of young Black men, racial profiling, the school to prison pipeline, immigration, school and housing segregation, etc. are all themes that have been brought to class for examination. Structured class discussions such as Structured Academic Controversy and Socratic Seminar (Rossi, 2006) provide a clear mechanism by which students evaluate issues in terms of institutional racism, the persistence of White supremacy, media coverage, and personal/individual reactions to the issue. These are issues that call to mind the Leonardo and Porter (2010) caution of “safety” in racial discourse. While the discussion strategies used to examine the issues may

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be construed as “safe,” I push students to use evidence for their arguments (as required by those discussion approaches), reflect on their own racial identities and the implications those have for their response to the issue, and clearly articulate how institutional racism perpetuates the problem associated with the issue. My intention in facilitating these discussions is to invoke their “humanizing violence” (Leonardo & Porter, 2010, p. 140) to disrupt a whitewashed interpretation of complex, racialized social issues. In effect, students can begin to develop the RPCK related to current social issues while making explicit connections to Bell’s (2010) construct of stock, concealed, resistance, and transformative stories. Critically Examining Social Studies Resources Two particular activities I plan each semester require that students critique the very sources of information that often were the impetus for them to pursue social studies as one of their content areas. Entering into these formative weeks focusing on historical perspective and curriculum representation (Au, 2016; Loewen, 2007; Zinn, 2003; Zinn & Arnove, 2004) and the limitations of stock stories (Bell, 2010) flies in the face of their “commonsense” assumptions of the social world (Kumashiro, 2015), pushing them to rethink the very idea of what it means to know content. During one class session (nearly three hours in length) students examine middle grades social studies textbooks for the privileging of the White racial perspective and marginalization (often literally in the margins) of people of color. I typically point them to a specific lesson or chapter in the books and provide a prompt to guide them through an analysis. For example, students examine a lesson on immigration to the United States, imagining that they work at a local public school with nearly half its students identified as Latino, immigrant, and English language learners. Other topics include a two-sentence blurb on the Mexican American War, westward expansion/ manifest destiny, and a trivial, dichotomous treatment of the causes of the Civil War. Working in small groups, students identify whose knowledge is privileged, whose is marginalized, literally, and whose knowledge is absent from the textbook. I have found that this particular class session can be a turning point for students if they are challenged to not only recognize the limitations of textbooks, but to name them as racist, while confronting and exploring why those who are White never noticed this before. This is a difficult class session; students often are in need of encouragement to probe deeper into their analysis of the textbook. I am often reminded of Banks’ (1998) construct for examining various types of multicultural curriculum reform; students tend to fall into the “contributions” and “additive” categories, noting that content about people of color is missing and simply

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needs to be added to the dominant narrative, neglecting to question the dominant narrative itself. This activity, early in the semester, serves as an entry-point to problematize a simplistic and patronizing approach to social studies content; we discuss questions aimed at confronting the racism associated with tolerating a White narrative to dominate and remain at the center of curriculum. Following the textbook analysis, students read Bell (2010) and begin to put language to what they found (or didn’t find) in those textbooks. Students begin to apply Bell’s (2010) descriptors of “stock,” “concealed,” “resistance,” and “emerging/transformation” to social studies curriculum (described in further detail in the following section). I bring in examples of children’s literature that tell “concealed” stories and/or “resistance” stories (i.e., Krull, 2003; Laínez, 2010; Perez, 2002) and ask students to explain how their book stands as an example of a “concealed,” “resistance,” or “transformation” story and to then write their own “stock” story that could function to silence the stories they have read. Like the textbook analysis, this activity seems to motivate students to reach beyond their assumed level of competence of social studies as they are exposed to the rich traditions of literature by and for people of color. Following these two activities, I structure a class session that probes students’ own racial identities, asking them to name why they had never considered these issues prior to these class activities. This process builds upon prior coursework in our stand-along “diversity” course, required of all middle childhood (and secondary) education majors. That particular course, establishes a foundation of critically examining curriculum for many forms of oppression; thus, these activities intentionally make reference to that course to offer students a clear frame of reference to advance their development of RPCK. Of course, there are always a few students each semester who arrived with a critical bent toward their content, yet I have found that their experiences with self-reflection in terms of their own racial bias brings new purpose to their work as budding teachers. The aim for these class activities is to expose the racism that undergirds official knowledge, as a part of that deconstruction of curriculum that precedes its culturally relevant reconstruction (Ladson-Billings, 2011) reflecting developing RPCK (Chandler, 2015). The Summative Assessment The final assessment of the course applies Bell’s (2010) storytelling framework and a “renegade” orientation to teaching social studies (Agarwal-Rangnath et al., 2016) to the development of RPCK specific to U.S. history. Students research a historical theme or topic and use Bell’s (2010) framework

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to uncover how whiteness has functioned to maintain a racist historical narrative and transform their “knowledge” of the topic through the uncovering of concealed and resistance stories. This assignment has recently been revised to also include the expectation that students outline a plan to teach this content in their upcoming field experience, drawing on specific skills and dispositions of “renegade,” social justice oriented teachers (Agarwal-Rangnath et al., 2016). The spirit of the assignment aims to leverage narratives and counternarratives to disrupt and transform ways in which pre-service social studies teachers think about U.S. history; weekly assignments, readings, class discussions, and in-class activities are designed to build up to this final assessment and engage students in the “doing” of race in social studies (Chandler, 2015). Further, Bell’s (2010) storytelling framework of stock stories, concealed stories, resistance stories, and emerging/transforming stories offers a concrete context for social studies methods students to critique United States history through a CRT lens. While the stock stories function as dominant narratives when applied to U.S. history content (i.e., White male history), Bell’s (2010) notion of concealed, resistance, and emerging/transforming stories stand as counternarratives to the stock stories, strengthening and enriching students’ understandings of the complexities and tensions in the histories of people of color in the United States. Fundamentally, then, the course is designed to disrupt students’ assumptions that history is “neutral” (Zinn, 2003), and replace this misunderstanding with a skeptical disposition toward U.S. history, recognizing that it is deeply rooted in White supremacy, and to then intentionally pursue the concealed, resistance, and emerging/transforming stories around race. Table 21.2 shows the criteria by which this summative assignment is assessed. CONCLUSION Doing race in a social studies methods class with pre-service teachers is a rigorous, complex, and humanizing process. Navigating the uncertainties of students, capitalizing on their enthusiasm for new content, and addressing diversity in its many forms within the classroom offer rich opportunities for higher education faculty to model the doing of race. Deliberate planning along with flexibility, an openness to continuously reflect on one’s own RPCK, and a commitment to hold students accountable for pursuing RPCK serve as the core of this work. When a consistent message, week after week, reading after reading, discussion after discussion, speaks to the centrality of race in social studies content, in textbooks, in our own assumptions and “knowledge” of content, the shells of privileged white-washed versions crack, making way for the intellectual and cultural humility of RPCK.

406    E. M CAMP TABLE 21.2  Assessment Criteria for Challenging Stock Stories Project Stock Story Description

Provides a brief description of the stock story. Provides a justification for challenging the stock story with concealed stories, resistance stories and emerging/transforming stories. Justification draws on the Bell (2010) reading, in-class presentation on stock, concealed, and resistance stories. Justification explains how one (or more) groups of people are silenced, oppressed, stereotyped, and marginalized by a central focus on the stock story.

Concealed Story(ies) and Story(ies) of Resistance and Emerging/ Transforming Stories

Tells a “different” story than the stock story through concealed stories and stories of resistance. Tells these stories in depth, drawing on a variety of sources of information that reveals these stories as important to tell in our understandings of history. Provides an explanation of what makes the story a “concealed” or “resistance” story, using Bell’s (2010) work and the in-class presentation as a point of reference. Discusses how placing the concealed and resistance stories at the center of instruction deepens middle childhood students’ content knowledge of history. Offers insight into how these stories lead to new, emerging/transforming stories that directly confront the oppression of the stock story. Provides key information and resources for further research.

Student Engagement

Provides a direct connection to the state academic content standards. Clearly articulates a “renegade” plan by which you outline strategies for engaging students in critiquing the stock story to reveal how racism and intersections of classism, sexism, etc. are embedded within the stock stories.

Democratic Efficacy and Citizenship

Makes an explicit connection between the purposes for teaching social studies and challenging the stock story through the use and telling of the concealed and resistance stories.

REFERENCES Agarwal-Rangnath, R., Dover, A. G., & Henning, N. (2016). Preparing to teach social studies for social justice: Becoming a renegade. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Au, W. (2016). Reclaiming the multicultural roots of U.S. curriculum: Communities of color and official knowledge in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Banks, J. A. (1998). Approaches to multicultural curricular reform. In E. Lee, D. Menkart, &Change. Bell, L. A. (2010). Storytelling for social justice: Connecting narrative and the arts in antiracist teaching. New York, NY: Routledge. Chandler, P. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Freire, P. (2003). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th Anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

CounterNarratives in U.S. History     407 Hawley, T. S. (2015). Doing race in social studies: Leveraging collective action and resources to create transformative, issues-centered social studies classrooms. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 301–311). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Hess, D. E. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of discussion. New York, NY: Routledge. Howard, G. R. (2006). We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers, multiracial schools (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Krull, K. (2003). Harvesting hope: The story of Cesar Chavez. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Kumashiro, K. K. (2015). Against commonsense: Teaching and learning toward social justice New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Ladson-Billings, G. (Ed.). (2003). Critical race theory: Perspectives on social studies. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (2011). Yes, but how do we do it? In J. Landsman & C.W. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers/diverse classrooms: Creating inclusive schools, building on students’ diversity, and providing true educational equity (2nd ed., pp. 29–42). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Laínez, R. (2010). From north to south/del norte al sur. San Franscisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Leonardo, Z., & Porter, R. K. (2010). Pedagogy of fear: Toward a Fanonian theory of ‘safety’ in race dialogue. Race Ethnicity and Education, 13(2), 139–157. Loewen, J. W. (2007). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Martell, C. C. (2015). Learning to teach culturally relevant social studies: A white teacher’s retrospective self-study. In P. T. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 41–60). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Merryfield, M. M., & Subedi, B. (2006). Decolonizing the mind for world-centered globalpossibilities (3rd ed., pp. 283–295). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Milner, H. R. (2010). Start where you are but don’t stay there. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. National Center for Education Statistics (n.d.). Digest of education statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp Parker, W. C. (2012). Social studies in elementary education (14th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Perez, A. I. (2003). My diary from here to there/Mi diario de aqui hasta alla. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Rossi, J. A. (2006). The dialogue of democracy. The Social Studies, May/June, 112–120. Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2012). Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Straubhaar, R. (2015). The stark reality of the “White Saviour” complex and the need for critical of Comparative and International Education, 45(3), 381–400. The Inquiry Design Model. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.c3teachers.org/inquiry -design-model/

408    E. M CAMP Zinn, H., & Arnove, A. (2004). Voices of a people’s history of the United States. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press. Zinn, H. (2003). A people’s history of the United States: 1492–present. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

CHAPTER 22

TEACHING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN MISSISSIPPI Using Teacher Professional Learning Communities to Promote CRT/RPCK Jenice L. View George Mason University

ABSTRACT The Mississippi Teacher Fellows Program attempted to infuse critical race theory (CRT) and racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK) into our model of a statewide professional learning community. This chapter describes case studies of three participating high school teachers and their experiences as they engaged in a CRT/RPCK inquiry-based approach to teach the various manifestations of the modern civil rights movement. It also describes the teachers’ curricular challenges and personal resistances to teaching with a CRT/RPCK lens. We examine their work and that of their students through the lens of a rubric to gauge the impact of the fellows program on teachers’ development or growth in RPCK.

Race Lessons, pages 409–437 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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This chapter explores the curricular challenges, personal resistances, and successes regarding teaching with a critical race theory (CRT)/racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK) lens that P–12 teachers perceived while part of the yearlong Mississippi Teacher Fellows Program. We focus on three classroom teachers’ case studies as they engaged in a CRT/RPCK inquirybased approach to teach the modern civil rights movement. We examine their work and that of their students’ through the lens of a rubric to gauge the impact of the professional learning community on teachers’ RPCK. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK This chapter addresses the concepts of RPCK, an emerging literature that places CRT (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Taylor, Gillborn, & Ladson-Billings, 2009) at the center of social studies instruction, particularly in the United States (Chandler, 2015; King & Finley, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 2003, 2009; Vickery, Holmes, & Brown, 2015), by infusing the nine concepts into all social studies materials: racism is normal, race is a social construct, interest convergence, revisionism/historical context, use of narrative/counternarratives, anti-essentialism, intersectionality, racial realism, and a critique of liberalism (Chandler, 2015, pp. 5–6). Why Mississippi The state of Mississippi is an obvious place for teaching civil rights movement history, as it is the site for a great number of those historic struggles. Many young intellectuals, strategists, and front-line activists sought to transform Mississippi into a multicultural democracy (Hartford, n.d.), including using Freedom Schools to overcome the legacy of systematic underand mis-education of all of Mississippi’s students. While much work is still needed to achieve a multicultural democracy in Mississippi, one example of success is the 2006 state legislation, Mississippi Senate Bill 2718 (2006), mandating the teaching of civil and human rights history in all P–12 classrooms. The Mississippi Truth Project (n.d.) was developed to ensure this bill was enacted. In response to the call for more opportunities for P–12 teachers to deepen their understanding of the legacies of the historical civil rights movement and to implement Mississippi Senate Bill 2718 (2006), we developed professional development and an assessment rubric. A focal point of this work has been to “put the movement back into civil rights teaching” (Menkart, Murray, & View, 2004). The National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (NCSS, 2013) includes an Inquiry Arc to help teachers

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and students develop questions and plan inquiries, apply disciplinary concepts and tools, evaluate sources by using evidence, and communicate conclusions as well as take informed action. This Arc of Inquiry served as an early step with our work. However, we found that in the absence of a CRT lens (Ladson-Billings, 2003), or RPCK (Chandler, 2015), the Inquiry Arc alone did not encourage teachers to dig deeply enough into the ways that White supremacy, internalized oppression, and institutional racism informed their curricular choices. Our Role as Teacher Educators In a 2014 study, we provided P–12 teachers the opportunity to make curricular choices and then explain their rationale for a hypothetical unit on the modern civil rights movement (Swalwell, Pellegrino, & View, 2015). Both pre-service and in-service teachers, African American and White, of all grade levels, made “safe” choices that avoided enslavement, institutional racism, and extra-legal violence. As a result of that study’s findings, we have worked to provide materials, build collegial relationships and social media platforms, and design professional development learning opportunities for in-service teachers with a CRT/RPCK lens. Components of the professional development included a weeklong summer institute; individualized on-site coaching; lesson modeling; virtual community for sharing materials, reflections, and resources; the distribution of a wide array of curricular materials; and peer coaching. For the study described in this chapter, Table 22.1 displays the rubric we used to evaluate evidence of RPCK. The rubric was adapted from a master’s degree course in which certified P–12 teachers are tasked to redesign classroom lessons to address LadsonBillings’ (1995, 2006) mandate for culturally relevant pedagogy as defined by academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. For this study, we included the ways that RPCK can work in conjunction with student academic achievement, cultural competence on the part of teacher and students, and collective critical consciousness to examine the social studies through a lens of race. We were curious to learn the extent to which the fellows program professional learning community—beyond introducing teachers and students to new materials and a variety of pedagogies—impacted the development or advancement of teachers’ RPCK. METHODOLOGY The qualitative methods used included interviews and elements of portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) such as paying close attention to context as an important tool for interpreting meaning, actively seeking

412    J. L. VIEW TABLE 22.1  Social Studies Rubric With an RPCK Lens Rudimentary

Proficient

Exemplary

Academic Achievement

Proficiency is expected of and encouraged in most students, defined by a range of assessments

Proficiency is expected of and encouraged in all students, defined by a range of assessments

Excellence is expected of and demonstrated by all students, defined by a range of assessments

Cultural Competence

Teacher acknowledges that all students have culture and incorporates authentic and nuanced examples of home-community cultures/language/ race/ethnicity in the classroom

Teacher learns from students to make regular and explicit connections between home-community and school cultures/ languages/race/ ethnicity that honors multiple ways of being

Teacher and students engage in regular and explicit critiques of privilege, including in classrooms that are all “White”

Critical Consciousness

Teachers create opportunities for students to develop and/or deepen awareness of root causes of inequality

Teachers create opportunities for students to develop ideas for eliminating root causes of inequality

Teachers create opportunities for students to take actions for changing root causes of inequality

Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Teacher interrogates own racialized identity, intersectionality and critical stance in designing social studies curricula

Teacher engages in dialogue with students and families regarding racialized identities, intersectionality and revisionist histories and counternarratives

Teacher works with students, families, and other educators to create new narratives/ counternarratives for use in multiple educational settings

Source: Adapted from Chandler (2015); View, DeMulder, & Stribling (manuscript in preparation)

“goodness,” rather than pathology in the teachers’ stories, listening both to and for teacher stories. We used elements of document analysis (Bowen, 2009) to understand the impact of the fellows program on teachers’ practice and to gain hints into the impacts on their students. We employed emic (from teachers’ own words) and etic (from the rubric) coding as well as Boyatzis’ (1998) thematic analysis to draw conclusions. Participants Twelve teachers were selected to participate in a yearlong Mississippi Teacher Fellowship on Civil Rights Movement and Labor History

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(Mississippi Teacher Fellows) Program in 2014–2015. Their selection for the Fellowship program was based on demonstrated evidence of meeting the rudimentary threshold of skill on the rubric. In January 2016, all were invited to participate in interviews of 30–60 minutes to discuss their experiences with teaching lessons on the civil rights movement, or any lesson related to racial issues in the United States. Some teachers had used lessons developed by Teaching Tolerance (www.teachingtolerance.org), Teaching for Change (www.teachingforchange.org; www.civilrightsteaching.org), or the Zinn Education Project (www.zinnedproject.org). Other teachers developed their own inquiry-based lessons. Over the course of the Fellowship, several of the teachers demonstrated skills in the proficient or exemplary category of the rubric. Of these, three teachers agreed to publish their interviews: Alma McDonald who has 14 years of teaching experience and is an African American English teacher; Glendolyn Crowell, a White social studies teacher with 20 years’ experience; and Jessica Dickens, who has 8 years’ experience and is a White social studies teacher (see Appendix A: Civil Rights Teaching Successes and Challenges for a description of other fellows). Interviews The interview protocol was designed to elicit responses that could be coded by the rubric (see Appendix B: Mississippi Teacher Fellows Interview Protocol). Questions 1 to 3 set the context. Question 4—“How did you assess the students?” and the sub-prompt “Describe the student(s) who struggled most with the lesson”—examined student academic achievement (SAA) and whether the teacher expected all of the students in the P–12 classroom, regardless of ability, language proficiency, and other issues, to demonstrate accurate historical knowledge. Question 5—“What were you surprised to learn from your students in the course of this lesson?”—explored proficiency with cultural competence (CuCO; teacher learns from students to make regular and explicit connections between home-community and school cultures/languages/race/ethnicity that honors multiple ways of being). Teacher responses from those who created opportunities for students to develop ideas for eliminating root causes of inequality—Question 6: “What were students inspired to do as a result of the lesson?”—were coded for proficiency in critical consciousness (CrCo). Question 7—“How did you talk with students and their families about race?”—was coded for proficiency with RPCK, that is how the teacher engaged in dialogue with students and families regarding racialized identities, intersectionality, and revisionist histories and counter narratives. No teacher was expected to score in the exemplary category as the result of creating or delivering a

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single lesson. However, the examination of a single lesson was intended to be a snapshot of a teacher’s approach to racializing social studies material that offered explicit opportunities to address RPCK. Document Analysis We examined lesson plans, handouts, and student work. The three teachers did not follow the inquiry design model (IDM) used by other teachers in this volume. However, their adapted or original lessons were similar to the IDM in that they included student inquiry and the taking of multiple perspectives. Lessons included a debate on the Confederate flag at the state capitol; an examination of unsung heroes/martyrs of the civil rights movement; and a lesson on the murder of Emmett Till. Student work included written reflections, proposed historic markers for unsung movement heroes, imaginary Twitter feeds, and children’s books based on historical information. We coded all documents for any evidence that they met the proficiency category on the RPCK rubric. FINDINGS Our portraits of the three teachers address the questions within the rubric and the relevant codes are attached to examples from interviews and student work. Hattiesburg, Mississippi—Alma McDonald’s Home Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s population of 45,989, is 52.8% African American, 40.5% White, 4.3% Hispanic/Latino, and less than 2% of mixed race, Asian, or Native American (U.S. Census, 2010). Twenty-three percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line with lower-than-average median family income, yet the University of Southern Mississippi and other industries attract a foreign born population that is nearly twice that of the rest of the state (2.6% vs. 1.4% statewide), and the city’s population has higher college education attainment (31.2%) than the state (20.1%) and most of the rest of the nation (28.8%). Hattiesburg High School is located in Forrest county, where 95% of the city’s population lives. Most students are African American and 90% receive free and reduced lunch. Seventy percent of students graduate within four years, but over 15% drop out altogether. Of the graduates, proficiency in reading

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    415

(55%) and history (37%) yielded the county an above average grade for student achievement. Alma McDonald—Unsung Heroes Since 2001, Alma McDonald has been an 11th grade English teacher at Hattiesburg High School, where 40% of teachers are African-American. McDonald’s students use multiple strategies for making connections between history, literature, and current events, including web quests, interviews, and basic research skills to create newsletters, PowerPoints, and videos. McDonald’s teaching philosophy is to “give [students] guidance, but not [give] them all the answers” (SAA). Prior to the summer institute, McDonald stated, “I want [students] to walk out of my classroom not only with an understanding of the history, but with a desire to know more and a hunger to change the world—just like those who came before them” (SAA/CrCo). In describing her successes with teaching about the civil rights movement, McDonald stated, I love [it] when students realize that they are greater than what they thought themselves to be and more powerful than they imagine. This year I had a student who was totally disconnected from many of the current events (such as Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner). We studied about the non-violent movements of the ’60s, but also about Robert Johnson and the Deacons of Defense and the importance of . . . standing up against injustice. He saw that we had many battles to fight and that all it takes is one person. He organized a protest on campus and started working with a local group to speak out more. (CrCo)

However, McDonald also discussed her teaching challenges. She sometimes has difficulties finding appropriate resources, including funding for field trips. She also confronts resistance from students who are bored with redundant civil rights content, or, in their words, “the same thing over and over.” In the ideal, McDonald wants students to, “see the importance of not just knowing . . . history but becoming active participants in what is currently happening in our society,” and to see contemporary connection to history (CrCo). McDonald chose to adapt the “Unsung Heroes” lesson from Teaching for Change that provides a short biography of a modern civil rights movement veteran and invites students to inhabit the person’s identity and then circulate around the classroom with an interview sheet to meet, greet, and record information about at least three others. A Mississippi Teacher Fellows program professional development specialist modeled the lesson for McDonald with two of her class periods in September 2015. McDonald taught it to two class periods then, and again in January 2016 with another

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set of her classes. She chose the lesson precisely to counteract the limited knowledge of her students regarding people in the movement outside of “the usual suspects,” Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. In the interview she stated, [Students learned] about the behind-the-scenes people, and [that] it takes a lot of people in the movement to make it move. Not everybody is going to be at the [microphone]. Some people have to make the sandwiches. Somebody has to stand guard, or just be the planner, the organizer. Then to see that most of the people were just ordinary people . . . who had decided to take a stand. And it wasn’t just Black people . . . (RPCK)

McDonald became aware that students who were more introverted or who struggled with reading tended, initially, to avoid embodying the personalities. They would read from their biography card or merely offer it to the other students they encountered. McDonald interrupted this behavior by insisting that the students pre-read the cards, speak aloud what they learned about their person, and then share that knowledge if they were unwilling to “become” the person (SAA). As McDonald gained more comfort with students’ abilities to discover the information on their own, including the historical relationships among various people and organizations, she refrained from interrupting their interactions and observed their surprise and insights (SAA). It kind of opened their eyes . . . Sometimes your allies can be of a different color, or a different gender . . . Like with [Yuri Kochiyama] and then there was a White guy, that one of the guys got. They were just like, “You said this was civil rights. What’s this White dude doing (laughing)?” . . . [I would say] Read it and then you tell me . . . they were like, “Wow, I didn’t know there were that many White people, or Japanese people, or Hispanic people, helped out with our movement.” I’m like, yup. (RPCK)

Her initial assessments of the lesson included observations of student participation, and evaluating the historical accuracy of their interview sheets in terms of the person embodied and the people encountered. She later expanded the Unsung Heroes lesson to include broad research on any people in the African diaspora and outside of the time of enslavement, with the assessment to include the creation of a children’s book using images that students created or found, and using their own words. Examples included Mary Seacole, a 19th century Jamaican nurse who served in the Crimean War; Egyptian ruler Amenhotep IV, politically conscious hip hop group, X Clan, Black Panther leader Kathleen Cleaver, and civil/human rights organizer Ella Jo Baker (SAA, RPCK; see Appendix C: Words and Images From Children’s Book Project).

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    417

McDonald indicated that the lesson and her efforts were limited in its development of critical consciousness to the point of evoking ideas for eliminating the root cause of inequalities:  . . . A lot of times in my class, I’ll come in with new stories and tell them about this movement, and that movement. They’re just like, “Yeah, whatever (laughing).” So, I still haven’t gotten that, “let’s go out and rally,” type of deal from them but, at least they saw that ordinary people can make a difference . . . Did anybody all of a sudden become really enamored with one person, and want to make it their life work to study? No, that didn’t happen. It didn’t inspire any new historians to come about (laughing). (no CrCO)

However, McDonald regularly discusses issues of racialized identities, intersectionality, revisionist histories and counter narratives within and beyond her language arts classroom, and she assumes the role of ally and coach in helping students discern their experiences: For most of my kids, we’ve had the conversation [about race] but I guess because the way our school is, they don’t experience it a whole lot. And the way our town is set up, a lot of them live in, basically, an all-Black world. The only time they really think of anything racist is in interactions with different teachers on campus. We’ve had the [conversation], “[Another teacher] so racist. She don’t like Black people.” I’m like she’s kind of in the wrong place if that’s the case. So we discuss it like, “Okay, what happened?” When they tell me what happened I say, “Well that’s a cultural thing. That’s the way they perceive this and that’s how they express that.” If you’re not used to people talking a certain way, or using a certain language, you take it as they’re discriminating or they’re being prejudiced . . . But it’s like, “No you’re not familiar with the culture because you’re not around anybody like them.” . . . A lot of [students believe], “we don’t have to deal with that no more. They’re not that racist anymore. Nobody’s fighting, putting hose spikes on us no more.” (Laughing) . . . So we talk about micro aggressions, and different things about covert and overt racism, and different things like that. (RPCK)

McDonald regularly uses her language arts instruction to engage students in social studies material to help them to navigate their place in the world as African American citizens and critics. Maintaining a professional and adult stance, she also perceives the students as “hers” and has a personal stake in their academic, social, and political accomplishments. While she is not a social studies teacher, the evidence from the Unsung Heroes lesson suggests that she has an innate and exemplary understanding of how to exercise RPCK.

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Glendolyn Crowell and Jessica Dickens—Collegial Support for RPCK Glendolyn Crowell Glendolyn Crowell and Jessica Dickens are athletic coaches and history teachers in Kosciusko High School. Kosciusko, Mississippi is located in Attala County in the center of the state. High school enrollment is 1108 students, and is one of the most racially diverse (48% African American) in the county or state. Fifty-seven percent of students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. The county population of 19,613 is 56.4% White, 42.3% African American, 2% Hispanic/Latino, and less than 1% of mixed race, Asian, or Native American (U.S. Census, 2010). Thirty-two percent of the children live below the federal poverty line, with median family income, poverty rates and educational attainment that are below the state average. Most Kosciusko students (65%) graduate from high school within four years, but over 12% drop out altogether. Of the graduates, proficiency in reading (49.5%) and history (25.5%) yielded the county a below average grade for student achievement. Glendolyn Crowell has the most teaching experience with 20 years in the classroom, ten of those years focused on history/social studies. She also feels the greatest number of constraints on teaching using RPCK, due partly to her “limited prior knowledge” of the civil rights movement, her challenges with gaining support from administrators and fellow teachers, and the pressures of preparing students for the state history test, which is a graduation requirement. She has experimented with role-plays and other active pedagogies. She noted that her students “love” group activities despite the fact the she describes herself as “not a big group-work person”: This has been a struggle for me to get out of my 4 or 5 rows, and me not stand up there and lecture all of the time. I guess for me, putting them in groups and just seeing them working with each other, that’s a big thing to me, just seeing the interaction, just seeing them not just tearing the room down whenever I give them that free rein, so to speak. To me, the kids that I have now, they work really well when I put them into groups, and sometimes that surprises me how well they do work. (SAA)

When teaching about the civil rights movement, Crowell realizes the difficulty in introducing sensitive material, but states, “I want to be a part of the solution that brings all races together for the betterment of our society. I want to help my students understand and confront the unpleasant acts of the past to help them gain strength to move into the future.” Through the use of primary documents, she attempts to share compelling real life stories that cause students to eagerly return to her classroom hungry for more knowledge.

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    419

Crowell taught a Teaching Tolerance lesson, “Civil Rights: A Time for Justice” (Shuster, 2014), that she adapted to place in the context of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the desegregation of Little Rock High School in Arkansas, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The PowerPoint she developed connects the legislation, court decisions, organizations, and personalities to provide students an overview of the time period. She then asked students to brainstorm and write what they already know about the obstacles civil rights activists faced. The next step was to work in groups of 3–5 to learn more about forty martyrs of the civil rights movement by examining their biographies (see Appendix D: 40 Martyrs Who Gave Their Lives for Civil Rights) to learn more about their murders in terms of the causes and the culprits, and to complete the matrix in Table 22.2. Students were asked to discuss patterns in the series of murders, and to consider why they thought a person would knowingly put his or her life at risk. Crowell described the task: Just looking at the matrix, we talked about how some of those people were basically killed because they were Black [sic], or basically killed because they were trying to fight for equality, or fighting for civil rights, that they weren’t killed because they really did something to be killed for . . . They were basically killed for no reason whatsoever. We . . . brainstormed people that they could think of and why they joined the civil rights movement, knowing they could get killed or . . . hurt, or lose their house, lose their job, their family could get harmed. [At the beginning and at the end] we talked about . . . why did they think that these people risked their lives to join the movement? (RPCK)

The student assessment included a written reflection and the creation of a proposed public memorial that included basic information about a martyr and why they were killed, an explanation about why people were willing to risk their lives for civil rights, an explanation of how their sacrifice furthered the cause for civil rights, and a statement about why it is important TABLE 22.2  Sample Matrix of Civil Rights Martyrs Who Was Killed? Rev. George Lee Emmett Till Wharlest Jackson William Moore

Age and Race

Who Killed Them?

Why Were They Killed?

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to remember their sacrifice. For Crowell the most powerful student statement was a 16 year-old girl’s memorial to Emmett Till: “Where the crime of Blackness is still a mystery unsolved” (see Appendix E: Emmett Till Student Artifact). To Crowell, the title implies a response to the importance of memorializing Till (because he represents a long line of young Black men killed by racists) and that his murder benchmarks contemporary analysis of civil rights progress. Students were then asked to create an imaginary social media page for any civil rights activist (from the past or the present that the class had studied or that the students researched) that reflected creativity, historical accuracy, and a summary of that person’s sentiments regarding his/her participation in the movement. One example of a living civil rights veteran currently living in Jackson, MS is Hollis Watkins; the imaginary social media page a student created was based partly on interviews with Mr. Watkins (see Appendix F: Media Page for Hollis Watkins). To promote the academic success of all students Crowell matched struggling readers and writers in pre-assigned small groups and relied on peer coaching to help motivate students to achieve the same level of competency (SAA). In terms of what she learned from her students, Crowell referred to the student who impressed her with the Emmett Till assignment: I would call [that girl] a pretty high achiever and she’s really into the civil rights movement . . . Actually, she and I can sit there and talk and she can teach me stuff. She’s a Black student and sometimes [she will ask], “How do you know this? You’re not Black. You didn’t live this.” . . . I’ve found with her and a lot of the other Black students that when you start talking about the civil rights movement they’re kind of shocked that a White person . . . actually cares . . . Other White teachers have kind of shied away from it . . . They hit the high points. They hit Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and then they just go on to the next chapter or whatever. (CuCo)

In a future lesson, Crowell would include more local Mississippi activists in the list of martyrs and contemporary activists. She also acknowledged that students are often eager for more active pedagogies than is her inclination, and they often ask for more opportunities to think about contemporary issues and “working for equality,” yet she lacks confidence to do either: I try to do as many as I can, but most of the time I’m so restricted to getting all of the information in for the state test . . . I know they’re learning by the activity, [but when] the state test goes from 1877 to present, I have to cover all of that. (no CrCo)

Despite her limitations regarding fostering CrCo in her students, Crowell is more willing than many White colleagues to engage in dialogue with

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    421

students and families about her own racialized identity, the intersectionality of identities and issues, revisionist history, and counter narratives. Her dispositions were shaped by her early years in a rural community where African Americans and Whites intermingled comfortably, where her Black friends but none of her White friends attended her father’s funeral, and during her early teaching career where she was welcomed and enlightened as the only White teacher in an all-Black school: We shared tears; we shared the death of students’ parents . . . I was 23 years old, right out of college and I was coaching basketball and my players’ parents took care of me . . . I lived by myself. They cooked supper for me at night; they invited me to their church . . . just things like that, and those are things that I’ll never forget.

In the most recent school year, when one of those former students died, Crowell faced down her current White students and their parents in their surprise that she would leave her job early to go to a “Black funeral,” despite the prospect of being the only White person in attendance. She is regarded as “one of those kind of teachers” by White parents and states that it does not bother her, particularly with the support of her current principal. In our analysis, Crowell might initially seem to have rudimentary RPCK skill, and emotional rather than technical talents with nurturing students toward academic excellence and critical consciousness. Yet, her strong dispositions toward justice, professional development, and self-reflection suggest greater proficiency over time, particularly given her collegial partnership with Jessica Dickens. Jessica Dickens Jessica Dickens has been teaching for eight years, the last five in the Kosciusko School District. Dickens regularly uses primary documents as the foundation for classroom debates to discuss U.S. history content, particularly regarding issues of race and class. Her classroom has moveable tables that allow students to meet in small groups and to spread out materials for examination. Her wide array of resources includes materials from the Stanford History Curriculum, Teaching for Change, Zinn Education Project, and the Library of Congress. Prior to the Fellows Program, Dickens indicated that using history to understand the social issues of present society is my passion. To try to help students also feel passion about society’s ills is my intention. When passion and knowledge combine, students care to learn, and are equipped to improve society once they leave my classroom and graduate from high school. (CrCo)

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Through close reading of primary sources, small group discussions, graphic organizers, debates, essay writings, and other strategies, Dickens’s students learn to dissect materials for deeper meaning. According to Crowell, Dickens’s classroom has a reputation in the school for being noisy and busy, and a place where the teacher teaches and where students learn. Despite the accolades, Dickens expressed challenges with White kids who have “been indoctrinated by the parents to believe that the teacher is wrong” and with African American students who have “very little knowledge about the good that their people have done . . . and see themselves [only] as descendants of former slaves.” She indicated that it is hard to “find a balance of African American history for Blacks [sic] and civil rights history for Whites.” Among the courses Dickens teaches is Mississippi Studies, a required state course that students must pass to graduate. A curriculum change allows the course to be offered in both 8th and 9th grades; students who failed the course in 8th grade can retake it, and those who entered the state in high school, have the opportunity to pass. The class where Dickens taught her original lesson was a very small class of low-performing and indifferent students that had failed Mississippi studies and were at risk of dropping out of school altogether. In the fall of 2015—inspired by the murders of Black parishioners at a South Carolina church, the subsequent debate about Confederate flags, and a proposal to declare April 2016 Mississippi Confederate Heritage Month—Dickens created a lesson to debate whether the Mississippi legislature should replace the Confederate flag at the state capitol. At several points throughout the three-day lesson, she asked students where they stood—literally—on the issue by having the “pros” to stand on one side of the room and the “cons” to stand on the other and to be willing to shift positions as they gained more information, and after they explained their change in position. Primary sources included different images of the flag over time, legislative language, and secondary sources such as news articles from multiple perspectives on the flag’s symbolism. Half of the students conducted a gallery walk of these materials and took notes on information they discovered, while the other half engaged in a close reading of the materials before the groups switched tasks. Struggling readers were encouraged to spend more time with the written articles to decode the information. During the debates, everyone was required to refer back to the materials to support arguments; in many instances, struggling readers received support from allies who handed them the relevant evidence from the texts (SAA). In the first poll, Dickens was surprised that most students advocated keeping the flag as is, including most of the African Americans. An AfricanAmerican student said, “I really don’t care. I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t affect me.” Another African-American student said, “I’ve seen pictures on social media with other Black people waving the Confederate flag, so I don’t understand what the big deal is.” Dickens continued,

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    423 Some of the White students said, “It’s a part of what our heritage is . . . and some of our . . . great-grandparents fought in the Civil War.” [Others said], “It’s offensive to some people. If you want to fly the Confederate flag . . . in your yard, that’s one thing, but if you fly it at government buildings that are taxpayer funded, that are supposed to represent all people of Mississippi, then the flag should be representative of all people in Mississippi.”

A lively debate ensued with students offering more and more evidence, and several opportunities to write private reflections that forced them to consider the rationale for an opposing opinion, such that by the end of the third day, the majority of students had shifted to a position to change the state flag. Dickens perceived that: They understood why there was a debate, what the debate was about, and what their opinion on it was. (SAA) . . . Then I had a student who said, “What do we do . . . what can we do at this point? We don’t have a say in anything.” They asked about writing senators and all this, about what do we need to do to get this flag changed? I gave them information to contact their senators or their representatives, and write letters if they felt the need to do so, about their beliefs on keeping or changing the flag. (CrCo)

Dickens used a rubric to assess student participation in the discussions, and a different rubric for student reflections, based on the strength of their arguments, the three supporting reasons, and their understanding of the opposing arguments. A few students passionately held their opinions, often along racial lines. However, Dickens noted: A White student [wrote], “Even though I’m White and for my entire life I believed that we should keep the [Confederate] flag, and I have [one] hanging in my bedroom, when you think about the fact that all Mississippians, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, et cetera, pay taxes, then it made sense that our state flag should reflect all of those Mississippians, and that it’s not going to hurt me if we get rid of this flag, but it might hurt another group of people. If we’re going to hurt another group of people, then it’s not worth having it.” His stance completely changed. (SAA, RPCK)

In another instance, an African American student changed his mind: A lot of times we Black people talk about how we don’t get any of our heritage and our cultures remembered, but in a way, that is Southern heritage . . . some of these people’s great-grandparents died in this war fighting for Southern beliefs, even if it was slavery, that’s something that they hold on to.

Slavery isn’t an issue today.

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Dickens perceived that he empathized with some of the White students who said, “This is important to my family because [of] my great-grandparent . . . ” and she found the student’s reasoning to be “very, very impressive” (SAA). In general, Dickens was surprised by the passion, in particular from students who are silent and otherwise do not participate, and the civility of the debate (SAA). At the other end of the spectrum were the students who expressed interest in engaging in some kind of civic action by writing letters to state legislators (Dickens did not discover if students followed through). She is aware that some students challenged others on their display of the Confederate flag in their cars or as part of the school dress code policy; in addition, a flag in the school’s front lobby has been removed (CrCo). Dickens appears forthright and skilled in using RPCK with students, colleagues, and with parents. She perceives that her principal defends her strength as a teacher who offers rigor, skill-building, and “balanced” content; the rapport she builds with students as a result of her athletic coaching relationship wins her the trust of African American and White students to discuss controversial subjects in the classroom, despite her moniker from some colleagues and White parents as “that civil rights teacher.” In her first year of teaching a 7th grade world history class, a parent objected to her teaching about Hinduism and Islam: The parent asked, “If we don’t believe in that stuff, why do we need to learn

about it?” My response was, “I’m assuming that you don’t believe in war either, but do we learn about the wars that happen? . . . At some point, unless you decide to stay in the bubble of Mississippi all your life, you’re going to be exposed to different people and different cultures, and you’re going to need to be able to . . . work within those cultures to be successful human beings. (RPCK) We were not able to get hard evidence of student writings for the purpose of document analysis. We have only the interview with Dickens and commentary from Crowell and from the professional development staff at the Fellows Program. However, of the three teachers interviewed, Dickens comes closest to expressing an exemplary technical practice of RPCK, along with support for critical consciousness, cultural competence, and the promotion of academic achievement in all students. DISCUSSION An important question facing teacher educators and professional development designers is how to assess the impact of our work with any validity or reliability, if by “impact” we mean P–12 student outcomes that demonstrate,

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    425

in our case, ease with analyzing, understanding, and acting on “race” with social studies content, as a result of instruction that we have provided to their classroom teachers. The many layers of intervention include: teacher educator identity and skill, curriculum selection, professional development pedagogy, in-service P–12 teacher identity and dispositions, P–12 teacher curricular choice, P–12 teacher pedagogy, P–12 student identity, and finally, P–12 teacher assessment choice. With more data, such as student pre-post assessments, student interviews, and classroom field notes from observations of several lessons and units, and more self-study by the designers of the Fellows Program we might begin to have stronger empirical evidence of RPCK in teachers and hints of how their practice helps children understand and act on the racialized nature of social studies content. Absent this volume of data, we can only offer some evidence from the portraits of three teachers and from an analysis of documents they and their students produced. Consistent, focused, and field-tested professional development support for motivated and engaged teachers is the only approach that yields changes in teacher practice. To the extent of funding, the Fellows Program attempted to offer a statewide professional learning community, along with resources, site visits, and mentoring to support such changes. The teachers interviewed suggested that their students scored better on the state history test as a result of the teachers’ involvement in Fellows Program, but this is speculative and anecdotal. Teachers also offered examples of enthusiastic student in-class responses that was, for research purposes, second-hand. The available student work showed deep research, creativity, and engagement, but it is not clear how representative these products are for each teacher. Yet, with these caveats, there seems to be great promise in the possibility of nurturing RPCK in social studies and language arts teachers, especially in a state with a racial history as fraught and complex as the state of Mississippi. It seems to help to have a professional learning community that nurtures explicit dialogue, experimentation, and examination of student academic achievement, cultural competence, critical consciousness, and racial pedagogical content knowledge.

Most of the White kids have already been indoctrinated by their parents so if they go home and talk about it, their parents say the teacher is wrong. Most of the Black [sic] students have very little knowledge about the good that their people have done and contributed to society—they basically see themselves as descendants of former slaves—to find a balance of African/ African American history for Blacks [sic] and civil right history for Whites is hard. Teaching students of color about their own history and being White myself— How much credibility do they and their parents give me? Being branded by White parents as “that liberal teacher.” Many White students feel uncomfortable discussing race on a deep level. Connecting modern day institutionalized racism (examples) with Black [sic] history—If I show the statistics, will I be reinforcing the same stereotypes they believe about themselves (example, Whites are smarter)?

Any role play, film, text of a primary source helps students to see it in a more personal way. Connecting discussions of race to modern events— Michael Brown, Baltimore, etc.—elicits more interest.

Jessica Dickens • Caucasian • Social Studies • Kosciusko High School • 6 years

(continued)

Challenges Getting students to see the relevance of and connection to past struggles. They don’t want to talk about the past—mainly because it’s, in their words, “the same thing over and over.” I’ve had to make them think outside their limited knowledge and become more welcoming to learning something new. I also want them to see the importance of not just knowing that history but becoming active participants in what is currently happening in our society. The other challenge is getting resources (books, funding for trips, etc.)

Successes

I love those “a-ha” moments when students realize that they are greater than what they thought themselves to be and more powerful than they imagine. I had a student this year who was totally disconnected from many of the current events (such as Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner). We studied about the nonviolent movements of the 1960’s, but also about Robert Johnson and the Deacons of Defense and the importance of speaking up and standing up against injustice. He saw that we had many battles to fight and that all it takes is one person. He organized a protest on campus and started working with a local group to speak out more.

Teacher

Alma McDonald • African American • English • Hattiesburg High School • 14 years

APPENDIX A  Civil Rights Teaching Successes and Challenges (n = 12)

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Challenges

My students (who are predominately Black) have very little background in history so sometimes it’s hard to get in-depth when you have to go back and fill in the background. Sometimes some of my students aren’t as enthusiastic (but civil rights history is usually an interesting topic for my kids). Hard for my students to see connections between today’s events and the past; some seem apathetic.

Limiting scope—It is hard to decide what to focus on and what to leave out—I could teach this all year. Even focus on Mississippi and Jackson gives a lot of options and material. Not teaching it in February—Students assume I’m just “doing Black History Month” when I do that.

My principal is very supportive of my teaching of civil rights. I taught a lesson about CR through song; we listened to various songs of CRM and analyzed the lyrics. Lesson with primary sources (Anne Moody excerpts, Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] freedom summer application, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] stories, freedom vote pamphlets), students examined the sources, they seemed to enjoy it, they had to take each source and decide what each source revealed about the CRM in the United States.

“Where is the Voice Coming From?”—grabs students every time and builds amazing discussion of racism and other -isms and their roots in humans. The Children’s March (Teaching Tolerance, n.d.) film is fun but shows how children led the way in Birmingham—shows youth activism.

Caucasian Female Social Studies Middle School 3 years

Caucasian Female History High School 18 years

• • • • •

• • • • •

(continued)

Getting students to see the story of civil rights from the perspective of the time period. Students will always say, “Well, I would’ve done it this way or that way.” It’s really hard to get students to understand why people acted the way they did because times were different.

It’s a small success but I was really pleased last year when my students were about to make connections between events like Plessy and Brown, voter restrictions, and the Voter [sic] Rights Act without me telling them about the connections.

Caucasian Female History High School 16 years

Getting students involved My own knowledge of CRM—very little prior knowledge—most I’ve researched on my own (digging deeper in the movement) Resources/activities to spur interest of students Support from administration/community/fellow teachers (mainly getting fellow teachers on board)

• • • • •

Successes

I did do a role play activity created by [Teaching for Change] that my students loved (Selma-Bridge to the Ballot). Support from administration has gotten better with new principal.

Glendolyn Crowell • Caucasian • Social Studies • Kosciusko High School • 20 years

Teacher

APPENDIX A  Civil Rights Teaching Successes and Challenges (n = 12) (continued)

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    427

Successes

Challenges

As an early childhood educator, one of the challenges that I have come across in teaching civil rights history is appropriateness. Finding the “best practice” to exposing 4–6 year olds to the movement that our country has gone through and explaining the outcomes of today. Personal challenges: When I first started teaching/exposing my students to Black

Although there are challenges, I have been met with some great successes! My students have a better understanding of tolerance, self-awareness, and are very eager to learn more about their history.

• African American Female • Early childhood education • 3 years

(continued)

Overcoming the “heritage not hate” mantra. Getting administration on board with civil rights teaching without being called a “radical” or a “Black nationalist.” Convincing parents to join discussions before there’s a problem. Fostering more opportunities to teach civil rights beyond February. Examining the history of Jones County. Having a dialogue with history and American literature teachers on civil rights. Honestly discussing race along with civil rights “savior complex.”

Student apathy/behavior—Students don’t just become model students because it is The Movement. But I want them all engaged because they can learn about themselves and what they can do if they participate. Can be very frustrating!

Student referrals to get more “real” information about civil rights. Raising awareness of Bayard Rustin, Vernon Dahmer, and others who (for some) are “secondtier” civil rights all-stars. Inclusion of Robert Williams and the Black Panther Party in aspects of the complete “civil rights” struggle. Having teachers refer students to me to flesh out their role-playing assignments. Independent research from alternative school students on civil rights. Introducing African American literature into the “civil rights” units.

Medgar Evers—Ballad of Medgar Evers by Bob Dylan—using music and poetry about him. Putting 1963–1964 on a Prezi to show context of American history/culture during that time. Being told by students they learned more about movement in 2 weeks than they had in ten years. Student reading about a man killed in the movement and saying, “That is my uncle.”

• African American male • Humanities High School • 8 years

Teacher

APPENDIX A  Civil Rights Teaching Successes and Challenges (n = 12) (continued)

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Moving the dialogue and curriculum focus from simply a “race” issue to one that includes human rights. Finding unique and creative ways to identify and highlight that the movement and its successes was not the result of a few key individuals (i.e., Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks) but it was a collective effort whose success was largely the result of actions made by ordinary people. Helping students understand today’s civil rights issues.

Use of current events and near-present-day sources. Coordination of CRM literature (MLK’s Why We Can’t Wait) with U.S. history curriculum. Connecting CRM to literary classics and world philosophy (e.g., Plato, Bible, Gandhi)

Helping students understand human rights as a precursor of civil rights. Re-awakening the civic engagement and activist spirit in today’s youth (specifically students in my history classes and in our afterschool program). Writing curriculum plan that sets the foundation for exploration of human and civil rights issues for the museum’s leadership program in Jackson Public Schools.

When my students realize that there were so many people who they do not know that made contributions or were affected by the systems in place

• Caucasian Male • English Language Arts High school • 4 years

• African American Female • Humanities • All grade levels • 3 years

• • • •

Caucasian Female Social Studies Middle school 16 years

Inclusion of “new” CRM material and documents—ones that students have not seen. Connecting CRM to current, local activism. Criticism/distrust from parents on race/gender themes (partly because I am a “White” man).

Collaborative with the English and History teachers to enhance their curriculum. Locating and adding resources that have enriched the library’s services that are made available to the teachers and students.

• African American Female • Librarian • HS/MS • 12 years

Challenges

I am trying to make sure I get it right . . .  not one side or the other. So I am spending a great amount of time in finding what is useable for my students.

Ensuring that the information being received by the students isn’t too harsh for the White students. I think that it is important for all the students to understand the roles that other ethnic groups took to assist with the efforts during the civil rights era.

[sic] history in February 2013, I found that I didn’t know half as much as I needed to about civil rights or the movement of our people to give my students the knowledge needed to be successful. Being challenged by the thought personally I started learning, teaching myself, going to different classes to learn as much as possible to give to my students. In a way this journey is a challenge and a success in the same.

Successes

Teacher

APPENDIX A  Civil Rights Teaching Successes and Challenges (n = 12) (continued)

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APPENDIX B Mississippi Teacher Fellows Interview Protocol

1. Name, subject, grade level, racial composition of your classroom 2. Lesson taught a. Name/topic of the lesson taught b. Why was the lesson selected? c. When was the lesson taught? 3. What happened when you taught the lesson? a. What was the student outcome? b. What would you change about the lesson? 4. How did you assess the students? a. Describe the student(s) who struggled most with the lesson 5. What were you surprised to learn from your students in the course of this lesson? 6. What were students inspired to do as a result of the lesson? 7. How did you talk with students and their families about race?

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APPENDIX C Words and Images From Children’s Book Project

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APPENDIX D 40 Martyrs Who Gave Their Lives for Civil Rights

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APPENDIX E Emmett Till Student Artifact

“Where the Crime of Blackness Is Still a Mystery Unsolved”

Emmett Till was murdered for speaking to a White woman in Money, Mississippi in August 1955. Fourteen year old, Emmett Till from Chicago was visiting relatives in the Delta town of Money, MS. Supposedly, Emmett whistled at and spoke to a White woman as he entered a store. A few days later, the store owner and another man kidnapped Emmett from his uncle’s home. Three days after the kidnapping, the body of Emmett Till was found in the Tallahatchie River, his corpse unrecognizable. At the funeral, the mother of Emmett Till requested an open casket so the world could see what had happened to her son. Even with eyewitness testimony, on September 23, 1955, the two men accused of murdering Emmett Till were acquitted. (SAA, RPCK)

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APPENDIX F Media Page for Hollis Watkins

Hollis Watkins @civilrightsactivist Founder and CEO of Southern Echo, Inc. Organization that supports local redistricting efforts aimed at more effective Black political representation, voter education and registration, and monitors election practices. Member of SNCC during 1960’s 520 Tweets

314 Following

629 Followers

________________________________________________________________________________ Hollis Watkins @civilrightsactivists tweeted 6hr SNCC began to get the leaves together, bring the sticks together, pour a little fuel on it, and began to strike the stones together to create a spark in the hearts of those of us who could not see the light. After a period of time we saw that spark and that spark became ablaze in our hearts and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters. And we ourselves as a whole began to add fuel to the fire and the fuel came in many, many different form ________________________________________________________________________________ Hollis Watkins @civilrightsactivists tweeted 7hr The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that grew out of SNCC—that was one of the logs that SNCC laid on the fire. ________________________________________________________________________________ Hollis Watkins @civilrightsactivists tweeted 8hr

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Bob Moses and I got involved in the Movement which led to demonstrations at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter, that led to demonstrations at the bus station, that led to students walking out of Burgland High School— that whole movement itself created the beginning of another log that was important, because as a result of that movement, SNCC set up its first Freedom School in 1961. ________________________________________________________________________________ @civilrightsactivists tweeted 12hr Hollis Watkins “If you’re going to Mississippi, you should be prepared for at least three things. You should be prepared to go to jail. You should be prepared to be beaten. And, ultimately, you should be prepared to be killed.” #FreedomSummer ________________________________________________________________________________ (SAA, CrCo, RPCK) View More Tweets ________________________________________________________________________________

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REFERENCES Bowen, G. A.  (2009, Dec). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal (RMIT Training Pty Ltd trading as RMIT Publishing), 9(2), 27–40. Boyatzis, R. E. (1998) Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Chandler, P. (Ed.). (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.   Hartford, B. (n.d.). McComb: Breaking the Klan siege (July ‘64–March ‘65). In Mississippi Freedom Summer Events. Retrieved from http://www.crmvet.org/tim/ tim64b.htm#1964mccomb Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: NYU Press. King, L. J., & Finley, S.Y. (2015). Race is a highway: Toward a critical race approach in economics classrooms. In P. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 195–228). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.   Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. Ladson-Billings, G. (2003). Critical race theories perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies and curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). “Yes, but how do we do it?”: Practicing culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. Landsman & C. W. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers/diverse classrooms: A guide to building inclusive schools, promoting high expectations, and eliminating racism (pp. 29–42). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In E. Taylor, D. Gillborn, & G. Ladson-Billings (Eds.), Foundations of critical race theory in education (pp. 17–36). New York, NY: Routledge. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., & Davis, J. H. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Menkart, D., Murray, A. M., & View, J. L. (Eds.). (2004). Putting the movement back into civil rights teaching: A resource guide for classrooms and communities. Washington, DC: Teaching for Change and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Mississippi Senate Bill 2718. (2006). Retrieved from http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/ documents/2006/html/SB/2700-2799/SB2718SG.htm Mississippi Truth Project. (n.d.). Teaching civil rights history in Mississippi. Retrieved from http://www.mississippitruth.org/pages/CR-education.htm National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (c3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of P–12 civics, economics, geography, and history.Silver Spring, MD: Author. Retrieved from http:// www.socialstudies.org/system/files/c3/C3-Framework-for-Social-Studies.pdf Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi    437 Southern Poverty Law Center. (2014). Teaching the movement 2014: The state of civil rights education in the United States.. Montgomery, AL: Author. Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/Teaching%20the%20 Movement%202014_final_web_0.pdf Swalwell, K., Pellegrino, A., & View, J. L. (2015). Teachers’ curricular choices when teaching histories of oppressed people: Capturing the U.S. civil rights movement. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39(2), 79–94. Taylor, E., Gillborn, D., & Ladson-Billings, G. (Eds.). (2009). Foundations of critical race theory in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Teaching Tolerance. (n.d.). Mighty times: The children’s march [video]. Birmingham, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center. United States Government (2010). Census of population, State of Mississippi, selected counties. Retrieved from: Census.gov, https://www.census.gov/2010census/ popmap/ipmtext.php?fl=28 Vickery, A., Holmes, K., & Brown, A. (2015). Excavating critical racial knowledge in economics and world geography. In P. Chandler (Ed.), (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (pp. 253–282). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.   View, J. L., DeMulder, E. K,. & Stribling, S. (manuscript in preparation). Critical race theory after the fact: Striving to dismantle acts of whiteness.

CHAPTER 23

RACE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSROOM Possibilities and Potential Adam W. Jordan University of North Georgia Dacario Poole Durham, NC

ABSTRACT Authentic conversations about race in the social studies classroom are often difficult, disconnected, or both. In this chapter, we outline a strategy, race autobiography writing, that holds the potential of connecting students and teachers regarding the role and importance of race conversations in the social studies classroom. An overview of our suggestions as to how to incorporate this strategy into the high school social studies classroom is presented as well as lessons learned from eight years of race autobiography oriented conversations between a White alternative high school teacher and a Black student. Race Lessons, pages 439–452 Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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RACE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES There is power in an honest voice, and there is importance in a shared conversation. Christopher Emdin (2016) when discussing what he calls “reality pedagogy” identified the term as, “an approach to teaching and learning that has a primary goal of meeting each student on his or her own cultural and emotional turf” (p. 27). Emdin (2016) goes on to explain that reality pedagogy offers the student an avenue for honest self-expression and one that is intent on promoting an environment of “open discourse” (p. 27). In this chapter, we build on the idea of honest, “real” conversation and highlight why this is a necessary approach in social studies education. Currently, we find ourselves in an era of education that is minimizing student voice and hushing authentic conversation. With evaluation measures such as edTPA and a task-oriented view of teaching at the university level to a short sighted reliance on standardized test scores as learning indicators at the public K–12 level, we are witnessing the silencing of student voice in the name of accountability. This does not, however, have to be true. The beauty of the tenacious teenage spirit, particularly those spirits that have long grappled with the many manifestations of oppression, is that it can never be fully silenced. We present the concept of race autobiographies as one tool for inviting students into authentic classroom conversation. In this chapter, we will outline an approach that marries the ideas of inquiry-based racial dialogue and purpose-based social studies. The co-authors of this chapter, now friends and colleagues, once had different roles: White teacher and Black student in an alternative high school for at-risk youth. As we have worked together over the years and shared our own race autobiographies we have broadened our perspectives and deepened our understanding of one another as individuals with differing racial identities, yet numerous commonalities. These conversations have also allowed us to have what we feel are more authentic conversations about social studies. In this chapter, we offer a potential model for inquiry-based social studies teaching through the writing and discussion of race autobiographies. Later we will discuss race autobiography writing as a big idea, but first we offer a framework for implementing race autobiography writing for the high school social studies teacher. We suggest viewing this framework simply as a foundation. Much like building a house, a solid foundation is necessary, but you get to use your own creativity to decide what color the curtains are going to be once the house is standing. In other words, we recognize that the race autobiography process will, and should, vary from place to place and person to person. We would also like to make clear that the process we present here is not built upon the analysis of multiple cases of the use of race autobiographies in the social studies classroom. Our recommendations are built off our experiences as teacher and student and thus we only share our

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own stories and process. Recommendations concerning process are based on what has worked for us, and what we would do differently in hindsight. In some ways, a fair critique would be that we are now, nearly a decade later, building the classroom we wish we’d had, both from the perspective of teacher and student. This is intentional. The purpose of this chapter is for the classroom teacher to be offered a glimpse into how we both have proceeded and wished we had proceeded, but it is up to the classroom teacher to revisit her own framework, change it, and make it better as time progresses and new students are invited to share their stories each year. There are far too many moving variables at play to present a framework intent upon being immediately duplicated. We feel such a framework contradicts the very goal of race autobiographies, authenticity. We do, however, offer a framework that will allow the classroom teacher to begin the process. Writing is Key The first and most important piece of our framework is that students and teachers alike engage in producing individual, written documents that tell their personal histories as well as outline their perceived understanding of the role of race in the study of social studies. It is important that this process is written. This is a mistake we made early on in our process. We hope the classroom teacher reading this chapter will learn from our mistake. For a long time, we relied mainly on conversation as an avenue for talking about race. It felt natural, after all. But, late in our process we began to write using different mediums, and as we wrote, we heard things from one another that we had not heard before. Adam recalls being struck by how passionate Dacario was about making sure the story of Black people told in the social studies classroom is as close to an accurate story as possible. Dacario regularly writes and talks about powerful Black people in history and in particular powerful Africans and African Americans from a time period usually discussed through the sole lens of the Black man as the object of oppression. It is not as if we never had these discussions, but writing them down made them more powerful, and in some ways, more permanent. Negotiate Positions of Power Building on this first point, inherent in every classroom is a power dynamic that exists between student and teacher. We feel that engaging in this process with students as opposed to assigning this activity to students is a vital piece of helping lessen the inherent student–teacher power differential. By doing this process together, the student becomes the center of

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her or his own learning as opposed to the teacher presenting information from a position of power. This approach places emphasis on the collective human experience as opposed to the teacher–student contradiction (Freire, 1993). As Freire (1973) stated, “To be human is to engage in relationships with others and with the world” (p. 1). The goal is to allow just that, honest relationship building that allows both student and teacher to learn from one another through interactive dialogue. Of course, it would be naïve to suggest the student–teacher power differential disappears just because the teacher is also writing an autobiography, but there is power in a collective effort. Inquiry Based A second part of our framework is that it must also be inquiry based. Part of what makes race autobiography writing unique is that it is not a method designed to provide answers. In fact, it is designed to purposefully incite questioning. The written narrative is established to provide a framework for powerful discussion, and always exists in a state of flux. It is imperative that students and teachers alike see this process of developing a document focused on race as always being a work in progress. The conversations we have today are much different than the conversations we had nearly a decade ago. We have both changed dramatically in that time. Interestingly, though, we still often talk about much of the same things, just through new lenses. We attribute this, in part, to the fact that we have always rooted our conversations in powerful questions. Questions to Consider Third, we suggest that you build your race autobiography process around specific questions. Once again, this suggestion is rooted in our hindsight. As we reflect over our process, we offer three guiding questions that have been recurring themes in our conversation: 1. What is race? 2. What role does race play in your everyday life? 3. What role might race play in our current topic? We feel that these questions offer opportunities for rich dialogue. For example, the first question may be a very difficult question for a high school student or for a teacher, for that matter. Where else in the standard curriculum has that question been asked? It is unlikely that you will find direct

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examples in a standards based era. However, the counter notion is also true. Where is that question not present? To study social studies is to study human beings and all of the many variables that contribute to their interactions. Therefore, having a pointed conversation about what race is could not be timely. As question two evolves, students and teachers will have the opportunity to discuss many of their own demographic variables and present their vision of how those variables impact their lives. The answers to all of these questions must always be allowed to evolve, but the third question is particularly always in a state of change. In fact, this question is quite useful as a formative assessment, as an essay topic, or as a catalyst for class discussion. As students wrestle with these questions, they are offered the opportunity to both reflect on their past as well as consider the present and future in light of race-based conversations. Depending on the course, race autobiographies can then take many different directions and serve as a foundational activity for discussing complex issues as new powerful questions emerge naturally. The purpose of question three is not for students to feel they can fully relate to the role of race in the lives of others, but rather to recognize the concept of race as a variable in the lives of all people. Timing As a final piece to our suggested framework, we suggest that students be allowed to write their race autobiographies at the beginning of a social studies course and that teachers do the same. Again, this is another area where we hope the classroom teacher will learn from our mistakes. Our process emerged organically, and we appreciate that, but we also now recognize how this approach could allow students to begin a course with the understanding that not only does their voice matter, but the work everyone is about to engage in is rooted in purpose. Teachers can regularly schedule incremental time periods upon which students are asked to revisit questions one and two in writing. However, as the content progresses, question three becomes particularly powerful and can be used in a number of ways. Question three could be used as a journal entry, as a warmup activity, or as an indepth analysis assignment. Finally, as the semester or year comes to a close, students and teachers can revisit their writing and once again respond to those same three powerful questions. This method allows for a cumulative, dynamic conversation about race. We feel fortunate that our conversations have lasted far beyond the time we spent as student and teacher. Now nearly a decade into knowing one another and talking about race the majority of our time has been spent as friends and not as teacher and student, but we recognize that the foundation was laid as student and teacher. It is our hope

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that through a slightly more formalized process, other students and teachers will have a similar opportunity. THE CHALLENGE OF THE OBVIOUS: TALKING ABOUT RACE Now that we have outlined the practical side of race autobiography writing, we would like to discuss the idea in more conceptual terms and outline some of our struggles. Teaching social studies in a critical way is challenging. It means no matter the specific subject, there are tough instances of human injustice to grapple with. When we grapple with these injustices, we all do so from our own unique positions. From these unique positions, however, it is often difficult to look through the lens of another human being who is also bringing her or his own experiences, biases, hopes, and ideas. Students in a high school classroom are often asked about their thoughts in relation to subject matter, but how often are students asked to deeply contemplate their own position within the historical context? In our experiences, this does not happen often enough. When Adam began teaching social studies in an alternative high school in North Carolina, discovering how to talk about race was a major obstacle to overcome. The majority of his students were Black or Latino, overwhelmingly male, and often accompanied by many variables that placed them at high probability for high school dropout, most notably, lower socioeconomic status. While Adam’s own background was one of lower socioeconomic status growing up in rural Georgia, he was now, in the eyes of his students, very much a White man in a position of power. Both Adam and his students could have given in to so many stereotypical assumptions. In an alternative school it is quite common to regularly hear the phrase “at risk.” The idea is that students in that setting have not been successful for some reason. In this model, the risk of accepting and enacting hurtful stereotypes is great. On the other hand, it does not take a stretch of the imagination to consider that students in alternative settings have not always had the greatest relationships with their teachers. While the unique dynamics of alternative schools, namely smaller class sizes and a smaller number of faculty members, create an environment for deep conversation about all of these issues, it does not mean the conversation is easy or natural. Today’s teaching force is overwhelmingly White while the student body is becoming increasingly diverse, yet teachers often report being unprepared to teach in culturally diverse settings (Hill-Jackson, 2007; Ladson-Billings, 2000). Given these demographics and the natural discomfort that often accompanies pointed discussion, this hurdle of the teacher in particular being nervous to talk about race in the classroom is significant. (Cruz, 2015; Cochran-Smith, 1995). Adam recalls constantly feeling like his words must

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be carefully scripted because he was terrified of offending the students he was committing to teaching, helping, and guiding. Furthermore, as a young teacher the idea of conversations that would likely incite conflict-filled dialogue was terrifying in a whole other way. As teachers become increasingly scrutinized through the lens of Likert-styled evaluation measures, there is a healthy fear of receiving a poor evaluation. For these reasons, conversations about race in the classroom are only becoming more difficult for some teachers. From the perspective of a high school student, Dacario also recalled the difficulty of talking about race in school. His perceived difficulty was not necessarily through the lens of being nervous to talk about race, but rather not being given many opportunities. Most notably, Dacario felt that in the majority of his high school experience race was not talked about, and perhaps worse, when it was, an incomplete conversation was held. As a Black man, Dacario recalls learning about people who “looked like him” through a lens of inferiority when in fact there was a rich history to which he had yet to be exposed. Recognizing the difficulty of these situations, we believe race autobiographies can serve as a framework for facilitating conversation, empowering students, and conducting authentic dialogue in the high school classroom. Race autobiographies can be the beginning of the conversations many teachers may be nervous to have and many students may be hoping to have. In essence, race autobiographies can ground conversation in collective purpose and can begin connected conversations. In order to help the classroom teacher think through how race autobiographies can be used as foundational work, we present in the next section an intellectual framework for race autobiography writing that is rooted in the concept of rationale development. A FRAMEWORK FOR CONNECTED CONVERSATION The concept of using purpose-based writing through race autobiographies is connected to the major concepts of rationale development as a platform for social studies instruction. Essentially, proponents of rationale development suggest that teachers should undergo a formal process of expressing the purpose that underlies their pedagogical decision-making (Newmann, 1970, 1977; Shaver, 1977; Shaver & Strong, 1982). This approach is used in social studies teacher education to foster discussion and help teacher candidates consider why they are making the decisions they are making as opposed to just what they are doing. Dinkelman (2009) explained that a rationale is meant to extend past the “rhetoric of a ‘teaching philosophy’ and towards a practical, vital statement

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of the aims that direct the very real deliberations teachers engage in as they sort out questions of what is worth knowing and how best to teach it” (p. 92). Key to Dinkelman’s (2009) description is the important concept of deliberation. The underlying concept behind rationale development is that it is an inquiry-driven, reflective process that invites the practitioner to deeply wrestle with complex issues in order to produce a vision that can guide decision-making. A rationale offers a teacher something more than just a standard upon which to decide what and how something is taught in the classroom. As Hawley (2010) stated, a rationale consists of “the contentrelated, pedagogical, and professional decisions teachers make in attempting to put their written rationales into practice” (Hawley, 2010, p. 299). Jordan and Hawley (2012) built upon previous work in rationale development by offering a framework that allowed students in high school social studies classrooms to develop a purpose statement regarding why they were learning social studies. The idea was that if teachers are going to ask students to engage in curricular activities, they also need to ensure that they guide students along the path of developing an understanding of why. In doing so, teachers must also develop their own understanding of why they are making the decisions they are making. This way of teaching asks for teachers to look beyond standards and into purpose. As teachers first grapple with the why of teaching, the idea is that the what and the how become much more natural and meaningful processes. The concept of race autobiography writing in the high school classroom, like a written rationale, is also rooted in the understanding of why and the need to express it. If teachers are going to ask students to engage in difficult conversations regarding race and to wrestle with difficult and potentially painful subject matter, they must also help these students consider why this conversation is relevant and worth having. Jordan and Hawley (2012) outlined a potential framework for teachers to follow in having their students produce written rationales and along with this framework came three suggestions: Be prepared to be uncomfortable, be prepared to ask powerful questions, and embrace the struggle. We draw on this work and suggest that the same three concepts apply to race autobiography writing as well. Preparing to Be Uncomfortable We have already discussed the discomfort felt at the beginning of our process of directly discussing our race autobiographies, but there is power in preparing to combat, if not embrace, this discomfort. By offering suggestions here, we hope to allow others to learn from our mistakes. Most notably, perhaps teachers should give their race autobiography a “trial run” prior to sharing with students. Much of our own difficult conversations were made

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possible due to a naturally strong student–teacher connection that in adulthood continued as a strong friendship. However, reality requires a reasonable approach. As teachers, it is not always natural to connect immediately with every student. Some student–teacher relationships take work and time. In order to best prepare for this discomfort we suggest writing your race autobiography, and then sharing that autobiography with trusted friends and colleagues. As we reflected on our own process, we concluded that the most difficult conversations occur when one person or the other expresses a new idea without having first thought it through. While there is power in thinking tough thoughts through together, this is not always possible as it may close an open door with some students. This is part of the value of producing a written autobiography. Not only can you share this with friends and colleagues in order to receive feedback, but much like a rationale you can also continually revisit and self-evaluate. As we have reflected on our own process, we see this as an area that we could have improved upon. Much of our race autobiography discussions took an impromptu nature. In retrospect, we see power in a formalized process. Asking Powerful Questions Perhaps the most important conceptual piece of race autobiographies as we are proposing them, is to dig deep and ask powerful questions. Initially, when we discussed race, we did so at a surface level. It was not as difficult to discuss the what variables. Discussing where you are from geographically or the aspects of your culture that bring you pride were not so difficult to discuss. However, while a good start, race autobiographies become powerful when deeper discussion is held. When considering powerful questions, we suggest going beyond the what, or the descriptive aspects, and diving deeply into the why aspects of your autobiography. Essentially, as social studies educators, this is the model we hope students follow in all of their content work. For example, of course we would teach our students the factual aspects of the Industrial Revolution. But would we not prefer students ask big questions about why the Industrial Revolution occurred, and better yet, what affect it had on our lives today, economic distributions, etc.? The same is true in producing a race autobiography. Of course it is beneficial to outline the basics, but it is more important to consider the why. For example, in our own work, it was one thing to point out the role geography played in our self-racial understanding, but it was more important to look at longstanding cultural practices that impacted our racial understanding through the lens of geographic norms.

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Embracing the Struggle When considering using race autobiographies as a classroom approach to talking about race, it is imperative that both students and teachers embrace the inevitable struggle. It is important to consider that it is often quite difficult for students and teachers alike to wrestle with complex issues such as embracing the reality of privilege or dealing with the disgusting nature of racial oppression. The power in race autobiographies is that those conversations do not have to exist solely in the theoretical. Race autobiographies take the theoretical components of critical race theory (CRT) and apply flesh and bones. It is easy to talk about a stereotypical White man from rural Georgia; it is more relevant to talk about Adam. It is easy to talk about a stereotypical Black man from Durham; it is much more meaningful to talk about the experiences of Dacario. With that being said, those valuable discussions may come at a price of discomfort. We believe this discomfort is not only beneficial, but also necessary. However, classroom teachers should consider this discomfort in advance. TEN YEARS OF CONVERSATION: LESSONS WE HAVE LEARNED We have engaged with one another in deep, race autobiography oriented conversations since Dacario first stepped foot into Adam’s classroom in 2007. Sometimes in teaching we discuss the “intangibles.” Those are the aspects of the act of teaching and the student teacher relationship that are not always easily measured, or that are impacted by variables that exist under the surface. The teacher–student relationship between us was one of those “intangibles.” It was a relationship that was always easy to maintain. While we may have seemed an unlikely duo; a White, pickup truck driving teacher with a thick Southern drawl and a Black, tattooed teenager from Durham, we found almost instant connection. Part of that connection was rooted in the social studies themselves. Dacario was, and is, an incredibly curious-minded individual fascinated by the works of radical thinkers such as Malcolm X and human rights champions such as Nelson Mandela. Dacario is also fascinated by the idea of alternate versions of history. Dacario is never satisfied with the textbook answer. He is always interested in learning alternate perspectives and is quick to point out that history is often written from only one perspective and it is rarely from the perspective of an oppressed group. Part of Dacario’s own autobiography discussed the reality of racism. Dacario wrote, “Racism will never leave indefinitely, but it can be made stagnant. For the last few hundred years (racism) has been rolling like a steam

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boat with an unlimited water supply” (Poole, personal communication, December 13, 2015). For Dacario, though, that was not a defeatist statement. Through reflecting and researching his understanding of his race-based roots he wrote of discovering a more powerful history of Black people. Instead of limiting the history of what it meant to be Black that he felt he had typically learned in school he discovered a more powerful history of African people from the Egyptians to the Moors. This quest for the alternative rooted in a quest for historical context has pushed Dacario to continually advocate for a true form of Black history in schools. Again in his autobiography, Dacario wrote, “African American kids should be able to learn about their history 365 days a year. Instead, they learn that Christopher Columbus discovered America . . . ” (Poole, personal communication, December 13, 2015). His point was that the contributions of Africans, at any juncture in history, are largely ignored in the curriculum while half-true narratives are regularly perpetuated. Adam shares similar interests with Dacario, so it was quite natural to have complex conversations with Dacario about one-sided history, suppressed voices, or the role that race, class, and gender all play in the manifestation of written history. Still, those conversations often exist in the theoretical. They require talking about “others,” and often those “others” are people who lived hundreds of years ago. While relevant, it took another level of trust and comfort to go from talking about the murder and pillaging committed by Columbus, for example, to what it feels like to be a Black teen arrested by a White cop and held without evidence. Our initial conversations were not easy, but as we each began to respect the other conversations became much more urgent and much more purposeful. We learned that we each had experienced what it was like to grow up without a lot of money, though in very different environments. Adam grew up in rural Georgia while Dacario grew up in urban and suburban North Carolina. While commonalities provided a bond, it was obvious that our eyes had seen very different things growing up and that we each felt differently about how the world perceived us. Dacario wrote and talked about growing up a Black teen in Durham, NC. He wrote and talked about being surrounded by drug use and violence and how the culture in which he grew up often rationalized both as means of survival, and not as crimes. Adam wrote about feeling poor and about feeling out of place in the university setting as a first generation college student, but never thinking about race because he had the privilege of not having to. As our initial conversations grew and developed over the years they have gone far beyond the classroom as the teacher–student dynamic transitioned into that of friends and collaborators. What began as simple conversations about race have grown into deep, often painful conversations. Our conversations have provided the platform for supporting one another through

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difficult times, particularly when the injustices we may so easily talk about become realities in our own lives. Still, each of us feels as though engaging in explicit conversations about race with one another has allowed the other a perspective that may not have been possible otherwise. Adam feels that he is able to more fully understand many of the struggles of his students, though he would never pretend to have complete perspective. He feels empowered to see the totality of the whole student as opposed to the “risk” factors so many are presented as having. Dacario feels that his vision of what it means to be a Black man has been expanded. He has been able to look far past the single-story inferiority narrative of what it means to be Black and into the powerful history of Black people of all parts of the world, from the Moors to the kingdoms of Africa, to the individuals that inspire prophetic narrative espoused by West and Buschendorf (2014). We are not naïve enough to suggest that by simply writing race oriented autobiographies that all students and all teachers will all of a sudden be able to easily talk about race and that great, game-changing metamorphoses will take place for all students. We still strongly suggest the embracing of the struggle. Still, we think it is worth it. It was worth it for us. CONCLUSION In his Ted Talk from 2013, Sir Ken Robinson discussed a phenomenon that occurred at Death Valley in the spring of 2005. Death Valley, usually one of the driest places on earth received extremely atypical rainfall in the winter of 2004. That spring, the floor of Death Valley was covered not in its usual dry, cracked ground, but in a beautiful array of flowers. As Robinson (2013) pointed out, this means that Death Valley was not dead at all; it was just dormant. Under the surface there was life just waiting to pop out once it was nourished. We believe this applies to students in K–12 schools as well. Our experiences suggest that students are ready to talk about race. As we allow students to ask the big questions necessary to do these things we empower them to flourish and meet the challenges our current society demands we meet. It is time to support our youth by allowing them to think and to speak freely in the social studies classroom. Today, our conversations about race continue to evolve. In the last few years we have both taken on a new role that often takes precedent over all others; the role of father. We talk today about what it means to raise a son in a world where it is becoming increasingly evident that Dacario’s Black son will face difficulties different than Adam’s White son or daughter. We talk about what it means to combat these injustices head on. But, a large part of working from the perspective of a race autobiography is being honest.

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So, frankly, we spend a lot of time scratching our heads in confusion or venting in frustration as institutional injustices present themselves despite our best efforts. Our conversations have taken on in the form of 21st century mediums. We text message and Facebook message often. In a way, our autobiographies have continued through these less formal processes, and we think that is a good thing. It allows us to more regularly connect. These conversations also remind us that we have work yet to do, even when we feel as if that work is sometimes stifled. In social studies classrooms we could continue the status quo. We could even talk about racial injustice in the abstract and theoretical sense. We could even go a step further and point out the injustices committed against real people like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, or Freddie Gray. But it is our belief that while focusing on these stories is good and necessary, we must also connect back to the personal and to the immediate community. Through race autobiographies, the abstract becomes the concrete and the theoretical becomes the practical. If, as social studies educators, we stand on a platform that calls for helping prepare independent thinking citizens for an interdependent world, we have the responsibility of helping empower students with the ability to connect content and culture. We have to work to make sure students are asking big questions and pushing to understand why. These are the very things our autobiographically oriented race conversations have done for us. To be blunt, the dialogue has shown us just how dangerous it is to buy into a single-story mentality of other people. While our conversations may have been based on concepts of Black and White, our experience has helped us proceed with our lives in a much more dynamic way. We are not suggesting that all experiences will be like ours, but we are suggesting that giving students a voice through a shared process is certainly worth a try. REFERENCES Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answers: Confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 493–522. Cruz, B. C. (2015). The problem we still live with. Educational Leadership, 72(6), 16–20. Dinkelman, T. (2009). Reflection and resistance: The challenge of rationale-based teacher education. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 2(1), 91–108. Emdin, C. (2016). For White folks who teach in the hood . . . and the rest of y’all too. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York, NY: Seabury Press. Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

452    A. W. JORDAN and D. POOLE Hawley, T. S. (2010). Purpose into practice: The problems and possibilities of rationale-based practice in social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 38(1), 298–316. Hill-Jackson, V. (2007). Wrestling Whiteness: Three stages of shifting multicultural perspectives among White pre-service teachers. Multicultural perspectives, 9(2), 29–35. Jordan, A. W., & Hawley, T. S. (2012). Developing purpose-based learning in United States history. Ohio Social Studies Review, 49(2), 18–55. Ladson-Billings, G. (2000). Fighting for our lives preparing teachers to teach African American students. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 206–214. Newmann, F. M. (1970). Clarifying public controversy: An approach to teaching social studies. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company. Newmann, F. M. (1977). Building a rationale for civic education. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Building rationales for citizenship education. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Robinson, K. (2013). How to escape education’s death valley [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education _s_death_valley?language=en Shaver, J. P. (1977). The task of rationale-building for citizenship education. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Building rationales for citizenship education (pp. 96–116). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Shaver, J. P., & Strong, W. (1982). Facing value decisions: Rationale-building for teachers. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. West, C., & Buschendorf, C. (2014). Black prophetic fire. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

ABOUT THE EDITORS Prentice T. Chandler is Dean and Professor of the Martha Dickerson Eriksson College of Education at Austin Peay State University. His first book, Doing Race in Social Studies: Critical Perspectives (2015) examined critical race theory applications in social studies teaching and learning. In 2007, Dr. Chandler was named the Defense of Academic Freedom Award winner from the NCSS for his efforts teaching alternative history in Alabama public schools. Dr. Chandler earned his PhD from the University of Alabama and prior to joining the professoriate, taught middle and high school social studies in rural Alabama. Todd S. Hawley is an associate professor in the School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. His research interests include rationale-development as a core theme of social studies teacher education and the transformative possibilities of justice-oriented social studies teacher education. He is committed to resist, through civic action, the corporate takeover of teaching and teacher education. Additionally, he works to create and sustain informal, collaborative spaces for teachers and teacher educators. Prior to receiving his PhD, he taught high school social studies in the Atlanta Public Schools and at Oglethorpe County High School.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Jane Bolgatz is an associate professor of social studies education in the Division of Curriculum and Teaching at Fordham University Graduate School of Education. Before joining the Fordham faculty, she taught high school social studies and language arts for seven years, and earned her PhD at the University of Iowa. Jane researches how teachers, students, administrators, and parents address issues of race and racism, including how the use of interdependent group work can mitigate status differences in the classroom. A White woman, Jane often works with educators on issues of implicit bias and anti-racist pedagogy. John P. Broome is an assistant professor of education and Director of PreK–12, Secondary, and Special Education at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in teaching and learning, behavior management, social studies methods, and educational research with an emphasis on equity and critical race theory. His research interests are in civic engagement, social studies methods, social justice, critical race theory and experiential learning. His recent publications appear in Social Studies Research and Practice and the Journal of Social Studies Research. Before joining UMW, Dr. Broome earned his PhD from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and taught secondary social studies in public and private schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Email: jbroome@ umw.edu Tamar Brown is a doctoral student in Contemporary Learning and Interdisciplinary Research (CLAIR), Fordham University. She is a certified high

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school special education teacher. She is broadly interested in issues of language, culture, and equity. In particular, she focuses on classroom culture, critical discourse analysis, critical race theory (CRT), and feminist theory. Tamar is a member of a research team that examines the institutional factors impacting Black boys’ social and academic outcomes. Jennifer Bryson is a former classroom teacher in Chelsea Public Schools. She specializes in the professional preparation of elementary teachers. At Boston University, Jennifer Bryson is the program director of elementary education. She teaches elementary language arts methods, and coordinates placements and supervision of student teachers in the elementary education program and the student-teaching abroad programs in London, England; Sydney, Australia; and Quito, Ecuador. Jennifer Bryson also supports BU graduates during their first year of teaching and is the director of the Teacher-to-Teacher mentoring initiative. In addition, Jennifer Bryson facilitates a book club entitled “Dads” Read at the William Monroe Trotter School in Dorchester, Massachusetts and actively supports teachers and families through family literacy programs. Jennifer Burke is an assistant professor at Millersville University. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University. She has spent 12 years teaching special education and inclusion classes in grades 1–5 in central New Jersey. When she isn’t pursuing her research interest in social justice education for elementary classrooms she is busy chasing her three young children. Chris Busey is an assistant professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at Texas State University. Dr. Busey has over 25 national scholarly presentations and has also published in some of the most reputable peer-reviewed journals in his field. His research focuses on race and education and more recently the contextualization of Latin@/Afro-Latin@ identity in social studies curriculum. Dr. Busey has written on colorism and borderism in the social studies curriculum, social studies teacher educator demographics, and Afro-Latin@ inclusion within the extant Black history narrative. His current research projects include an examination of Afro-Latin@ presence in world history textbooks, a study of Latin@ students’ perceptions of race in social studies curriculum, an hermeneutical examination of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s works, and an analysis of Black and Latin@ activism in K–8 social studies standards. Emilie Camp is an associate professor, educator in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati, and currently serves as Director for Undergraduate and Licensure programs. She teaches courses in social

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studies methods, diversity and social justice, and democracy. Her research interests include critical pedagogy and multicultural education in relation to pre-service teacher development. She received her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus in Critical Pedagogies from New Mexico State University. Prior to graduate school, she taught grades K–5 in a small urban school district in Northern Kentucky. Kenneth T. Carano is an associate professor of Social Studies Education at Western Oregon University. His scholarship interests include preparing teacher candidates to instruct from a social justice framework in order that students become critically literate citizens in an increasingly interconnected world. William Chapman-Hale teaches third grade at the Frank M. Sokolowski Elementary School in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of Boston University’s School of Education. His teaching interests include using the study of historical events and figures to inform character education and problem solving within the classroom community. His teaching mission is to shape instruction and the classroom environment to not only accommodate children with high energy and attention deficit difficulties, but to foster their unique identities as learners and thinkers. Lauren Colley is an assistant professor of secondary social science education at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on secondary students’ historical thinking around issues of gender and historical agency. She earned her PhD in 2015 from the University of Kentucky where she worked as a graduate assistant to the C3 Framework and the New York Social Studies Toolkit Project. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she earned an MA in History (2007), an MA in Education (2008), and taught high school social studies in central Kentucky. Ryan Crowley is an assistant professor of social studies education at the University of Kentucky where he teaches elementary social studies methods. His research interests include critical race theory, critical Whiteness studies, and urban education. Some of his published work has appeared in Theory and Research in Social Education, Teaching Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, Social Education and Race Ethnicity and Education. Dr. Crowley earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Texas in 2014. He entered graduate school after eight years of secondary social studies teaching across a variety of social studies disciplines. Victoria Davis received her MEd in social studies education from the University of Texas at Austin. During her graduate studies, her research focused

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on critical race theory in social studies education. She currently serves as a 9th grade social studies teacher at Vines High School in Dallas, Texas. Davis is committed to student empowerment through a critical approach to the social studies. Jason Endacott is an assistant professor of secondary social studies education at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He has published a number of articles and book chapters related to social studies education, including publications in Theory & Research in Social Education and Journal of Social Studies Research. His research interests include the use of historical empathy as a mode of historical inquiry and the use of culturally relevant pedagogy in the social studies classroom. In addition to his research in social studies education, Dr. Endacott researches, writes, and advocates for public education as a public good and basic human right. Prior to his work in higher education, Dr. Endacott taught 7th and 8th grade social studies at New Mark Middle School in North Kansas City, MO. Lisa Gilbert is a doctoral student in social studies education at Saint Louis University. A former museum professional, her research interests include learning that takes place in non-classroom spaces, as well as the use of critical theories related to race, gender, and class to explore ways individuals relate to historical narratives. Ashley Goodrich teaches high school social studies at North Oconee High School in Bogart, GA. She serves as a teacher consultant for the Red Clay Writing Project. Her research interests include critical pedagogies, studies in youth resistance, and arts-based inquiry. Samina Hadi-Tabassum is an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University and teaches in the ESL/Bilingual program. She began her teaching career as a 1993 corp member in Houston and taught four years in a middle school, Spanish bilingual science classroom. The next five years were spent teaching in Newark as a literacy specialist while pursuing her doctorate at Teachers College. Upon returning to Chicago, she taught at Dominican University for 13 years. In terms of her research, her first book publication, Language, Space, and Power, focuses on dual language education. She has a second book publication forthcoming on the topic of majority minority schools, specifically Latino-Black race relations in public schools. Andrea M. Hawkman is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies Education and Cultural Studies in the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership at Utah State University. Specifically, she investigates the teaching and learning of race/ism, the intersection of social studies

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education and education policy, and justice-oriented social studies teacher education. Hawkman has taught both elementary and secondary social studies methods as well as diversity and equity education courses for undergraduate students. Prior to pursuing her doctorate degree, Hawkman taught a variety of social studies courses in rural Missouri. Andrew Hostetler is an assistant professor of the practice of social studies education. As a social studies teacher educator, his work focuses on the role of democratic theory in social education. In particular, his work seeks to understand how educators teach, and students learn civic engagement, active citizenship, and social justice in and related to knowledge, practices, and discourses of social studies education and its disciplines. Through this work he aims to support teaching and learning for a deeper democracy. Adam Jordan is a former alternative high school teacher and current assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. His work is focused on creating more democratic and mentally healthy alternative school environments. Jennifer E. Killham is a teacher educator in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. With each day, she strives to make a difference in the lives of those she serves. Killham has devoted over twenty years to disrupting educational inequalities and reinvigorating intellectual curiosity. Over the last ten years, she has shared this passion with K–12 teachers and students in the private, public, and international sectors. Killham’s current research combines sociocultural theory and voice-centered feminist methodologies in the study of networked pedagogies, with specific attention to the intersection of historical empathy, gameful learning, and holistic mentoring. Her dissertation used narrative inquiry to measure the affordances of role in an online character-playing history education project. Her dissertation enabled students to speak honestly about what strengthened and inhibited their participation. Her research continues to drive pedagogical improvements related to the use of technology to develop historical thinking skills. Jessica F. Kobe is a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia. Before beginning her graduate work at UGA she taught elementary school in Ohio. She earned her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in language arts from Kent State University. Jessica also serves as a teacher consultant for the Red Clay Writing Project. Her research interests fall at the intersection of civic education, critical dialogic pedagogy, and multiculturalism. She is committed to doing narrative inquiry work that invites children into the research process.

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Christopher C. Martell is a clinical assistant professor and program director of social studies education at Boston University. He teaches courses on elementary and secondary social studies methods and action research. Christopher Martell taught high school social studies for 11 years, in both urban and suburban contexts. Christopher Martell’s research and scholarly work has been featured in Theory and Research in Social Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, Social Education, Social Studies Research and Practice, The Teacher Educator, Teaching Education, and the edited books, Doing Race in Social Studies: Critical Perspectives and The New Politics of the Textbook: Critical Analysis in the Core Content Areas. His current research focuses on social studies teacher development across the career span, critical race theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, and historical inquiry. Decario Poole: I was born and raised in Durham County by a single mother. My dad was in my life but my mom took care of me. I’m the youngest of three siblings which I’ve never had a close relationship with. I’ve always been a loner because I never felt like I fit in. As a youth we moved around the city a lot so I attended many different elementary and Junior high schools. When I was fifteen my mom and I moved to Pittsboro. By then, my sister was a young adult and my brother was in prison. I started high school at Northwood high and finished at SAGE Academy where I met Adam Jordan. After all I’ve been through, I’m still afloat in this fight for survival. I’m currently an employee at Best Buy and I do occasional construction work. Raquel Y. Sáenz is a Chicana/Puertorriqueña scholar, currently completing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College. Her research focuses on the role of the education system in the construction of cultural identities among immigrant origin populations in the United States and Europe, as well as the role of discrimination and marginalization in this process. She has a master’s in history from the Universidad de Guanajuato and has taught history and social studies at the middle school and high school levels in Boston and South Texas. She has also worked in NGOs and educational non-profits in the Southwestern United States, México, and Nicaragua. Juan Gabriel Sánchez is scholar of color currently pursuing his PhD at Boston College. His research interests include teacher education, critical and democratic theories, and education reform. He received his BA in Political Science from Stanford University and his MSEd from the University of Pennsylvania, after which he taught for four years at a project- and inquirybased public high school in downtown Philadelphia. His graduate studies and teaching helped him to understand the importance of providing

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teachers with the opportunities and resources to expand their craft and develop the best learning experiences for their students. Sarah Shear is an assistant professor at Penn State University–Altoona, where she teaches courses on social studies education, history, and education foundations. Sarah earned her doctorate in learning, teaching, and curriculum from the University of Missouri in 2014 with an emphasis in social studies curriculum and Indigenous studies. Her primary research focuses on teaching and learning K–12 social studies within Indigenous contexts, examining race and settler colonialism in K–12 social studies curriculum (specifically state-mandated standards and textbooks), teacher education, film, and qualitative research methodologies. William L. Smith is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Sociocultural Studies. A former middle school teacher in traditionally under-served urban communities, William’s research and teaching interests center on issues of race, curriculum, and social studies education. He is particularly interested in how K–12 students learn about and make sense of historical and contemporary racial events. His work has been supported by the University of Texas Graduate School’s Continuing Fellowship program and the Kappa Delta Pi honors society. William completed a master’s in Teaching and Curriculum from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis on social studies education, from the University of Texas at Austin. Kathy Swan (University of Kentucky), S. G. Grant (Binghamton University), and John Lee (North Carolina State University) are professors of social studies education and worked as the lead writers of the C3 Framework. Over the past year, the three scholars co-created the inquiry design model (IDM) as they collaboratively worked as project directors of the New York Social Studies Toolkit Project. Swan, Lee, and Grant founded and co-direct C3 Teachers (c3teachers. org), a site dedicated to implementation of the C3 Framework in classrooms, schools, and states. Jenice L. View is an associate professor of education at George Mason University. Her work includes the critical teaching and learning of history, critical pedagogy in teacher professional development, and uses of the arts and arts integration. She has created a graduate certificate program “Learning Historic Places With Diverse Populations.” Her work in Mississippi to teach the civil rights movement has impacted teachers and students in 14 school districts. She is creator and host of “Urban Education: Issues and Solutions,” an award-winning GMU-TV cable television program. In addition to publishing a range of scholarly articles and book chapters, she is

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a co-editor of the book Why Public Schools? Voices From the United States and Canada and co-editor of the award-winning book Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for Classrooms and Communities. She holds degrees from Syracuse University, Princeton University, and the Union Institute and University. Christina Shiao-Mei Villarreal is a Lecturer and the Director of History/ Social Studies Education at Brown University. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches a course on Ethnic Studies and Education. She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley, an EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an MA in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University, and is presently pursuing her PhD in Social Studies Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is also a research fellow at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Her research currently focuses using portraiture to explore racial literacies and humanizing pedagogies in secondary social studies classrooms. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Villarreal spent nearly a decade working as a social studies teacher and an assistant principal in Oakland, California. Emily Zweibel is a third grade teacher at the Collegiate School in New York City. She has been teaching at Collegiate since 2001. Before she started teaching, she worked as an attorney at the New York Capital Defenders’ Office and MFY Legal Services. She earned her JD at the Yale Law School in 1994. Emily and her colleagues have been working to improve the social and academic outcomes of Black students by exploring implicit bias and White privilege; addressing race, identity, and bias in the classroom; and incorporating group work that promotes positive interdependence. Emily received a Curriculum Initiative Grant from Collegiate in 2015 to revise the third grade social studies curriculum, in particular, the unit on slavery in New Amsterdam and New York.