A Counterstory of One's Own

Abstract

Nationwide, virtually all secondary students interact with British literature, a traditionally Anglo, white, male canon. Yet, this revered curriculum provides few mirrors for students from historically marginalized populations to see their own cultures reflected. In this reflective practitioner piece, the authors first illustrate how counterstorytelling—a practice emerging from critical race theory—can break open the canon. Because counterstorytelling invites, values, and projects marginalized voices, when incorporated into the secondary English classroom, the practice helps engage students with the material while developing and honing their literacy skills. Second, the authors detail a lesson demonstrating that the canon and counterstorytelling can work synergistically. Throughout the article, the authors attend to the challenges of using an equity pedagogy to teach a canon that functions as the majoritarian story of the secondary literacy classroom—and society at large. Finally, the authors offer strategies for effectively incorporating counterstorytelling into the secondary English classroom.

The Monstrous Hospitality of Canonical Text Selections: The Need for a Hospitable Literacy Framework

“…Recent scholarship on the teaching of canonical texts has acknowledged that these texts center “implicit and explicit narratives [of] Eurocentrism, conflict-resolution through violence, gender stereotypes, and racism,” but the research often focuses on how critical pedagogical and critical literacy approaches to these texts can “subvert the traditions, norms, [and] expectations” (Macaluso & Macaluso, 2019, p. x) of traditional literary analysis and pedagogical approaches. Dyches (2019), for example, cited research showing that students from nondominant groups feel marginalized and silenced by the disconnect between their own experiences and the narratives in canonical texts (Bissonette & Glazier, 2016; Schieble, 2014) and argued that students from dominant groups are also negatively impacted by reading these texts having their privilege reproduced and affirmed (Glazier & Seo, 2005). Still, she noted that teachers “continue to find generative ways to teach their canonical curricula using approaches that are critical, careful, and social-justice oriented” (Dyches, 2019, p. 36) by engaging students in “analysis of how texts and discourses work, where, with what consequences, and in whose interests” (Luke, 2012) across social, political, and cultural contexts.…”

“…Recent pedagogical articles that have examined canonical literature pedagogy focus on how teachers might mitigate curricular violence via canonical text selections by building robust text sets that bring forward multiple perspectives (Dallacqua & Sheahan, 2019; Johnson & Neville, 2019); by teaching canonical text using critical literacy frameworks (Borsheim-Black & Saragianides, 2019; Ebarvia, 2019; Ervin, 2022); by connecting thematic elements of the canon to popular culture or current events (Cook et al, 2019; Macaluso & Macaluso, 2019); and providing opportunities for youth to provide counternarratives or personal responses to canonical texts (Bissonette & Glazier, 2016; Falter & Schoonover, 2019). Jones (2022a) critiqued these attempted mitigations as inadequate responses to texts that construct and uphold dehumanizing constructions of identity, arguing instead for “space [in ELA classrooms] to let our darlings, in this case our outdated texts and pedagogies, die, and along with that, parts of ourselves that were nostalgic about how we taught familiar texts” (pp.…”

Deepening middle school english teachers' understanding of and capacity for critical literacy practices through coach-facilitated professional learning communities

“…Critical literacy skills are typically not taught separately from content or standards but are instead embedded within the existing curriculum (Batista-Morales et al, 2019;Beucher et al, 2020;Coppola et al, 2019;de los Rios, 2018;Dyches Bissonnette & Glazier, 2016;Elmore & Coleman, 2019;and Steiss, 2019). This, in theory, should make it easier to incorporate into existing practices.…”

“…Steiss (2019) similarly uses the curriculum as a basis for his implementation, using The Odyssey but reading it through Marxist and feminist lenses. Creating counternarratives to canonical or required texts, a possible avenue of critical literacy application, is another way teachers can give a "nod to the Common Core's call for a unified approach to writing, grammar, and literacy instruction" (Dyches Bissonnette & Glazier, 2016). This task requires students not only to deeply understand the original text, but to create their own, and to actively consider author's craft and structure for both texts.…”

“…Additionally, as Sosa & Bhathena (2019) point out in their study, there is a need to deeply engage with students at the human level when incorporating these kinds of practices, and that can certainly take longer than when solely developing standards or other academic skills. A common element of critical literacy, reading or producing counternarratives, would also add time to different topics and units (Dyches Bissonnette & Glazier, 2016). If not widely adopted, these changes would undoubtedly put an individual teacher behind proposed pacing guides and throw off their department's scope and sequence expectations.…”