Drawing upon the construct of multiliteracies, this chapter will explore how teachers can make discursive decisions at the classroom level to affirm students' linguistic, cultural, and racial backgrounds in the secondary English language arts (ELA) classroom. Following a multiliteracies theory of design, the chapter will consider how teachers can design ELA classroom materials that deliberately affirm and honor the voices of all students, even when they are not supported by anti-CRT public discourse. The author uses a case study to explore how the author intentionally created student-affirming materials and facilitated meaningful discussion while also navigating institutional challenges such as high-stakes testing, learning during COVID-19, administrative upheaval, and anti-CRT state politics as an urban high school ELA teacher.
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In their groundbreaking text which introduced multiliteracies, the New London Group (1996) aimed to reconceptualize literacy teaching to account for linguistic and cultural differences in students and to prioritize learner agency and critical pedagogy in the process of literacy learning. Cope & Kalantzis (2009) (conveners of the New London Group) call Multiliteracies an “emancipatory” pedagogy, one which “is not about skills and competence; it is aimed at creating a kind of person, an active designer of meaning” (p. 175). But in the current climate, it is hard to imagine a professional reality that is not centered around skills and competence, and which allows teachers the curricular space for agency, critical pedagogy, and humanity. Furthermore, the “prevailing sense of anxiety” (p. 4) the New London Group cited in 1996 regarding disparities in life chances looms all-too relevant in 2023. As Cope & Kalantzis put it, education fails to meet promises of equity or equality.
In 2021, the National Council of Teachers of English affirmed its commitment to anti-racist English Language Arts instruction, replacing the term “social justice” with “anti-racist / anti-bias” in their standards for educators preparing to teach secondary English Language Arts. Unfortunately, the NCTE’s commitment to support educators in climates of bigotry, discrimination, oppression, divisiveness, and racism has not been echoed at the federal, state, and local levels. In 2021, 54 bills were introduced across 24 states to limit K-12 and higher education instructors from discussing racism and how it has shaped America (Arnet, 2022). In Indiana, for example, HB 1134 proposed banning the teaching of slavery (Carlson, 2022). Another 155 bills across 38 states were introduced in 2021 to censor what teachers could say or teach, with a “steep rise” in 2022 (Gabbat, 2022; Wu et al., 2022). Other bills have proposed allowing parents to access a school’s learning management system, review classroom materials, or create a parent curriculum review committee (Associated Press, 2022).
In the last quarter of 2021 alone, the American Library Association (ALA) received 3,330 book challenges, up from 156 in all of 2020 (Cart, 2022). Books were most frequently challenged when they contained content relating to LGBTQ and race (Cart, 2022) or when the authors identified as Black or LGBTQ (MacDonald, 2022). Of the banned books, 41% featured titles that contained lead or secondary characters who were LGBTQ, and 40% of the banned books contained main or secondary characters of color (Figueroa, 2022). Many bans also targeted authors of color (Figueroa, 2022). Along with books, art, speakers, displays, lists, and electronic resources are challenged, often because of the author’s identity (Pekoll, 2020).
Teachers have successfully protested book banning, contributing to the defeat of HB 1134 in Indiana, for example (Gabbatt, 2022). The College Board, too, has resisted censorship efforts, stating it would remove AP designation from programs when certain themes were banned (Herron, 2022). However, despite these victories, the bans have led to teachers leaving the field (Gabbatt, 2022; Melendez, 2022). Teachers had to cover all their classroom books after unreasonable laws requiring them to gain approval for each book in their classrooms (Melendez, 2022). Teachers are not only being punished for complaints, but in response to “threats of complaints” (Waldman, 2022). This so-called chilling effect “makes everyone terrified, resulting in self-censorship and preemptive punishments on teachers who transgress some imagined line of propriety” (Waldman, 2022).