Navigating Challenging Conversations

Navigating Challenging Conversations
Todd W. McKinley
Vice-President, Maine Council for English Language Arts

Introduction
Matt entered my classroom, clearly troubled by something as he scowled and slammed into his chair at the table. Apparently, conversation at lunch had focused on the recent controversy related to Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem and calls by officials in the White House for Kaepernick to resign. This moment would introduce me to Matt’s often animated reactions to issues involving football, Black Lives Matter, and national politics. 

For the past several years, teachers and communities have navigated a heightened awareness in their communities of potentially contentious topics for their curriculum. Realizing teachers in Maine need resources to frame civil discourse, the IDEA Collective of the Maine Council for English Language Arts (MCELA) identified one important goal: support Maine educators as they explore ways to develop materials and practices for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. In particular, MCELA invites educators to think about, discuss, and take steps to address issues related to racism, income disparity, gender identity, environmental justice, equity, genocide, and indigenous sovereignty.

At the time Matt was a student in my classroom, I taught in a predominantly White, rural, and politically conservative area of Maine. Among some families in this community, conversations related to Black Lives Matter and the Trump administration could easily become contentious. As a White, educated male, I teach from a privileged standpoint. I view the inclusion of topics related to issues of social justice as central to broadening students’ perspectives. I also recognize that students will voice opinions and ideas from a wide range of political and social stances.  In writing this profile, I intend to share with readers how to frame student discourse around shared text to provide a context for centering discussions on common understandings. I will also reference a practice from professional literature: Reading Challenging Texts: Layering Literacies Through the Arts (2018) by James S. Chisholm and Kathryn F. Whitmore. 

Framing Discourse Through Literacy
When Donald Glover as Childish Gambino released “This Is America,” students in our middle school were curious to know more; however, many of them lacked the background knowledge to understand these images and references used by Glover. My colleague, who also taught English Language Arts, wondered if we might use “This Is America” to prompt conversation around this video and Glover’s references. Initially, I was concerned about the portrayal of violence, but my colleague persuaded me that this text offered us an appropriate way of connecting our students’ awareness of pop culture and our curriculum focusing on social justice issues.

Prior to showing the music video, my colleague and I reminded students that this video depicted scenes of violence. After watching the video, we asked students to read part of an article pointing out the symbolism used by Glover. As they read and discussed in pairs, they recalled scenes and images from the video. Guided by these explanations of the symbolism, students were able to consider more critically Glover’s choices - as a visual artist and a writer. We showed the video a second time, observing how students engaged with the article and their notes from their partner discussions to discover where these symbols and references emerged. As this classroom meeting closed, students clearly had moved from mere consumers of pop culture to critical viewers of a persuasive text.

When students returned to class the next day, they discovered a space transformed by two strands of twine running from one end of the room to the other. Hanging from each strand were laminated sheets displaying excerpts from texts and images. Students settled into their seats, but they were clearly curious about this display, recognizing some images and lines from “This Is America.”

I had created “string literature,” or Literatura de Cordel, to display texts and images related to the symbols and references students discussed in the previous class. Chisholm and Whitmore write, “[c]ordel affords classrooms different possibilities with which to encounter texts (collaboratively and personally), different perspectives from which to engage texts (standing, moving, returning to), and different types of text to juxtapose in meaningful ways” (27). 

Among the artifacts, I had selected photographs of Trayvon and Tracy Martin, scenes from protests in Ferguson, Missouri, Colin Kaepernick kneeling on the sidelines, and Beyonce posing on the roof of a police cruiser. I also included period depictions of minstrel shows, a photo of an enslaved Black man, and a painting of the horses of the Apocalypse. I also wanted students to engage with lines of text, such as lyrics from “This Is America,” excerpts from Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream,” Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again,” “White Privilege II” by Macklemore as well as excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation. Chisholm and Whitmore suggest that the “[s]trategic juxtapositions of texts…provide and provoke storytelling opportunities for both teachers and students” (21). These texts also related to the essential questions created by our grade-level team, guided by the social justice standards from Learning for Justice. My teaching partner and I used the following questions to frame our book clubs: “How do people in a community deal with conflicts? How do other people form positive relationships? How do differences lead to conflict?”

I explained to students that they would move from one artifact to the another, taking time to read the texts and to examine closely the images. As they moved around the room, mostly in silence, I asked them to write on sticky notes single words to describe an emotion - one captured by the artifact or what they felt as they viewed the text or image. Once they wrote their word, they would post the note on the artifact. Matt circulated the room with his classmates, viewing the various texts, silently processing and jotting words on sticky notes to display on various artifacts. In short, he interacted with the equivalent level of attention and engagement as any other student in the room.

The next class meeting, I followed up this activity with an assessment created by Chisholm and Whitmore called the Visual Learning Analysis (VLA). In the previous class, I took several pictures of students as they viewed the string literature. I printed and made copies of these photos for students, asking them to spread them out at their tables. Working in these small groups, I asked each student to select a photograph that they thought showed the strongest evidence of empathy.

I displayed a series of prompts for students to make notes on their selected photo about the eyes, hands, posture, positioning and proximity of people in their photo. Students shared their notes with their table group, and then each group reported a summary of their observations with the class.

Developing Layers of Knowing
I have written about this activity because, much like the subtitle of Chisholm and Whitmore’s book, I view my teaching of literacy as a multilayered approach. I use a variety of texts to engage students in thinking about and exploring topics. I engage students in meaningful, memorable experiences to access background knowledge and to elicit original responses to texts. I select challenging and relevant topics to integrate content for English language arts and social studies. 

I ask students to reflect on their learning - as individuals, as small groups, and as a whole class–because learning is a social activity. James Britton (1970) says, “Talk is the sea upon which all else floats.” In other words, students build more complex thinking, especially when reading challenging texts and learning about challenging topics, when they compose ideas together. String literature supports these layers of reading and talking about multiple texts and opens opportunities for students to discuss these ideas within a supportive space.

At the end of this second class meeting, Matt slumped back in his chair and said aloud, “Now I understand what Black Lives Matter is all about!” Several of his classmates and I simply turned toward Matt and nodded, a silent acknowledgment of his sudden revelation. His initial resistance to Kaepernick’s form of protest left him unsettled, this cognitive dissonance resulting from his lack of background knowledge related to the complexity of an individual act within the larger context of the struggle for equal rights. 

Meanwhile…
This example of engaging my students with challenging texts also reminds me of Monica Wood’s latest book, How to Read a Book. Wood writes about a retired teacher who runs a book club for a group of women incarcerated in a correctional facility. This teacher, Harriet, often talks to these women about the way books contain a story and a meanwhile; just as she is teaching this group of adult women how to read, these women are also learning how to accept each other, to support each other. Likewise, educators teach students how to access and reflect on challenging texts; meanwhile, students develop empathy and a broader awareness of the ways individuals seek ways to be seen and heard in this bigger project of democracy.

And so, educators hone their craft at conferences, workshops, and webinars, bringing new practices to their classrooms. They learn how to become better teachers, engaging students in rich discussions about challenging texts and complex issues. Meanwhile, teachers guide our students to read the world, to connect with each other and their community, to navigate discomfort and uncertainty through civil discourse, art-based expression, and compassion.