Black(ness) Is, Black(ness) Ain’t: Critical Race English Education
In this presentation, Dr. Johnson proposes Critical Race English Education (CREE) as a theoretical and pedagogical construct that tackles race, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy within English education, ELA classrooms, and beyond. Black youth are not presented with the opportunities to explore their multiple identities or given the opportunities to participate in racial justice movements of our current time such as #BlackLivesMatter and #Sayhername movements. Dr. Johnson theorizes CREE and how CREE extends on Critical Race Theory, BlackCrit, and Critical Race Pedagogy. In the presentation, he will illustrate his experiences as a secondary ELA teacher, particularly how he deconstructed and (re)constructed his curriculum to center the experiences and knowledge of Black youth and youth of Color. Dr. Johnson discusses how he implements the reading and workshop model during his first year of teaching and how he had to reconceptualize the reading and writing workshop because it operated from a white way of existing, being, and speaking; and it still privileged the traditional literary and writing canon. Dr. Johnson delineates how he marries the reading and writing workshop model with CREE which assisted him in the development of a Critical Race English Education workshop model.