Can I Teach That?: Negotiating Taboo Language and Controversial Topics in the Language Arts Classroom [1 ed.] 9781475814767, 9781475814774, 9781475814781

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CAN I

TEACH THAT?

EDIT ED BY A ND

 SUZ A NNE LINDER

 ELIZ A BE T H M A JERUS

CAN I

TEACH THAT?

NEGOTIATING TA BOO L A NGUAGE TOPICS  

IN T HE

A ND

 CON T ROV ERSIA L

L A NGUAGE A RT S CL A S SROOM

rowman & littlefield Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2016 by Suzanne Linder and Elizabeth Majerus All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Linder, Suzanne, editor. | Majerus, Elizabeth, editor. Title: Can I teach that? : negotiating taboo language and controversial topics in the language arts classroom / edited by Suzanne Linder and Elizabeth Majerus. Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016012616 (print) | LCCN 2016018091 (ebook) | ISBN 9781475814767 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781475814774 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781475814781 (Electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Language arts (Secondary)--Social aspects. | Taboo, Linguistic. | Prohibited books. Classification: LCC LB1631 .C365 2016 (print) | LCC LB1631 (ebook) | DDC 428.0071/2--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016012616 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface Suzanne Linder and Elizabeth Majerus 1 Don’t Shy Away from Books about Tough Issues Jabari Asim 2 Teaching the Banned Books Project Stephen E. Rayburn 3 A True War Story: Addressing the Real Obscenities Suzanne Linder 4 Creative Profanity: Strong Language in Student Work Elizabeth Majerus 5 Defending Arnold’s Spirit: Battling a Big Book Challenge in a Small Town Amy Collins 6 Challenging Homophobic and Heteronormative Language: Queering The Merchant of Venice Stephanie Ann Shelton 7 From Canon to “Pornography”: Common Core and the Backlash Against Multicultural Literature Loretta M. Gaffney 8 The Fine Art of Defusing an N-Bomb: The Challenges of Navigating Racially Charged Language in the (Majority White) African American Literature Classroom Matt Mitchell

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9 Too Close to Dead: Addressing Racist Language Head-On in the African American ELA Classroom Jalissa Bates 10 Libraries Unfiltered: Increase Access, Grow the Whole Child Frances Jacobson Harris and Amy L. Atkinson Appendix A: Telling Your Own True War Story Assignment Suzanne Linder Appendix B: Materials Selection Policy: University Laboratory High School English Department, Urbana, Illinois Appendix C: A List of Resources and Case Law for Book Challenges Amy Collins Appendix D: Sample Discussion Questions to Begin Queer Examinations of The Merchant of Venice Stephanie Ann Shelton

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Appendix E: Poetry Reading Assignment Matt Mitchell

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Index

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About the Authors

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Preface Suzanne Linder and Elizabeth Majerus

The words “taboo” and “controversial” in our subtitle may encourage some readers to seek out our book and others to avoid it, but we hope this volume will prove to be a practical resource and an interesting read for all secondarylevel language arts teachers. The stories, strategies, advice, and documents collected here are for those teachers who are using or plan to use materials or to implement policies they know may be controversial. But they are also for any teacher dedicated to engaging students in the complex, challenging, and rewarding activities of reading and writing, for any teacher committed to speaking honestly with students. For any teacher, period. Because when we decide to work with young people, when we commit to sharing books and ideas that engage their hearts and minds, when we strive to get adolescents to think critically and write honestly, we open ourselves up to suspicion and criticism from someone, somewhere, no matter how above reproach we feel our materials and strategies are. As the National Council of Teachers of English articulates in its position statement, “The Students’ Right to Read”: “We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any work is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational” (NCTE 2009). The work we do helping students increase their literacy skills and engage with the world around them is crucial. It’s also full of meaningful complexities and challenges that require our time and attention. We can’t allow our options to be limited by arbitrary challenges leveled without respect for our professionalism or spend our energy internalizing irrational criticisms of our considered choices. In a very real sense, Can I Teach That? Negotiating Taboo Language and Controversial Topics in the Language Arts Classroom is a practical extension of the “The Students’ Right to Read” (NCTE 2009) and its companion statement, “NCTE vii

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Beliefs about Students’ Right to Write” (NCTE 2014). We hope to offer insights that will embolden language arts teachers at the secondary level to choose the materials and the policies that they feel are best for their curricula and to plan the activities that they predict will be most enriching for their students, providing resources that will support teachers in making and if need be defending those choices. CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS AND MEANINGFUL MENTORSHIP Few language arts teachers will experience a full-blown challenge to the content of their curriculum, but many may self-censor or suffer through awkward and challenging conversations with colleagues, administrators, parents, and other members of the community. It is with those awkward conversations in mind that we conceived this collection of essays. This book is for those times when teachers are called on to defend and legitimize their use of controversial material in their classrooms––material that they know reflects students’ reality, even as it makes adults uncomfortable and fearful about their inability to protect children from that very reality. Matt Mitchell, in chapter 8, on defusing the “N-bomb” in his African American literature class, reminds us that “necessary conversations are often uncomfortable conversations.” This observation highlights the fact that although uncomfortable conversations with other adults are likely to preoccupy any teacher working with potentially controversial material, the important conversations we have with our students are what make incorporating these complicated and sometimes thorny questions into our curricula so important. In our role as mentors, we are in a position to reflect with students on issues, problems, and language that they are liable to encounter in the world outside school, but in contexts not as likely to offer opportunities for reflection or discussion moderated by a mature mentor. Teachers who ask nuanced questions and provide mentorship to students, who challenge students to reflect on the ethics of the content they engage with or the language they use in their own writing, have an opportunity to bring those experiences and language choices into the classroom and discuss with students the degree to which the words we use matter. Unlike the language police, who fear that any use of profanity in the classroom (or unfiltered Internet in the school) will expose children to material they aren’t ready for, skillful teachers who address these issues head-on have an opportunity to mentor students in the development of critical-thinking skills that are essential to their development as mature and thoughtful young adults. In its position statement “NCTE Beliefs about Students’ Right to Write,” NCTE posits that “teachers should engage students fully in a writing process

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that allows them the necessary freedom to formulate and evaluate ideas, develop voice, experiment with syntax and language, express creativity, elaborate on viewpoints, and refine arguments.” The statement also advises that “when writing for publication, students should be provided with highquality writing instruction and be taught how to write material that is not obscene, libelous, or substantially disruptive of learning throughout the school” (NCTE 2014). This advice highlights the important role that a high school English curriculum plays in helping students understand the line between, for example, a fictional depiction of violence and a piece of writing that may reasonably raise alarm about the actual threat of violence, or the line between words with obscene origins that are defanged in particular colloquial contexts and the use of those same words in a truly obscene and/or offensive context. Creating rules that cordon students off, keeping them at a safe distance from those complicated lines, does them no favors; there will come a time when students will have complete freedom of expression, and without good mentorship during the apprenticeship period that secondary school represents, they may not have the tools to use that freedom judiciously. When challenging issues and strong language are no longer inherently taboo, we also create opportunities for students to speak about difficult things that are happening or have happened to them. We communicate to young adults that we are ready to help them grapple with the complexities of the world as it really exists, rather than a simplified version of the world we wish existed, and that the guidance and tools we have to share with them are likely to be relevant to their lives. It is a great irony of the struggle over books in the classroom that one of the most challenged books of all time, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, is a novel preoccupied with the hypocrisy of adults. Holden’s frustration with “phonies” and the continued popularity of that book with young adults should remind us that the students we teach have well-developed bullshit detectors. If as language arts teachers and librarians we are invested in connecting with students through reading and writing, and in turn in connecting students to their own voices, we can’t duplicate the hypocrisies that they perceive around them. WHAT IS AT STAKE Amy Collins’s story, told in chapter 5, “Defending Arnold’s Spirit: Battling a Big Book Challenge in a Small Town,” is a vivid illustration of why it is so important for our students that teachers stand up for students’ right to read meaningful and relevant literature, even when it comes at a cost. The book she is sharing with her students (Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) does important work in her classroom. In guiding her students thoughtfully through this engaging text, Amy facilitates

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so much of what we want to see in our schools: students who are excited to read, students who want to write, students who are empathetically engaging with characters who are very different from them (and yet, in this rural Montana school, who are very much a part of their world). Amy is challenged and “wins,” and yet in a real sense the censoring parents also win, because ultimately she feels compelled to remove herself from the community where she has done so much good work. The school loses in the end. There’s a human cost to this kind of censorship, even if it doesn’t succeed in removing texts from our schools. Even when they don’t result in excellent teachers losing jobs or leaving of their own free will, efforts to censor teachers exact an insidious cost from our educational systems, locally and nationwide: Not as sensational [as high-profile censorship cases], but perhaps more important, are the long range results. Schools have removed from libraries and classrooms and English teachers have avoided using or recommending works which might make members of the community angry. Many students are consequently “educated” in a school atmosphere hostile to free inquiry. And many teachers learn to emphasize their own safety rather than their students’ needs. (NCTE 2009)

It’s our students who suffer the greatest loss, and as a society, their loss is our loss. Their watered-down education shapes the future of our nation and our world. As Judy Blume observes, “if no one speaks out for [young people], if they don’t speak out for themselves, all they’ll get for required reading will be the most bland books available.” They won’t find the information that is crucial to their lives, or the literature that fires their imagination; instead, “they will find only those materials to which nobody could possibly object” (Blume 1999, 8–9). Every reflective teacher of the language arts knows that the “materials to which nobody could possibly object” can never form the basis of a meaningful curriculum, if (given what we know about the wide and sometimes unbelievable variety of reasons that books have been challenged) such a collection of materials could even be found. Honest explorations of the issue of censorship with students, on the other hand, can be a fruitful way to engage them in critical thinking and meaningful research. In chapter 2, “Teaching the Banned Books Project,” eighthgrade teacher Steve Rayburn describes how he uses challenged books to help students think critically about objections to specific texts and then to explore and articulate for adults their own right to read. In his assignment, students don’t “simply read a book, they . . . investigate the claims against the book and then speak to the validity of those arguments,” engaging their parents in the conversation about context and appropriateness along the way.

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CLAIMING OUR RIGHTS AS PROFESSIONALS IN A DEMOCRACY As teachers, and particularly as teachers of the language arts, we have a responsibility to our students and our field to be bold in claiming our right as professionals to choose materials that we feel will engage students, motivate them to think critically, inspire them to write with complexity, and stir in them the urge to become part of the living world of letters, to enter the lifeaffirming and sometimes life-saving realm of ideas. In doing so, we shouldn’t fear the reprisal of potential censors or take upon ourselves the responsibility of attempting to satisfy the concerns of every possible objector, some of whose objections will inevitably conflict with concerns from a different corner of the world of strong opinion. We live and teach in a complex democracy in which a wide variety of clashing standards coexist and an array of different opinions hold sway. Schools should not have the responsibility of upholding the most prudish common denominator, the burden of attempting to inspire and educate our students while limiting ourselves only to those “materials to which nobody could possibly object.” American democracy, with its tradition of freedom of speech, supports teachers’ right to develop our curricula and teaching methods without undue consideration of potential censorship. More than that, the practice of teachers exercising those rights is crucial to the continued health of our democracy itself. In his dissenting opinion in the McCarthy-era case Adler vs. Board of Education (1951), Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas insists not only that freedom of expression is a right of teachers, but also that the exercise of this right by teachers is vital to our democracy: The Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and expression to everyone in our society. All are entitled to it; and no one needs it more than the teacher. The public school is in most respects the cradle of our democracy. . . . Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. . . . The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she becomes instead a pipe line for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin. (Quoted in Hentoff 1980, 44–45)

In his description of the chilling effect of unreasonable scrutiny on teachers, Justice Douglas articulated a vision of what education in a democracy should be: a realm of free inquiry in which teachers have the liberty to guide students in pursuing ideas, working on complex problems, and exploring information and perspectives that go deeper than the merely “safe and sound.”

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THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TEACHERS Ultimately this volume is a testament to what good teachers can do as they guide students through potentially challenging ideas, works, and words in the context of mentorship that teaching affords. Amy Collins describes her process of walking her students through the text even before she experienced a challenge: “I controlled the text the second time much as I had the first, reading the sections together, not reading ahead, not simply throwing the book at them, but reading for purpose, with many supportive activities.” When skilled teachers shape their students’ experience of a controversial text and address its issues as they emerge, students are likely to come away having gained in both maturity and their understanding of the complexities of their world. Matt Mitchell discusses the routes he and his students discovered together to “navigate [the] volatile landscape” of racist language in the literary works in his African American literature class. He illustrates the process by which the class turned an uncomfortable problem into a rich source of culturally relevant learning for individual students (and the teacher) and for the class as a community. In both the classroom and their lives, figuring out how to think about the “N-bomb” and the many different and sometimes contradictory ways people use this “inflammatory and potentially disruptive” word creates “a confusing landscape for a young person in the process of forming and refining his or her individual linguistic practices.” Mitchell’s students are empowered to come up with meaningful, context-specific solutions to grapple with this thorniest of linguistic problems, and in the process they learn much about the racial conflicts that still challenge our multicultural democracy and the painful history that underlies them. Stephanie Ann Shelton reminds us in chapter 6 that when handled by an expert teacher, a text as canonical as Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice can be a vehicle to address students’ various identities inside and outside the classroom and to approach a controversial topic with care and finesse in the most conservative of schools and districts. When her traditional discussion techniques meet radical pedagogy, the results in her classroom have positive consequences well beyond her classroom culture. As more and more classroom content is accessed online, and student research is conducted beyond the control of traditional classroom teachers, Frances Harris and Amy Atkinson show us in chapter 10 how school librarians, traditionally strong allies of classroom teachers in the battle against censors, continue to have an important role to play in the modern school environment. The library’s position as a “third space” lets them embrace teaching the whole child in ways that classroom teachers aren’t always able to do. Their care in creating an environment in which students can discuss any topic, but must discuss it with civility and respect, and their commitment

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to teaching ethics and evaluation skills in a world in which the content is well out of our control, is an important complement and support to the work of teachers described in this text. Judy Blume, herself no stranger to the censor, ends her introductory essay in Places I Never Meant to Be with a note to writers: A word of warning to anyone who writes or wants to write: There is no predicting the censor. No telling what will be seen as controversial tomorrow. I’ve talked with writers who have told me, “Oh . . . I don’t write the kinds of stories you do. I write for younger children. My work will never be attacked,” only to find themselves under fire the next day. So write honestly. Write from deep inside. (1999, 13)

The same holds true for teachers. As there is no predicting the censor, we must teach honestly and in ways that reflect the values and goals that come from deep within us, where the passion that inspired us to teach in the first place resides. It is our sincere hope that this collection of essays provides you with the encouragement to teach honestly, fiercely, and from deep inside. WORKS CITED Blume, Judy. 1999. Introduction to Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers. Edited by Judy Blume. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hentoff, Nat. 1980. The First Freedom. New York: Delacorte Press. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). 2009. “The Students’ Right to Read.” NCTE Comprehensive News. Accessed July 31, 2015. http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/ righttoreadguideline. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). 2014. “NCTE Beliefs about Students’ Right to Write.” NCTE Comprehensive News. Accessed July 31, 2015. http://www.ncte.org/ positions/statements/students-right-to-write.

Chapter One

Don’t Shy Away from Books about Tough Issues Jabari Asim

When the film Sarafina! was released years ago, a well-intentioned friend advised me not to take my sons to see it. The scenes of violent racial oppression in apartheid South Africa would be too much for a five-year-old and a nine-year-old, he warned. I thanked him for his concern—and promptly headed to the cinema with my sons. The scenes he had mentioned were indeed disturbing, but I knew my boys could take it. What’s more, I regarded bearing witness to them as a necessary part of their education. To be responsible citizens, they needed to know about injustice and how people struggled against it in the United States, as well as other parts of the world. The same is true of books. Some parents may decide that books that address complicated subjects, such as race and gender, are better suited for teenagers and young adults. I respect their choice. But those kinds of books should also be made available for parents like me, who prefer to expose their children to tough issues early in their lives. The sooner my children and grandchildren—all African American—can learn about what it means to be black in a society still riven by racist attitudes and the uneven application of justice, the better equipped they’ll be to navigate it. Of course, it is entirely possible for children to develop general knowledge of the world without seeing themselves reflected in the books they read. After all, I did, and so did many readers of color in my generation. But that doesn’t make it right. Opportunities to encounter storybook characters that even faintly resembled me were so rare that I remember those discoveries to this day. If not for books like Two Is a Team, by Lorraine and Jerrold Beim, and Oh, Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard, by Polly Greenberg, my first-grade 1

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experiences would have been dishearteningly monochromatic. Instead of just becoming a reader, I became someone who loved reading. The difference can be substantial and have far-reaching consequences in our increasingly multicultural society. NOTE This essay first appeared in Room for Debate at NYTimes.com on July 7, 2014, as part of a discussion on children’s literature. The original post and full discussion are accessible at http:// www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/09/should-books-for-childrens-be-political/dontshy-away-from-books-about-tough-issues.

Chapter Two

Teaching the Banned Books Project Stephen E. Rayburn

Reading. Writing. Restrictions. These are issues English teachers face daily. My first encounter with a challenged work occurred in my first year of teaching. I was back in the public high school where I had graduated four years earlier in my moderately sized Mid-South hometown. Two of my former teachers, both excellent classroom instructors, were trying an experimental class combining US history with American literature. The students were a select group. One student had asked to be exempt from reading The Scarlet Letter, a favorite book of mine even then, one taught to me by one of these teachers. This student’s parents maintained the book promoted adultery. I was appalled on multiple levels. First, I loved that work. Having read it at the same age as this student, I could not fathom how anyone could see it as condoning adultery. Weren’t all those involved punished? Primarily, I was incredulous that some parent would question the judgment of these two stellar, established teachers. I had grown up in roughly the same generation as this student, in a churchgoing family, and in my house we did not question a teacher. Right or wrong—and were teachers ever wrong?—the teacher was the authority. I was Beaver Cleaver. Times have changed. No matter your educational experience, no matter the reputation or worth of a piece of literature, no matter your passion for a work, as a teacher you have to be prepared for a challenge on any front. Rather than shrink, however, from controversial issues, I embraced them as a means for fostering critical thinking about issues of censorship and the students’ right to read.

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MAKING WRITING REAL I did not intend to develop an inroad to dealing with controversy when I came up with the idea of the Banned Book Project for my eighth-grade students. I was coming off a summer experience with the University of Illinois Writing Project, a local arm of the National Writing Project. I had been a teacher for almost twenty-five years, and the four weeks spent with a small group of fellow teachers of all shapes, sizes, experience, and grade levels was the best professional development experience I had ever had. The desire to make my writing assignments more real for my students combined with another idea I found in a book on reading groups I had picked up at an NCTE convention. As with many assignments a teacher develops, the end result took on wonderfully serendipitous aspects, and I ended up with a much more complex and fruitful assignment than I had expected. Ralph Fletcher’s What a Writer Needs spoke to me more clearly each time I approached it. Fletcher notes that the best writing classes involve “an environment where children can put themselves on the line when they write” (1993, 26). I wanted to craft an assignment that would ask the students to invest. I taught at a select-admission public lab school. My students, highly motivated, were adept at giving a teacher what they determined the teacher wanted. But they were not always invested in anything other than the grade. I wanted a way to move beyond that perfunctory attitude and develop some passion on their parts. Fletcher points out: “Too many students write on issues or subjects they know nothing about. . . . If we sense that students are writing about topics they don’t know or care about, we might suggest they try another idea, something closer to the heart” (1993, 153). While Fletcher’s ideas were swimming in my head, I was also reading a work on reading groups, Dagny D. Bloland’s Ready, Willing, and Able. Bloland, who works with gifted students, stresses that these students need “regular time for their own self-chosen reading,” that being “probably the most important contribution we can make to their education, but it’s one that is often overlooked” (2006, 153). Certainly I, determined to cover all those items “mandatory” to the class, had overlooked giving the students autonomy. Caught up in a curriculum— any curriculum—that assumes a certain amount of material must be covered, we all tend to lose sight of the individuality and inquisitiveness of our students. I wanted to give the students some agency. I should point out here an influential idea from an unpublished source: my stepson. He teaches on the elementary level, a number of years in kindergarten. I am proud to say he has won national recognition for some of his work in science and is a nationally certified teacher. He has maintained since his own days in school that the type of work given to “gifted” or “enrichment” stu-

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dents, because it is more engaging, is exactly the sort of work that all students should be doing. If the assignment engages the student, the assignment is beneficial. I found both Fletcher and Bloland often pointed to the idea of student engagement, even though one approached writing and one reading. Fletcher suggests: “Students who find themselves writing dispirited prose on any subject might look harder at themselves and ask: Where do I stand on this? What’s my point of view? Forget what the experts say: What part amazes or angers me?” (1993, 153). Agency again. Bloland advocates assignments “in which kids can think, read, write, communicate with each other, and hear their own voices—not so they can listen to me talk” (2006, 8). I needed to fight my deeply instilled tendency to direct and step to the side, letting the students set their own course. While I had students who would readily jump at the opportunity, I believe that even reluctant readers would respond to having a choice in material, in reading something they found interesting. Fletcher stresses: “This cannot be stated bluntly enough: The writer must have something to say” (1993, 151). How, then, could I craft an assignment that gave the writer something to say, something, as Fletcher says, “closer to the heart?” Perhaps Bloland’s plea for independent reading would provide something authentic for my students to write. Obviously, though, I had to find something more real than the traditional “language arts book report.” CRAFTING AN ASSIGNMENT Where, then, to go? In countless parent/teacher conferences parents said things like “I never know what they are doing,” “He never lets me see what he’s writing,” and “All she wants to read is sci-fi or fantasy!” Perhaps, I thought, I could incorporate the parents into the assignment. I could step aside as the de facto audience for the writing and give the students a very specific audience—and one they should know well, a parent. If I crafted a writing assignment geared toward the parents, I could please them and, as I told the students, get the parent off the student’s “case.” While I did not intend to deal directly with the “taboo,” the idea of using banned books came to me as a way to engage my early adolescent readers. I will shamelessly admit I thought giving them the opportunity to read a “banned” book might appeal to their growing need for independence. They might feel they were getting away with something. Was I pandering to their baser instincts? Probably. But I was also struck by the idea that I could then push them to some deeper level of critical thinking. They would not simply read a book; they would investigate the claims against the book and then speak to the validity

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of those arguments. Here, then, was where the parents could take part. The student would research the complaints against challenged work they wanted to read, then write a proposal to the parent explaining the alleged problems with the work and seeking permission to read the controversial piece. The parent would be in the loop, the student would be reading a work of their choice, and I would have them doing research in a more “real-life” way. I did set some parameters. The book they chose had to be a work they had not previously read, even in part. It had to be age appropriate. As examples of what not to select, I used Ulysses and And Tango Makes Three. Both are wonderful books, but for any eighth grader one is too mature and one too immature. I pointed out to students that Joyce is a writer well worth reading, but his masterpiece would be not only difficult to finish in the time we had allotted but also a bit complex even for the best of them. Read it in college, I suggested. And Tango is a delightful children’s book, but one not complex enough for them to deal with in the way I wanted for this project. The project I envisioned fell into three parts. The first involved researching “challenged” books. This provided one of the early lessons in language, of course, as I pointed out some works are “challenged”; that is, someone asks to have a book removed or restricted from a curriculum or library, but if the challenge is not successful, the book is not officially “banned.” Nevertheless, we simplified our conversation by using “banned” across the board. This research led to writing a proposal addressed to parent asking for permission to read the book. The second step was reading the book and writing a one-page summary, and the third involved an assessment of the quality of both the book and the arguments against it. GETTING STARTED Nothing remained but trying the assignment. In preparing to introduce the idea of “book banning,” I came upon the idea of using a famous court case challenging a book. The judge’s ruling in The United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses” (5 F. Supp. 182 1933) is easily accessed online. I started the unit by having the students read the ruling looking for two things: the case made against the book and the reasons the judge gave for allowing Ulysses to be published in America. In his ruling, Judge Woolsey speaks to the necessity of reading the entire book, addressing the intent of the work, and placing the book in a literary context does not necessarily appeal to conventional tastes. He stresses that nothing should be examined out of context. From the first question we sprang into a discussion of why people might challenge a book. Although most of the students had some vague concept of a “banned” book, few had any concrete thoughts on why or how those issues

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were handled. From the judge’s opinion, we developed ideas about why a book some found offensive should be printed, artistic merit being a primary reason. These two items spoke directly to the task at hand. After we had set some groundwork for approaching the idea of challenging a book from an intellectual rather than purely emotional standpoint, I let them begin to search for challenged works. Here, the stellar help of my school librarian proved, as always, invaluable. Our librarian set up a “Class Project” page on the library Web site. Needless to say, she loved the intent of the assignment. Given that I was dealing with the younger students in our school, she did most of the heavy lifting for the research aspect, giving them links to numerous sites and databases where they could find not only lists of challenged works but also discussions of why these works were challenged. The students had a couple of days to look for books that might interest them. I suggested they find three works that sounded intriguing to look into more deeply. I will admit this was my favorite part of the project. As the students began to find lists of “banned” books, their outrage became outspoken. It would start with a single voice questioning why a certain book was challenged. Soon the room was full of incredulous voices. Invariably some book they loved would show up on a list, and they would begin the process of critical analysis at that point. I challenged them to put aside their emotional responses and discover why that beloved work ran into conflict. My own favorite work from childhood, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, always came up. The complaints were not about language, though, or sex, the topics most students expect to find. In this post–Harry Potter world, witchcraft seems innocuous enough to most of my students, so they did not even think about Mrs. Whosit and her friends as witches. The challenge to authority was also noted in complaints, so I had a chance to point out that people object to books for a vast array of reasons. I could, too, sympathize with their clamor while still urging them to see the reasons before they gave a knee-jerk dismissal of the idea. Most years I have at least one student who chooses L’Engle’s work because the class reaction piques his or her interest. Again, I acknowledge I have readers in my classes. Getting them to find books that catch their interest is easy. What about classes with reluctant readers—or no readers at all? I can see where this assignment could easily be adapted to deal with music or film. The intent is to engage the students in some critical thinking about values and opinions, so although the mode for me was reading, I think other areas would work just as well. After they moved beyond their initial shock at how many books they knew which had been “banned,” they began to look more intently for those they might use for their project. Collaboration always ensued. If they brought up a book, often someone else in the class had read it and could offer a quick

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opinion of its worth. They also began to think about their own comfort. If they were uneasy with “adult language,” they would shy away from books to which the objection was language. They easily recognized their own prejudices, and some heeded those while others faced them head-on, deliberately choosing works that would question their assumptions. This portion of the project required a good deal of circulation on my part. Many students—most in fact—wanted to consult with me about their thinking and the books they were considering. Once they had an idea what work they wanted to take on, they began to research the reasons the book had been challenged. The proposal had to have documentation; they had to note their sources, explaining where, when, why, and by whom their books were challenged. The research element here could be a challenge since often they picked work that appealed to them but wasn’t a “big name” challenge. Finding a list of banned books presented no problem; finding the details behind the challenges was not always so simple. Again, the librarian worked with them on how to use newspaper databases, and I pulled out my favorite research metaphor: the detective. The list of newspapers probably tells students places their book was challenged. Finding sources from that location was not always easy. They had to learn to take the little information they did have and follow every lead it provided. Local newspapers are always a primary source for answering their research questions, and many learned that a challenge in a small town might have to be investigated in the nearest larger town’s paper. They soon found, too, that many contemporary writers have Web sites that address issues about their challenged works. John Green, whose Looking for Alaska was some student’s choice in most years, has his own Web site. Those sites often contain the author’s reaction to challenges and with that reaction, more information on the complaints. Also, some deceased writers are represented through a “library,” such as the Vonnegut Library in Indianapolis. Vonnegut, of course, appears on banned book lists yearly, and the library Web site often provides information about various challenges. PARENT INVOLVEMENT Once they had gathered information about their books—the who, what, why, and where—the students began to write their proposals. Obviously, this part of the project is both expository and argumentative. I point out to them that they know their parents as well as or better than anyone. They know what will appeal to their audience, then, and need to craft their proposals accordingly. Who among us doesn’t speak to purpose and audience? At this point I contacted the parents as well. I instructed the parents to look for outside sources documented in the piece and, if there was no docu-

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mentation, to refuse permission. Each proposal had to be signed by a parent or guardian and returned, so the grade was dependent on the parents’ being on board. I have had parents refuse to sign because they did not think the argument was documented correctly. Of course, I also have parents who wanted the proposal rewritten to fit their idea of what it should be. I encourage these parents to look for proof their student has a clear idea about the book’s issues and to leave the writing instruction to me. Usually that works. The proposal offered another opportunity to talk genre. I prohibited the use of letter format. I wanted the students to think about a more businesslike presentation. We briefly discussed the possible formats for the proposal, but as is often the case with me, I wanted them to grapple with format and length. My experience in the National Writing Project soured me on setting definite parameters to any assignment, which still drives my students insane. They cried for carefully delineated expectations so they could simply plug in the appropriate idea. I pushed them to grapple with all aspects of writing: length, organization, content. I have returned proposals I found too short and underdeveloped, even if those proposals have received a parent’s signature. The student might proceed to read at that point, but had to revise the proposal for the final version of the project. READING TIME With proposals in, we turned to reading. I gave the students some class time to do this reading, and I also tried to restrict other homework in the class so they had time to finish their book. I allowed them no more than a week. For most, that was plenty. I always invited the parents to read the book along with the student, creating another point at which parents could gain insight into their student’s work. Since the students were all choosing individually, they had to secure an individual copy of the book. Most checked the book out of the library. Each year I had several parents join in, sometimes buying the book, sometimes reading it after the student had gone to bed. One year, though, about two days into the reading time, I had a student approach me to say his father wanted to withdraw his permission for him to read the book. This family had escaped a civil war in central Europe. Ironically enough, the book the student had chosen was Fahrenheit 451. I had thought the antitotalitarian view would appeal to the student’s parents, but the father, having taken me up on reading the work at the same time as his son, objected to the swearing in the book. The son switched to Animal Farm on his own, the father agreed, and the student successfully completed the project.

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Once their books had been read, the students wrote brief synopses. I restricted them to one page on this. I wanted them to learn to be brief. Many—indeed, most—balked at the restriction to a page. Having finished the book, most students had plenty they wanted to talk about, but I forced them to focus their synopsis on the main plot points. They hated the restriction, but I believed the exercise to be an important one. Culling all their information into the main points proved beneficial for them. I did not want to be that restrictive, but I think the exercise of focusing on the key events in a book and writing a concise synopsis remains important. For many, this part presented the biggest challenge. Each year I had students confess that having to cut things to a page made them carefully examine their works and deal with the major parts. FORMING AN OPINION With the synopsis in, the students turned to their evaluation. I emphasized that I did not care what stand they took as long as they supported their assessments completely. We returned to the library class project page, but this time they were searching for reviews, critical commentary, and more news articles about the outcome of the challenges. I stressed to them that they were now the “experts” on their books, but like all experts, they should find other scholars to support their claims. A requirement for the assessment called for outside sources for support, so they had to be “detectives” again, finding sources that they could use to back up their own views. The format here was more traditional, allowing them to approach the assessment more like a regular book review. We took a period, then, to look at some examples of book reviews, both online and off. We discussed the conventions of a book review so they had a better sense of what to include in their own evaluations. Interestingly enough, although most students came down against restricting a work, they were often quite mature in their assessment of when and with whom a work should be used. Often they would recommend a novel not be used by younger students, even ones their own age. The Kite Runner, for example, was challenged at another high school in our town, so each year some student reads it. Most found it wonderful, but most also thought the violence is such the book would better serve a more mature audience than our middle school level. Although few ever advocated banning a work, each year some students suggested that a book was not worth the conflict. I have had students who found the language or the mature content difficult to accept, although few went as far as wanting the book removed completely. I have also had students call for restricting a work because they found it poorly written, a view

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that I must say encourages me. Most thought through the options, offering a potential reading standard for the work. Through the entire process, I was pushing the students to think rather than react. Emotion certainly plays its part in decisions, but the key for me in this lesson had become critical thinking. At all three stages, the students were being asked to consider the situation objectively. They could not summarily dismiss arguments against books, but neither could they expect others to summarily accept their views. I preached support, and support calls for critical thought and clear explanation. They have to assess others’ ideas, whether they agree or disagree. They also have to consider how best to craft their own arguments to sway others. In all of these steps, then, the lesson met standards maintained by the Common Core. LASTING EFFECTS Over the course of several years, I had great success with this lesson. Even some of the students whose writing was weaker came up with a more observant, critical mind-set when it came to ideas. They became more astute readers and better thinkers. They began to see that ideas should not be, in themselves, perfunctorily objectionable. As they moved into the next years in our curriculum, they were more willing to entertain ideas that contradicted their own way of thinking. And they were more strident in defending the inclusion of all ideas. A case in point. When a colleague recently retired, I moved from teaching the eighth-grade class to teaching the ninth. Consequently, I had the same students two years in a row. One of the works I chose for the freshman level was Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. The book deals with racism, violence, sex, and language. As we began reading, I instructed the class that we were going to meet issues we had examined the year before in the Banned Book Project. I asked them to consider why the language was used, what the sexual content added to our view of the characters, and how the use of the “N-word” reflected the setting. I was impressed and pleased with the mature approach to the book my students showed. They had learned that language, content, and issues in and of themselves are not the problem. By taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, with controversial topics, giving students the agency they need to address those topics on their own and allowing their authentic voices to be heard in their writing, I have in large part defused any controversy. They come out of the Banned Book Project as better writers, better readers, better thinkers.

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WORKS CITED Bloland, Dagny D. 2006. Ready, Willing, and Able: Teaching English to Gifted, Talented, and Exceptionally Conscientious Adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fletcher, Ralph. 1993. What a Writer Needs. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Chapter Three

A True War Story Addressing the Real Obscenities Suzanne Linder

I once had a student who wrote a story that read: I once wrote a story that began such; I once saw a man shit himself a new asshole. It got juicer from there. Then the bell rang and I printed it. An error popped up, and I decided not to save the story. It wasn’t very good. . . . One jolt of voltage say to another “Why ain’t you going anywhere? Ain’t got the potential?” Nobody laughs. A stony silence comes over the other jolts, terrified that the humor of their story was pervading the world at large. The machinery of life, furious reproduction and death grinds to halt, and the electricities wait until the mountains have fallen in the sea to get the terrible story out of their corner of the world and send it elsewhere. And just for good measure they sent 50 copies. . . . The story only existed so I could make a veiled reference to the “doctor with the cold hands” aka doctor frozenfingers, aka the man who stitched the second asshole shut. There just wasn’t enough material to turn into something good. Not enough protein for building muscles, not enough caffeine to keep people awake, not enough Ceratonin to be intellectually stimulating and not even enough fiber to make a proper poop. But somebody sure saw something in the story, because they got awfully riled up and generally rude about it. And they had been vested with authority. Enough to make a criminal’s pants wet. With story in hand, ready to rub in my face if they could get hold on me, they began a quest that some benevolent god struck down, and sent the story to the land of mediocrity where it lived happily ever after. I once wrote a story that began such; I once saw a man shit himself a new asshole. 13

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14 It wasn’t very good.

While I appreciate being portrayed as a benevolent god, the true story of my intervention in the fate of this young man went more like this. I was in the school office when a notoriously conservative colleague blew in complaining about the obscenity that was spewing out of the printer in the Mac lab. He was fairly certain he knew who the dirty-minded perpetrator was and I hoped for a minute that I could slip out of the office unnoticed, until I heard him conspiring with the secretary to find our system administrator and drill into the student files on the server in order to discover the culprit. Not only was the obscenity an assignment for my class, he had the wrong suspect, and I didn’t want two students dragged into the office to answer for an assignment I had given them. (One might have been an acceptable loss.) Timidly I interrupted the conversation and choked out that I knew who had written the story and that, while scatological, it was an assignment for my class and not a discipline issue. But now I will tell you the true story, which is that the man shitting himself a new asshole is not the obscenity in this story, nor is it the obscenity in any story that we read in school. When we self-censor because we fear the language police complaining about four-letter Anglo-Saxon words or teenagers who have sex in the books we teach, we miss the opportunity to talk about the everyday obscenities that our students live with: the oppressive institutions that disproportionately punish kids of color and let white students slide, the definitions of masculinity that teach young boys that their female classmates are there for their sexual pleasure, the adults who bully and abuse children, the educational policies that enrich private companies at the expense of poor children, and the corporations and governments that kill in our names—these are the true obscenities. When we hold ourselves to the least objectionable standard, we cede the territory to have real conversations with our students about issues that matter. We miss the opportunity to talk to students about the brutality that they already see and experience in the world. Tim O’Brien articulates this hypocrisy in his short story “How to Tell a True War Story” (from The Things They Carried, the story collection we were studying in class when the above student wrote his own true war story; see appendix A for the assignment): “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for truth; if you don’t care for truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty” (2009, 69). When we avoid these conversations and instead allow the discourse to be one of concern about bad words, O’Brien suggests we are making the same mistake that allowed politicians to send young men to Vietnam to die and yet still represent themselves as protecting the young. Furthermore, O’Brien suggests a civic duty—“watch how you vote”—in looking at the real issues in our culture that give rise to dirty

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language. Marlon Brando’s character, Colonel Kurtz, in Apocalypse Now (Coppola 1979) says it even more bluntly: “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene!” It shouldn’t be surprising then that both of these examples of the hypocrisy of worrying about soldiers’ language while glossing over the obscenity of state-sanctioned violence come from texts set during wartime. According to Melissa Mohr in her brief history of swearing, Holy Sh*t: [D]uring and after World War I and World War II, people began to swear more than they had in the past. The particular horrors of these wars—the constant threat of death by poison gas and machine guns, trench warfare, incendiary bombings—led to feelings of rage and helplessness that needed an outlet in frequent swearing. Soldiers brought what they heard in the barracks and in the field home with them and into print . . . to a degree that hadn’t been seen before. (2013, 228)

Of course the language of young people who experience the horrors of war (or the horrors of injustice in their own community) is as colorful, expressive, and obscene as the world they inhabit, yet we persist in feeling a need to protect young adults from the world they already participate in. Alyssa D. Niccolini interrogates this desire to protect our students and suggests that it is motivated by nostalgia rather than reality: We have a tendency to want to protect the innocence—or the fictional image of innocence we hold—of the youth we’re teaching. As Lesko and Talburt argue, adults who work with young people are often oriented toward a feeling of “pan-optimism” that manifests in feel-good narratives about successful and meaningful adult intervention in young peoples’ lives. These often “impossible fictions are also maintained by nostalgic ideas of classrooms, reading and books.” The reality is that young people live in and read about—as we adults also did—a decidedly complex world where sex, violence, intolerance, and profanity are a reality. (2015, 282, 27)

If we reject the fantasy that our students are not already engaged with questions of “sex, violence, intolerance, and profanity,” then the challenge becomes how we design classroom experiences that support students and teachers in having these kinds of conversations. I wish I had a 100 percent guaranteed formula to offer, but all I have is a firm belief that these conversations matter. We know that when we avoid these conversations in the classroom, we squander an important opportunity to model respect and compassion, as well as run the risk of being seen as out of touch. Yet we also teach in varying contexts that may limit what we feel safe discussing in the classroom; therefore, knowing yourself, your students, and your context is essential for a long career.

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In the rest of this chapter I offer a few lessons I have learned along with possible questions teachers can ask themselves before, during, and after difficult conversations. BE PREPARED Be overprepared before you go into the classroom. It is important to know the material you are teaching and why you are teaching it, but beyond that, it is important to know the context you are teaching in. School districts differ, classes differ, and the beginning of the year is different than the end of the year, so your consideration of the material you teach and the sequence you teach it in should take all of those factors into consideration. The true war story lesson that spawned the anecdote at the beginning of this chapter happened in the third quarter with a class of seniors I had known since they were freshmen. Even though second semester seniors frequently push teachers’ and schools’ boundaries, I had enough authority—born out of relationships—with this group of students to alert them to when they had crossed a boundary, and I was confident that they would respect that boundary. I was also comfortable letting them use obscene language in this assignment, because the assignment reinforced the larger conversation about hypocrisy that we had been having as we read The Things They Carried. In addition, I knew that my administrator would support my classroom choices, I felt comfortable articulating the educational merit of the assignment, and I knew from the research I had done while writing the assignment that many teachers assign similar writing tasks during their units on The Things They Carried. Here are some questions to ask yourself before preparing to teach a controversial text: • What is your rationale for the educational merit of the text? What have been the concerns with the text in other school districts, and how have those been answered? Who is an ally you can rehearse your rationale aloud with? • Is your department supportive of your teaching this text? Will your administration back you up if a parent complains? • Is this text taught elsewhere in your community? Are there allies in other schools you can talk to before teaching the text or if any concerns come up? • What ground rules and classroom practices have you established for discussion, and do you think your students can handle the material in the text?

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• Does your school or school district have a challenge policy? What protections are there for you in the policy? (See appendix B for an example of a challenge policy.) MAKE THE HISTORY OF OBSCENITY A TOPIC IN YOUR CLASSROOM You can start a conversation about obscenity and the changing nature of offensive words before you even open a book, thereby equipping your students to think critically about the construction of obscenity. When you teach your students the history of words that are offensive to people, you can introduce them to the idea that what is considered offensive in language changes across cultures and time periods and is often related to who is in power. You can start by asking your students to reflect in writing about an early experience they have had learning that a word was “bad.” After they’ve told stories about learning that words can be bad, you could ask them to reflect on the following questions: Where did they learn the term? Who told them it wasn’t appropriate? Did that person have power over them? What did it feel like to be told their language was inappropriate? Do those words still have the same power? This individual experience that many of us have of learning that specific words are “bad,” repeated over time, is part of how notions of what is unacceptable in language are created and passed on. My students are always surprised to learn that four-letter Anglo-Saxon words used to only describe bodily functions, and it wasn’t until after the Norman invasion, when French euphemisms became a sign of refinement and education, that those words became “dirty” words. The history of language is a lesson in respectability politics and a good opportunity to talk about this topic (for more on this history see Mohr 2013). LITERATURE IS YOUR FRIEND The beauty of discussing difficult issues in the context of literature is that no one has to be personally revealing in the discussion; rather, you can focus on the experiences of the characters and reactions to those characters and situations. When you have a choice, choose literature that is relevant to the lives of your students and use the experiences of characters in books to frame larger conversations. If you want to teach culturally relevant content, you are inevitably going to stumble into territory that is uncomfortable for you or your students. Remember, just because you are uncomfortable talking about sex or racism or homophobia doesn’t mean that your students aren’t talking about these topics outside of class.

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I have taught Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale for a number of years in my Utopia and Dystopia in Literature class. There is a very upsetting scene about halfway through the novel that is invariably uncomfortable—and important—to discuss. Atwood’s story follows the narrator’s thoughts in the present and as she revisits disjointed memories of “the before.” In one of her memories, a young woman who was gang-raped in the before is shamed by the women in the reeducation center, forced to kneel in the middle of the circle while the other women yell “it’s your fault, it’s your fault” (1986, 72). The scene is a dramatic example of subtle messages girls hear about their complicity in sexual assault and an illustration of how a woman who has experienced trauma could easily begin to believe that it was her fault. Approached with care in the classroom, this scene is an important opportunity to discuss consent, responsibility, and rape culture (without necessarily naming and defining rape culture if you don’t think your students are ready for that). Possible routes into this discussion are a quick write about the particular passage and how students reacted to the scene and then a pair and share in which they talk with a neighbor about whether Atwood’s exaggeration of contemporary culture sounds like messages they hear in current popular culture. If your class is prone to unproductive arguments, or you are concerned about having a full class discussion of these issues, it is fine to keep these conversations at the level of small groups (of their own choosing), so long as you circulate and participate in the conversations that students have, asking them what they wrote about and what they are discussing. I find it useful to have some questions in my lesson plan for the day that might push students’ thinking or return them to the text when necessary. LET GO OF FEELING RESPONSIBLE FOR CORRECT THINKING One of the most important lessons I learned the longer I taught was the importance of working consciously to release control over class discussion and to allow myself to let go of feeling responsible for students thinking correctly about controversial topics. There is always an inherent tension in teacher control of classroom discussions of controversial topics, but I’ve tried to stop engaging in the Herculean efforts to force discussion back to my agenda that I employed in my early years. Like other times when sensitive topics come up in the classroom, it is important to know your own biases and to allow students to struggle, but also to be willing to stop and talk about the conversation when it gets difficult. This can be particularly painful when you hear students say things that you don’t agree with, but if we don’t want to indoctrinate students, we need to be willing to let them be heard. At the same time, teachers are human and have

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limits and boundaries that students will inevitably cross, and we don’t always know where those are before they are crossed. As much as possible, begin to identify those boundaries for yourself and have a plan for addressing them with students. I have a friend and colleague who has a brother with disabilities, and she hates hearing “that’s retarded” slung around thoughtlessly. Over time she has developed a short presentation she gives to students that shows them pictures of her brother and shares with them her love for him and then moves into talking about why she hopes they’ll consider her feelings when they drop that word. She is vulnerable and honest with them about how their language affects her and humanizes both herself and her brother with her presentation. She also models a way of talking about sensitive topics in her classroom that is as valuable as the content of her presentation. It is important to reflect on what your boundaries are in class discussion and how you react when they are crossed. You might ask yourself: Can I share with students in an honest way about how their words affect me? When might I need to remove a student from my class? What would it look like if I asked students to also reflect on their boundaries in writing after I share some of mine with them? When my boundaries are inevitably crossed, who are the colleagues I can talk with about how to handle the situation? ALLOW STUDENTS TO SET THEIR OWN BOUNDARIES One of my teaching mentors used to talk about how all of us have circuit breakers in our chest that can get tripped at different points in a conversation about a text. Some of our circuit breakers can take a lot before the fuse blows and we shut down, while others are more sensitive. I realize now that he had found a gentle way to talk about triggers and he was giving us, his students, permission to acknowledge our own internal limits and to take action based on them. The last time I taught The Handmaid’s Tale, I had a student in class who had previously disclosed to me that she had been sexually assaulted. She had been triggered by a discussion in another classroom in which students were discussing rape culture, and she felt the teacher had allowed the other students to blame victims. As I was preparing to teach the scene described above, I knew I needed to give this student permission to spend the class period in the library, even though I believed I could manage to keep the discussion respectful. I spoke to the student alone the day before I assigned the reading and gave her the option of going to the library instead of coming to class. In other circumstances when I’ve been concerned about content we would be covering in class, I have let students know specifically what kind of violence is coming up and have given them permission to spend the class

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period in the library or with their heads down on their desks (if it is a scene in a film clip we are watching). Not every student who has experienced trauma will have disclosed that information, so it is important to ask yourself what it might look like for kids to set their own boundaries. Are they allowed to walk out of class without telling you why? Will your school library allow students to spend a class period reading a book or working on other homework rather than sitting in your class? How much are you able to trust your students when they say they can’t be a part of a conversation about a book? GIRD YOUR LOINS Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Gird your loins, be honest, admit when you make a mistake, and model your learning process. If we want students to take risks in conversation, we are going to have to take risks as well. I have a memory of a comment made in a section of Sophomore English many years ago that I didn’t react to in a way that I felt good about. I no longer remember the content of what was said, but I remember the feeling of having allowed a homophobic comment to go unacknowledged in the course of a discussion. I went home and thought about the comment and my mishandling of it all night long and was only able to sleep after I remembered that I could address the comment directly the following day and talk about it as a situation I felt I hadn’t responded to correctly in the first place. Instead of allowing the homophobic comment to go uncommented on (and be tacitly affirmed), I hope that I modeled for my students humility in admitting my mistake and made the learning process visible. When you inevitably make a mistake in the classroom, who are the colleagues in your building or your district you can talk to about how to follow up with the class or the student? Would it be easier to write a letter to your students that explains your feelings and thoughts? If you find yourself resistant to the idea of acknowledging your mistakes, are you invested in a rigid sense of your authority? What do you lose in relationships with students if you stick with this sense of your own authority? STUDENTS LEARN FROM YOUR ACTIONS AS WELL AS WORDS Finally, there may be a price associated with raising issues of violence and obscenity (in its many forms) as topics of discussion in your classroom, but students are learning from your example as well. For years I struggled with rumors about me as a teacher whose professed feminism meant that I preferred female students to male students. And then as I was writing this chapter, a former student (Jia) posted this on Facebook:

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Shoutout to all of my female teachers at Uni—you all were such role models by standing up and tackling diversity and gender problems IN YOUR CLASSROOM. That’s one thing I always felt Uni had and did right; females having the tough conversations about sexism. It sickened me to see female teachers to then be brought down and discredited because “oh, she’s a feminist” or “yeah, but did you hear that they’re GAY” as if that made the discussion or the teaching less legitimate in any way.

What a gift to have students who see us and remind us why this work is important. Up until Jia’s post, I was thinking about the backlash against addressing controversial content in the classroom as coming from parents or administrators who complain about bad language or sex in books. Jia’s comments remind me that there is a whole other category of reactions that has a chilling effect on what teachers address in the classroom, but at the same time her comments provide an affirmation of why it’s worth taking those risks as a teacher. Even when there is backlash from or difficult conversation with adults because of the content you are teaching, there are also students who need to hear that content, and we have the privilege of getting to talk to them about it in our classrooms. When I was standing in the school office being confronted with a pile of scatological prose, I had choices. I could have walked away and hoped that the student writer hadn’t saved his work on the server and that the trail would run cold. I could have decided that letting students swear in the assignment was too risky and not worth the consequence of a colleague or parent finding their writing and questioning my assignment. Or I could choose, as I did— knowing that I had a supportive administrator and was teaching in a relatively lenient school climate and that the very point of the book I was teaching was that obscenity resides in something other than bad words—to take a stand for my students’ right to write and speak authentically about the world they live in. Because as Tim O’Brien tells us in his prose and models for us in his life: “[T]his is true too: stories can save us” (2009, 213). WORKS CITED Atwood, Margaret. 1986. The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Coppola, Frances Ford. 1979. Apocalypse Now. Hollywood, CA: Zoetrope Studios. Mohr, Melissa. 2013. Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing. New York: Oxford University Press. Niccolini, Alyssa D. 2015. “Precocious Knowledge: Using Banned Books to Engage in a Youth Lens.” English Journal 104, no. 3 (January): 22–28. O’Brien, Tim. 2009. The Things They Carried. Boston: Mariner Books.

Chapter Four

Creative Profanity Strong Language in Student Work Elizabeth Majerus

Art is a birth, and you can’t go to a teacher and find out how to be born. . . . [Y]ou have to struggle until that image, the one that comes out of your need to create, emerges.—Malcah Zeldis

ART AND DISOBEDIENCE Disobedience is an important part of my Creative Writing class. I often remind my students that they are allowed to disobey my directives when doing their work for class. Several days each week, we have either “free writing” periods (when they can write what they want, in any genre) or “directed writing” periods (when I give them a prompt, often with a particular genre in mind). At the beginning of the semester, I make it clear to them that the prompt is there as a gift to them, a support for them; it’s not meant to be a box they must write inside. If they have a more exciting idea, a more compelling idea, I want them to run with that. Even if it’s in a different genre than the one we’re working on, I want my students to go with the idea that’s firing their minds, because often that’s the idea that’s most likely to take them somewhere interesting. I also like to remind my Creative Writing students that they can “disobey” within their writing when it’s time to turn in an assignment. Their sonnets must have fourteen lines, according to my instructions, whether they are traditional sonnets (with a particular rhyme scheme and metric pattern) or “American” sonnets (fourteen-line poems that have the shape and feel of a sonnet, but no regular rhyme scheme and/or metrical pattern). But if they write a sixteen-line “sonnet” or a thirteen-line “sonnet,” they are just as likely 23

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to get full credit as if their sonnet is the assigned length. My concern is whether they’ve written a poem that’s vital, that’s surprising, that compels and challenges, much more than whether they’ve written a poem that followed the rules. I plaster the quotation above (from the Jewish folk artist Malcah Zeldis 1) at the top of my course description and policies handouts, and I let my students know on the very first day that I expect them to struggle to “find their image” rather than looking to me to hand it to them. I let them know that, while I’ll give them a lot of useful advice and insights about writing, every good rule or principle of writing can be broken beautifully and successfully by a powerful writer who knows what he or she needs to do. This idea of disobedience is a running joke in Creative Writing, but it’s also a crucial truth. I make it clear that we will all follow the usual rules of classroom decorum, like being respectful of others, and I’m very stern about asking them to follow Creative Writing–specific rules, like being good stewards of each others’ work when it’s in their custody prior to workshop. But when it comes to their writing, I want my Creative Writing students to work in a context of freedom and exploration, rather than obedience and caution. In this larger context of productive disobedience, I allow my students to break a typical English class rule: they are allowed to use profane language, within certain boundaries, in their writing. In fifteen years of teaching creative writing at the secondary level, I have found that allowing my students the freedom to swear in their creative work has many more benefits than drawbacks, and I’d like to articulate what some of these benefits are and outline ways I communicate with students about the limits to their freedom to incorporate profanity into their work. SOME HISTORY I knew that I would allow my students to use profanity in their writing when I began teaching Creative Writing, because I’d already had an experience that persuaded me to allow students to swear in certain contexts in their creative assignments in my English class. I began my teaching career at a small Catholic school in west Los Angeles, where there was no question about students being allowed to swear in any context. My students never tried to swear in their creative writing, and if they had, I imagine I would have just told them that it wasn’t allowed. If I were to go back to that school and teach there now, I would probably have a different and more lenient approach, fighting for my students’ right to selectively use strong language in their creative work. At the time, I was twentytwo and busy fighting for the right to teach I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to my eighth-grade Language Arts students.

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When I began teaching at the public lab school where I’ve taught for the past fifteen years, I hadn’t thought much about the question of swearing in student writing. My teaching load was made up entirely of required English classes, and I had not yet inherited my elective Creative Writing class. But during my first semester I got the chance to consider my policy regarding students using strong language in their creative writing when a student used the word “fuck” in the dialogue of a short story I had assigned my sophomore English class. This student was a young woman with a bright smile and a cheerful disposition. She didn’t seem like a boundary pusher or someone who would use strong language in schoolwork as a provocation. I wasn’t offended by the word, but I instinctively circled it and drew a line to the margin, where I intended to articulate why she needed to rephrase this bit of dialogue to avoid the obscenity. I vividly remember my pen hanging over the paper while I worked to compose an explanation or rationale. But I couldn’t really think of anything. I knew I couldn’t let this pass, but I also didn’t have a good reason. I wasn’t bothered by the dialogue, and it didn’t feel honest to say, “this isn’t appropriate for a school assignment.” There had to be a more substantial reason, but I was stumped as to what that more substantial reason might be. Just then, my officemate and English department colleague Rosemary came into the room. Rosemary was a veteran teacher whose teaching and thinking I respected a great deal, and she was also a classic English teacher in the old-school mode: an articulate, literate woman with perfect diction, graceful posture, beautiful handwriting, and a no-nonsense approach to both English grammar and classroom management. I knew that she would be able to help me find a substantial, concise way to explain to my student why an Fbomb had no place in a tenth grader’s short story for English class. I explained my predicament and showed Rosemary the story. She spent several minutes reading up to the point where the problematic word occurred, then turned to me and blew my mind. “Well, Elizabeth, I see no problem with the use of this word here,” she said, smiling a bit quizzically. “It’s completely appropriate in the context that Ma’ayan has created, and I think it characterizes this narrator very well.” I don’t remember what I said in response, but I do know I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I went back to the paper and carefully whited out the circle around the word “fuck,” then went on reading and commenting on the story. I had learned an important lesson, one I should have been able to figure out myself: commonplace swearwords in the creative work of adolescent writers should be judged on the basis of whether they add to or detract from the work in which they appear, not a prim and abstract notion of moral appropriateness.

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RATIONALE My gut feeling was that it was okay for teenagers to use commonplace profanity in their creative writing, and the advice of a seasoned colleague helped me trust my gut rather than taking a safer and less complicated route. Fifteen years of reading student work that sometimes incorporates strong language––and participating in the conversations about these choices that often ensue in workshop––has shown me that there are substantial reasons to justify choosing freedom over prohibition. So before I discuss my policy regarding profanity in Creative Writing class and how I articulate it to my students, I want to present an argument in favor of this policy. I suspect that many teachers who teach creative writing and/or incorporate creative assignments into their language arts classes already have a similar policy, whether implicit or explicit. It’s useful to have a rationale for the choices we make as teachers, both for our own clarification and in preparation for possible conversations with concerned parents or administrators. My most basic argument in favor of allowing students the freedom to make their own choices about incorporating strong language into their creative work is that in the twenty-first century, to an increasing extent, swearing is part of our language. Students encounter more language that would once have been considered taboo than ever before, in mainstream areas of the Internet, on television, and in public discourse. Words like “damn” and “hell” barely register for much of the population, and words like “shit” and “fuck,” while still strong, have lost their shock value for many people, as long as they’re deployed in informal contexts, in idiomatic ways, and without anger or aggression. This is not to say that there aren’t people who are still upset by all of the above words. But they are now in the minority. More than ever, strong language is part of the language we speak. Literary art reflects life, and commonplace swearing is more and more a part of normal life, rather than a seedy, culturally “coarse” corner of life. Strong language can also be a valid aspect of voice and setting in fiction, drama, or poetry. Used well, it can make characters more believable and multidimensional. It can help characterize time and place and can heighten dramatic or humorous moments. Even in creative nonfiction, swearing can be a part of some students’ individual voices as writers. Many students will not use strong language when writing in their personal voice, but when they do, it can allow them to express aspects of their voice and/or experience that are difficult to express in other ways. At the same time, it can be a crutch or a cop-out, and when profanity is overused or lazily used in a creative work, it can create a useful opportunity for the teacher and/or other students in workshop to discuss why it detracts from rather than enriching a piece of writing. While it’s true that profanity is overused in our contemporary culture, it’s certainly not the only kind of language that’s overused (or, in my opinion as a

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lover of varied and specific language, even the worst). It’s also not true that the frequent use of profanity necessarily renders it banal or unimaginative. Like most language, profanity can be used creatively or unimaginatively, and it’s up to the student who feels compelled to use it to use it well. The creative writing workshop is a valuable context for meaningful conversations about how to use strong language for good creative effect and discussions about why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t work. The conversations that come up in Creative Writing about the use of profanity in a story or poem help students learn about how our shared language works and the effects that the more potentially charged tools in our language have on various readers. It’s useful for students to learn how to use strong language judiciously and well and how to know when it goes too far or strikes an off-putting note. Creative Writing is a place for students to reflect on how profanity can be used effectively, rather than indiscriminately. For some students, the limited freedom they have in Creative Writing class can also help them mature as users of language and participants in various social contexts, because they get to reflect on context-appropriate uses of words that they usually use unreflectively. Allowing students to swear in their writing, but not in class discussion, gives them opportunities to practice the code switching that is an integral part of professional and social life for most adults. My final and perhaps most important argument for allowing limited profanity in the high school creative writing classroom, particularly when the class is run as a workshop, is that it contributes to a class atmosphere that takes art seriously and prioritizes creativity. While students in any secondary-school classroom necessarily work within boundaries and limits, creative writing classes can and should be a space within the school where students have a relatively high degree of freedom to take risks and to be part of supportive rather than recriminatory discussions when the teacher feels those risks don’t work out. Art is often challenging, and the history of art and literature is full of examples of artists and writers who offended the aesthetic or moral sensibilities of their time and place, only to be vindicated by later recognition. If I aim to treat my high school–aged writers like “serious writers” (a goal I set for myself and express to my students every year), if I expect them to maintain the habits of “real” writers (like writing daily and keeping a writer’s notebook), I must also grant them the freedom to use the tools that fullfledged writers use. In the policies that I articulate early in the first semester (and which I discuss in the next section of this chapter), I place some limits on the use of those tools, limits I feel are appropriate to the developmental phase my late-secondary students are in. But giving them the option of using those tools is important both for making students feel they’re being taken

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seriously and for allowing them to create in an atmosphere of greater freedom rather than heavier limitation. SOME POLICIES Not long after the epiphany occasioned by my colleague Rosemary’s advice, I began teaching the creative writing class at our school, and at that point, a lesson I rarely drew on in my required English classes (where creative writing was a regular but not central part of my curriculum) would become extremely relevant and much more necessary. In Creative Writing, I treated swearwords that I encountered in my students’ work the same way I would treat any word, judging their effect in the piece of writing, and I dealt with instances of profanity on a case-by-case basis. At some point, a student asked “What’s your policy on swearing?,” and I had occasion to articulate what had been an implicit, somewhat idiosyncratic principle. Faced with the question of “my policy,” I quickly formalized the assumptions I had been implicitly working under into explicit guidelines. I knew that it wasn’t smart to simply say “Go ahead and swear,” because there were uses of obscene language I wouldn’t feel comfortable with, nor would I feel comfortable discussing those uses of language (or, most likely, the writing they’d result in) with my students. Thinking it over, it occurred to me that the most common occurrences of swearing I’d encountered in student work were okay with me because they were idiomatic, rather than literally obscene. The only situation in which I could imagine having a problem with a commonplace obscenity used in student work (aside from feeling it just didn’t work in the piece of writing in question) would be one in which the word was used in a literally obscene way, actually describing a sexual act, rather than in an idiomatic way, as an aspect of colloquial speech. In such a situation, which had never occurred but which I could imagine, I would feel that the use of language was inappropriate for a high school classroom and might make other students uncomfortable. After that semester I began presenting my “policy” verbally in class early in the semester. The foundation of the policy asks students to weigh the creative effect of the profane language they include in their work, when they feel compelled to incorporate it. I usually say, “You can use profanity in your writing for this class, but only if the profanity enhances rather than detracts from the creative power of the piece of writing.” I advise students to ask themselves: Does the strong language make the writing more powerful, more effective, funnier, more poignant, and so forth, or does it weaken it? I suggest that we should treat taboo language like other language we use in our work, asking: Is it used well or badly? Because my class is run as a workshop, this

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is a conversation we have as a class on an ongoing basis, and it’s one in which students can weigh in on each other’s choices as well. Next I place some simple limits on the use of profanity. My first limit: “You are free to incorporate language that might be considered obscene when it’s used idiomatically, but not literally.” It would be nice if the face of every student in the class lit up with comprehension each time I articulated this distinction. Unfortunately, it never works that way. Usually there are a couple of students who get it right off the bat, and everyone else looks confused. So I go on: “Words that begin as obscenities are often sexual or scatological. But they’re most often used in a metaphoric way, or an idiomatic way––pure language, language that doesn’t refer to something that’s actually sexual or scatological. So, for example, when someone says ‘I shit you not’ to mean ‘I’m telling the truth,’ that’s idiomatic. If someone says ‘I just stepped in a pile of dog shit,’ that’s literal. Understand the distinction?” Everyone understands this distinction. “So, the majority of the time, when people use the F-bomb in daily conversation, for example, they use it idiomatically. The ‘F’ in ‘WTF’ is idiomatic. Obviously there are also literal ways to use the F-word, and those instances would not be appropriate for Creative Writing. Get the distinction?” Everyone understands this distinction. The second limit I place on my students’ use of profanity is that it has to be “commonplace,” meaning that we hear it regularly in mainstream public discourse. Whether your mother would approve of it or not, you see it in your Facebook feed, you hear it in movies, and in many social circles you occasionally hear it in casual conversation. It may be embedded in acronyms that are in wide circulation (like “WTF”). What is “commonplace” is always changing, and it doesn’t make sense to define it too strictly or offer examples (given that this ends up introducing extreme profanity into the classroom, which is not my goal). But generally, students know it when they encounter it. Finally, and most complexly, I urge students not to use racist, sexist, or homophobic language. These are the real obscenities of our language, I argue, and they’re best avoided. Even this rule, however, is not hard and fast. I note that there can be writing in which the intention is antiracist, antisexist, or antihomophobic, and in order to be realistic and effective, that writing might include a slur specifically to challenge the perspective it’s spoken from. In cases like this, I ask students to be thoughtful and err on the side of being clear about the intentions of the work. This is a tricky bit of advice to give, since I often encourage complexity and ambiguity over clear “messages” in my students’ work. But in cases where misunderstanding can lead to harm for other students, I’d rather a novice writer risked being too obvious rather than being hurtful. In cases in which a character or narrator might use a racial or cultural term in a way that’s not racist per se, in context, but the

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word is still a racialized term that could have a strong charge, I ask students to use their judgment, to be conservative, and to consider their own identity and experience before they choose to use a word that would describe a race or culture that they’re not part of. THE ROLE OF WORKSHOP AND MENTORSHIP It’s hard for me to imagine teaching creative writing without a workshop model. Having a regular workshop, in which the whole class shares and discusses one another’s writing, facilitates my goal of decentering myself as the absolute authority on what constitutes good writing and aids my ongoing endeavor to embody Malcah Zeldis’s conviction that “art is a birth, and you can’t go to a teacher and find out how to be born” and help my students “struggle until that image, the one that comes out of [their] need to create, emerges” (Weissman 1975). There are times when an aspect of a piece of writing that I take issue with is roundly endorsed by 90 percent of the students in the circle, and at those moments, I’m glad to acknowledge my status as “just one reader” and allow the writers to decide what advice resonates with their understanding of their own work. Many times some observation I’m hoping to make is articulated first by one of the writer’s peers, and the sense that we are a community of writers working together is reinforced much more powerfully than if I were the only critic with something substantial to offer. Workshop is also a productive place for discussions about how writers use profanity in their work. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that, used well, commonplace profanity doesn’t really register with most student readers. It’s the exception that it comes up in workshop, or that I notice a student commenting on it in the margins of a classmate’s writing. When it does come up, it’s usually because a student has overused a word or a class of words, or has used them poorly in one way or another. As I teacher, I find that it’s much more effective when a peer makes an observation about the excessiveness or injudiciousness of a student writer’s use of profanity. I’m likely to chime in once the initial observation has been made. But as the oldest person in the room, and the person with a presumed institutional investment in “appropriateness,” I’m likely to be the reader with the least authority in my students’ eyes to judge the effectiveness of a given use of profanity in student work. When there are more serious problems with a given student’s use of profanity in a piece, I address that student one-on-one rather than waiting for workshop. If a profanity goes beyond “commonplace,” I might ask the student to revise, choosing an alternative word or phrase before I copy the piece for workshop. In the very rare cases in which I’ve had a student decide to

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venture into the terrain of depictions of sex—where an obscene word might make an appearance in its literal rather than idiomatic form—I have a conversation with the writer before making copies of the piece for the class. If it’s mild, I might say, “This is borderline, and I just want you to be aware of why I feel that way,” then give the student the option to have the piece be copied or not. In that case, I would let the student know that I will probably mention the “borderline” aspect of the piece in a way that’s casual but straightforward, so that everyone can learn more about the sometimes complicated limits to their freedom of expression in class. Students always have the right to ask not to have a piece copied for workshop, and they don’t have to give a reason (given that if it’s too personal to comfortably share with other students, it’s probably not going to be comfortable to talk with me about why they don’t want it shared), so this is not a big deal. In my many years of teaching creative writing to juniors and seniors at a public lab school for gifted kids, I’ve only encountered “mild” depictions of sexual situations in student work, and even then it has been quite infrequent. In the event that I encountered a sex scene that was not mild, I would let the student know that I was not going to copy the piece for workshop this time, instead just giving him or her one-on-one feedback. I would try to explain the reasons for this in a way that’s supportive and informative, rather than shaming, and express my concerns in the context of respecting other students’ comfort level and erring on the side of respect for the more squeamish potential reader. In any situation in which I have suspected a student was trying to get a rise out of me, both at my current school and at other schools where I’ve taught, I have always found it more effective to maintain an even tone and simply convey information, rather than expressing shock. There’s always a reasonable explanation to offer about why a given student choice isn’t acceptable in a given context, and shock or moral outrage generally doesn’t enhance this explanation, particularly if a student is seeking a reaction from an authority figure. The most compelling explanation for reconsidering an ill-advised choice in a creative writing class, whether that choice is a borderline inappropriate story or the decision to distract one’s peers rather than contributing productively to class, is to call on the value and significance of the creative community. A productive creative writing workshop requires building a community of trust, a community of people who prioritize creative expression. I work hard to come up with meaningful writing-centered icebreakers and activities at the start of the semester that help students get to know each other and see themselves and their peers as “real writers.” I insist on treating every student in the room as a serious writer, and I let them know that even if they don’t see themselves that way, they’ll still get that respect and level of engagement from me.

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Almost every semester, a community begins to emerge after a few weeks, and the spirit of trust and dedication to writing goes far to inspire individual students to be at their most mature even when they’re being playful, to take risks, and to support the risk taking they see in their peers. In this context, difficulties that arise are often resolved through various forms of positive peer pressure. In the rare case in which peer encouragement doesn’t work or doesn’t apply, I exhort the individual student to be part of our community and participate in its freedoms and complexities with respect. I’ve been impressed every time with how well this approach works, even with students who seem to have joined us initially due to the impression that Creative Writing is a “blow off” class. Sometimes it takes more than one conversation outside of class, but I’ve never had this approach fail in the end. EXAMPLES Before I close, I want to offer a couple of examples of student work that incorporate profane language, both poems. In the first example, the profanity works well in the poem; in the second, in my opinion, the profanity detracts. Both of these poems were workshopped in class. The first poem, a sestina by Ben, received a variety of positive responses from his peers, including the effective introduction of the F-bomb at the end. I Hate Sestinas (by Ben) I don’t have the time to write a sestina Or the desire. In writing a sestina, You have to be willing to run with your sestina In little sestina-circles, until you and your sestina Are both all tuckered out and sick of sestinas. Today, I feel like progress, not a sestina. I just can’t imagine getting a good sestina Without spending hours planning the sestina, And then hours more actually writing the sestina. Such a great time commitment is required by sestinas, And that promise of so much hard work makes the sestina So daunting a poem that I’m amazed that sestinas Get written at all. If I were a sestina, I think I would kill myself—commit sestinaSuicide—so that the world might be a little more sestinaFree, so that no one would have to look at my sestina Form and loathe me for being a sestina, As indeed I loathe all things sestina.

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If, at a friendly gathering, you were to recite a sestina, All of your friends would probably hate the sestina And you. For someone to recite a sestina, One needs quite a long bit of time, sestina Time, most of which is wasted on the sestina’s Tedious words. No host will tolerate your sestina. Things I would rather do than write a sestina: I would rather starve than write a sestina. I would rather lose all my hair than write a sestina. I would rather rip my teeth out than write a sestina. I would rather eat spider eggs than write a sestina. I would rather watch Hogan Knows Best than write a sestina. But classmate, do not think I feel this way about your sestina; Yours is a wonderful and marvelous sestina, The exception to the rule, the sestina To end all sestinas. (Let us hope this is the end of sestinas.) Truly, if I could write a sestina like your sestina, I would think much differently about sestinas. I hate you sestina. I hate you sestina. I hate you sestina. I hate you sestina. I hate you sestina. Fuck you sestina.

In this instance, the use of the word “fuck” in the last line of the poem intensifies the speaker’s frustration with the sestina form, switching up the repetition of “I hate you sestina,” which both reflects on the repetition the poetic form requires and drives home the poet’s insouciant choice to amp up that repletion by choosing the same word (“sestina”) for all six of the endline words that create the form’s structure. This choice also ends the poem on an effective, humorous-but-pointed note, maintaining the levity Ben builds throughout the poem, but driving home the seriousness of the speaker’s frustration with the complex and bossy poetic form. Part of what makes me appreciate Ben’s choice to end the poem with the common idiomatic expression of disrespect and frustration “fuck you” is that the rest of his poem is eloquent, inventive, and (despite the negative intention of the poem’s critique) quite courteous. The “fuck you” contrasts with all of that, making the expression of the speaker’s final, fed-up disregard stronger by contrast. But all of those qualities in the poem also make the “fuck you” feel earned and chosen. Ben’s poem is a great poem that uses a profanity to good effect. My second example is a great poem that uses profanity in a way that’s not offensive per se, just meh. The F-bomb is once again the taboo word of choice, and in this case it adds nothing to the poem, and arguably detracts from it.

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Footnotes (by Coleman) This poem would blow your fuckin mind if you had read the footnotes, you know, Before starting. If you don’t read them, then how do you expect to understand these oblique references to poetry hidden behind a mending wall in a room of women into sculpture encased in a snowman in the woods (lovely, dark, and deep), atop a patriarchal albatross? How? Or how do you expect to read this gambolizing, golindering chinz, oblique language? It’s too late now, of course (it’s been too late the whole time) you’ll break the immersion we’re so desperate to cultivate if you try to go back and read them. and it’ll be over soon and you probably don’t really Understand. And all your friends are going to make fun of you.

Here is a poem that uses language in a distinctive way and offers a tour through some of poetry’s greatest hits by means of a series of subtly deployed allusions to Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Stevie Smith. 2 The colloquial and sarcastic opening lines work to set up this display of playful erudition, but the “fuckin” that Coleman inserts into the phrase “blow your mind” takes the insipid tone a step too far, in my view. In my marginal comments on this poem, I suggested that Coleman take out “fuckin” and avoid the repetition of “oblique,” and in my view these two notes for revision are more or less equal. Neither word destroys the poem. But neither enhances it, either. In the case of Coleman’s poem, the “fuckin” did not come up in workshop, to my memory. No one else was put off enough by it to mention it. But

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I’ve been in a number of workshops in which a student has questioned a peer’s use of profanity, sometimes when the writer is using profanity in an awkward way and sometimes when a student is taking profanity too far for the context or overusing it. If I’d known I was going to be writing this essay someday, I might have saved one of those pieces to use as an example. As it happens, Coleman’s poem came up in the workshop just a day before I was leaving for the National Council of Teachers of English convention, where I was giving the presentation that this chapter is based on. I’m thankful to Coleman for his good timing and for being willing to let me use the poem as an example. And also thankful to Ben, who graduated some time ago but whose poem I’ve kept and used as a model for years. I like to share his sestina with students to show them that even great poets struggle with the sestina form, and that rules like “you can’t write a good sestina using the same word for all six end-words” can always be broken by a creative and inspired writer. Disobedience sometimes leads to greatness. And even young artists need room to take real risks. NOTES 1. This quotation comes from a plaque in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was originally quoted in Weissman (1975). 2. “Mending wall,” Robert Frost; “in a room of women,” T. S. Eliot; “in a snowman,” Wallace Stevens; “in the woods (lovely, dark, and deep),” Frost again; “patriarchal,” a reference to Gertrude Stein’s “Patriarchal Poetry”; “albatross,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and “it’s been too late the whole time,” Stevie Smith.

WORKS CITED Weissman, Julia. 1975. “Malcah Zeldis: A Jewish Folk Artist in the American Tradition.” National Jewish Monthly (September): 2–5.

Chapter Five

Defending Arnold’s Spirit Battling a Big Book Challenge in a Small Town Amy Collins

IN MY PERSPECTIVE Hindsight really is twenty-twenty. When you are away from something, the reflection is always clearer than when you are right in the thick of things. When I look back on my protracted battle with censorship, specifically my classroom use of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a PartTime Indian (2007), I am amazed at the clarity I have now. This is the story of how I achieved clarity and purpose in education, not just in my role as a teacher, but also as a defender of things most important, freedom of speech and thought. I did not go looking for controversy, but when I found it, I did not run away. And in all honesty, if someone had told me that nearly ten years into my teaching career I would have to face a book challenge, I would have idealistically thought, “Not now, not in this time, not in this culture.” But I have since learned that was both idealistic and a bit naive of me. I believed that we had come further as a society than to seek to ban books and to destroy the educators who stand up for their students’ right to read. My struggle to support what is right, to speak for the voiceless, to stand like a rock on my principles, reshaped my previous beliefs. My story is not unique; there are educators across the spectrum of curriculum and location who are doing their best to fight for their right to choose the most meaningful books and relevant materials for their students. In telling my story, it is my hope that other educators will be empowered to teach texts and materials based not on how safe they are, but on how important they are. There are cultures and faces, triumphs and tragedies, stories and truths that are not included for fear 37

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they are “dangerous.” We need to share “dangerous” truths and let our students see themselves in those stories. This is simply my story of a book, a controversy, and my resulting life change. I faced controversy. I stood firm against opposition. I lived to tell the truth, my truth. And in defending Arnold Spirit Jr., I defended the rights of my students, including their right to learn. HOW I GAINED PERSPECTIVE I have always strived as an educator to facilitate critical growth in my learners. I am currently in my fourteenth year of teaching in the public school system, working in Montana. I chose social studies as my focus area in education because of my love for government. I earned my undergraduate degree in political science and have always loved history and the art of history. I never even thought to become an English teacher, and although I have the utmost respect for teachers of all disciplines, I will always be a social studies teacher at heart. According to my mother, I started reading when my older brother began to bring his primary readers home from kindergarten. Visitors to our home would be surprised to see me reading to him, but he never loved to learn in quite the same way that I did. The first book I fell in love with was Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. There was no place I wanted to visit more than Tarrytown, New York. I was a voracious reader, falling in love with words, with books, with the discovery and adventure that I could experience in the pages that I held in my hands. My love didn’t diminish when I became a teacher; I just expanded my palate. In the summer of 2010 I first read Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (True Diary) while I was on a plane traveling across country. In all honesty, a better word to use would be devoured. I didn’t read True Diary; I devoured it. I sat on the plane completely immersed in this book. I could feel it pulling at me, changing me, waking me up with every sentence that I read, with every passage that filled my eyes with tears, with every time I gasped as I felt punched in the face with the reality, the passion, the truth the pages contained. I was completely involved in the story of survival, of desire, of perseverance, of family, of truth, of beauty surrounded by sheer ugly, and of one boy’s love for his family and his education. (As an aside, if you have not read the Alexie novel, stop right now, go get it, upload it to your device, check it out from the library, borrow it from a friend; read it now.) True Diary has been widely reviewed and is the winner of several national literary awards. I believed the book would speak to students due to the style of the writing, combined with artist Ellen Forney’s illustrations, which

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appeal to a young reader. However, those things also spoke to this middleaged teacher. As I devoured Alexie’s story of his protagonist, Arnold Spirit Jr., I was absolutely certain that I would find a way to share that story with my students. It was that important to me. I was already planning how I could use it, how I could incorporate it into my curriculum, and how I would support it in my classroom. I could see the purpose. I could see that my students would adopt this text. I knew in my heart that my awkward, gangly, sophisticated, sullen and eager eighth graders would fall in love with Junior and see themselves reflected in him. Just a week or so before that plane ride, I had attended a continuing education opportunity through a local curriculum consortium for educators about using Native American literature in the classroom. The goal of the class was to help teachers integrate more authentic stories and voices into all curriculum areas, across grade levels. The program was directed at more than just using “stories”; it was about using quality pieces of writing authored by Native peoples. At the time I had just completed my fourth year of teaching in a rural school in small-town Montana. I was the only teacher in my department, teaching social studies to all students, from my seventh graders to my seniors. (I was about to begin my eighth year as an educator, having taught previously in a different community.) It was my job to maintain my own department, the curriculum guidance was minimal, and I enjoyed the freedom of being able to integrate all kinds of new and different ideas and methods into my area. When you are working alone, it’s quite easy to change gears, shift ideas, and explore new waters. In order to understand the heart of the controversy that eventually arose in my small classroom and school in north central Montana, it is important to know a bit of history about Native Americans in Montana’s past and present. Montana has a long and often ugly history in regard to Native American tribes. Before Montana was settled as a territory in 1864, just a few years after gold was first discovered in the area that would become Montana, there was a complex organization of tribes, some native to the region of Montana for nearly a thousand years and others who had been pushed into this region by the compression of European colonization. These tribes had hundreds of years of collective history before European contact, history formed through trading, both shared and protected hunting grounds, and competition over resources. Their history is like any other story of civilization. Tribes occupied the land, used its resources, hunted the plentiful bison, and seasonally moved throughout the region. Historians widely regard a number of Montana’s native Indian tribes as playing a crucial role in the 1803–1805 expedition of Lewis and Clark, including the intervention of Sacagawea’s Shoshone people near the Beaverhead River, in present-day southwest Montana.

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Evidence shows that tribes have been in the region of Montana for hundreds of years, and tribal cultural histories place native peoples there even longer. Regardless of first contact stories in Montana, the history of Native tribes quickly transforms into the classic tale of subjugation, reservation, removal, and decimation. Presently the state of Montana shares a tangled web of sovereignty with the federal government and the tribes that occupy the seven federally recognized reservations inside the state. There is no pretty way to say that the Native peoples within Montana’s borders have been persecuted, harassed, and legally segregated in the short history of the state. Racism is still prevalent in Montana, as the largest minority population is that of the American Indians. The racism is both latent and blatant and is reflected in both the cultural practice and language of those off the reservations. Montana’s reservations have some of the highest rates of poverty in the state, some of the lowest high school graduation rates, and endemic economic and health issues. With statehood in 1889, the decline of Native populations was already at play, and the following century would not alter that. In 1972 the Montana Constitution was rewritten under convention, and the new draft included a provision that institutions in the state would “recognize the distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and [be] committed in [their] educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.” These institutions would obviously include publicly funded schools, but it wasn’t until 1999 that the Montana Legislature passed House bill 528 (MCA 20-1-501). Known as Indian Education for All (IEFA), the law requires that “every Montanan . . . whether Indian or non-Indian, be encouraged to learn about the distinct and unique heritage of American Indians in a culturally responsive manner. . . . [A]ll school personnel should have an understanding and awareness of Indian tribes to help them relate effectively with Indian students and parents. . . . Every educational agency and all educational personnel will work cooperatively with Montana tribes . . . when providing instruction and implementing an educational goal” (IEFA 2014). This public law transformed the way the incorporation of “Indian education” was introduced, but at the same time created entire systems of resistance. In small communities across the state of Montana, administrators, librarians, and teachers looked for ways to incorporate the requirements of the law, but many adopted an attitude that the social studies programs would take it on. One school administrator I worked under asked, “Isn’t this [IEFA] your stuff?” It was a frequently asked question. I listened as a math teacher I was working with asked, “What am I supposed to do, have them count Indians?” The IEFA law was panned in newspapers, disparaged in editorials, scoffed at even in circles of teachers. I came into teaching after the law had been passed, but I know that in no way was I seeing full implementation of

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the IEFA goal. And after fourteen years, I still don’t see it. While some may disagree with the law, I believe the spirit of the law is right and just. At some point money was provided by the state to help schools implement and support the IEFA goals. In my school, teachers would order “play teepees” and use the IEFA monies. Other teachers would attempt to add enriched curriculum, but for the most part, it was just not being implemented appropriately or in a way that really met the goal of the law. At this time in my personal history I was employed in a small district in north central Montana. I had been teaching there for four years and considered myself to be a part of the community. I was living, teaching, and coaching in a tight-knit community comprised primarily of families engaged in agriculture, people who considered themselves to be “salt of the earth,” for whom school was a large part of the community. Everyone attended sporting events, and people turned out for the homecoming parade, even if they didn’t have students in school anymore. The community itself was quite small, but the countryside contained farms and acreage that helped to support the families that in some cases had settled it originally. The community supported the school and never failed to pass a levy when financial requests were asked. During my tenure at the school, the board was generally comprised of former parents, current parents, and community members, some engaged in agriculture, others operating small businesses, and some even working in other communities, but all of whom came home to the small town where in many cases they had grown up. I was proud to be a part of the community and felt as if I was an integral member of the school staff, as well as a member of the community itself. During this time, I was teaching six to seven subjects per year and was the lone social studies educator in the building, which housed students from kindergarten to grade twelve. One of the subjects I was teaching at the time was Montana’s history; that course was designed for eighth-grade middle school students. Again, I was fully in charge of the department, and with the guidance of the policy, both the district and state, I was molding and choosing curriculum items for my courses. I had developed a world studies elective and had integrated texts into the course, all selected under the guidelines of the policy set by the local district board. The guidelines were relatively simple as far as introducing curriculum materials into the district. To bring in new materials that would become “required” for the curriculum, the instructor would show the text to the administrator with a written rationale for the inclusion. In addition, the administrator could request information that might be needed to make the decision, and upon review, approve or reject the new material. If the administrator rejected it, the instructor could ask for board review; if the administrator approved the material, it would be adopted. Instructors were expected to

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include in this policy any piece of additional, required material that was not considered to be “supplementary.” During the summer after I had read True Diary, I passed it around to several friends, including teachers and other adults. It also passed between my teenage lifeguards at the city pool, which I operated in the summertime. Each of the people I shared True Diary with indicated to me that it had impacted them in important and personal ways. Every person I shared the reading experience with felt as I did: enlightened, awakened, inspired. When school was about to start, I took my now tattered copy to my administrator and asked him to read it so that I could add it to my curriculum under the requirements. I explained to him that I wanted to use it in my eighth-grade Montana history class, that I believed the text would be a fantastic addition to the topic of reservation impact and modern history. I knew that Junior’s story of poverty, family, struggle, identity, triumph, and tragedy would be real to my students. I also knew that as a Native-authored book, it was in line with the IEFA guidelines. My administrator asked me to leave the copy with him and to get the required documentation in place, and said that we would meet once school had started to confirm or reject the text. I was very excited and knew I was on the right path. I believed in this text. I was eager to teach it, and I knew that the students I had that year would love Junior, that they would love the particularly unique aspects of the book, and that they would be challenged by reading it. I have worked with several administrators in my teaching career, partially due to teaching in four schools, but also due to the nature of the beast of small-town education in Montana. Administrators usually start a career in a small school, then move on to other places. I was working on this project with an administrator who would be completing his last year in the district before he moved on to a larger district in Montana. (I was not aware of this at that time.) After a few weeks, I was eager to get going on the planning, as well as get the texts ordered, using some of that precious IEFA money that was waiting to be spent. I revisited my administrator’s office, and he dug to the bottom of one of the many piles on his desk and said, “I read it, and it’s okay . . . go ahead and order it.” He then asked that before I used the book with my students I send a note home to the parents, letting them know I was going to be using the text, giving them an option to read the text, and even giving them an option to hold their students back from reading the text. He also asked that I include a synopsis of the book, as well as a written rationale as to why I would be using it. I agreed to do those things, we chatted at length about any potential issues that we could foresee about using the text, and we discussed ways that I would be using the text in my classroom, as well as my excitement. When I reflect on this conversation now, I realize that my administrator probably had not read the entire book, but I also know that he had to have read at least past

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page 55, as his information was at least on a par with the general theme of the text. I prepared all of the required information, putting together a two-page letter that I sent home to my students’ parents, including two nationally recognized reviews, a synopsis put together by the publisher, and three paragraphs outlining why I was going to use the text and the curriculum standards it met, both in Montana and nationally. Because of IEFA, “Essential Understandings” were developed for IEFA curriculum, including Essential Understanding 6: “History is most often related through the subjective experience of the teller. With the inclusion of more and varied voices, histories are being rediscovered and revised.” History told from an Indian perspective frequently conflicts with the stories mainstream historians tell” (IEFA 2014). I encouraged the parents to read the text, explaining that I believed co-reading texts encouraged family discussion. In the letter, I promised the parents that “students will be given teacher directed support in handling the discussion, emotion, or conflicts that may arise while reading the book . . . and students will be given opportunities to reflect on and discuss the greater messages of the book.” At the end of the two-page manifesto, I asked that any parent who had concerns about the information contact me, and stated that by affixing their signatures to the signature page, it would be my understanding that their students had permission to read the book. Three days after I sent home the letters, I got my first, and only, phone call. One of the parents wanted to discuss the book; she asked me to meet with her. We arranged a meeting time, the parent came in, and we sat at the back table in my classroom discussing the text, the usage, and the content of the book. She asked if she could read the book. At this time, I still had my one, well-worn, margin-marked copy. I asked her if she could wait a few days and told her that I would order a book to share with her. I promptly ordered the book, at my own cost, and had it shipped to me. After the book arrived, I delivered it to her home and waited, going back to the thousand other tasks I was tending to. I didn’t have to wait for very long. The parent called me and asked to meet. Again, we met after school, at my back table. The first words out of her mouth were, “I hate this book.” I took a deep breath and prepared myself to listen. I was not going to run over the thoughts of this parent, and I knew that it was very important to listen to her and to be prepared to deal with what might be my first hurdle of resistance. I was prepared with all of my tools: a copy of the book, the rationale, the policy, a sample lesson that I had prepared, and the literary reviews—so much information. However, I leaned in and just listened. This mother talked to me passionately about how she hated the poverty, the racism, the language, the characterizations, the death, the tragedy, and the general unhappiness of the book. She informed me that she

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did not allow her daughters to read several books because they included magic and witchcraft (some I am sure we all know) and that she was very strict about the use of language in her home. She also told me she believed the sexual content of the text was too much, that the masturbation scene and the language about “fucking” was too much for her daughters, and that it would cause too much turmoil for her eighth-grade daughter. I just continued to listen. Finally, when she stopped for breath, I asked her: “What is it that you want me to do?” Her response blew me out of the water. That mother looked at me and said, “I want my daughter to read it. I trust you. I know that you will help her to understand this, and I want you to keep me informed on where you are at in the book, and I will discuss things with her at home.” Inside, I was jubilant. I was beaming. I had crossed this hurdle. On the outside, I took a deep breath, reached across my round table, put my hand on her hand, and promised this mother that I would do everything she had asked and more. After we chatted about some other things, both important and not, that mother affixed her signature to the parent permission form. Within three weeks, I had all eight of my permission forms, had ordered my texts, and was just teaching, waiting to get to the point when we would be ready to turn to the text in relation to our greater curriculum themes. We started True Diary after we returned from our winter break. I passed out the texts, and we looked through them, read a story about the author, talked about the characters, prepared our journals, and as a class began reading the first chapter. As I read that first day, I could see my boys buying in and my girls starting to care. It was a beautiful experience. When I finished reading the first section, my students started their journal assignments, and the questions began; more than one student wanted to take the book home, to read ahead, to know what happened next, pleading with me to give them the books to take home. As my eighth graders exited my classroom that day, with their books quietly tucked away on the shelf, I was smiling. Really, truly, deeply smiling. Thinking about it now reminds me of how it felt, how really satisfied I was, and how excited I was about this experience. As the days passed, my junior historians would come into class and immediately ask if we were “hanging out with Junior” that day. They would look at the board, and if the word “Diary” was written under their class period, they would rush to the shelf to get their journals and their texts. Every day we were absorbed in our True Diary texts, they were absolutely focused, and some of them had great difficulty stopping, begging me to give them the next section, to let them read just one more chapter. After the first few days I was seeing a transformation in my classroom; my students were in love with this book. It was after the fourth day of reading and work that my phone rang; it was another mother. This mother said to me that her son had been talking nonstop about the book and that she wanted to read it, and asked me if I had an extra copy. I

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offered her one of the copies I had on the shelf and waited to see what would happen next, continuing on in my journey in my classroom. After the weekend that mom contacted me again, and with tears in her voice told me that she was so very glad that she had read the book. She thanked me for giving her the gift of a son who actually wanted to read a book. She also told me she had to hide the book from her son, because when he saw it he wanted to read ahead of where we were in class. After I finished that conversation, I again knew that I was doing the right thing, that I was making huge strides in my classroom with this text and with these students. As we progressed through True Diary, my students embraced Junior and the risks that I was asking them to take. They silently stewed as Junior lost his sister, his grandmother, and his father’s best friend; some even sat at their spots with tears on their cheeks. They cheered at Junior’s scoring the winning basket; they found empathy in their hearts when Junior retrieved a crumpled five-dollar bill from his drunken father’s boot on Christmas night. They cheered for Junior, giggled at Junior’s ramblings, and held their breath when we learned of the fire that would kill Junior’s sister in the mysterious land of Montana. And they wrote, and reflected, and questioned, and discussed. It was one of the most impactful lessons I have ever been a part of in my teaching. I was moved by their compassion, their critical thinking, their questions, and their effort. On our last day of reading, we finished the book, sitting at our perches around the classroom, some on the floor on their beanbag chairs, others in a corner, and with me sitting on the stool in the middle of the room reading the last words of Junior’s story. I closed the book and looked around at my students—my Juniors, my misfits, my cool kids, my basketball players, my awkward boys in love, my pimply faced girls—and they were all looking at the page, not closing the book. Some had tears, others smiles, but each was in the moment with Junior and Rusty and the sun setting on the summer pickup game of basketball. I sat silent, embracing the glow of our room. Finally, one of my boys asked, “But what’s next?” I knew what he meant; I knew he wanted to know what happened next to Junior. I knew that he wanted to have resolution. So the last and final assignment that I had for my historians was to finish the story. I assigned them each a five-page chapter. “You tell the end of the story” I said: they could choose to include any characters they wanted who had been involved in the original story; they couldn’t make anything supernatural happen; and they had to get Junior through the next year of school. I barely had time to take a breath, and they were headed to their journals. Several of them asked how long they could work and if they could take their journals home. No one complained or gasped that I had just assigned them FIVE pages of writing.

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And when they finished writing, after two whole days, they all wanted to share. It wasn’t enough for them to keep their stories to themselves; they wanted everyone to know what their vision for Junior was. So we all sat and shared. Some read passages from their journals, others summed up their stories, sharing simply a line or two, but all shared. And the one thing that each of my students’ stories had in common was success. Junior succeeded in each of their “rest of the stories.” At that moment, I knew I had reached empathy and compassion in their brains and hearts. I had created a moment for them to walk in another’s shoes, and it was working. As we moved on and finished our reflections that year, each of my eight students that spring read the book at least one more time, checking it out and taking it home. Others would pick up “their” book every time a free moment was present and read a passage or giggle at an illustration. I saw the book living in them. We talked about mascot controversy, we taught a lesson to the combined third- and fourth-grade classroom about stories and legends, we walked through Montana’s current history, studying the landless Little Shell peoples; through it all, Junior walked with us. The English teacher came from her room one day to tell me that she had never had eight students describe one book for book reports the way that these students described Diary and asked if she could borrow a copy to read for herself. The first experience had been a success. I felt very confident and capable. Junior helped me have an impact on my students and change their way of thinking and knowing. I gave them the opportunity to experience cognitive dissonance, and they came through the experience smarter and more thoughtful. Going into my second year with True Diary in my curriculum, I sent home the permission slips attached to my classroom procedures at the beginning of the year. Within days all the slips had been returned, and we embarked on our year. I was looking forward to the point in the curriculum when we would read True Diary, hoping to build on the success of the previous year. The book had gained a bit of a reputation in the small school. My new eighth graders had heard their friends talking and asked early on when they were going to get to read “The Book.” My older students asked why they weren’t getting to read it. My new freshmen referred to it as “our book.” When the books moved on the shelf in preparation for the current class, my freshmen were very territorial; they would pick up their books, on which I had allowed them to write their names inside the cover, and hold them, asking me who was going to get them in the next class. It was quite entertaining, and again reminded me that the lessons of the text were valuable and worthwhile. Just as a reminder, the administrator who had originally approved True Diary left at the end of that first year that I used it. I was now going to be working under a new administrator, a young, eager idealist, fresh out of an

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administrators’ licensure program, and on his first assignment. He was nine years younger than I was at the time; in my view he was a child, not much older than my twelfth-grade seniors. But he was eager and intelligent and believed that policy served a purpose, always willing to uphold the policy first. I know that neither one of us would have ever predicted what would eventually happen to the two of us. My second year with the text went much like the first: a whole new group of students in love with True Diary, eager to write and discuss, rooting for Junior, sad when he was sad, and asking all kinds of questions that demonstrated their compassion and understanding. It was a powerful, important lesson that reiterated to me how effective it was. I controlled the text the second time much as I had the first, reading the sections together, not reading ahead, not simply throwing the book at them, but reading for purpose, with many supportive activities. I didn’t have a single parent call or even ask about the book, and at parent-teacher conferences that spring more than one parent commented that they couldn’t believe how much their student talked and talked about the book. Again, there was evidence of communication happening between my students and their parents in regard to the text. THE CHALLENGE And then, in January 2012, “it” happened. I was in my third year of using True Diary, my third set of students, the third set of procedures, third set of signed permission slips. We were fifty-five pages into True Diary, working away, invested and into the text. It was a Monday afternoon. I was sitting in the multipurpose room of my school supervising the National Honor Society students, who were hosting a blood drive/chili feed, happily, blissfully ignorant that the storm was about to break. My administrator came to me and asked, “Hey, what’s this book you are reading with the eighth graders?” I know that I looked at him a bit funny, but I told him it was True Diary, and he asked if he could look at a copy; a parent had called and wanted to read it. Of course I went to my classroom and got an extra copy of the text from the shelf and gave it to the administrator. The parent came in that day to pick up the book. Two days later I spent the first of what would be several hours in meetings with two parents. For continuity’s sake, I will refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. As I entered the office for that first meeting, I was again prepared. I had all my documentation, including the permission slip they had signed giving their student permission to read True Diary. I knew when I walked in that things were going to be different this time. Mr. and Mrs. Smith

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were sitting at the table in the administrator’s office, and there were two books lying on the table. One book was a version of the Christian Bible and the second was their borrowed copy of True Diary. The True Diary book looked as if it had been stuffed full of Post-it notes, to the point that it looked a bit like an art installation, with notes literally coming out all sides at all angles. I knew this was going to be bad, but I could have never predicted how bad. As the meeting started, both the Smiths expressed to me how much they respected me as a professional, how both of their daughters, one an eighth grader and the second a seventh grader, loved and respected me. (I had also coached their daughters in school sports that fall, and they brought up how much they respected me as a coach.) They also said they had never thought I was anything but a “great” teacher, and that there wasn’t a student they knew who had ever said anything disparaging about me. However, when their focus shifted to “the book,” things changed. The mother pushed her Bible across the table to me and said that book was important in their house, which meant that this “filth,” as she pushed True Diary across the table, would not be tolerated in their house. Again, I leaned in and listened. For better than an hour, the parents pointed out exactly how many “filthy” words were used in the book, how many times “s-e-x” was mentioned, which pages had the words “masturbation,” how many times a character drank alcohol, and the list went on and on, with the perceived “bad behavior” that this “horrid” book passes off as acceptable. After they finished the list, we discussed the fact that they felt their signatures on the permission slip were NOT legitimate because they “didn’t read it.” They indicated that they sign whatever comes home, but don’t always read it. We also discussed why I was using the book and who had “allowed” me to ever bring that “filth” into the school. More than once a sentence started with, “I’m not being racist, but . . . .” As the tone of the meeting became more and more accusatory, my emotional response began to show. I started to cry, trying first to remain calm, but eventually needing tissues as their accusation that I was “harming” their child with “my filth” was too much for me. As I cried, Mr. Smith reached across the table, put his hand on my arm, and said that they didn’t want to hurt my feelings, that this wasn’t their intention. As I tried to deep breathe myself into calm, I asked what they would like me to do. By the end of the meeting, we agreed that I would find an alternate text for their daughter to read, doing my very best to not “exclude” her, that I would not read True Diary with her in the classroom, and that I would not do anything to isolate her, while at the same time not exposing her to one more page of “filth.” We agreed that the alternate text must meet the same requirements as True Diary: it must be young adult fiction, by a Native author, somehow fit and reflect on the devastation of culture in reservation life, and

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be set in modern times. We also agreed that I would allow the parents to read the alternate text before I introduced it to their child. (And, yes, I absolutely knew I had my work cut out for me.) Leaving the office, both of the Smiths shook my hand, thanked me for my time, and reiterated that this wasn’t about them taking away the right of other students to read True Diary, but that it wasn’t right for their student. As shaky and unsure as I felt, I was sure we had reached an amicable conclusion. I knew I had a great deal of work ahead of me and that I was going to have to totally change my plans in my classroom for the next two weeks. That afternoon, after the meeting, I was sitting in my classroom really struggling emotionally. I was trying to process all of the thoughts and emotions I was having about the thoughts and feelings of the parents. I had desperately wanted to plead with them, “Give me a chance. I know that I can handle this with your child.” My administrator came to see how I was doing. We discussed the almost unbelievable content of the meeting; we talked about what a possible resolution would be; and we decided that I would put the book on hold until I had found a suitable alternative. When I left my classroom that night, I felt that I had set the wheel in motion for a solution. I changed my lesson plans, suspended True Diary, and was in a bit of a holding pattern, but I could breathe. It didn’t take very long for the breath to be knocked out of me. That night as I sat in my home, my phone rang. It was my administrator. The Smiths wanted to meet again, because upon further consideration they had decided that True Diary would not be appropriate for any student, and they wanted it removed from the curriculum. My first reaction was utter dismay. How could it be possible that in 2012 I would even have to think about a book banning? This was a piece of curriculum that I had followed all the appropriate channels to include. It was highly regarded and had proven successful in my previous uses. I had a signed permission slip. How on earth was this happening? As I sat in my house, in shock, I was unsure what to do next. Where could I even start? Of all that I didn’t know, I knew one thing: I was going to fight for this book. I knew that I would do whatever I could to stand up for this book, for its heart, as well as for my effort as an educator. I had done all I was required to in order to use True Diary, I knew its value, I knew it had worth. I was not going to give it up. I sat in front of my computer, staring at a blank screen and wondering what I should even do. I searched “Absolutely True Diary book challenge.” The results were staggering. I read article after article about school districts that had “banned” the book. I spent hours poring over articles and resources, news reports and blogs; I read of both successes and failures of districts that had banned the book and people who had stood up against the ban. I read a powerful article from Sherman Alexie himself (2011). Every site I book-

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marked would become part of the road map that would lead me closer to some answers, but further away from others. It finally began to sink into me that I was going to be up against a big fight. There were lots of people, educators and not, just like me, who had lost the fight already. As I pored over information, I reached out to a Montana Teacher of the Year honoree, Anna Baldwin. Ms. Baldwin had been using the True Diary text in her school and had written a unit of support for classroom usage. I sent Ms. Baldwin a cold e-mail, saying little more than that I needed some direction, some help, and that anything would be appreciated. I didn’t know it then, but that e-mail would spread like wildfire, to people all across the state and the country, and they would pitch in to support this fight eventually. Over the next several days I spent hours and hours researching case history of book challenges in other schools and communities across the nation, preparing information, history, and paperwork, ultimately preparing my defense. In those first few days I made and received several phone calls from people across the state, people with much more information and knowledge than I had. I visited with experts working in the field of education, experts from the Montana Office of Public Instruction, the Montana Librarians’ Association, and several teachers and community members. As word spread across the community, several people contacted me and offered their support. My students who had read the book, and even some who hadn’t, came into my room and wanted to talk to me about what they could do to help. My students were very concerned, but I worked hard to keep them out of it. This was not their fight, and I kept reminding them that as much as I appreciated their support, I was not going to make it their fight. It really was my fight, and more important, it was a battle about policy. I assured all of the people who reached out to me in those first few days that I had appropriately followed the policy for the addition of the text. I was preparing for a fight, and I fully believed I had “right” on my side. During this time my administrator and I spent several hours discussing what might happen. The copies of my book had been dispersed to the five members of the school board, and the Smiths had retained their copy. I knew that things were going to be ugly when the board meeting was set and several former board members contacted me to tell me that they would be there to help. As I prepped information for the board, I had better than thirty pages of information, testimony, and supporting materials ready to go. Several students and parents were ready to testify at the meeting. In addition, a retired teacher who taught IEFA-related classes for the Montana Office of Public Instruction, from whom I had taken the Native literature inclusion class three summers earlier, was driving to my little town to testify on behalf of the book. I was ready, but at the same time so not ready. I just didn’t know what the board was going to decide. The makeup of the board had changed since I had

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been hired in the district, and I was unsure how much they valued education and the basic idea of freedom of thought, as well as their thoughts on censorship. I knew several parents and community members who were coming to support the text. In my own testimony and supporting materials I had collated and prepared for the board, I included student testimonials. I had of course talked to those students and had them sign forms giving me permission to share both their opinions and samples of writing I had dug out from previous years’ classes. I had so much stuff; I wasn’t sure what I would need and what I wouldn’t. I was prepared. It was my hope going into the meeting that the board would both listen to the parents’ concerns and also recognize that I had “covered all of my bases” and followed the district policy. I also hoped they would not “ban” the book from being used in our school. I wanted the Smiths to have their opportunity to be heard, but I did not want the board to agree to their request. I was anxious and scared; I believed I had the policy on my side, as well as both legal and cultural precedent. I also felt incredibly supported by several organizations and individuals. The meeting was more than well attended; it was packed. Looking around the room, I was sizing up the people in attendance: Were they there in support of True Diary, or in support of a ban? As the chairman of the board reminded the public of the “rules of comment,” I was anxious, even sick to my stomach. However, as one of the parents stood to address the board, I became very calm. I listened to Mrs. Smith read every “bad” word in a list by order of appearance in the book. I watched as the audience flinched as she said “fuck.” I watched as her fist shook as she implored the board to remove this “filth” from our school. I listened as she questioned the board about their “opinion” of the book. And I listened as each board member responded to Mrs. Smith’s questions. I listened as three of the board members said that they hadn’t been prepared for the “language” in the book, but they didn’t think it was a “bad” read. And I sat transfixed as one board member looked directly at Mrs. Smith and said, “I didn’t read this book.” That might have been the moment in the meeting when the entire room leaned in to listen, really locking in on the intense face of the board member. The board member lifted the book in the air and said, “I didn’t read this book.” He took a big pause and explained that he didn’t feel it was his place to read and review curriculum materials, that he was not an expert, and that he trusted the teachers and administration, that they were the experts, and that he would not be a part of the banning of any book on individual review. As the audience wasn’t sure what to say or do, he then followed up by saying, “However, my wife DID read the book. And she ordered a copy for each of our kids, and for some of her friends.” I was not alone in my laughter. Much of the audience couldn’t refrain from laughing, most knowing the

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particular strengths of this board member’s wife. However, Mrs. Smith was NOT laughing. When it was my turn to testify, I started with an impassioned plea to the board to uphold their own policy. I cited case law precedent, discussed how the book had impacted my students, and also commented that I had previously agreed to do what I could for the Smiths, to satisfy their request that their daughter not read True Diary. My voice shook; I sometimes became teary. I was very, very concerned about what was going to happen. I was emotionally invested in my quest and I believed in what I was doing. I didn’t know, though, what the board would ultimately decide. Several community members, parents, and students testified on behalf of the book, some for reasons that were anticensorship, others because of True Diary itself. There was no one in the audience other than the Smiths who testified against the text. I can’t say that everyone in the room supported the text, but I can tell you that the only people who spoke against it were the Smiths. The board members all made some comments, yet asked very few questions. The administrator spoke on behalf of the policy, reminding both the board and the audience that I had followed district policy in the adoption of the text as part of the curriculum. By the end of better than two hours, the board had made the decision that there would be no action on this issue. The board chairman explained that he felt that the text had been included appropriately, that the curriculum was approved, and that the process had been upheld. He also asked for my assurance that I would accommodate the Smiths’ request, and that I would do my best to continue to accommodate them. I, of course, reassured the board, as well as the Smiths in a very public forum, that I would honor their request. When I walked out of the room that night, I felt an incredible sense of relief. I was overwhelmed at the support and absolutely in awe of the incredible testimony several of my students had given, as well as members of the community who stood up on behalf of the book. I was so thankful to the educators who had defended the policy and the text. I was relieved that the board had decided to uphold their policy and at the same time make it clear that there would be issues that parents and teachers would have to work through that would not include removing curriculum materials. At that time, I suppose there was a part of me that really thought it was over. It wasn’t over. As soon as the board meeting finished, I went back to the task of trying to find an acceptable text. I ordered two copies of the three books that I hoped would meet the requirements that I had established for the alternate text and asked the Smiths to read each of them. Only one text received their lukewarm approval, a novel by Joseph Bruchac, a Native author. The Bruchac novel, though a wonderful story, was not even in the same category as True Diary; the intended audience was different, the story line was not quite as powerful, and it was certainly not something I thought

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would both enlighten and inspire the reader. However, it was the only book that met my first criterion as well as the approval of the Smiths. The process had been very time consuming and difficult, as the Smiths were uncooperative and would not communicate directly with me. All of our communication was facilitated by my administrator. Just three weeks after the special meeting, the Smiths attended the regular board meeting. I did not attend that meeting, not knowing the Smiths intended to appear. In the public comment section of the meeting, the Smiths unloaded. This time however, their attack was personal. The Smiths were told several times that they could not discuss staff members by name, so I was referred to several times as “that social studies teacher.” According to the minutes of the meeting, the Smiths were unhappy with the decision of the board and wanted the board to adopt a curriculum review board comprising at least one student, one community member, and one staff person. Their proposal was that “any” item of “questionable” content would be immediately suspended from use and the curriculum review board would take it under advisement and return an answer regarding the appropriateness of the item. The Smiths also went on to reprimand the board for not removing True Diary; Mrs. Smith is quoted in the board meeting minutes as saying, “This isn’t over. You had your chance.” This newest request by the Smiths meant that yet another board meeting would happen. The second one was in many ways not much better than the first. I was anxious and nervous, but I knew by this time that I wasn’t alone in this fight. I knew this latest request by the Smiths had the potential to affect all teaching staff and areas. By the conclusion of that meeting, more than twenty community members had testified to the board about how this proposed “curriculum review board” would be a terribly binding, complicated, and difficult mess for teachers, students, and the community. The debate was healthy and important. When the debate ended, the board discussed their own reservations and hesitations. Once again, they rejected the request of the Smiths. It was after this meeting that I knew the death knell had been rung. As the Smiths left the meeting, Mrs. Smith made some really unkind comments to me as she passed my classroom, calling me words that she hadn’t wanted her daughter to read, but felt perfectly comfortable saying in the halls of our school. I wish that the conclusion of this story was about how I persevered and stayed in the community to fight another day, continuing to use True Diary in my classroom, and that I stood strong against adversity. What eventually happened with the Smiths, however, led me to seek alternative employment. By the beginning of May of that year, after more than two months of fighting and pleading, testifying and teaching, I found myself in a closed executive session with the school board. Mrs. Smith had sent an e-mail to the board members stating “If THAT teacher is still in the building next fall, my chil-

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dren will not be in her classes.” Mrs. Smith went on to say that either she or her husband would be accompanying her oldest daughter to Montana history class for the remainder of the year because the environment was so unsafe and the teacher was going to harm her child. I pleaded with the board to handle this situation, to stop the bloodletting, and to stand up and defend my role, my professionalism, my proven record after seven years as a member of the school and community. I was exhausted. I didn’t have a lot of fight left in me. I had saved Arnold’s spirit, but felt as if I were losing mine. I made it through the end of the school year, and I found out with just two days left in that school year that I was the 2012 recipient of the Pat Williams Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the Montana Library Association that year for my “defense of the First Amendment.” In spite of my administrator’s misgivings, I was interviewed by the region’s largest newspaper, the Great Falls Tribune, on the day after school was dismissed for the summer. My picture ran on the front cover of the paper less than three weeks later with an article describing the fight, the controversy, and the results. As you can imagine, local gossip and posts to social media fanned the flames again. I received more than one phone call asking questions about the article and the award, some flattering, some not. And less than ten days after that article was published, I submitted my resignation in that district, saying good-bye to friends who had very much become family. I was leaving my home of seven years, after tearfully thanking so many people for the love, support, and opportunities, but knowing that if I didn’t leave now, I did not have an easy road ahead. The Smiths had made the fight so incredibly personal by that point that I was drowning in the mire of ugly, irrational anger directed at me. FOR THE EDUCATOR As educators, it is important that whatever discipline you are working in, you select curriculum materials that support your goals and strategies, while at the same time being responsive to the needs of your learners. It is impossible to please everyone all of the time, but you have to remember what your goal is. Few of us are in the position to pick “textbooks” or adopt full curriculum policy, but we get the opportunity to select curriculum tools to add to adopted curriculum. It is my belief that educators should select curriculum supplements and consider the parameters of your selection while aiming for three things: purpose, relevance, and complexity: • It is important to know what the purpose of your selection is: to inspire, to challenge, to grow the learner?

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• Selections should be relevant to the guiding subjects, but also to the age of the learners and the intended outcome. • Finally, you should always consider that complexity is important. We need to encourage learners to be challenged by complex and sometimes controversial materials in order to stimulate growth, create effective dissonance, and spur true learning. It has always been my goal as an educator to help spark critical thinking and learning, not just memorization and repetition. My experience with controversial materials in my classroom forced me to better understand the importance and the relevance of the reason for selecting materials. In order to best understand if something is controversial, I think it is important to reflect on whether the item will have prolonged importance in society: Does it impel emotion or feeling, and will it prompt critical response and thinking in the receiver? When selecting any material for wide use in classrooms, be sure that you understand your district’s policy for adoption. It is vitally important as an educator that you abide by curriculum policy. Not only does this demonstrate professionalism on your part; it also can be the key that will help you face any challenge you may come up against. In my experience, this was a key part of what helped me to withstand the challenge that I faced. In order to best be prepared to teach controversial materials, the educator should do the following: • Select the material/issue with intended purpose. • Break it down into workable parts. • Teach any applicable supplemental vocabulary to best help learners understand. • Have a culminating activity or lesson. • Hold a debriefing to give learners the opportunity to reflect. When we select materials that challenge our students, we see potential for shared growth, reflection, critical thinking, and teachable moments. Within and across disciplines, educators find incredible strength in complex, often controversial, topics, materials, and themes. As the educator, you must be prepared to facilitate the topics, be an information specialist, and serve as a resource, but do NOT consider yourself the only voice of expertise. Learners enter your realm with a variety of experiences that can often help them be experts in their own right. If we want our learners to critically think, participate in citizenry, assess information, disseminate opinions, consider other interpretations, and reflect on their own understandings, we must meet them with opportunities that support those goals.

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This is the story of how I met a challenge to my role as an educator. It is not intended to serve as legal advice (although I do offer some advice about materials selection at the end of this chapter and a list of resources in appendix C). However, if you take any advice from me, know this, first and foremost: it is important to stand up for what is right, what is just. Follow your district procedure, establish your rationales, and you will create a platform to stand on, built not from emotion but from reasoning. You will find help, sometimes in the strangest ways, but there are many people who will help you. You just need to reach out. After all, we are in this profession because at some level we want to create change in our classrooms; sometimes the biggest changes happen in ourselves. In appendix C I have included a list of resources to help as a possible starting point if you find yourself facing a materials challenge. CHANGING PERSPECTIVES I am a better teacher because of the struggle I went through, and I am a better advocate. I will always stand up and fight. I will continue to address controversy. I will teach controversial subjects and texts in my classroom, not for controversy’s sake, but for the betterment of my students and of education. I will teach “dangerous” texts, and I will support the voices and the faces of students whose voices and faces are not reflected in the dominant narrative. I work very hard to undo the harm of the veneer and shine that is put on history too often because it is considered dangerous to tell the “truth.” Do what you know to be right: right for your students, right for your standards of teaching, and right for education. And finally, remember these words from True Diary author Sherman Alexie (2011): Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads. And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books—especially the dark and dangerous ones—will save them. As a child, I read because books—violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not—were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life. And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons—in the form of

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words and ideas—that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.

WORKS CITED Alexie, Sherman. 2007. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown, Hachette Book Group USA. Alexie, Sherman. 2011. “Why the Best Kids’ Books Are Written in Blood.” Speakeasy RSS, Wall Street Journal, June 9. Accessed November 24, 2014. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/ 2011/06/09/why-the-best-kids-books-are-written-in-blood/. Indian Education For All [IEFA]. 2014. Indian Education for All History. Montana Office of Public Instruction, April 24. Accessed November 17, 2014. http://www.montanatribes.org/ files/iefa-law.pdf.

Chapter Six

Challenging Homophobic and Heteronormative Language Queering The Merchant of Venice Stephanie Ann Shelton

“Man, you gay.” I was standing in the hall during class change at my high school, and I looked back into my classroom to see who had spoken. Two of my students had been admiring another’s new jacket, and the jacket wearer declared one of them “gay” based on the other’s comments. I had tried to get students to stop using words like “fag,” “gay,” “dyke,” and “queer” as insults and as synonyms for words like “dumb.” I did not feel that my efforts had accomplished much. Moving so that I was halfway in the room and halfway in the hall, I cleared my throat. “Saxon, do you remember the many conversations we’ve had about using ‘gay’ like that in this classroom?” Saxon turned to look at me, tilted his head, and said, “Ms. Shelton, for real—you know I was playin’.” The student whom he had called “gay” shook his head and said, “You take stuff too serious, Ms. Shelton. We all know what he meant.” I then reminded all of them that using a word such as “gay” to tease someone made the word negative, and that doing so could mean that they were unwittingly hurting peers who might self-identify as gay. The exchange ended with the three of them rolling their eyes and promising not to say something else that would result in a similar conversation.

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LANGUAGE AND LGBTQ ISSUES Despite my students’ dismissal of my concern about their language, research demonstrates the significance of the ways that language shapes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students’ experiences in school settings. Cris Mayo points out, “Homophobic speech [is] just what queer kids should expect . . . because the structure of social institutions and practices fuels homophobia, . . . [E]ven with policies to protect [LGBTQ students], homophobia is still what queer people can expect” (2009, 262). The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) recently found when they surveyed nearly eight thousand American adolescents and young adults that more than 70 percent of respondents reported hearing the word “gay” used derogatorily, and that nearly 65 percent heard other homophobic language, such as “dyke” and “tranny,” frequently in their schools (2014, xvi). Such words carry the power to affect learning and to create a toxic learning environment for students and teachers. Even more problematically, some evidence suggests that when LGBTQ students attempt to report or protest homophobic and transphobic language, the student who is reporting may be punished along with, or rather than, the one using the language. For example, Mollie Blackburn learned when interviewing students that after one student called another a “fucking faggot,” the teacher punished the student at whom the comment was directed, along with the student who had blatantly cursed in class (2012, 9). The teacher had no choice but to punish the one who had used profanity in the classroom, because to do so had violated school rules; however, Blackburn concluded that the teacher’s decision to also punish the target of the comment revealed the adult’s alignment with the abuser’s comment. DeWitt (2012) asserted that teacher biases are often a major stumbling block in supporting and protecting LGBTQ students. In a study of language arts teachers, Thein (2013) asked how likely the educators were to include LGBTQ-related materials in their classrooms. Overwhelmingly, the participants answered in the negative, with one responding that to do so was “not my job” (172). My own experiences in the classroom have taught me how much teachers and administrators can shape a culture in which homo- and transphobic language is permissible. During a fire drill, as I tried to round up thirty-four students in our assigned evacuation area, I realized that I had an extra student. “Keri” was a large young man who tended to wear his hair and clothing in more stereotypically feminine styles. On this day, he had pulled small braids back into a bun, and he was wearing a white shirt accented with silver glitter and purple stripes. He was laughing hard with several of the young women in my class who regularly spent time with him.

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I walked a few feet over to tell his teacher, “Ms. Anderson,” where he was. I pointed to Keri and told her, “One of your children is with mine. If you want him back over here, I’ll send him to you.” Miss Anderson’s lip curled in disapproval. She did not attempt to lower her voice: “He, or she really, can just stay over there. I’m so tired of that child. Too much estrogen or something. Geez. I wish he’d just come out or something. Everyone knows he’s a faggot.” I know that I looked shocked, because she cocked her head to the side and asked, “What? What’s wrong?” After a second, she rolled her eyes and huffed, “You know it’s true.” She returned to where most of her students were waiting, and I went back to mine. As I herded students back in after the drill, several asked, “How come Ms. Anderson can say that about Keri? How come you didn’t say nothing back?” I was ashamed and recognized the double standard of insisting on a particular mode of respectful speech from students in my classroom and allowing a very different one outside it with my colleagues. The day was a whirlwind for me, not just because of the fire drill, and not just because of the teacher’s comment about a non-gender-conforming student, but because the same conversation I had had with Saxon and his friends concerning their use of “gay” recurred throughout the day, with various other words and various other students. NAVIGATING SCHOOL CULTURE TO TEACH QUEER TOPICS It was easy to resolve to do something, but I was very unsure what that “something” could be. I found numerous sources with suggestions, all taking the general stance that all I needed was curricula that incorporated LGBTQ topics into the classroom, and most provided access to such materials. In recent years, this trend has continued. For example, an antibullying-themed issue of English Journal (July 2012) featured numerous suggestions about texts and approaches that teachers might use to combat LGBTQ bullying specifically. Miller (2013) not only offered a list of books that introduced the topic of bullying, but also provided step-by-step methods for ways that teachers might confront difficult topics and bullying related to gender, sexuality, and other factors. DeWitt (2012, 31) emphasized the use of “literature that depicts same-sex couples in a positive way, and offering groups such as gaystraight alliances (GSA)” as a means of addressing LGBTQ bullying and misunderstandings. Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan (2013, 229) provided both suggestions for texts to promote discussion of LGBTQ issues and online resources that contain information on state and local bullying policies and professional support.

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These were great resources, for someone else, somewhere else. I had been called into the principal’s office to meet with him and my supervising administrator because my teaching of British writers such as William Blake and Geoffrey Chaucer had raised the ire of an influential local pastor. My encouraging my students to examine the ways that the authors’ texts critiqued specific religious groups and leaders was apparently too controversial for this community leader. I had angrily and confidently defended my teaching by referring to the authors’ historical contexts and pointing out that such analyses were necessary to understand the texts. However, I was fairly sure that an overt effort to address homo- and transphobic language in my classroom would land me in serious trouble, in both the community and my school. Even if I had believed that suggested curricular resources might work, I knew that there would be no way to gain access to them. My school was severely limited in its resources. Teachers had copy machine limits, the English Department in which I worked relied heavily on the free novels and plays that came with textbook adoption, and 100 percent of our students received free breakfast and lunch. There was no way to copy or request new materials, and I could not ask my students to buy anything, either. I walked to the English language arts bookroom to see what, if anything, my department owned that I might use. As I walked past the shelves, brushing dust and spiders off me and the books, I found a stack of forty-five copies of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in a dark back corner. There weren’t enough for each student to have one, of course, but there were enough to have a classroom set of the play. It was the perfect text for my situation. The text was academically defensible to administrators, teachers, parents, community members, and students, mainly because it was Shakespeare. It was a substantial text that would allow me to meet nearly every mandatory standard, which would keep the administration happy. It was readily available because the school had already purchased it some years ago, and no other teacher was using it. As I was the department chair, I checked with the instructional facilitator before deviating from the approved curriculum map. I explained that the play would allow for more in-depth examination of language and literary devices than the textbook, plus I thought that the characterizations would serve students socially and culturally, too. After assuring her that, yes, I would still meet all of the required standards before the end of the semester, I had my approval, and I had a plan. QUEER PEDAGOGY AND QUEER THEORY I knew from my own readings that The Merchant of Venice presented the opportunity to have students consider a variety of social justice issues, in-

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cluding anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and—importantly—queer relationships and gender performativity. As I prepared myself to discuss the ways that a queer lens might extend understandings of the play, I began to actively adopt a queer pedagogy. Deborah Britzman (1998) has argued that social structures, such as schools, normalize and enforce particular behaviors, such as being in a heterosexual relationship or being a female who behaves in a stereotypically feminine manner. This normalization happens through a variety of means. For example, curricula typically reinforce ideas of gender and sexuality, such as when nearly all authors and characters are presented as and assumed to be heterosexual. Langston Hughes, a standard figure in American literature courses, is regularly introduced as an African American poet who contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, but few textbooks or teachers explore Hughes’s identity as a gay man, as presented in his writings. In addition, schools often reinforce binary notions of gender, with “female” and “male” spaces, such as restrooms and locker rooms, presenting problems for students who identify as transgender or genderqueer. Queer pedagogy is a means of countering heteronormativity and traditional gender roles in school settings; the approach relies on perspectives provided through queer theory. Queer theory blurs and rejects, in fact “queers,” sociocultural boundaries (Whitlock 2010), which means that a variety of taken-for-granted concepts, including that an author is heterosexual unless announced as otherwise and that a student is always only either female or male, are questioned and challenged. Within the framework of queer theory, individuals learn to question how notions of normality are constructed and enforced. In addition, queer theory troubles the notion of a static personal identity (Gamson 2000; Hall 2003). In other words, queer theory permits teachers and students to understand that all people have multiple identities—including their racial and ethnic, their gender, their socioeconomic, their religious, and their sexual identities—which often come into regular conflict with one another and resist simplistic understandings. No one person is always the same. Who we are is shaped by the settings and circumstances in which we find ourselves. Acknowledging identity fluidity permits educators and their students to appreciate the complexities of others’ senses of self and to apply that appreciation to their interactions with others. Bringing these concepts of identity fluidity and normativity—as socially constructed and challengeable concepts—into the classroom provided the basis for my implementation of a queer pedagogy. I resolved, no matter the course content, to ask students and myself to examine in what ways concepts were presented as “normal” within the text; in what ways those notions of normalcy benefited, hurt, and/or excluded particular institutions or people; in what ways the individuals presented in the texts seemed to adopt multiple

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and even contradictory identities; and in what ways those fluid identities seemed to shape their characterizations and readers’ understandings of them. I was asking my students to read through a queer theoretical lens. QUEERING THE MERCHANT OF VENICE As I prepared to teach The Merchant of Venice, I worked to ensure that my methods would support a queer pedagogical approach. I found numerous Shakespearean scholars who pointed out the homoeroticism in the play, specifically in the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio. Steve Patterson wrote, for example, that Antonio’s “affection may be evident from the moment the merchant has Bassanio alone,” and that “Antonio’s grand gestures are further identified as signs of physical desire, not simply platonic love” (1999, 20). I wanted to be confident in a queer interpretation, so that I would be prepared when students wanted to dismiss Antonio’s feelings for Bassanio as those of a “good friend.” I also read numerous sources examining the complexities of characters’ identities, such as Jessica’s painful shifting between being a Jewish daughter and a Christian lover and Bassanio’s constant weaving between Portia and Antonio, both in terms of money and fidelity. I also prepared to discuss the various ways that the text presented gender as performance in order to have students consider the ways that gender is not always biological or obvious. The first time that I taught the play, I felt my stomach churning as I weighed the consequences of talking about queer characters, about men dressed as women dressed as men, about religious oppression, and many other topics. But my students surprised me. Before I could say anything to introduce a queer lens, students immediately commented on how taciturn Antonio was before and how garrulous he was after Bassanio’s appearance in act 1. One student, “Allison,” said, “The only way you’re gonna give somebody who’s that broke money, after they’ve already wasted all of the other money you gave them, is if you got it bad.” When I asked her to explain, one of the other students rolled her eyes and said, “Man, Ms. Shelton, that fool’s in love.” A few of the students were startled by and rejected that interpretation, but their initial conversation allowed me to ask my students why some of them were so immediately opposed to the idea of Antonio being in love with Bassanio. I inquired, “What evidence do you have from the play that Allison’s interpretation of Antonio is inaccurate? Or, what evidence do you have that both your and her interpretations are possible?” Our class sessions had always asked students for analysis and textual support, but in the past I had avoided pushing when it came to issues such as

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sexual orientation in readings. In this moment, students who had adamantly rejected the idea that Antonio loved Bassanio could only offer responses such as, “Well, he doesn’t say he loves him.” Another student who had sided with Allison smacked her lips at the dissenting group and replied, “Puh-lease. As if the only way something’s gonna be true is if you straight up say it. What about that other story we read? That one [Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth] where the farmer realizes at the end that he made a lot of bad choices? He never says, ‘Oh, I did O-lan wrong,’ now does he? But we know that’s what he’s thinking because of all of the other things he says and does. If all you got to argue about this dude [Antonio in The Merchant of Venice] is that he doesn’t just say something, then you need to try again. You just mad ’cause you don’t want this man to be gay.” I had been unprepared for students to immediately establish a textually based argument for the existence of a queer character, but I cheered internally. And I believed that a queer pedagogy might be possible, even beyond this play. As we continued through the play, both sides gained and lost members, though there was a distinctive shift in the students’ positions near the play’s end. As Antonio prepares to die to pay his bond for Bassanio in act 4, Antonio says, “Say how I lov’d you [Bassanio], speak me fair in death; / And when the tale is told, bid her [presumably Portia] be judge / Whether Bassanio had not once a love” (act 4, scene 1, lines 275–77). Some students were genuinely touched by Antonio’s sacrifice, while others were annoyed by what they felt was melodramatic martyrdom, but very few students continued to maintain that Antonio saw Bassanio in a purely platonic way. Interestingly, when Portia freed Antonio from his bond, students began to discuss whether or not the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio was one-sided, as most had maintained, or reciprocal. They puzzled over why no character could convince Bassanio to give up his wedding band from Portia, except Antonio (lines 449–57), and what that fact meant. Some even argued that by doing so, Bassanio had unmarried himself from Portia and bound himself to Antonio. By the end of the play, some students were sure that Antonio loved Bassanio, others believed the two men loved one another, and a few maintained that they were just close friends. Regardless, the conversation normalized the topic of sexual orientation, allowing discussions about and beyond the play. Equally productive were the students’ conversations about gender. As we explored the text through queer lenses, I pushed them to consider the implications of characters fluidly moving among various genders and issues of gender performativity. When Nerissa entered as the lawyer’s clerk and Portia as the lawyer in act 5, I asked the class, “Why doesn’t anyone question them about being guys? Why do they just buy that what they present themselves to

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be is what they are?” One student shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. ’Cause they look like guys, I guess.” A few other students nodded. I pursed my lips and nodded. “Okay. Cool. But, how does one ‘look like a guy’? Is it just clothes? If that’s the case, why is it always so funny to most of you when some of you boys dress up in women’s clothing for Halloween or something? Or why do we have news stories where someone’s attacked for wearing what other people decide is the wrong clothing for their gender?” I paused and noted the thoughtful expressions around the room. “So, if it’s not just the clothes—because I agree that they can be important—what else is it then?” Marcus, a young man who had only recently begun to self-identify as gay, raised his hand. I nodded for him to go ahead. “No one’s going to believe you’re a guy, or a girl, or whatever, if you’re not behaving like one. I mean, people say to me all the time that I act too much like a girl. They mean junk like my voice is too high or I move my wrist around too much. So, here in this scene, Nerissa and Portia are being played by guys, right?” Several students and I nodded. Marcus continued, “Earlier in the play when the actor was Nerissa or Portia as a girl, I’ll bet his voice was higher pitched, and his gestures were different. Here, the actor’s just matter-of-factly delivering a letter and the other one’s talking about the court case, probably with the actors’ real or at least a deeper voice, in dude clothes.” The students weighed Marcus’s contribution. A few shuffled in their seats, but no one moved to support or agree with the statement. I cleared my throat. “Okay, so think about the ways that we learn to navigate a particular place. Like, you don’t behave the same way here that you do in church or at home, right?” A few nodded, unsure of where I was going. “So, if you’re always you, why do you behave differently in different places? Or, are you ‘always you’? Is it possible that you’re not just one person, or one thing, or one identity?” Allison leaned back, folding her arms and nodding. “Yeah, like I’m totally lots of different people. I mean, here at school, I’m all serious and junk. At church, I’m all helpful and nurturing in the preschool class and everything. At home, I’m pretty stupid—just hanging out in front of the TV and stuff. And, like, I’m all girly when I’m going on a date or something, but then I’m in basketball shorts to go to the store. That’s a lot of different mes, huh?” I nodded. “Okay, so think about what Marcus and Allison have said about the ways that their behaviors, their clothing, their activities vary according to where they are, and like Marcus pointed out, how those different elements affect how people perceive and interact with them. Literally take thirty seconds, and I’ll time you, to think about those things.” I then shifted my eyes to my watch and waited the designated amount of time. “Okay, keeping all that you’ve just thought of in mind, I want you to go back to the text, and I want you to consider why the characters are so willing

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to understand Nerissa and Portia as guys here with no issue, and as women earlier with no problem. Find evidence in the text, and keep in mind the points that Allison and Marcus just made about being different people in different places.” After about fifteen minutes of shuffling pages and small group talk, I prepared to discuss gender performance with the students. “Okay, so what makes Portia a woman earlier and a man here?” Saxon, who had been extremely resistant to the thought of Bassanio and Antonio being gay, was the first to start. “Well, in our group, we were lookin’ at how when Portia’s a girl, she’s always talking about girl stuff. Like, right here, where she keeps talkin’ about how her daddy won’t let her choose a husband, and she talks junk about all these dudes tryin’ to get with her” (act 1, scene 2). I prodded, “So, Saxon, how do those actions relate to ‘acting like a girl’? Say more about that.” He huffed a breath. “Everybody in here knows that all girls be talkin’ about is dudes and gettin’ married and junk. That’s just what they do.” Several girls looked outraged, but I immediately moved to push the issue. “Okay, so vast generalizations about all women and girls aside, what’s happening in act 5 that means Portia and Nerissa are acting like men?” Marcus raised his hand. “Yeah, we talked about that. So, like, look—they show up, they got this fancy letter from this Bellario guy, and then they’re just talking about law and stuff, like they talk about it every day, right? So, if people are thinking like Saxon, and they think that girls just talk about guys and marriage, then these two people can’t be female. They gotta be men, see?” The students and I continued our considerations of the ways that gender was about far more than clothing or assumed genitalia. We discussed the ways that societal assumptions of gender and gender roles made it possible, and even easy, for Portia and Narissa to move between being women and men. They and I agreed that while the characters’ clothing, voice pitches, and claims of being women or men were important parts of other characters’ acceptance of their professed genders, gender performance was far more complex. As we finished reading the play, a number of students found that they strongly objected to the ease with which Portia and Narissa glided back into their female roles. Jasmine, who had celebrated the characters successfully talking Bassanio and Gratiano out of their wedding bands in the final act’s second scene, was bothered by the ending. “For real, y’all. Look. Portia’s all awesome in the courtroom, and saves Antonio and all, and then she rolls up to her house, and she’s telling people to do this and that to prepare the house, and then all of a sudden she’s this heifer who’s griping at her husband about his wedding ring. I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be funny and stuff, but I mean, that’s all it takes to be a woman? Really? Slap on a dress and com-

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plain, and bam—you’re a woman?” She dropped her head into her hands. “Man, whatever. Whatever.” Our discussion of the play did not necessarily open conversations on trans identities and gender queerness, but the students were willing and able to consider social constructions and expectations of gender, and the ways that those socialized elements both limited movement and made it possible for people to shift from one category to another. Those conversations opened new opportunities later in the semester to return to the concepts of gender performativity and gender fluidity, because we had already acknowledged the ways that gender was far more complex than an individual’s outward appearance. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE AND CLASSROOM LANGUAGE It is important that I emphasize that, due to my school’s setting and culture, I did not ask questions specifically inviting students to discuss characters’ sexualities; however, I did not discourage students from doing so when they brought up the topics. Students were invited to examine concepts such as shifting gender roles and complex romantic relationships through the implementation of queer pedagogy. When, for example, one student observed, “Portia loves being a man. You know she’s gonna be sad when she’s gotta put that dress back on,” my questions were not only “Why do you think that?” and “What evidence supports that?” We also considered, “Why are we okay with a female character taking on a masculine role? How would we respond if it was a male character taking on a female role? Why are the two responses different?” Such questions helped us to consider societal norms linked to gender and sexuality that were so often ignored or invisible. Deborah Britzman wrote in her discussion of queer pedagogy that reading a text through a queer lens revealed that “there are no innocent, normal, or unmediated readings and that the representations drawn upon to maintain a narrative or a self as normal, as deviant” depend heavily on socially created norms, such as gender roles and heteronormativity (1998, 226). As my students and I finished reading The Merchant of Venice, we reflected on how initially we had relied heavily and uncritically on personal assumptions and identities, and how over the course of the play we had come to recognize the many ways that our interactions with the text and with one another were complex and multilayered—in fact, how they were queer in that they pushed us to examine and question “normal” as a concept. We had come to appreciate the contradictory complexities of both the characters and ourselves, and we had discussed the ways that we and the characters each traversed different identities, including those related to gen-

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der and sexuality. As we moved forward, we all appreciated that though the play had been instrumental in introducing these considerations and conversations, the play itself was far less important than the conversations that it made possible. By introducing queer readings of a text and ourselves, we had opportunities to examine language as key to identity and to consider the ways that language established what was acceptable or taboo. When the play was done, the papers were graded, and the projects were finished, I was pleased with the conversations that The Merchant of Venice had made possible within the “safe” context of literature. I had encountered no parental complaints or administrative concerns, as I was using a schoolapproved text and asking students questions based on their analyses and on general social issues. However, the play was a means to an end. As we had worked through the play and questioned why people made certain assumptions about others related to sexual orientation and gender, I had found that it was easier to deal with students’ use of homo- and transphobic language. Saxon, who had dismissed my chastisement earlier in the year when he called a classmate “gay” for admiring his jacket, began to selfmonitor and to address others’ language as well. I also learned from my colleagues during committee meetings and lunchtime that my students were challenging assumptions in their classrooms. The conversations that the queer readings of the play had made possible worked actively to counter the oppressive and problematic language that I had actively but unsuccessfully worked to address before. It was not that the play was a panacea for addressing LGBTQ-related issues; it was that the text made new conversations and new understandings of language possible, thereby opening new possibilities in understanding. WORKS CITED Blackburn, Mollie V. 2012. Interrupting Hate: Homophobia in Schools and What Literacy Can Do about It. New York: Teachers College Press. Britzman, Deborah. 1998. “Is There a Queer Pedagogy? or, Stop Reading Straight.” In Curriculum: Toward New Identities, edited by William F. Pinar, 211–27. New York: Garland. DeWitt, Peter M. 2012. Dignity for All: Safeguarding LGBT Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Gamson, Josh. 2000. “Sexualities, Queer Theory, and Qualitative Research.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln, 347–65. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. GLSEN. 2014. “2013 National School Climate Survey.” Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network. http://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2013%20National%20School%20Climate %20Survey%20Full%20Report_0.pdf. Hall, Donald. 2003. Queer Theories. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hermann-Wilmarth, Jill, and Caitlyn L. Ryan. 2013. “Interrupting the Single Story: LGBT Issues in the Language Arts Classroom.” Language Arts 90, no. 3: 226–31. Mayo, Cris. 2009. “The Tolerance That Dare Not Speak Its Name.” In The Critical Pedagogy Reader, edited by Antonia Darder, Marta P. Baltodano, and Rodolfo D. Torres, 262–73. New York: Routledge.

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Miller, sj. 2013. “The Broader Contexts of Bullying.” In Generation Bullied 2.0: Prevention and Intervention Strategies for Our Most Vulnerable Students, edited by sj Miller, Leslie D. Burns, and Tara Starr Johnson, 131–45. New York: Peter Lang. Patterson, Steve. 1999. “The Bankruptcy of Homoerotic Amity in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 1: 9–32. Thein, Amanda Haertling. 2013. “Language Arts Teachers’ Resistance to Teaching LGBT Literature and Issues.” Language Arts 90, no. 3: 169–80. Whitlock, Reta U. 2010. “Getting Queer: Teacher Education, Gender Studies, and the CrossDisciplinary Quest for Queer Pedagogies.” Issues in Teacher Education 19, no. 2: 81–104.

Chapter Seven

From Canon to “Pornography” Common Core and the Backlash Against Multicultural Literature Loretta M. Gaffney

INTRODUCTION Literary scholar and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. once punned that “[y]ou have to have a canon so that the next generation can come along and explode it.” 1 Gates was not only illustrating how one generation’s heirs might not appreciate its literature, but also acknowledging literary canons as sites of political struggle. Canons, or the bodies of work generally acknowledged by scholars to be the best and most “classic” literature, are never set in stone and are always vulnerable to critique. Whenever books are assigned or recommended or awarded honors, there are critics there ready to protest; any text is potentially controversial. Gates made his remark within the context of a particularly volatile controversy: the “culture wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when multicultural literature and “political correctness” were hot topics on American campuses. As more literary scholars recovered neglected authors, and more professors assigned these authors in their classes, they experienced resistance from conservatives, who believed they were defenders of the “traditional” literary canon against this influx of multicultural literature. Today, as K–12 education reaps the benefits of that earlier struggle with curricula that include contemporary classics like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, it might seem that the literary canon is no longer a battleground over what “counts” as legitimate literature.

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However, contemporary culture-wide arguments about the worth of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a codified set of K–12 educational benchmarks adopted by most US states, have brought multicultural literature and the literary canon back into the spotlight, this time in middle and high schools. Featuring an exemplar text list that includes authors of color such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Cristina García, the Common Core has become a political minefield for educators and parents who support multicultural education, but who may have other criticisms of the CCSS. Anti–Common Core activists unite under an enormous political tent, with conservative antiporn culture warriors and Tea Partiers mingling with progressive educators and anti-standardized-testing advocates. All of these constituencies see public education as in need of reform, though they disagree on what the alternatives should look like. A closer look reveals that conservative anti-CCSS activists tend to take an adversarial stance toward multicultural literature and diversity, which brings them into conflict with their progressive counterparts. This chapter discusses conservative objections to the Common Core, focusing on challenges to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye as a useful illustration of how conservative anti-CCSS activism overlaps with attacks on multicultural literature. Though criticism of the CCSS cuts a wide swath across the political spectrum, the backlash against authors of color on the exemplar text list is one of the factors that distinguishes the Right from the Left. Among conservatives, anti–Common Core activism has engendered a fresh wave of book and curriculum challenges against works such as Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban. Activists have framed these challenges as part of a mission to rescue the “traditional” literary canon. Some find the inclusion of multicultural books in the canon to be ideological rather than meritorious and argue against placing so-called minor literature on a pedestal, particularly when important “classics” are not represented. Some even find multicultural literature so offensive or prurient that they label it “pornography,” thereby drawing upon discourses from other curricular battles over sex education and GLBTQ materials; campaigns to filter Internet access in schools and libraries; and earlier battles over multicultural literature, like those that characterized the “culture wars” twenty-five years ago. Manuals advising teachers and librarians about handling challenges usually urge them to head them off at the pass by creating rationales for using controversial titles. Certainly it is advisable for educators to have policies and procedures in place in case a book or curriculum is challenged. However, the current anti-CCSS activist climate makes such strategies only marginally useful, because they cannot situate challenges in their larger social movement context. Rather than focusing our energies solely on defending individual books, teachers and librarians must also be able to articulate why identity,

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representation, diversity, and intellectual freedom matter in today’s classrooms, whether they follow Common Core Standards or not. By analyzing anti-CCSS discourse, this chapter connects the new canon wars with conservative attacks on public education. DEFENDERS AND ATTACKERS OF THE COMMON CORE The Common Core State Standards were conceived as a way to prod schools to greater heights of student achievement. In response to complaints that contemporary students lacked adequate preparation for college and the workplace, supporters of a “common core” of educational standards believed uniform expectations would better guide states in improving student performance. 2 Within the climate of restructuring and defunding that followed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, CCSS authors saw better and more uniform standards as a way to drive student achievement higher. They also hoped that by conforming to uniform measures of college readiness, states could avoid disparate outcomes stemming from widely varying academic expectations from state to state. The authors believed that consistent standards across state lines would make education congruent across the United States and therefore more just. They also believed Common Core would make education more efficient by encouraging collaboration between states on assessments and curricula, guiding teacher education programs, and permitting interstate comparative analysis of student testing data. 3 The legitimacy of CCSS depended on the states voluntarily adopting common standards themselves. If each state adopted the Common Core as an individual body, then it could maintain consistency with other states without ceding control over public education to the federal government. However, it was difficult to resist Common Core when the Department of Education offered states compelling incentives to adopt the Standards. In order to compete for Race to the Top funding, states were required to adopt the CCSS (or standards congruent with the CCSS) if they wished to remain in the running. With such incentives on offer, it is not surprising that all but five US states initially agreed to adopt the Common Core. 4 But after the contents of the standards were made available, some states claimed they would not have adopted them had they known what Common Core required. Meanwhile, conservative anti-CCSS activists proceeded to push state legislation that would either reject Common Core entirely or delay or defund its implementation. 5 Even some of the groups that initially welcomed Common Core eventually had second thoughts. Teachers’ unions and professional organizations are key examples of the continually shifting public assessment of CCSS. While the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is listed on the CCSS Web site

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among the supporters of the Standards, AFT president Randi Weingarten predicted that implementing the Standards was likely to be “worse than [the implementation of] Obamacare.” 6 In addition, the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU), a large, vocal chapter of the AFT, came out against the Standards. 7 Meanwhile, even professional organizations that supported Common Core tended to hedge their bets with lukewarm statements. For instance, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) supported CCSS only to the degree that the Standards did not impede teacher autonomy in the classroom. 8 Unsurprisingly, educational technology and testing companies strongly favored CCSS; in fact, recent trade journal articles have cited the Standards as a harbinger of an economic boom for the educational tech and testing industries. 9 In addition, Florida governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush came out in support of the Standards, making CCSS a wedge issue between ultraconservative Tea Partiers and more mainstream Republicans. 10 In general, the data sets that will be generated from CCSS assessments appeal to private sector companies, which view such information as a useful adjunct to their growth and development. The Standards enjoy bipartisan support, in part because some Democrats and Republicans see their potential for stimulating economic growth in the private sector. As for the most vocal opponents of the Common Core, they include activists from across the political spectrum and vary from attacks on the process of adopting the Standards to critiques of the content of the Standards themselves. While both progressives and conservatives believe that Common Core will have a negative effect on education, conservatives are more likely to focus their energies on the Standards’ contents. Their criticisms range from insufficient rigor, bias toward left-wing or even socialistic viewpoints, and emphasis on multicultural literature, to the exclusion of “time-tested” classics. Conservatives are also more likely to see the Common Core as federal overreach, or even as a plot by the Obama administration to indoctrinate schoolchildren in liberal ideologies. Such critiques are congruent with (and borrow language from) other conservative activist projects attacking multicultural literature; antiporn activism; anti–gay rights activism; and attacks on the public sector, including public schools and libraries. Though criticisms of the Math Standards are not insignificant, the vast majority of anti–Common Core activism targets the English and Language Arts (ELA) Standards. The ELA Standards include lists of exemplar texts, arranged by grade level, as examples of the caliber and complexity of reading that students should be mastering in order to succeed in college or the workforce. While the list does not constitute a required curriculum, many critics believe that teachers will feel pressure to teach the books on the list because students must be prepared for mandatory assessments on ELA material.

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The Common Core carries a certain degree of authority, even among those who object to it. The root quarrel is about what counts as classic literature, which some conservative critics think should be uncontroversial and free of objectionable content. Common Core books are also supposed to be “educational,” which for some implies a moral imperative/didactic purpose in literature assigned to students. Within this context, “objectionable” material becomes even more objectionable because it might be used in school. Though there is no mandate to use the exemplar texts in school curricula, conservative critics worry about the CCSS assessments, which started in the 2014–2015 academic year for many states. Because they believe students will be tested on content (and because they think teachers’ evaluations will be based on student test scores), they think that teachers will be forced to “teach to the test” and will have to teach the books on the list. Conservative activists attack the ELA exemplar texts because they acknowledge the Standards’ role as a creator and maintainer of the literary canon. More schools are now likely to purchase the books, and teachers are more likely to teach them, generating student interest in the authors and titles. Given the realities of canonical power in an age of nationwide standardized testing, activists seem to care less about whether or not the texts are actually assigned and read than they do about the inclusion of the works on the exemplar lists themselves. They cite the so-called failings of the list as an indicator of the broader failings of public education, which they believe the Obama administration and the federal government use as a tool of indoctrination to influence vulnerable youth. Activists variously accuse exemplar texts of immorality, pornography, antireligious sentiment, being too multicultural, and leaving out important classics. The texts they are most concerned about happen to be those by contemporary authors of color. That said, the hubbub over The Bluest Eye came about in large part because of the ease of sharing information, including an edited-for-maximum-shock-value version of Morrison’s text. Common Core–related challenges to The Bluest Eye illustrate not simply how critics of multiculturalism argue their points, but also how conservative activists make use of the Internet to raise awareness about troublesome books. TONI MORRISON’S THE BLUEST EYE Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, tells the tale of a young African American girl who has so internalized the hatred and loathing of racism that she wishes for blue eyes so that she can feel beautiful and special. The book contains scenes of sexual violence from the perspective of the perpetrator, who believes he is enacting God’s will by forcing himself on children. The language in the novel is appropriate to the story: it is raw, sometimes crude,

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and always uncompromising. Morrison’s novel is popular and is considered a modern classic because it vividly conveys the challenges of coming of age as an African American girl in a society that systematically shames black female sexuality. Perhaps because it successfully communicates the violence of self-hatred, it has also been the target of censors who find the content or the characters distasteful or even dangerous. Toni Morrison thus joins the ranks of high-profile African American authors, such as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker, who are or have been frequent targets of censorship. In fact, the American Library Association reports that The Bluest Eye was the fifteenth most challenged book between 2000 and 2009. It had previously been challenged and removed from school libraries, classrooms, and curricula in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Littleton, Colorado, the site of the Columbine school shooting. 11 When Morrison’s The Bluest Eye appeared on the list of exemplar texts for eleventh-grade readers, it generated a new round of objections, some similar to those that had faced the novel throughout previous decades. However, because of the high-profile nature of the Common Core as an organizing issue for conservatives, contemporary challenges to Morrison’s novel borrowed from and fueled the racist discourses of concurrent attacks on the Obama administration. Tea Party disdain for the federal government was accompanied by outright antipathy for the president himself, whom the far right demonized as incompetent, antiwhite, socialist, and bent on indoctrinating schoolchildren through the Common Core. These same critics decried including The Bluest Eye on the Common Core exemplar text list because they read it as a further sign of the decline of the country under an African American president. Outcry over Morrison’s novel mingled with racist attacks on Obama on conservative blogs, in right-wing news media, and from representatives of conservative organizations such as the American Family Association and the Family Research Council. While local parent and community organizations protested the book, anti-CCSS activism at the level of state politics prompted lawmakers and education officials to publicly distance themselves from the book, even if they actually supported the Common Core. It was a familiar dynamic to those who study contemporary right-wing movements: right-wing media outrage fuels activism, which in turn is supported and promoted by right-wing media, which in turn fuels more activism. Some of the more prominent challenges were those at the state political level that made national news. After being reprimanded by the Alabama Republican Party for not opposing Common Core vociferously enough, state senator Bill Holtzclaw called for the removal of The Bluest Eye from all reading lists and school libraries, describing the novel as “just completely objectionable, from language to content.” 12 Debe Terhar, Ohio State School Board president, was not as measured in her objections. Terhar was the first

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to call The Bluest Eye “pornographic” in the national mainstream press. Sounding very much like a concerned parent challenging a book, Terhar demanded that “all mentions [of The Bluest Eye] be removed” from state teaching guidelines because “I don’t want my grandchildren reading it and I don’t want anyone else’s children reading it.” 13 Terhar and her allies were referencing blog posts with titles like “(WARNING: Graphic) Common Core Approved Child Pornography,” “Fifty Shades of Common Core,” and “How Much Porn Is Too Much for High School Students.” Though there was much chatter about Morrison and the Common Core online, a great deal of it stemmed from readers linking to a handful of alarmist articles and blog posts. Activists also attempted to illustrate the pornographic nature of Morrison’s novel by stringing together unrelated passages for maximum shock value. The same graphic passages were shared among bloggers and the right-wing media, in the same order, ironically creating a “new” pornographic text. To invoke the term “pornography” is not simply to damn a particular text or curriculum, but to rally the troops against the latest threat to community values and child safety. As we shall see, accusing Morrison of pornography has had interesting consequences for issues of representation and oppositional voices, when it occurs in combination with an attack on multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance. FROM CANON TO PORNOGRAPHY An analysis of the language of challengers and critics who opposed The Bluest Eye and other Common Core literature by authors of color reveals that most authors drew both from antimulticultural and antipornography discourses, each embedded in social movements organized around using book challenges to agitate and stimulate conservative activism. At issue first was The Bluest Eye’s status as canonical literature, when critics argued that the novel was worthy of being included in lists of exemplary literature. These naysayers used the momentum of anti–Common Core sentiment to position the presence of Morrison’s book on the list as a sign of either declining educational standards or ideologically motivated schemes to indoctrinate students in the gospel of multiculturalism. Conservative blogger and former classroom teacher Donna Garner went beyond anti–Common Core critiques to warn readers that the inclusion of inferior multicultural books in the canon signaled a larger decline in American public education. These upstart multicultural books, she argues, have been banging against the traditional canon’s doors for a very long time, but are in reality not worthy, and are only popular and critically acclaimed because they are being used in the service of a political agenda: “For more than 33 years while I was an English teacher, I fought against the teaching of

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books and selections by such people as Toni Morrison, Cristina García, and other similar writers—many of whom gained popularity not because of their writing skills but because of the multicultural, politically correct (PC) agenda that swept them into prominence in this country.” 14 When forced to acknowledge Morrison’s critical acclaim and honors, particularly her status as both a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize–winning novelist, Macey France, contributor to a conservative blog for women dubbed Politichicks, attempted to undermine Morrison’s status by casting aspersions on the Nobel Prize—after all, if Obama could win it, how hard could it be? “This child pornography [The Bluest Eye] is protected and lauded because it resides between the pages of a novel. It’s located in libraries and written by an author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in the 1990s. Don’t forget Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for . . . well that’s still a head scratcher, so I don’t put too much stock in Nobel Prizes.” 15 Despite criticizing defenders of Morrison for crying “racism,” conservative critics were quick to dismiss The Bluest Eye precisely because it spoke to an aspect of African American experience and history. They seemed to believe that any work of literature about people of color could not hold universal or timeless appeal. Conservative challengers saw themselves as the true defenders of culture, while multicultural education advocates believe they need to be educated about diversity. Ironically, such critics position themselves as the victims of academic elitism who are actually the only ones defending true excellence. In “Common Core Sexualizes American Schoolchildren,” conservative activist Mary Jo Anderson sees her role as defender of the canon. She writes: “Books by such authors as Toni Morrison, Cristina García, and others whose books are filled with ‘garbage’ and ‘junk food’ should be replaced by the great time-honored pieces of literature and history.” 16 In general, anything having to do with multiculturalism or diversity is suspect to conservative activists, who believe such terms signal ideological motives at best and outright indoctrination at worst. Tea Party activist Henry W. Burke argues that “[a]cademic vigor [sic] will be sacrificed for supposed ‘critical thinking.’ Notions such as moral relativism, multiculturalism, tolerance, and so on, which are progressive ideals passed off as undeniable truths, are arrived at by a supposedly superior level of thinking. . . . In other words, social justice is a redistributionist political agenda any individual or party is free to advocate. But when a teacher does advocacy in lieu of teaching children literature, math, history, and computer skills, the teacher is engaging in indoctrination, pure and simple.” 17 This contemporary backlash against multiculturalism echoes an earlier conservative battle in academia over “political correctness” and the politics of representation. During the late 1980s, conservative public intellectuals E. D. Hirsch and Allan Bloom bemoaned the loss of young Americans’ “cultu-

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ral literacy”—a loss they blamed on academia’s supposed abandonment of the “traditional” canon in favor of women writers, contemporary writers, and writers of color. 18 They branded the educational trend toward embracing multiculturalism as a faddish, “politically correct” movement that polluted the waters of American education with leftist politics. For them, as for contemporary conservative activists, embracing diversity meant embracing lower standards. Other critics argued that opening the literary canon to include underrepresented voices made education biased rather than universal or timeless. What is interesting about the contemporary backlash is the way it compounds charges of multicultural mediocrity with the charge of “pornography.” Conservative activists have historically used the term “porn” to protest sexually explicit materials in schools and libraries, but also to attack GLBTQ materials they believed to be unsuitable for youth. 19 Branding multicultural literature as pornographic certainly casts its literary merit into question. It also ties anti–Common Core activism more directly to larger campaigns that marshal antipornography forces against public and school library policies that protect intellectual freedom. Regardless of content, these activists tend to describe any sexual themes or graphic representations of sex as “pornography.” This term aids challengers both by rallying broader public support for the material’s removal and by serving as effective shorthand for denigrating the legitimacy of multicultural literature. Comparison to junk food, garbage, and fecal matter only compounded the lurid and prurient tone of these critiques of The Bluest Eye. Conservative critics compared reading Morrison and other multicultural literature to eating junk, wallowing in garbage, and putting sculptures of fecal matter in art museums. In a memorably graphic statement, France all but calls Morrison’s book a piece of crap dressed up as art. She writes: “This is not different than if I take some manure and spread it on a canvas and then place it in a gilded frame and hang it in an art gallery. I call it art, therefore, it is art. . . . Now the same thing is true for the novel and my manure art. It’s subjective, it’s potentially very harmful to people and in the end, it doesn’t matter what label you slap on it, it’s still a pile of manure.” 20 Activist and former teacher Donna Garner compared reading Toni Morrison to wallowing in garbage and shares how she used to teach her students not to read trash: Upon occasion to try to make a point, I would bring a garbage can from the cafeteria into my classroom and would tell the students to write a descriptive paragraph in which they were to tell how the garbage looked, felt, smelled, tasted, and sounded. The students were not allowed to get out of their seats to look in the garbage can. Without exception, all of the students were able to describe the inside of the garbage can. . . . [W]e do not have to get down in the garbage can to know what is in there. We don’t have to cover ourselves up with filthy garbage to know it exists. 21

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For France and other conservative critics, The Bluest Eye and other multicultural literature are wolves in sheep’s clothing, a sneaky way for the federal government to corrupt youth with “graphic pornography cloaked as literature.” As France argues, “How is reading a filthy book filled with pornographic scenes beneficial to preparing a student for success in college? Oh, but it’s not a filthy pornographic book, it’s not entertainment, it’s for educational purposes! We just want to introduce the kids to different ways of life!” 22 France’s attack inspired other conservatives to jump on the bandwagon, not only to attack Morrison, but also to demonize multiculturalism in education. CONCLUSION A common charge against multicultural education and literature by authors of color is that it is always partisan, ideological, and political. Conservative critics believe that the canon should reflect values that are timeless, politically neutral, or somehow above politics. Any literature that does not speak to the experiences of “ordinary” (read “white”) Americans is suspect because it is too local, too particular. Conservative activists, for all that they argue for the importance of local control and community values, believe that such values are actually not local at all, but universal and timeless. Conservative Common Core critics see the Standards as advancing agendas of multiculturalism. As Henry Burke (quoted earlier) writes, “Teachers and teachers-intraining need to know that when they are urged to be multiculturalists and social justice warriors in their K–12 classrooms, they are being asked to do a lot more than teach an appreciation of America’s component cultures. They are being asked to sign on to a political agenda.” 23 As we see from these attacks, anti–Common Core conservative activists borrowed tropes from other campaigns in order to strengthen their case, placing them firmly within the context of overlapping social movements, online and off. Their rhetorical strategies went beyond attacking the canonicity of The Bluest Eye to demean the expression of oppositional voices in literature and public schooling. There is no doubt that defending multicultural education and authors like Morrison is important for language arts teachers. When doing so, however, it is important to understand how such attacks on individual books fuel a larger program of resistance to public education. In addition, as many such challenges are bound up in challenges to the Common Core, educators will need to better understand the context within which anti-CCSS activism operates. No response to anti-CCSS activism should proceed without a careful examination of where the critique is coming from and its overall social and political context.

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Certainly hostility to public schools has been common throughout each incarnation of conservative activist challenges. Objections have usually targeted the content of curricula or the books on the library shelves. However, in a new era of critique and disdain for the public sector, we are likely to see more attacks on public schools and libraries made in the name of smaller government, lower taxes, and fiscal responsibility. We have to look at the bigger picture of educational inequality and be able to discuss diversity and multiculturalism in that context. In conclusion, teachers and librarians must consider challenges to intellectual freedom, access, diversity, and privacy beyond the landscape of the political quarrel over Common Core. Anti–Common Core activism may trigger more book challenges and censorship, but it is also part of a larger struggle over public education. Responding to censorship attempts remains key, as materials and curriculum challenges are part of a longtime arsenal of conservative activism that seeks to achieve cultural and political influence in schools and libraries. With the rise of Tea Party activism, however, conservatives have prioritized economic issues in order to challenge federal influence on public education and demand local control over educational policy and curricula. Materials challenges are one component of their activism, but their ambitions go far beyond the question of whether or not The Bluest Eye should be taught in classrooms. While defending intellectual freedom in libraries and schools, educators must also reconsider their roles in light of current threats to public education. With further analysis of the larger political picture, schools will be better equipped to protect intellectual freedom in their classrooms. NOTES 1. Begley (1990). 2. Common Core State Standards Initiative (2016). 3. Ibid. 4. The states that initially refused to adopt the CCSS were Alaska, Kansas, Minnesota (adopted the English Language Arts Standards, but not the Math ones), Texas, and Virginia. 5. Bidwell (2014). 6. Hess (2014). 7. Strauss (2014). 8. National Council of Teachers of English ([2012]). 9. “Pubs Launch Common Core Programs (2013). 10. Murphy (2014). 11. Doyle (2014). 12. Jeffries (2013). 13. Johnson (2013) 14. Garner (2013). 15. France (2013). 16. Anderson (2013). 17. Burke (2013). 18. Moglen (1988, 59–64).

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82 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Gaffney (2012). France (2013). Garner (2013). France (2013). Burke (2013).

WORKS CITED Anderson, Mary Jo. 2013. “Common Core Sexualizes American Schoolchildren.” Crisis Magazine, December 17. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/ common-core-sexualizes-american-school-children. Bauerline, Mark. 2013. “Common Core vs. Great Literature.” New York Daily News, July 10. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.nynews.com/opinion/common-core-great-literaturearticle-1.1394249. Begley, Adam. 1990. “Black Studies’ New Star: Henry Louis Gates Jr.” New York Times Magazine, April 1. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/01/ magazine/black-studies-new-star-henry-louis-gates-jr.hml. Bidwell, Allie. 2014. “More States Seek to Repeal Common Core.” U.S. News and World Report, January 31. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/ 01/31/more-states-seek-to-repeal-common-core. Burke, Henry W. 2013. “5 Reasons to Drop Common Core.” Lone Star Tea Party (blog), October 16. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://lonestarteaparty.us/profiles/logs/5-reasons-todrop-common-core-by-henry-w-burke-10-16-13. “Common Core Backlash: Track State Efforts.” 2014. Education Week, March 31. http:// www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/2014-anti-cc-tracker.html. Common Core State Standards Initiative. 2016. Accessed March 17, 2016. http:// www.corestandards.org. Common Core State Standards Initiative. “Standards in Your State.” 2016. http:// www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/. Doyle, Robert P. 2014. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. Chicago: American Library Association. France, Macey. 2013. “(WARNING: Graphic) Common Core Approved Child Pornography.” Politichicks (blog), August 20. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://politichicks.com/2013/08/ warning-graphic-common-core-approved-child-pornography/. Gaffney, Loretta M. 2012. “Intellectual Freedom and the Politics of Reading; Libraries as Sites of Conservative Activism, 1990–2010.” PhD thesis, University of Illinois. García, Cristina. 1992. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Garner, Donna. 2013. “More Porno Recommended by Common Core: The Bluest Eye.” Education News, October 13. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.educationviews.org/pornorecommended-common-core-bluest-eye/. Hess, Frederick M. 2014. “Common Core: Teachers’ Unions Think Again.” National Review, February 1. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371589/ common-core-teachers-unions-think-again-frederick-m-hess. Jeffries, Fran. 2013. “Ala. Lawmaker Wants to Ban Toni Morrison Novel ‘The Bluest Eye’ from Schools.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 30. Accessed March 17, 2016. http:// www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/ala-lawmaker-wants-to-ban-toni-morrison-novelfrom/nZhCq/. Johnson, Alan. 2013. “State School Board President Wants Toni Morrison Off Reading List.” Columbus Dispatch, September 13. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.dispatch.com/ content/stories/local/2013/09/12/Debe-Terhar-questions-appropriateness-of-book.html. Moglen, Helene. 1988. “Allan Bloom and E.D. Hirsch: Educational Reform as Tragedy and Farce.” Profession 88: 59–64. Molnar, Michelle. 2014. “State Chambers of Commerce Defend Common Core.” Education Week, January 28. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/29/19chambers_ep.h33. html.

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Morrison, Toni. 1970. The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Murphy, Tim. 2014. “Why Jeb Bush’s Greatest Political Achievement Could Sink a White House Run.” Mother Jones, April 18. Accessed March 17, 2016. http:// www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/jeb-bush-biggest-nightmare-common-core. National Council of Teachers of English. [2012]. “Resolution of Teacher Expertise and the Common Core State Standards.” 2012 Annual Business Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/teacherexpertise. “Pubs Launch Common Core Programs, Industry K–12 Sales Rise.” 2013. Educational Marketer, October 7. http://www.educationalmarketer.net/content/pubs-launch-common-coreprograms-industry-k-12-sales-rise. Ravitch, Diane. 2014. “The Fatal Flaw of the Common Core.” Huffington Post, March 24. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/common-core_b_5016877.html. Strauss, Valerie. 2014. “Chicago Teachers’ Union Passes Resolution Opposing Common Core.” Washington Post, May 9. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.washingtonpost. com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/05/09/chicago-teachers-union-passes-resolutionopposing-common-core/.

Chapter Eight

The Fine Art of Defusing an N-Bomb The Challenges of Navigating Racially Charged Language in the (Majority White) African American Literature Classroom Matt Mitchell

For students in the early twenty-first century, racially charged language is a much more active and live taboo than profanity or obscene language. At the same time, both profanity and racial slurs are more pervasive than ever in the forms of popular culture many high school students consume, which may make for a confusing landscape for a young person in the process of forming and refining his or her individual linguistic practices. While few high school students will be scandalized by encountering “adult language” (or “adult content”) in a literary text assigned for classroom study (in fact, for many of them, it will render the text appealingly “real”), many will—for good reason—be uncomfortable with the appearance of racial slurs in those same texts. The N-bomb carries a much more inflammatory and potentially disruptive charge these days than the F-bomb. Our students live in a world where celebrities caught uttering a racial slur become embroiled in controversy and notoriety, but many of those same students consume rap music, where they hear the N-word being deployed in a dizzying array of contexts, from the fraternal to the derogatory. Rap has always been a participatory art form, as audiences are explicitly invited to take part in call-and-response dynamics, and listeners have always been strongly inclined to rap along with recordings. Nonblack students who listen to rap might be tempted to use the word as their favorite rappers do, as a term of inclusion and affirmation. But at the same time, kids receive strong messages about the N-word’s uniquely taboo status in contemporary culture. It is 85

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difficult to imagine a public figure coming under comparable fire for swearing (Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden have both dropped Fbombs, in public, with little or no fallout). While we may wish that kids these days didn’t cuss so durn much, our culture as a whole has become more tolerant of vulgarity and less tolerant of racially abusive language. These shifts are evident in the classroom and relevant to the choices we make as teachers in our approach to potentially discomfiting material on our reading lists. THE N-WORD IS PART OF THE CONVERSATION I teach a semester-long course in African American literature to academically gifted juniors and seniors at a majority-white public laboratory high school in central Illinois, and teaching this course every other fall since 2008 has brought these cultural-linguistic developments to my attention with increasing frequency. My syllabus includes a range of objectionable material. When Banned Books Week rolls around, I point with pride to the fact that our course is fully stocked with titles that routinely appear on such lists (Native Son, Invisible Man, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Beloved, and one that would surely be included if only it were taught in high schools more often: Paul Beatty’s 1996 coming-of-age novel The White Boy Shuffle). Canonical African American literature is full of “adult material.” My students are shocked by the graphic violence in Native Son, or Trueblood’s uncomfortably comical narrative of incestuous rape in Invisible Man, but they don’t object to the presence of such material as part of the course. They are generally more mature about such taboo subjects in fiction than we might assume; they grasp that such extreme content reflects the social and cultural conditions the authors are reflecting and responding to in their work. We talk about some harsh material in African American Literature. And from the start of the semester, when we begin exploring the summer reading, Native Son, we talk about the extremity of these representations as reflective of the author’s choices and part of his or her aesthetic design. Students are quick to defend an author’s freedom to represent unpleasant social realities with explicit candor; when I ask about the graphic violence in Native Son, for example, students typically defend the novel as a reflection of Wright’s contemporary social reality. No one argues that an African American author should avoid unpleasant or vulgar language when representing racist violence. Rough realities call for rough representation. Strong language comes with the territory. In class discussion, however, many students hesitate to read racially charged terms aloud, and those who do so might cause deep and counterproductive unease among their classmates. The mere utterance of the N-word

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aloud in a classroom context—by the teacher or by students—carries a range of significant risks: minority students may feel alienated or unfairly conspicuous, or they might resent what they see as a white student’s (or white teacher’s) inappropriate claim to such taboo language in a “safe” classroom context. And yet for the conscientious instructor of African American literature, such language is unavoidable and necessary to the genre, culture, and history being taught. I would be remiss if I were to scrub the N-word from all of these texts or conceal it under dashes and asterisks—doing so would undermine the works being studied. The word is a fundamental part of the larger discursive context in which these works exist and an important part of the social world they critically depict. How might a teacher navigate this volatile landscape—to balance doing justice to the authors being studied, to let them speak in their own voices, while also attending seriously to the social and emotional needs of minority students in a majority-white classroom who would prefer not to have to hear such language spoken by their classmates and teacher? The nonblack students in my African American Literature courses do not want to be perceived as racist. The course appeals to many of them as an opportunity to expose themselves to aspects of American culture and history that they don’t have much firsthand experience with. Parents of nonblack students have told me in so many words that they are glad their child is taking my course because it will be “good for them.” My students as a whole are genuinely interested in talking about racial identity and racism, and there’s a self-critical aspect to our discussions: they are increasingly conversant in the discourse of white privilege, and they seem to especially enjoy critically scrutinizing smug white-liberal-philanthropist characters like the Daltons in Native Son or Mr. Norton in Invisible Man. They are not uniformly liberal, but even culturally conservative white students voice contempt for overt racism. So I don’t worry about students dropping N-bombs in a derogatory or racist manner. They don’t use the word in my classroom. And yet I have been made aware, by parents of African American students and by students themselves, that the kids sometimes bring to class an uncomfortable interpersonal history. Racism at our small school tends more toward the unintentionally boneheaded or insensitive than the deliberately malicious. Among the younger grade levels especially, white students sometimes prematurely assume a “postracial” context within the walls of our culturally liberal school. Too complacent in their own cultural liberalism, such students might take liberties with racial humor or assume unwarranted familiarities with classmates of color in a joking-around context. I have heard anecdotally about hair being touched without permission. The general popularity of rap music and hip-hop culture creates a host of highly charged gray areas, in which white students may offend or alienate black classmates merely by reciting their favorite lyrics. If my course serves in part to make such

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well-meaning nonblack students a little more self-aware, more conversant in the highly charged historical baggage that attends such interactions, then I’ll accept that as one measure of its success. One manifestation of this casual insensitivity might be an inappropriate degree of comfort deploying the N-word in the classroom when referring to the literature during discussion, taking the “pass” offered by Hurston’s or Ellison’s text to revel in a temporary local context in which such language is permitted. The ratios vary, and African American Literature typically attracts a higher percentage of students of color than other junior-senior specialtopics courses, but I’ll usually have three or four black students in a group of twenty to twenty-three white, Asian, and Middle Eastern students. My course is discussion oriented, and I want all members of the class to feel comfortable participating in the conversation. I want to develop a context in which we can explore issues of racial identity and social justice in response to the literature with candor and honesty; I don’t want the black students to feel a special burden when they participate, as if their statements represent anything more than their own personal views, and I don’t want them to feel in any way discouraged from full participation. It’s easy for me to grasp how such a student’s ears might burn to hear the instructor speaking the word “nigger” in the classroom, even if he is reading aloud the words of Ellison’s narrator’s grandfather’s appearance in a dream. It would be easier for everyone if these books simply didn’t contain such highly charged language. Or if American history didn’t contain so many appalling instances of racial inequality and racist violence. But necessary conversations are often uncomfortable conversations, and I would be failing to adequately teach these works if I failed to address these issues. So the N-word is a part of the conversation in my class from the start. My first-day handout contains a “note on language”—which I’ve revised slightly with each manifestation of the course, and which I’m still not totally happy with—intended to address the issue of racially charged language in the literature and in our class discussions. Here is the most recent version, appearing just below a general overview of the syllabus and just before my sternly worded policy regarding deadlines, from the fall semester of 2014: As many of these works confront the harsh realities of racial violence and bigotry, they necessarily contain what the MPAA refers to as “strong language” (in addition to sometimes shocking or grisly subject matter—Native Son might serve as a suitable introductory example). One notorious racial epithet stands alone as the strongest example of offensive language in our culture, and justifiably so: among other things, the works on our syllabus remind us of the violent and abusive pedigree of the “N-word” and illustrate just why it makes so many people (black and white) so uneasy just to hear or speak it. (Nas agreed to retitle his 2008 album Untitled after his deliberately provocative working title—Nigger—met with protest; see also the recent

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books The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why, by Jabari Asim, and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, by Randall Kennedy.) While there is a profound difference between using a word—that is, meaning it—in the flow of speech and quoting it when reading aloud a passage from a poem or novel, some students are understandably bothered when these toxic syllables are spoken in the classroom in any context. We should avoid speaking the word whenever possible, and we should be mindful of when and how we do say it when reading aloud or quoting from the literature. I encourage you to reflect upon your own relationship with this word—and the ways that America’s violently racist past is so deeply ingrained in our language— and we will be discussing these issues further in class throughout the semester.

I make a point of reading most of this paragraph aloud on the first day, both as an advisory to students about the content of our readings and to initiate a semester-long conversation about language. If I remain not entirely pleased with my “note on language,” it’s because it is rather slippery as “policy” (“We should avoid speaking the word whenever possible, and we should be mindful of when and how we do say it . . .”). I wonder if I should be more decisive, instead of basically leaving it up to the students. I balk at setting out and enforcing a strict “speech code” in the classroom, and I’ve chosen not to outlaw the enunciation of the word entirely. There is indeed a crucial distinction between quoting a word and actually using or meaning it in context, and this distinction often gets lost in popular scandals surrounding the N-word. But I want students to understand from the start that the N-word is not in the same category as other examples of taboo language in the classroom. They are allowed to “curse” in class if they are citing something a character says in a fictional context, but it goes without saying that it would be inappropriate to use such words in reference to one another or to the instructor. No student would be permitted to use the N-word in class, to refer to a fictional character or a classmate, but quotation is less clear-cut. I want them to be aware that their classmates—white or black— might be uncomfortable simply hearing the syllables come from their mouths, even in quotation. But I want those classmates also to know that a student quoting a word to make a point about a literary text is not the same as that student using the word in an active context. I want them to think twice about quoting the word gratuitously, whether reading aloud in class or rapping along to the music in the student lounge—to understand the historical legacy that loads the word with so many fraught and painful associations. We observe how black fictional characters often have to regulate and modulate their own linguistic practices as they move among social contexts, and I want my white students to take responsibility for their own use of language in- and outside the classroom. This verbal self-awareness is a significant part of what I hope they take away from the course.

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Popular culture and current events often provide opportune illustrations to spur this early-semester conversation. In late August 2010, for example, just as the new school year was getting under way, the conservative radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger found herself at the center of a media firestorm after wondering aloud on the air why black people “get to” say the N-word, while she “can’t.” In an effort to make an ill-informed point about how the word should mean the same thing no matter who is saying it, she proceeded to say it over and over—not “meaning” it in the context of a sentence, but just flaunting her “right” to speak the syllables repeatedly (partly, it appears, as a parodic illustration of what black stand-up comedians sound like to her?). The NPR blogger and commentator John Ridley remarked, in his sharp analysis of the fiasco on Morning Edition, that while indeed she was not actually using the N-word in this example, Dr. Laura seemed to “luxuriate” in its repetition. She seemed to be having a little too much fun “quoting” it loudly and defiantly. I played for the class NPR’s interview with Ridley in which he discussed the controversy—which contains an excerpt from the offending Dr. Laura program—and used it as a point of departure for a general discussion of the N-word and the highly charged atmosphere that attends it. I’ve also used a humorous sketch from David Alan Grier’s (unfortunately) short-lived Afrocentric satirical program Chocolate News, “The N-Word Peace Treaty,” in which a “historic agreement” is reached between white and black leaders that will permit white people to use the N-word, if in return black people can use “as many as six” of an agreed-upon list of antiwhite racial slurs. (“Due to its potency, the N-word is the Kobe Bryant of racial epithets. . . . You do not trade Kobe for just one player.”) The list of increasingly baroque and outlandish antiwhite slurs that will now be permitted (“Twinkie holes,” “pus-filled pillowcases”) is recited by both the African American representative of “the N-word Task Force” and the white “president of Caucasians for the Fair Usage of the N-word Commission.” The document is signed in ceremonial fashion, the delegates shake hands, and the black man proceeds to recite a list of approved antiwhite epithets to the face of the white delegate. The now sheepish-looking white man (the actor himself is visibly uncomfortable) takes a deep breath, looks at the black representative, and simply says, “Thank you, nigger.” The air is sucked out of the room. The audience hoots. After a quick beat, the black entourage exchanges significant glances (while the white entourage nods approvingly). The black delegate says, “What did you call me?” and as the white delegate starts to repeat himself, he is punched in the mouth. The sketch closes with a brawl. The point, of course, is that there is no “equivalent” antiwhite slur; “honky” just doesn’t carry the same dehumanizing historical baggage, as the classic Saturday Night Live sketch with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor illustrates. This word exists in a category of its own. The students get it, and laugh, and it leads to a productive discussion. 1

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In the fall of 2014 I assigned some excerpts from Jabari Asim’s illuminating 2007 cultural study (referenced in my “note on language”), The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why. Given world enough and time, I would love to assign this whole book—maybe as summer reading, if I could only let go of Native Son—but my syllabus already attempts to cram too much into a limited space. My course packet contains Asim’s introduction and two chapters: “To Slur with Love,” and “Nigger vs. Nigga.” Asim’s study is packed with references to popular culture and history, many of which will be familiar to students (the films of Quentin Tarantino, the comedy of Chris Rock, the lyrics of Tupac Shakur), and he takes a nuanced, context-based approach to the question of who “can” and who “shouldn’t” say the N-word. Alongside the reading, spurred by Asim’s observations, I ask the class to contemplate their own personal relationship with the Nword—as members of American society, as speakers of English, and as consumers of popular culture—in their notebooks, and we use these entries as the starting point for a wider discussion. This discussion takes place early in the course and allows students to air their own observations and feelings, and to start thinking about the complexities of being, for example, a white fan of black vernacular art that sometimes deploys noninclusive language. It affords me the opportunity, following points made in Asim’s text, to flesh out the uniquely loaded historical context that this word carries, to give students a sense of why it’s such a big deal and why the word has vastly different connotations depending on who is using it and in what context—a subject we return to throughout the semester. Some of them have blogged about the topic, building on what we discussed in class. I intend this discussion as a kind of extension of the note on the firstday handout—not an effort to come to some definitive policy that will govern students’ use of language, but to get each student thinking critically about and taking responsibility for his or her own language use. NAVIGATING TEXTUAL LAND MINES IN CLASS DISCUSSION It’s good to establish this context early in the semester, to get the controversy out in the open and to make clear that it’s a topic we can and should be talking about as we work our way through the syllabus, as the N-word appears in every novel we study. I model an acknowledgment of the word’s exceptional toxicity in my own practices, as the person in the room who most often reads aloud from the text. In most cases, I choose not to speak the word when reading aloud or referring to a passage; the class can see my discomfort as a I mumble past it, maybe substituting an Nnnnn sound instead of saying it, or saying “en,” or “N-word.” Since everyone in the room knows what I’m saying (they have the text in front of them and are reading along), there’s no

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pedagogical need for me to actually speak the syllables in most cases. My avoidance itself demonstrates that I take it seriously—that, contra Dr. Laura or Quentin Tarantino, I choose not to “luxuriate” in the word. Frankly, in light of the inherent power dynamics of the classroom and the subtly fraught racial climate at our school, I’m simply uncomfortable with the thought of my African American students hearing the word spoken in my voice, even if they know I’m only reading an author’s representation of a character’s speech. In most cases, it’s possible to skip around and selectively read a passage to avoid the word. Our early conversations give students a context for all of this—they can tell that the word is to be treated gingerly in the classroom. But we still focus on passages that hinge on the N-word itself; we don’t avoid the subject altogether. At the close of the first chapter of Invisible Man, the narrator has just been awarded a scholarship to the “College for Negroes” by a drunk, rowdy, and vocally racist contingent of the influential white men in his small southern town, after participating in a brutal and degrading battle royal and delivering his graduation speech with a mouth filled with blood. That night, he dreams of his recently deceased grandfather, who was raised in slavery. The grandfather—who, on his deathbed, has cautioned the narrator to “undermine” white people with “yeses”—in the dream hands him a sealed envelope, which contains another sealed envelope, and so on, until he finally reaches a note: “To Whom It May Concern . . . Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (Ellison [1952] 1995, 33). This is a crucial moment early in the novel, as it initiates the recurrent trope of “running” and serves to ironically undermine the narrator’s feeling of triumph, casting his prized scholarship as simply a ruse to “keep him running.” By using this highly charged racist language, Ellison exposes the racial animosity that underlies the white eminences’ apparent generosity and professed interest in the narrator’s “people.” The N-word is crucial to the force of this dream-note (as is the word “boy,” which we also talk about), but it isn’t pedagogically essential for me to read the entire note aloud in class. I can draw their attention to the passage, which they’ve already read on their own, and remind them of the immediate context in which it appears. We can discuss the fact that the grandfather (in the dream) uses this strong word, and what that implies about the limitations of the narrator’s own perception (as he naively believes he’s just been honored by these important and powerful men), without actually saying it aloud. We refer back to this prophetic dream-warning throughout our month-long discussion of the novel, but it’s easy to do so without needlessly repeating the word (the phrase “keeping him running” comes up a lot, as shorthand for the narrator’s increasingly absurd adventures in white America) or by some slight obfuscation, like “keep this N-boy running.”

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I don’t make a point of calling attention to every deployment of the Nword in every book we read, of course, but we do return to the subject throughout the semester, to observe the wide variety of meanings it assumes in various social and historical contexts. For some white students, as for Dr. Laura, the contemporary ubiquity of the word as a term of endearment or fraternity in rap music and hip-hop culture can be confusing; it’s apparent that the word doesn’t only carry racist and dehumanizing implications, as it’s often being recited in a celebratory tone in the music they listen to. Paul Beatty’s 1996 novel The White Boy Shuffle is a fun book to talk about in class. My students generally respond with enthusiasm to its irreverent, often profane narrative voice, which sounds more contemporary to their ears than Ellison’s or Hurston’s. Gunnar Kaufman, Beatty’s young poet narrator, peppers his otherwise erudite narrative prose with words like “motherfucker,” “bullshit,” and “nigger” in a way that is familiar and endearing (and often hilarious) to students who are conversant in hip-hop discourse. Gunnar is smart and literate but also conversant in street slang, and his engaging narrative voice has a lot to do with why the book is so well-received among young people. But it also reflects the post-civil-rights/hip-hop-generation cultural context that they inhabit, so the book feels more relevant to them than some of the older works on the syllabus. The White Boy Shuffle is all about racial identity, as Gunnar is born in Santa Monica, California, in a predominantly white beach community, and he spends his early years taking part in “white boy” culture like skateboarding, surfing, listening to hardcore punk, and getting into mischief at the beach. Inspired by his sister’s remark that the black kids she meets at summer camp “aren’t like us,” his mother worries that her children are missing out on the “traditional black experience” (Beatty 1996, 46), so she packs up and moves the family to “the hood”—the fictional black neighborhood of Hillside, in another part of Los Angeles. Gunnar tries in vain to assimilate with the local culture, but his loudly colored, surf-style fashion and his “proper” talk alienate him (and lead to a sequence of beatings). In school, he hangs out with “the nerdier students” who gather at the public library and church basements “to talk our dorkian language uncensored by bullies” on an early version of e-mail (64–65), back when computers were the ultimate signifier of dorkiness (a history lesson in itself for our students!). Gunnar isn’t fully satisfied among the nerds: “I was cooler than this, I had to be—I just didn’t know how to show my latent hipness to the world” (65). Salvation comes in the form of Nicholas Scoby, a gifted student who rocks his own style, a combination of erudition and hipness. Gunnar and Scoby meet when they are paired for a Shakespearean monologue competition, and at first Gunnar is intimidated: “My dramatic confrere was Nicholas Scoby, a thuggish boy who sat in the back of the class, ears sealed in a pair of top-ofthe-line Sennheiser headphones and each of his twiggish limbs parked in a

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chair of its own. Rocking back and forth in his seat and seemingly oblivious to Ms. Cantrell and life’s lesson plan, Nicholas Scoby seemed like an artistic hoodlum” (66). Scoby is undeniably “black” in terms of his cultural identity (he’s listening to jazz, not rap, working his way alphabetically through the canon; he speaks in a “beatnik word-salad jibberish” that is rooted in black English), and when he and Gunnar become close friends, he serves as a kind of emissary to black culture and black identity for Gunnar. The passage I specifically ask my class to write about in their notebooks comes at the end of Scoby and Gunnar’s initial interaction, when they make plans to work on their Shakespearean monologues. Gunnar asks if Scoby wants to work on the monologue together, and Scoby answers, casually, “Yeah, nigger. Let’s get together later this week” (67). Gunnar’s reaction is humorously euphoric, and it’s this immediate reaction that I ask the class to contemplate in their notebooks: He called me “nigger.” My euphoria was as palpable as the loud clap of our hands colliding in my first soul shake. My transitional slide into step two was a little stiff, but I made up for it with a loud finger snap as our hands parted. Scoby gently placed his headphones over his ears and I skated away cool, dipped my right shoulder toward the ground, and with some dapper spinal curvature pimp-daddied back to my seat. (67)

I ask students to compare this moment of the N-word passing between two black characters to the moment in Invisible Man when the narrator is shocked as Bledsoe, the president of the college, upbraids him using the same word: “It was as though he’d struck me. I stared across the desk thinking, He called me that . . .” (139). What has changed since Ellison’s period to account for Gunnar’s quite different reaction here? Why is Beatty’s narrator so pleased to be referred to with a racial slur? Of course, most of my students recognize Scoby’s fraternal use of the word, synonymous with “brother” in this instance. They can see how it communicates, in two compact syllables, a long-sought-for sense of acceptance for Gunnar in his new environment. Indeed, Scoby ends up effecting a profound transition in Gunnar’s cultural identity, to the hyperbolic point that his “street poetry” (itself a blend of black colloquial English and classical allusions) ends up earning him wild (and unwelcome) popular acclaim in the black community, making him an ironic “messiah” figure, “fill[ing] the perennial void in African-American leadership” (1). I don’t need to read Scoby’s deployment of the N-word aloud to inspire this notebook prompt and the discussion that follows; we refer to “the N-word” throughout the discussion. But the word itself is an important part of that day’s lesson.

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SPEAKING FOR THE SLAVE CATCHER IN BELOVED There are a few select instances where I do choose to speak the word in the classroom when reading from the text, and my hope and expectation is that the fact that I choose not to do so in most cases will make these exceptions stand out. I want the word to retain its provocative power in these instances. One long passage in particular—probably the most difficult four pages of text I teach all semester, which makes me feel physically sick while reading aloud, and which I’d really rather avoid touching on altogether—I insist upon reading in its entirety, at the start of the class period. I refer to the core event around which Toni Morrison’s Beloved revolves: the “four horsemen” chapter, in which the slave catcher and schoolteacher arrive at 124 Bluestone and instigate Sethe’s fatal act of desperation, which the novel has been hinting at in increasingly graphic detail but hasn’t yet fully disclosed. This chapter falls near the center of the novel, and Morrison has been circling around this event since the start of the book. It is the second in a sequence of four chapters that narrate the horrific events in the woodshed: the first two represent the past (the event eighteen years ago that “haunts” the present story between Paul D and Sethe and Denver), and the next two depict the reverberations of that story in the present, as Stamp Paid first tells Paul D what Sethe has not been telling him, and then Paul D confronts Sethe and we finally get her version of events. Before we get into looking at Paul D’s reaction to this shocking revelation, we examine how Morrison finally shares this story with us. The students know that something is haunting Sethe. Something happened to her two-year-old daughter eighteen years ago, and it involves a throat being cut. But they’ve also grown to admire Sethe, especially in light of her dramatic escape and birth story, which has recently been fleshed out in the narrative. We observe how Morrison seems hesitant to share this story with us. The chapter immediately preceding the “four horsemen” chapter reflects Baby Suggs’s point of view in the days leading up to schoolteacher’s arrival, as she blames the local black community—which is active in the Underground Railroad and played a significant role in Sethe’s safe arrival in Cincinnati— for not warning the family of the arrival of suspicious gun-toting white strangers on horseback. The novel alternates black points of view throughout—reflecting Sethe, Denver, Paul D, and Baby Suggs in turn—but in an abrupt and jarring shift, this chapter reflects the point of view of the slave catcher, schoolteacher, his nephew, and the sheriff, the four apocalyptic white “horsemen” who have tracked Sethe to Baby Suggs’s house. I warn the class about the strong language in the passage before reading it aloud, and the mood in the room is somber. As a notebook prompt—in this case, given before I read the passage—I ask them to consider the effect of this change in perspective and

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voice. Morrison’s narrative not only recounts the horrific scene; it does so through free, indirect discourse, reflecting through her language how these white intruders interpret what they see. For a novel set during and immediately after slavery, the N-word is deployed sparingly in Beloved. The African American characters generally do not use it among themselves, and white people have thus far mostly been kept offstage. So when it appears, repeatedly, in the voice of these white slave catchers, the effect is powerful and deliberate: When the four horsemen came—schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff—the house on Bluestone Road was so quiet they thought they were too late. Three of them dismounted, one stayed in the saddle, his rifle ready, his eyes trained away from the house to the left and to the right, because likely as not the fugitive would make a dash for it. Although sometimes, you could never tell, you’d find them folded up tight somewhere: beneath floorboards, in a pantry—once in a chimney. Even then care was taken, because the quietest ones, the ones you pulled from the press, a hayloft, or that once, from a chimney, would go along nicely for two or three seconds. Caught redhanded, so to speak, they would seem to recognize the futility of outsmarting a whiteman and outrunning a rifle: Smile even, like a child caught dead with his hand in the jelly jar, and when you reached the rope to tie him, well, even then you couldn’t tell. The very nigger with his head hanging and a little jelly-jar smile on his face could all of a sudden roar, like a bull or some such, and commence to do disbelievable things. Grab the rifle at its mouth; throw himself at the one holding it—anything. So you had to keep back a pace, leave the tying to another. Otherwise you ended up killing what you were paid to bring back alive. Unlike a snake or bear, a dead nigger could not be skinned for profit and was not worth his dead weight in coin. (Morrison [1987] 2004, 174–75)

Even before actually narrating the bloody scene, Morrison aligns us uncomfortably with the perspective of the slave catcher, who uses the second person to effect a kind of commiseration, a “you know how it is when you’re hunting escaped slaves” assumption that is jarring after we’ve been exclusively aligned with Sethe and her family. We’ve talked about the Fugitive Slave Law already by this point, and students observe how the deployment of the N-word in this passage, in the mouth of a slave catcher giving advice on handling a “fugitive,” is entirely consistent with the logic of the law of the land: the law asserts that a black person has no rights that a white person is legally bound to respect, and this white man’s language reflects that fact, deploying the word here in a way that explicitly links the captured “fugitive” to other kinds of troublesome game one might hunt. This man is not an aberrant racist outlier but a participant in the economy with full legal sanction for his activities. Therein lies the horror.

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The passage continues in the slave catcher’s perspective, and it takes us a moment to recognize familiar characters—well-rounded, fully human characters—in his brutal description: A crazy old nigger was standing in the woodpile with an ax. You could tell he was crazy right off because he was grunting—making low, cat noises like. About twelve yards beyond that nigger was another one—a woman with a flower in her hat. Crazy too, probably, because she too was standing stockstill—but fanning her hands as though pushing cobwebs out of her way. Both, however, were staring at the same place—a shed. Nephew walked over to the old nigger boy and took the ax from him. (175)

I read this passage aloud with a deep feeling of unease, and everyone in the room is uncomfortable—as we should be, given the scene of violence that is being described here, but also because of the powerfully taboo language in which Morrison writes the scene. It’s instructively disorienting for students to see individual characters they’ve grown to admire—Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid—reduced to “crazy niggers” by the slave catcher’s narration, and to hear the noble Stamp Paid called “boy” as he is disarmed by schoolteacher’s nephew. Our discomfort is fundamental to the challenge this novel poses: Morrison compels us to look long and hard at slavery and what it meant for individual lives, both on the plantation and across the river in “freedom.” Baby Suggs renames herself when she gets to Cincinnati, but she’ll remain just a “nigger” to the slave catcher. And the law of the land backs him up on this. The fundamental lessons of the novel are all contained in this supremely uncomfortable turn in the narrative voice, and our difficult conversation about this chapter is one of the most important we’ll have all semester. I continue reading the passage—including the shockingly detached description of the bloody scene itself, and the slave catcher’s disappointed conclusion “that there was nothing there to claim” (175), that the “property” he’s after is “damaged” beyond repair. He smugly draws a “lesson” from the whole affair: “[N]ow she’d gone wild, due to the mishandling of the nephew who’d overbeat her and made her cut and run. Schoolteacher had chastised that nephew, telling him to think—just think—what would his own horse do if you beat it beyond the point of education” (176). By aligning us with those who would draw such a conclusion from Sethe’s “rough choice,” Morrison provokes a productive and wide-ranging conversation in my class. We discuss the effect of this shift in point of view, what it’s like to try to “see” Sethe and Baby Suggs through the repugnant filter of the slave catcher’s language. We talk about his use of the N-word, and how in this passage Morrison is representing its historical origins. No one in class is titillated by hearing me read it aloud. In fact, I expect and hope that most of them are uncomfortable hearing it. But context is crucial: in the classroom, I preface this reading with

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a warning, reiterate that I’m speaking (through Morrison’s free indirect style) in the voice of the slave catcher, and my language will reflect his point of view. The mere fact that I make a point of reading this passage without ducking the taboo language—when in most other instances all semester I’ve made a point of skirting it—helps set it out as exceptional. If Beloved is worth teaching—as a book that compels readers to face the historical consequences of slavery head-on—then it is vital to address its most difficult content. While the taboo surrounding the N-word is strong, the taboo surrounding infanticide is considerably stronger, and it would be foolish to attempt to teach Beloved without acknowledging the deeply disturbing facts at the core of the narrative. Likewise, we would come away with an incomplete and sanitized picture of the Fugitive Slave Law and its implications if we failed to directly engage this most unsettling shift in narrative perspective. It’s a difficult day of class, but a necessary and worthwhile one. I do sometimes wonder whether we invest the word with too much metaphysical power, by taking such pains to avoid speaking it, even in quotation. Does this give it a kind of “magical” aura, reinforcing its power rather than defusing it? Wouldn’t we prefer to live in a culture where the word no longer had its racist baggage, was no longer a big deal? By trafficking in childishsounding obfuscations like “the N-word,” do we grant the word too much power by not speaking it? Given how physically uncomfortable it makes me even to say it aloud in the presence of my students, black or white, I sometimes suspect that total avoidance is taking the easy way out, ducking tough and necessary conversations, even teachable moments. Following my example, it has become increasingly rare for any student— black or nonblack—to read the word aloud in class. In their own writing, on blogs and in formal essays for me, some will choose to alter the text to avoid even typing and printing the word (“n****r”), a convention they may be familiar with from the printing of song titles and lyrics on rap albums. I leave these choices to them, and each student must negotiate how he or she will handle the word when it arises. But some part of me recoils at seeing an author’s words redacted like this. Ultimately it is the act of conscious choice that is more important, from a pedagogical standpoint, than the specific choice they make. I personally tend to agree with the comedian and social critic Louis C.K., who complains that phrases like “the N-word” can make grown men and women sound like kindergartners. If everyone knows what word you mean, saying “the N-word” still puts it in everyone’s head—it’s just that the speaker is allowed to wash his or her hands of the possible implications of having spoken it. That may be true—and in the classroom, it’s pretty much what I’m aiming to do, to put the word in students’ heads without making them hear it from my mouth, in my voice. But the classroom is a particular kind of space,

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and as teachers we need to be alert to how our linguistic practices might affect the students in the room. If I’m sometimes ambivalent about using phrases like “the N-word” or “N-bombs” to avoid voicing taboo language in the classroom, language that could have a detrimental effect on my ability to teach and engage respectfully with the students in the room, that’s a compromise I’m willing to make. STUDENTS SPEAKING IN POETS’ VOICES One aspect of my African American Literature course places the students’ own choices with regard to the N-word prominently on display: Friday poetry readings (see appendix). Once each quarter, every student in class is required to select a poem by an African American or Afro-Caribbean author to recite in front of the class, and then lead a ten- to fifteen-minute discussion. They are permitted to choose rap lyrics for one of their two poetry readings, and I encourage them to select something with enough substance to generate discussion. The poetry readings have become, to my surprise, the most popular aspect of the course. Students determine a significant portion of our syllabus; with three poems presented on a typical Friday, we end up reading and discussing forty to fifty student-selected poems over the course of a semester. The students are often strongly invested in their performances, sometimes rehearsing days in advance, and discussions are generally even more active and engaged than they are throughout the week, when I lead the class. But, of course, lots of African American poetry engages issues of racial inequality, history, and identity, and therefore the N-word makes a frequent appearance. While a student contributing to class discussion on Native Son can choose to talk around the word when referring to the text, the context of an oral performance of a poem presents a different kind of challenge. In keeping with my general approach to language in the classroom, I don’t give students explicit guidelines for how to handle the N-word in a poetry reading. I do offer some possible approaches, but I tell them that in the end it is their decision—whatever they’re most comfortable with, and whatever will do appropriate justice to the poem being presented. Often, the word can be selectively muted; some of them have chosen to say “N-word” in its place, or to simply “mute” it with an empty pause (since the rest of the class is reading along in the text during the recitation). Sometimes a synonym can be substituted; this is especially true of many—but not all—incidents of the fraternal use of the word in a rap context, when oldschool rap terms like “homie” (for the affirmative sense) or “sucker” (for the negative) can be deployed in its stead. Some students have chosen to substitute a more innocuous word in the context of a poem, with dubious results—

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in a poem that refers to “nigger-bone floating” in the Mississippi River (“Son of Msippi,” by Henry Dumas), “human-bone” doesn’t have the same potent implication, as the allusion to racist terrorism is lost. The important lesson, in my view, is not necessarily what they choose to do or how they choose to do it, but the fact that they are having to think critically about their own approach, about the role of the word in this poetic context, what it means, and whether in fact a “parallel” word or near-synonym can be found. I encourage students to meet with me and discuss their options if they’re unsure how to proceed. I won’t tell them what to do, but I will help them think about the larger context of the poem, of our classroom climate, of the discussions we’ve been having about the N-word and its legitimate aesthetic uses, to help them figure out an approach. There are poems whose meaning hinges on the N-word, and in such cases a substitution or muting would defuse the poem completely. Consider the canonical, widely taught short poem “Incident” by Countee Cullen, which has been presented more than once as a Friday poem: Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small. And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember.

The word, as it appears in this poem, is cushioned for the reciter by a series of removes: Cullen’s speaker quotes the stranger who insults him. The meaning of the poem hinges on the profound effect of hearing this one word (with the accompanying insult of the stuck-out tongue)—the entire visit, a half year in the city, and all the young speaker can recall is this eponymous incident. The poem is, among other things, a useful instrument for talking about the unique potency of the word. As uncomfortable as it might be for the student who chooses to recite this poem to speak this racist white Baltimorean’s insult aloud in class, this is a productive discomfort, fully in tune with Cullen’s intentions in the poem. Inevitably, the discussion will focus on the presence of the N-word (What else is there to talk about in this poem?), and thus contributes to an ongoing self-reflective and critical discourse in our class. (Among other things, the

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poem helps dispel the false impression that the word was once not as loaded as it is today.) I would never say that “Incident” should be excluded from a syllabus on African American literature because of “offensive language,” or that a student (white or black) who chooses to share the poem with the class should censor Cullen’s very pointed word choice. The white boy in Baltimore doesn’t censor his offensive language, and as a result, the poem can lead to a productive and insightful critical discussion. TED TEACHES YEEZY: ONE RECENT EXAMPLE I conclude with a brief account of how my lack of a rigid language policy played out in a recent class. An enthusiastic and conscientious white student (Ted) e-mailed me on Monday about his poetry reading that coming Friday. He was interested in presenting the first two verses of Kanye West’s song “All Falls Down” (from his debut album, College Dropout [2004]), but he had some questions about two N-bombs in the second verse: “[For] one of which I can probably substitute . . . ‘brother’ like David did in his reading of ‘Gorgeous’ [another Kanye lyric that had been presented earlier in the semester, which led to an outstanding discussion] but the other is meant in a specifically racial way, and I was wondering what you think I should do. I haven’t decided which verses to recite, but I’m looking at either the first two verses, or all three, and I’ll skip the chorus.” I didn’t reply by telling him “what I thought he should do,” exactly, but I did give him some advice. It’s rare that forces align so beautifully in teaching, but as it happened, when I received Ted’s e-mail I had just been browsing the students’ blogs, and I had been struck by a recent post by (the fortuitously named) Lyric, one of three African American students in the section. Her post was titled “A Plea to the Educated Person Reading This,” and it raised a number of related concerns about language and respectful terminology in our class. She prefaced her remarks by saying that they are “totally unrelated to the books we are reading in class,” but I disagree. We had just finished discussing The White Boy Shuffle, with its minefield of Nbombs on every page, including the extended discussion of the scene referenced earlier. In that discussion, we had tiptoed around the word throughout. Lyric begins her post by talking about the word “black,” observing that it “seems to be an awkward” word for many in class to say, so they resort to the more (in her view) cumbersome and awkward “African American.” (As the instructor, I used both terms interchangeably throughout the semester, much as I have been doing in this essay.) She writes, “When referring to myself I never use the term African American. I’m black. It’s just common cadence, so when people don’t refer to me in the same way it almost makes me uncomfortable.” Lyric then goes into a related discussion of the word “gang-

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ster,” and whether or not it has “race-specific” implications in contemporary usage (this would have been understood by all her readers as a response to a recent controversy in the school, after the girls’ volleyball team dressed as “gangsters” for a school spirit week activity, which some administrators, teachers, and other students saw as racist or insensitive). And then she gets to the N-word, specifically its deployment in our classroom. She begins by stating plainly, “In no way am I condoning the use of this word to describe someone outside of class.” But, she goes on, “In the context of this class I think that we should be able to use the word when quoting the text. It just seems even more uncomfortable and awkward when we skip over it or try to substitute a completely random other word. It makes me frustrated to hear people being so uncomfortable with a word in historical context.” Lest it appear that she’s giving her classmates some kind of “pass” to use the word with impunity, she rounds off the paragraph with a qualification: “Please don’t take this as an excuse to use it in random contexts either because that is wayyyyyy offensive.” Now, Lyric is basically restating my “note on language” on the first-day handout, but her post appeared in early November, more than two months into the semester, and she was commenting specifically on the conventions that had developed in that particular section so far. So when I got Ted’s e-mail the next day, I immediately thought of Lyric’s post. In my response, I directed him to her blog, as one perspective he might want to consider, before elaborating: “My opinion is that if you were to open with a comment explaining your approach, and making the case that the lyricist’s language is appropriate and essential to retain (in essence, you’re reading in Kanye’s voice), then I don’t expect anyone will be offended, or will presume that you’re trying to get away with something.” And then I added, perhaps nudging a little too pointedly, “It might even be a good topic to get into during discussion.” On the day of his poetry reading, Ted prefaced his recital of the first two verses of “All Falls Down” 2 by warning his audience that it contains two instances of the N-word. He noted that for the first, he would substitute “man,” as it doesn’t really affect the sense of the line (“Then I spent 400 bucks on this / Just to be like, ‘Man, you ain’t up on this’”), but that he’d chosen to retain it in the final couplet of the second verse, because it is essential to the meaning of the line and to the song’s themes as a whole. He also acknowledged Lyric’s blog post (and thereby pointed the rest of the class to check it out) as a helpful perspective as he was figuring out how to proceed. The discussion that followed touched on a number of issues that the song addresses, from the pressures of consumer culture as they affect the female college student in the first verse (“single black female, addicted to retail”) to the related pressures that Kanye himself acknowledges in the first-person

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second verse, in which he self-effacingly mocks his own brand-consciousness and self-consciousness by rhyming “Versace” with “crazy” and pointing out that he “can’t even pronounce nothing.” The first use of the N-word was aptly replaced with “man”—indeed a synonymous term in this context, in which the speaker compares his own purchases to those of a peer. But Ted’s discussion made a point of acknowledging his choice to retain the word in the final couplet; as I suggested, he specifically addressed his decision, arguing that Kanye uses the strong language selectively here to draw attention to the racial profiling that persists even after a black man (in this case) has achieved financial success. The song posits “flashing” (i.e., flaunting one’s material wealth) among rappers as in part a reaction against the degradations of racism, with an important historical context: “We shine because they hate us / Floss ’cause they degrade us / We tryin’ to buy back our forty acres.” While it “seems we living the American dream” with all the conspicuous markers of success so visible in rap videos and artwork, Kanye’s verse ends on a sobering note: “For that paper, see how low we’ll stoop / Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coupe.” Ted made a point of noting the complex deployment of the word in this context: it doesn’t reflect the actual status of the driver, or how Kanye views him. Analogous to the shift in perspective in the “four horsemen” chapter in Beloved, it reflects the fact that he may still be perceived through a racist lens by others, in particular law enforcement (who take special interest in black men driving expensive cars). The word is fully justified poetically. Indeed—as with the Cullen poem—no other word can do the job. And the F-bomb in the first verse received no comment. There are risks to letting the students determine a significant portion of our syllabus with these poetry readings, and rap lyrics especially can make for some taboo topics and words being aired in the classroom. But for white students who listen to rap, and who therefore are exposed to the N-word in all its many contemporary manifestations, the experience of thinking critically about how it functions poetically in a range of contexts (and the degree to which it is and isn’t cool for them to rap along with every word) is a useful and important part of the course. By allowing each section, and each individual student, to work out these conventions locally, I do give up some control in the classroom, and I do run the risk of some potentially awkward Friday poetry discussions. But I have found that my students take this topic seriously—they don’t want to make their classmates uncomfortable or show disrespect. By making the use and quotation of the N-word an explicit subject of discussion from the start of the course and throughout our semester’s conversations, a context has been established for when they stand in front of the room and read a poem. No one can get away with using language recklessly or without critical reflection. And the conversations that arise around the

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choices they make in this area can be worthwhile in themselves. The forces that determine the distribution of teachable moments don’t always provide me with such a neat cross-reference as the situation with Lyric’s blog post and Ted’s concerns about his poetry reading did, but that wonderful confluence illustrates neatly how this conversation can unfold among the students. NOTES 1. The sketch is no longer as easy to find as it was in 2010; it’s not on YouTube, and it’s no longer on Comedy Central’s Web page or Netflix. It is available on Amazon.com Instant Video for $1.99. There are no chapter titles, so cut to 15:13 for “The N-Word Peace Treaty.” 2. The complete lyrics (with wiki-style user-generated annotations) may be perused at Genius.com (formerly RapGenius; http://genius.com/10311) or any number of other online lyrics sites. Ted printed and recited only verses 1 and 2 for his reading, without the hook or the introductory ad-libs.

WORKS CITED Asim, Jabari. 2007. The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Beatty, Paul. 1996. The White Boy Shuffle. New York: Picador. Cullen, Countee. 2000. “Incident” [1925]. In Anthology of Modern American Poetry, edited by Cary Nelson, 530. New York: Oxford University Press. Ellison, Ralph. (1952) 1995. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International. “For John Ridley, N-Word Is a Line in the Sand.” 2010. Morning Edition, August 20. NPR. Accessed February 26, 2015. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId= 129317120. Morrison, Toni. (1987) 2004. Beloved. New York: Vintage International. “The N-Word Peace Treaty.” 2008. Chocolate News, October 15. Accessed February 26, 2015. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HVSCHE?ref=dv_web_yvl_hov_pr_1.

Chapter Nine

Too Close to Dead Addressing Racist Language Head-On in the African American ELA Classroom Jalissa Bates .

I don’t know, I just find when the news comes on I switch the channel. This new tendency might be indicative of a deepening personality flaw: IMH, The Inability to Maintain Hope, which translates into no innate trust in the supreme laws that govern us. Cornel West says this is what is wrong with black people today—too nihilistic. Too scarred by hope to hope, too experienced to experience, too close to dead is what I think. (Rankine 2004, 23)

NEED FOR THIS WORK/INTRODUCTION African American students and educators need to feel as if they are human, affirmed through the language and literature they daily consume. I owe it to myself and my African American students to expose them to a truth that embodies them. African American students and educators are too close to nihilism, “too close to dead.” Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (2004), a riveting, lyrical poetry text, focuses on the desensitizing of the American people due to everpresent exposure to hyperviolence and death. If our socializing institution of education does not bring African American educators and students to life by offering them the chance to openly address the physical and social violence they see directed at their communities, who or what will? If knowledge is power, but your culture’s knowledge is not readily visible in the schools that are supposed to be preparing you for life, who is to blame? These were questions I struggled with as I prepared my Upward Bound class. 105

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When race is such a divisive topic in our larger culture, identifying race aloud in a room full of students is transformative enough. Then the teacher must pose significant questions that frame how to push the boundaries. GUIDING QUESTIONS My approach to this course was guided by two prevailing questions: 1. How should I address racist language head-on in the classroom? 2. How do I demonstrate citizenship while admitting racism is still a very pervasive aspect of American culture that many students struggle with directly or indirectly each day of their lives? Addressing the existence of racist language and discussing its context and effects becomes imperative, while avoiding it altogether creates a negating silence. When a teacher makes a conscious decision to be “color-blind,” he or she is ignoring the very sense of cultures to which students belong and that they will represent for the rest of their lives. Not addressing racist language or race sends the message to students that their history and experiences do not matter. Speaking about race and racist language, on the other hand, opens the floor to an honest exchange of observations and questions students may not have been able to articulate and answer alone. Combating racist language allows students to view their teacher as a guardian of human empathy rather than a gatekeeper of knowledge who would sweep timely and sensitive issues, such as the N-word, under the proverbial rug. THE CONTEXT OF THE CLASSROOM I am an English instructor for Louisiana State University and Baton Rouge Community College’s summer Upward Bound program, and the majority of my students are African American. Upward Bound is a part of TRIO Services, a historic federal program for first-generation college students that is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This course, which I titled “Paths to Justice,” explored both the civil rights movement of the US South during the Jim Crow era and the nonviolent tactics employed by Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers beginning in the mid-1950s. The course focused on critical thinking and reading, the teaching of tolerance through March: Book One (Lewis, Aydin, and Powell 2013), and DVD kits from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program. We created dialogue and discussion while using the Socratic seminar method. Our rich history is addressed at every moment, and

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the students self-question aloud in order to process and understand historical and present-day reflections. The students I worked with in this program ranged from the ages of twelve to seventeen in grades 10 through 12. Of forty-five students, thirty-six were African American, four were Caucasian, two were Vietnamese and African American, two were of Hispanic descent, and one was Pakistani. The students all attended area high schools in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The students were selected based on financial need and academic merit. They had to be the first, or the child of a first-generation, college student in their family to qualify for the program. Several of the students maintained 3.0 and higher grade point averages and participated in school activities. These activities included but were not limited to band, cheerleading, soccer, ROTC, football, basketball, and track. I wanted more than just defining words about people, concepts, and laws. I wanted to awaken a sense of identity, of American pride, a progression from the 1950s to 2015. BLACK ENGLISH Language is power. Students must take responsibility in their writing to make their language telling and dynamic. Teaching students that their language is mighty and has the potential to affect and influence others is crucial to helping them succeed in a world that, for many of them, seems unwilling to acknowledge that they exist. Through listening for the nuances of language and speaking, reading, and writing in ways that reflect these nuances, students are transformed into active participants in change. The ability to reach and include black American students in education, especially in regard to language, has resulted in numerous texts and much discourse about the phenomenon. Geneva Smitherman’s Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture and Education in African America (2000) is an example of such a text. The facets of the African American race are identified and examined in this influential volume. Vanessa Bush praises Smitherman in her foreword for the issues reflected in the comprehensive text: She explores the influences of class and racial politics on school reforms aimed at promoting the use of Standard English and standardized tests to measure academic skills, and the associated cultural biases of such efforts. Smitherman’s writing style incorporates both Standard English and Ebonics to demonstrate the fluidity of language in general, and specifically the easy interchange between the two, an interchange routinely conducted by many African Americans. (Bush 2000, xi)

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Black English is a dynamic trait of the black community. Focusing on black students and their feelings about African American vernacular English, I was examining the host of language varieties experienced in classrooms, including the conundrum of the use of the N-word, which was examined at length during the course. BLACK ENGLISH—THE N-WORD Mica Pollock’s Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (2005, 16) addresses the powerful ramifications of the suppression of race words in secondary education. Pollock “demonstrates that anxiously suppressing race words (being what she terms ‘colormute’) can also cause educators to reproduce the very racial inequities they abhor.” The two texts by Smitherman and Pollock support my understanding of black speech in English language arts classrooms. Pollock also states: Americans are experts at thinking communally about race and achievement problems, but novices at thinking communally about race and achievement solutions—and as the battle between competing explanations of racial achievement patterns rumbles on, the connection between race and achievement remains both an omnipresent presupposition of American educational discourse and schooling talk’s most anxious void. (Pollock 2005, 170)

As an English teacher, I wondered how my own omission of black English added to students’ understanding of themselves. Black English is a dynamic trait of the black community. Focusing on black students and their feelings about African American vernacular English, I was examining the host of language varieties experienced in classrooms and the conundrum of the use of the N-word. Students felt as if the N-word ending in an “a” and the N-word ending in “er” had completely different denotations and connotations. The “a” ending was used as a salute or greeting on the positive pole and an expression of disbelief or anger on the negative pole. The “er” ending, as explained to me by my students, was a direct attack, an attempt to chop you down to three-fifths of a human being; they considered this to be one of what is colloquially called “fighting words.” The ending of the N-word was critical and danced on the fine line and binary of ally and enemy. I pointed out to students that many people did not care for the word at all, regardless of the “rules” of the ending letters. I also pointed out that the word was used “at will” by most parties depending on attitudes and notions of the history of the charged expletive. The N-word became an instant “buzz” word when uttered in the presence of more than one race. If we hadn’t been able to

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talk frankly about race and racist language, we never could have analyzed this together. The suppression of necessary discussions about race is a disillusioning slap in the face to African American students and educators alike, an example of the echoing silence of the “anxious void” that Pollock identifies. You simply feel as if you do not belong in the accepted society and school curriculum. If students only encounter an abridged version of their history, scattered texts featuring African American culture here and there, they will reflect that incompleteness. Enter the disenchantment. Enter the alienation. Enter the gulfs of silence that African American teachers and students dwell in as they become invisible. LISTENING AND READING As we read aloud the black-and-white pages of the text, students elected to use the N-word or not during their turns. The N-word appeared the most in March, when it featured in the events surrounding the proposed and initial sit-ins in North Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama, in 1963. Certain students chose to speak the word aloud to imitate the jeers of the white protestors at Woolworth’s and other lunch counters. Some, like one student, paused to say, “I’m not going to say that word. It’s disrespectful,” before continuing to read the text. The following three illustrations reproduce student examples from a memoir activity I assigned to allow them to express their perspectives on some of these complexities. The instructions were to fill in the thought bubbles of other characters around John Lewis in various scenes in the text to develop an understanding and grasp the movement of the plot. Even in their writing, some students chose to use the pronoun “they” when referring to a group of African Americans. These students refused, perhaps due to personal choice, to use the word at all. In a particularly stirring scene, Diane Nash, a young civil rights activist, and others leave a lunch counter after asking to speak to the manager about the store’s policy on serving “colored” people. The store manager is illustrated looking at the well-dressed college students as they leave, wondering what their intentions may have been. Other students, perhaps recognizing the potentially incendiary moment between the manager and the protesters, chose this moment to use the word “niggers” to refer to the group of African American protestors.

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Figure 9.1.

WRITING I asked students to identify parallels between the 1960s and present-day events using the “RACE” writing strategy, a simple approach that can be used for open-ended questions as far as maintaining structure and ideas. R stands for restating the question, A is for answering the question, C stands for

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Figure 9.2.

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Figure 9.3.

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citing evidence to support your answer, and E allows students to explain and/ or state conclusions about their point. As I received that day’s assignments, I noticed a trend in the items on the civil rights movement and present-day events. Students were quick to acknowledge the “hike” in black deaths in police custody or law enforcement. One particular female student echoed Rankine’s sentiment of “too experienced to experience” the tale of equality for all (see illustration below). Were we in fact still “niggers,” still nameless, still nothing? SPEAKING When addressing the civil rights movement, the reader will undoubtedly come into contact with derogatory language and racial epithets, specifically the N-word. March: Book One (Lewis, Aydin, and Powell 2013) took us that summer to a brand-new place in our minds, our journeys, and our Facebook status locations. The federally funded program within which we were learning at that moment was a direct result of the scenes that appeared in the selected text. This graphic novel’s images were seared into the students’ minds, along with the black-and-white documentaries Mighty Times: The Children’s March, Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot, and America’s Civil Rights Movement: A Time for Justice, and had a powerful effect on the students. “I hate white people,” Mark blurted out. Several heads turned in his direction. We were tightly packed in a classroom in an old university building at Louisiana State University. Mark, a rising senior, shook his blond head and stared at his desk briefly. Arms outstretched, I shook my head at the group. “This is not about hating white people. This is about learning about the history that came before us,” I said. We had just looked at a montage of civil rights movement protest demonstrations in the form of sit-ins and boycotts. Signs reading “No Niggers Allowed” flashed across the projector screen. Police dogs and fire hoses peppering an Alabama city street evoked the verbal declaration from the rising senior. It was not my intention to inspire self-loathing in any of my students. These very visceral images were instant challenges to racial identity, and confessions were emerging from my students’ throats. Examining these films exposed the very clear divisions and contradictions of racial equality for all. My students were upset. It was an imbalance. It was unfair. It was true, and how come they hadn’t known about this before?

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CONCLUSION: HOW SHOULD I ADDRESS RACIST LANGUAGE HEAD-ON IN THE CLASSROOM? As for teaching controversial content, from my personal experience, the most honest approach is to act as a model of human empathy. Remember the cultures to which you and your students belong. Offer the text or subject or content as a looking glass, an artifact of the times and events that took place. Use examples from present-day and historical informational texts to connect to the larger issue of remaining an informed citizen, tolerant of all American citizens. Regardless of the language and its racial ramifications, it is still only a small part of surviving with other humans in the world. Specific teaching strategies for addressing racist material in the classroom should steer the students in the direction of personal choice about whether or not they use the N-word in class while reading. Forestall alarm from administrators or parents by identifying the text you will be using and by emphasizing the effectiveness of drawing parallels from history to the present in order to learn from the mistakes of the past and grow into our future. Trust in your students to form honest opinions in front of you, to be fearless, moving into intelligent expression as you guide them into not just three-fifths of but fully formed, educated human beings. Bring them back to life, no longer “too close to dead.” WORKS CITED Bush, Vanessa. 2000. Foreword to Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture, and Education in African America, by Geneva Smitherman. New York: Routledge. Lewis, John, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. 2013. March: Book One. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions. Pollock, Mica. 2005. Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rankine, Claudia. 2004. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf. Smitherman, Geneva. 2000. Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture, and Education in African America. New York: Routledge.

Chapter Ten

Libraries Unfiltered Increase Access, Grow the Whole Child Frances Jacobson Harris and Amy L. Atkinson

Until relatively recently, intellectual freedom issues in school libraries have been associated with students’ access to books and print materials. School librarians have long cherished their role as defenders of children’s right to read and to “seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction” (American Library Association n.d.). Article V of the Library Bill of Rights specifically addresses youth: “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views” (American Library Association 1996). But now school librarians— their spaces, their services, and their people—are also wrestling with emerging modes of information transmission while working hard to meet the social-emotional needs of their students, who must assimilate a barrage of media in all forms. In this chapter we examine two less recognized school library roles: open and equitable access to Internet resources and the potential of library programming for twenty-first-century student sensibilities and needs. As the previous and current librarians at University Laboratory High School (Uni High), we address these topics separately, with Frances covering equitable access and Amy discussing library programming. FRANCES: OPEN AND EQUITABLE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET In today’s highly connected world, access to online information, communication technology, and social media is highly regulated in most schools. Restrictions date from early legislation that was passed when lawmakers could not have foreseen the Internet’s potential for revolutionizing learning, and 117

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when public concerns about online “stranger danger” were extremely high (boyd, 2007). Since 2000, schools that use federal e-rate funding to underwrite their Internet costs have had to comply with the terms of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA 2000). What are those terms? They are not as restrictive as one would think. E-rate recipients must have in place a policy of Internet safety that includes “a technology protection measure”—such as, filtering software—that protects against access to visual depictions of certain types of materials. Yet most American students find a multitude of prohibitions in place at their schools, far beyond what the law actually requires and certainly beyond what they encounter in their own homes, on their personal devices, at coffee shops, or at the public library (Batch 2014). Because of these restrictions, many schools are not in a position to teach their students how to interpret and evaluate the information they find online—which kids do find, regardless of efforts to the contrary. Instead, schools leave the task of determining credibility to the proprietary practices of filtering companies and miss important opportunities for teaching digital literacy, a critical life skill in today’s world (Hobbs 2010). Another critical unintended consequence of overblocking in schools is the creation of two classes of students: those who have unfiltered Internet access at home and those who only experience filtered access at school because they do not have access at home (Batch 2014). Responding to such deficits, the American Library Association recently added “Internet Filtering: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” (American Library Association 2015) to its arsenal of position statements on intellectual freedom. A Prefilter Internet Goes to School The story at Uni High has been rather different. We started out on the “bleeding edge” of the Internet revolution around 1994, riding a technology wave at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—the campus that gave birth to the fictional HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey. We were connecting students to the Internet when all we could offer was Gopher, Archie, and Usenet, names that signify nothing to today’s learners, and before there was such a thing as a World Wide Web with graphical browser access. Our initial access to the Internet also predated CIPA and the very public moral panic over controversial content and online predators. Software filters for protecting students from inappropriate content did not yet exist. We were perhaps naïve in our early efforts, but we were certain the Internet wasn’t some flyby-night educational fad. Here’s what we found out almost immediately. Student interaction with online content was rarely problematic. Yes, once Web browsers came on the scene, edgy content surfaced. The unsophisticated browsers of that era delivered rather unfortunate results when a class studying early human history

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came to the library to do research on homo erectus. But “edgy” could also produce powerful outcomes. When an African American student who was doing research on the civil rights–era Ku Klux Klan happened upon the nascent Web site of a contemporary and very-much-not-textbook Klan chapter, history came alive for her. Based on experiences like this student’s, we never gave serious thought to the idea of limiting access to online content. While access to new content was proving to be a good educational experience, our students’ use (or misuse) of the Internet’s communication technology features drove us to distraction. Disciplinary issues regularly arose as a result of the way students mistreated one another online via chat, e-mail, and various other methods of online messaging. We were disappointed and frustrated as we witnessed the nasty retorts between students, the gossip, the anonymous slander, and the flame wars. Choosing Teaching over Filtering As a school, we quickly pledged to focus our efforts on ways of teaching ethical behavior in online communications and on critical assessment of online content. For the latter effort (and the subject of this chapter), I resolved to provide students with guidance and the tools that could help them understand the material they encountered online and make intelligent choices. For many years, our vehicle for this instruction was a required teamtaught computer literacy course sequence at the eighth- and ninth-grade levels. Now that we are well into the twenty-first century, we still use this course, but find that it’s even more powerful to embed such lessons in other areas of the curriculum, from language arts to science, technology, engineering, and math—an option that is available to other schools as well. From those early days, we also had a secret weapon that set us apart from other public schools. Because the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was our Internet service provider, we never needed to apply for e-rate funding, nor have we been subject to the requirement to install filtering software. The absence of such filters made it much easier for me to design meaningful instruction. I did not have to rely on manufactured spoof sites like the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus) or the church of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http:// www.venganza.org). Instead, I was free to use real Web sites, from the horrid to the merely vapid, to challenge our students’ initial impressions and prompt them to look beyond surface appearances for the cues that reveal authorship, intent, and context. In one of my lessons, eighth-grade students were assigned to examine a series of Web sites that presented particular interpretive challenges. One of the sites I used featured a PubMed abstract of a scientific journal article describing the anti-inflammatory effects of chocolate. The page was on the

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Web site of a trade association that promoted the interests of the candy industry. While no misleading information was presented, the association was cherry-picking research that reflected scholarship favorable to its membership and did not share research that portrayed less positive outcomes. I also asked students to examine the Web site of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a Holocaust denial organization. The centerpiece of the IHR home page appears to be a news feed of articles from the mainstream press (including the Israeli media) that appear to support the IHR’s viewpoints. Terms like “Institute” and “Journal,” a smattering of bibliographies appended to articles, and the presence of other scholarly markers add to the site’s surface appearance of respectability and credibility. For this exercise, our students worked in pairs or alone, answering a series of prompts developed for each of the sites that I asked them to examine. Then each site was discussed by the class as a whole, which allowed diverse viewpoints to emerge, students to learn from one another, and misconceptions to be addressed. Finally, students were assigned to take a parent or guardian on a “tour” of the Web sites, an activity that required them to explain their analyses to someone who had no previous knowledge of the sites. By articulating their thinking to an uninitiated outsider, they deepened and internalized their own evaluation strategies. Looking Back, Looking Ahead Has this approach stuck with students? Yes and no. As an example, during the spring semester one of our students who had been through our computer literacy curriculum in the fall semester selected George Orwell’s 1984 for his banned book project in English class (see chapter 2 of this book). In looking for the evidence he needed to support his selection of the book, he was thrilled to find a scholarly looking essay titled “Orwell’s 1984: Was Orwell Right?” (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p--9_Bennett.html). When I prompted him to probe further and check the home page of the site, he immediately recognized the IHR logo and understood that the essay was not what it appeared to be. I was still not sure he understood that the essayist in this case was positioning the IHR as a victim of censorship and perceived real-life thought police. Without the previous lesson and the ensuing prompt, would he have persisted in using this resource? Very possibly. As with many language arts skills, students need multiple exposures over time and many opportunities to engage with content at a deep level. A single intervention at a single point in time, in and of itself, is relatively ineffectual. Instead, critical reading habits are much more likely to develop if teachers and librarians together value a focus on process. The emphasis placed by the Common Core State Standards (n.d.) on informational text and interdisciplinarity can help justify such collaborations. One relatively simple method is to

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design research projects that include a stage in which students create annotated bibliographies, requiring them to more thoroughly examine the authorship, intended audience, and credibility of their sources. Is it possible to teach students to evaluate online information when their schools only offer filtered slices of it? In such an environment, are educators credible facilitators, or do students perceive their teachers and librarians as being hypocritical, or worse, clueless? The good news is that we’re living in a time that is ripe with opportunities for school librarians and teachers to advocate for fewer restrictions on Internet access. With student use of personal devices, school administrators no longer effectively control Internet access at school anyway (Taylor, Subramaniam, and Waugh 2015). As schools increasingly adopt “bring your own device” (BYOD) trials and investigate opportunities for connected learning, heavy-handed software filtering and restrictive social media policies are becoming anachronisms. Rather than trying to protect students by controlling access, administrators would do better to reexamine policy and allow the presence of devices and new media to focus attention on educating students to use the Internet safely and intelligently. Since our early days online at Uni High, the Internet has transformed modern society in ways none of us could have foreseen. The need to teach ethical behavior and critical assessment of online content has never been more important. AMY: FILTERLESS PROGRAMMING A filterless Internet provides myriad opportunities for accomplishing curricular goals of critical examination and evaluation. It also offers a symbolic model for broader discussion and indeed for an entire attitude about that hub of information and interaction, which when properly tended and supported serves as the heart of a school: the library. The library has long been a place of encounter, academic and otherwise. Before schools instituted one-to-one laptop programs or BYOD, library computers provided students with the bulk of their school Internet access. Before the arrival of the Internet—and concurrent with its ascent—books offered students access to information for both scholarly and more prurient purposes. As any veteran of middle school can tell you, no matter how closely monitored (read: filtered) a library’s print collection, even a dictionary can provide giggle-inducing edification. Information of a sexual nature is only one slice of a larger pie, wherein varied and often conflicting ideas about individuals, social groups, and social conventions meet.

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A Space for Everything As within traditional classroom settings, the question becomes not whether students encounter challenging material, but how they encounter it. In other words, how do we steer these encounters so as to not only meet the needs and concerns of the student at present, but also to grow the future contributing citizen, taxpayer, voter, and community member—that is, the whole child? Unlike traditional classroom settings, the library has the resources to operate both in support of and outside of school curricula, building on the socialemotional learning that is ideally initiated in the classroom. Those resources that first come to mind—access to information and viewpoints through books, Internet, and a trained teacher-librarian—certainly play a fundamental role. But equally important is the use of physical space and flexible time, assets that enable the library to provide robust programming that both responds to and enhances the whole child. Creation of such programming requires a willing spirit and relevant research (such as the literature identified here) to foster support among administrators and parents. It also requires either (1) being in touch with the extracurricular lives of students or (2) having the willingness and ability to identify power players within the student body, forge relationships with them, implement their ideas, then get out of the way. As many teachers, librarians, and high school alumni know, power players are not necessarily the student council presidents or homecoming queens of the world. They are also the bullies, mean girls, and class clowns, equally capable of wreaking havoc or moving mountains. Whether you choose option 1 or 2, both require careful listening to all that students are saying, and not saying, to you and to each other about their information encounters. To that end, teacher-librarians must “listen broadly to discover more about their students’ learning outside of school both during and beyond their time in classrooms,” or in this case, the general school environment (Schultz 2003, 77). As residents of a third space that is neither fully classroom nor cafeteria—and as recipients of the adolescent tendency to fade unobtrusive adults into the landscape—librarians hear conversations that might not occur within the walls of the traditional classroom, providing ample fodder for responsive, broad-reaching programming: “[T]he languages students bring from their outside lives include their passions and aspirations that, if incorporated into the school curriculum, will have an impact on student learning and engagement” (Schultz 2003, 78). By truly listening, librarians might develop and advocate for student-centered programming that has an impact on socialemotional as well as intellectual learning.

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What You Say, and How You Say It As we have experienced, just as the filterless Internet can enhance computer literacy, the filterless library can bolster social-emotional literacy. Considered, responsive programming, such as our discussion of the Ferguson verdict (see below), can reframe students’ encounters with challenging (or put more positively, exciting) information as opportunities for growth and engagement. Discussion-based programming in particular can help students to parse, name, and express their own thoughts and emotions while in conversation with peers doing the same thing. Consider—and encourage any skeptical administrators to consider—Dillon’s insights in Using Discussion in Classrooms: We discuss for the experience of community and inquiry in the lived moment, for participation with our fellows in communal reflection, discovery and deliberation. Discussion is a good way for us to be together. We use it to face our common perplexities about what to think and how to act. And we use it to form our young, inducing them into these very goods. So discussion is a way for adults and children to be together in a fundamental human relation and essential educative activity. (1994, 112)

Although it is important for educators to limit their overt involvement—the “then get out of their way” part—adult guidance is necessary for such conversations, especially when dealing with particularly thorny or emotionally fraught issues. Here it becomes apparent that “filterless” is something of a misnomer. Any programming seeking to benefit the social-emotional health of students and, by extension, the climate of a school, might apply its free-for-all nature to conversational topics, but not to conversational style. Constructive discussion almost necessarily excludes any gloves-off exchanges, even if the fisticuffs remain solely verbal. The teacher-librarian can—perhaps must—lay the ground rules for discourse, monitor the discussion, and most important, lead by example. After all, as Weare notes in Promoting Mental, Emotional, and Social Health: “Adults have a very important role in providing the kind of clarity and boundaries that are so important for a feeling of safety . . . [Adolescents] need adults more than they care to admit, tending to notice what adults do and emulate it, but often not say so” (2000, 67). The Proof Is in the Pudding What has the filterless library—one with fewer restrictions on both its Internet and programming content—looked like when used as a tool for socialemotional learning here at Uni?

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In keeping with the need to listen broadly, the overhearing of student conversation and concerted soliciting of input from the newly formed Student Library Advisory Committee (aka, the SLACers) has resulted in the creation of a student-led discussion series. Riffing off Agora Days—a week in the school year when students, teachers, and other members of the school community teach and take classes on topics ranging from hip-hop dance to comic books to computer programming—Agora Unleashed offers students with specialized knowledge to impart forty-five minutes in which to do so. This has led to a successful blend of the edifying and the entertaining, beginning with the inaugural discussion, “Beyoncé and Feminism: The Pop Culture Queen, Her Music and Message,” and continuing with topics such as representations of ethnicity in alternative rap, 3D printing and modeling, and trainspotting, to name a few. It’s important to note that these conversations do not occur without adult guidance, nor are they free-for-alls. In selecting music videos for the Beyoncé discussion and representative lyrics for the alt-rap conversation, I encouraged the session leaders to consider what material might effectively make the relevant points while still considering both the school environment and the age range of those students in attendance (Uni serves eighth through twelfth graders). Similarly, to increase interest in these niche topics, I prompted these leaders to consider the broader implications of their subjects; thus a discussion centered on the Green Bay Packers spoke to the highs and lows of fervent fandom, and the aforementioned conversation on trainspotting situated itself within a consideration of the agonies and ecstasies of hobbies. Through partnered creation of scope and curation of content, these sessions might expose the greatest number of students to the most enjoyable, but edifying, material. While series like Uni’s Agora Unleashed allow for planned, student-led sessions, responsive ad hoc programming enables timely discussion of critical issues. The need for such programming was never more apparent than the morning following the announcement of the verdict in the grand jury investigation of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. After encountering a sea of tense faces and overhearing numerous conversations in the hallways, it became clear to us that students desperately needed an outlet to air their thoughts and emotions. Because the library had the flexibility of time and space, we sent an e-mail inviting people to a lunchtime discussion. Titled “Let’s Talk: Ferguson Verdict,” it read as follows: This morning, the halls were filled with conversation about the Ferguson verdict. If you would like to hear and share thoughts and feelings about this matter, the library will host discussions during lunch and after school.

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As you are all aware, this verdict marks an important moment for our society and for the world you will one day be in charge of. I hope you’ll join us for discussion.

Come lunchtime, students and teachers packed the library. Aware that I was managing a potential powder keg, I solicited assistance from my fellow teachers. When no one offered to lead the discussion, I took my professed ethos to heart, deciding that while I may not have had the breadth and depth of civic knowledge to most fully guide students through intellectual elements of the case and judicial process, I did have the tools to help them most effectively express their thoughts and emotions; after all, this was, at its heart, an emotional issue. I also had to act on my responsibility to the entire student body, not simply to those teens with political leanings similar to my own. While Uni has a sizeable liberal student and faculty population, it is not homogenous; furthermore, even if it were, any such discussions—particularly those taking place in school and most especially those occurring within the democratic walls of the library—should encourage critical thinking, not act as a rally for a particular viewpoint. To facilitate both such thinking and the participation of all students, I created a PowerPoint slide titled “Guidelines for Civil Discourse” (adapted from Michelle Tiedje’s “Ground Rules for Civil Discourse,” 2013), which I walked everyone through at the session’s outset and which remained posted for the duration of the discussion: • • • •

Critique ideas, NOT people. Try your best to first understand, then be understood. Respond, don’t just react—truly consider others’ statements. Use first-person statements, e.g., “I feel . . .” or “I believe . . .” or “My impression is . . .”, then follow with evidence. • Learn to disagree without being disagreeable; watch your body language and vocal tone. • Remember: the people around you are your friends, classmates, and human beings deserving of respect. How do you want to be treated? The students, without fail, rose to the challenge, navigating a tense but cathartic discussion with poise, respect, and nary an eye-roll, heavy sigh, or other indication of dismissiveness. The success of this delicate endeavor was confirmed when a parent of conservative leanings asked for more information about the focus of the discussion, politely expressing concern that perhaps it had been one-sided. I could respond not only with the guidelines that had been posted, but also with the support of one of our administrators— himself politically conservative—who had been present and considered the discussion quite balanced; both answers satisfied the parent. In short, the approach to the discussion of this noncurricular issue mattered more than its

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controversial nature, thereby creating avenues for constructive conversation and consideration both within and without the boundaries of the school day. A Library for the Whole Child Though events such as the Ferguson discussion, the Agora Unleashed series, our open mike focused on LGBTQ issues, and our conversation with a survivor of anorexia during Eating Disorder Awareness Week all provide tangible intellectual learning opportunities, our storytelling sessions, poetry slams, and read-alouds have also provided fertile ground for social-emotional learning. Giving the students devoted space and time to express themselves, their interests, and their experiences grows their self-reflection and communication abilities. Because emphasis falls on the spirit of such communication rather than on the potential “impropriety” of the content, students can find an outlet for addressing those delicate, controversial, or intensely personal issues that shape who they are and who they become. In the library, we champion information literacy, not information selectivity. Such a task works in tandem with—and extends beyond—making sense of the less savory elements of the Internet to address all the information students receive in both their curricular and extracurricular lives. The library has the ability, privilege, and perhaps even obligation to capitalize upon its role as a hub of information and the heart of the school by ensuring that the information our students encounter grows their hearts as well as their heads. WORKS CITED American Library Association. n.d. “Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q & A.” Accessed April 8, 2015. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/censorshipfirstamendmentissues/ifcensorshipqanda. American Library Association. 2015. “Internet Filtering: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.” Last modified June 30. Accessed November 23, 2015. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/internet-filtering/. American Library Association. 1996. “Library Bill of Rights.” Last modified January 23. Accessed April 8, 2015. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill. Batch, Kirsten R. 2014. Fencing Out Knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act 10 Years Later. Policy Brief 5. Chicago: Office for Information Technology Policy and Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association. Accessed April 8, 2015. http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/oitp/publications/issuebriefs/cipa_report.pdf. boyd, danah. 2007. “A Few More Thoughts on Child Abuse, Sexual Predators, and the Moral Panic.” Apophenia (blog). Posted January 10. Accessed April 8, 2015. http:// www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/01/10/a_few_more_thou.html. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). 47 U.S.C. § 254 (2000). Common Core State Standards Initiative. n.d. “English Language Arts Standards > Introduction > Key Design Consideration.” Accessed April 8, 2015. http://www.corestandards.org/ ELA-Literacy/introduction/key-design-consideration/. Dillon, James T. 1994. Using Discussion in Classrooms. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

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Hobbs, Renee. 2010. Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action. A White Paper on the Digital and Media Literacy Recommendations of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Accessed April 20, 2015. http://www.knightcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Digital_and_Media_ Literacy_A_Plan_of_Action.pdf. Schultz, Katherine. 2003. Listening: A Framework for Teaching Across Differences. New York: Teachers College Press. Taylor, Natalie Greene, Mega Subramaniam, and Amanda Waugh. 2015. “The School Librarian as Learning Alchemist.” American Libraries, February 26. Accessed April 8, 2015. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/26/the-school-librarian-as-learning-alchemist. Tiedje, Michelle. 2013. “Ground Rules for Civil Discourse.” History, Digital History, and Experiences in Academia (blog). Posted June 22. http://michelletiedje.com/2013/06/22/ ground-rules-for-civil-discourse/. Weare, Katherine. 2000. Promoting Mental, Emotional, and Social Health: A Whole School Approach. New York: Routledge, 2000.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials. http://www.ala.org/ bbooks/challengedmaterials/support/strategies. White Paper on Educational Technology in Schools. http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/ resources/papers/ed-tech.

Appendix A: Telling Your Own True War Story Assignment Suzanne Linder

In class you will have the opportunity to orally share a “war” story of your own following the form that Tim O’Brien outlines in The Things They Carried. You should first write out your story, and it should be between one-half and two pages typed and double-spaced, so that it takes between one and three minutes to tell. Make sure you follow the guidelines from the novel, which appear on the next two pages. Your story can be true, made up, or a mixture of both. It can be funny, or it can be serious. But remember, it can never have a moral, and the response you’ll be looking for from the class when you’re done telling your story is “Oh.” When you go in front of the class to tell your story, try to tell it as if you were talking to your friends rather than reading straight from your paper; note cards are encouraged if the story is not memorized.

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Appendix B: Materials Selection Policy University Laboratory High School English Department, Urbana, Illinois

University Laboratory High School is guided by the policies outlined in the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights” and the freedoms outlined in “The Students’ Right to Read,” published by the National Council of Teachers of English. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION We affirm each teacher’s right as a professional to determine which books and other materials will serve the purposes of his or her class and its curriculum, aims, and goals. We expect teachers to seek out works that offer literary merit, historical relevance, and/or cultural significance, and to choose books and other materials that will not only enable students to broaden their understanding of literature, history, and culture, but also to sharpen their critical-thinking skills. We understand that literature—even literature long established as classic—may contain elements that some individuals or families consider unsuitable. We respect the right of parents to have a voice in deciding which works of literature or film their child engages with. Individual families may request that their child not read a given book, view a given film, and/or listen to a given audio recording. In these cases, parents should contact the teacher of the class and the executive teacher of the English department in writing (via email or letter), briefly explaining their reservations regarding their child’s reading or viewing the materials and requesting an alternative assignment 133

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during the class period(s) that the materials is being discussed. The student will be then provided with an alternative assignment to complete in the library or other supervised location. The student’s grade will not be negatively affected as long as the student successfully completes the alternative work assigned to him or her. PROCEDURE FOR HANDLING CHALLENGES TO BOOKS OR OTHER MATERIALS Any criticism of a book or other material in the English department curriculum that extends beyond the assigning of alternative work for an individual student in the case of a single book or film must be submitted in writing on a form entitled “Citizen’s Request for Reconsideration of a Book in the University Laboratory High School English Curriculum,” available from the executive teacher of the English department as a Word file and/or in hard copy. CITIZEN’S REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION OF MATERIALS IN THE UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CURRICULUM Please complete this form in full. Name: Telephone: Email address: Complainant represents: Self Organization—Name: Other group—Name: Information about the materials under consideration: Author, Editor, or Compiler: Title: Publisher: Reconsideration Data 1. To what in the material do you object? Please be specific: cite pages in books, film sequence, track number on CD, etc. 1. Did you read the entire book, see the entire film, listen to the entire recording, etc.? If not, list in full the sections you read, viewed, or listened to.

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1. Describe your concerns regarding possible consequences of students engaging with this material in a learning situation. 1. Have you read or heard any professional evaluations of this material? If so, describe. 1. What do you believe is the theme of this material? 1. What action would you like the English department to take with regard to this material? 1. What other material do you recommend that would convey a meaningful perspective on the subject and/or themes treated by this material? Signature of __________

Complainant

____________________________

Date

Appendix C: A List of Resources and Case Law for Book Challenges Amy Collins

Please note that this is a recommended list of resources to start with in dealing with a book challenge. It is not a definitive list, nor is it meant to exclude any other help that you might find or receive along the way. I suggest contacting your state agencies, including your state library association, and your state or local American Civil Liberties Union. In addition, I strongly recommend contacting your state language teacher’s association. The MATELA, or Montana Association of Teachers of English and Language Arts group, was incredibly supportive and helpful to me in facing my challenge. NATIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES American Civil Liberties Union, https://www.aclu.org/ American Library Association, http://www.ala.org/ (and the Office for Intellectual Freedom through the ALA, http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/) First Amendment Center, http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/ National Coalition Against Censorship, http://ncac.org/ National Council for Teachers of English, http://www.ncte.org/ (and ALAN through the NCTE, http://www.alan-ya.org/information/speakloudly/)

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SUPPORTING CASE DECISIONS/LAW Summaries are all derived from descriptions in sources including The Oyez Project at Chicago-Kent College of Law (http://www.oyez.org/) and Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute (https://www.law.cornell.edu/). Evans v. Selma Union High School District of Fresno County, 222 P. 801 (Ca. 1924). The California State Supreme Court held that the King James version of the Bible was not a “publication of a sectarian, partisan, or denominational character” that a state statute required a public high school library to exclude from its collections. The “fact that the King James version is commonly used by Protestant Churches and not by Catholics” does not “make its character sectarian,” the court stated. “The mere act of purchasing a book to be added to the school library does not carry with it any implication of the adoption of the theory or dogma contained therein, or any approval of the book itself, except as a work of literature fit to be included in a reference library.” Rosenberg v. Board of Education of City of New York, 92 N.Y.S.2d 344 (Sup. Ct. Kings County 1949). After considering the charge that Oliver Twist and the Merchant of Venice are “objectionable because they tend to engender hatred of the Jew as a person and as a race,” the Supreme Court in Kings County, New York, decided that these two works could not be banned from the New York City schools, libraries, or classrooms, declaring that the board of education “acted in good faith without malice or prejudice and in the best interests of the school system entrusted to their care and control, and, therefore, that no substantial reason exists which compels the suppression of the two books under consideration.” Todd v. Rochester Community Schools, 200 N.W.2d 90 (Mich. Ct. App. 1972). In deciding that Slaughterhouse-Five could not be banned from the libraries and classrooms of the Michigan schools, the Court of Appeals of Michigan declared: “Vonnegut’s literary dwellings on war, religion, death, Christ, God, government, politics, and any other subject should be as welcome in the public schools of this state as those of Machiavelli, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Melville, Lenin, Joseph McCarthy, or Walt Disney. The students of Michigan are free to make of Slaughterhouse-Five what they will.” Minarcini v. Strongsville (Ohio) City School District, 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir. 1976). The Strongsville City Board of Education rejected faculty recommendations to purchase Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and ordered the removal of Catch-22 and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle from the library. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth

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Circuit ruled against the school board, upholding the students’ First Amendment right to receive information and the librarian’s right to disseminate it. “The removal of books from a school library is a much more serious burden upon the freedom of classroom discussion than the action found unconstitutional in Tinker v. Des Moines School District.” Right to Read Defense Committee v. School Committee of the City of Chelsea, 454 F. Supp. 703 (D. Mass. 1978). The Chelsea, Massachusetts, School Committee decided to bar from the high school library a poetry anthology, Male and Female under 18, because of the inclusion of an “offensive” and “damaging” poem, “The City to a Young Girl,” written by a fifteen-year-old girl. This was challenged in US District Court, and Joseph L. Tauro ruled: “The library is ‘a mighty resource in the marketplace of ideas.’ There a student can literally explore the unknown, and discover areas of interest and thought not covered by the prescribed curriculum. The student who discovers the magic of the library is on the way to a life-long experience of selfeducation and enrichment. That student learns that a library is a place to test or expand upon ideas presented to him, in or out of the classroom. The most effective antidote to the poison of mindless orthodoxy is ready access to a broad sweep of ideas and philosophies. There is no danger from such exposure. The danger is mind control. The committee’s ban of the anthology Male and Female is enjoined.” Salvail v. Nashua Board of Education, 469 F. Supp. 1269 (D. N.H. 1979). MS magazine was removed from a New Hampshire high school library by order of the Nashua School Board. The US District Court decided in favor of the student, teacher, and adult residents who had brought action against the school board, the court concluding: “The court finds and rules that the defendants herein have failed to demonstrate a substantial and legitimate government interest sufficient to warrant the removal of MS magazine from the Nashua High School library. Their action contravenes the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, and as such it is plainly wrong.” Loewen v. Turnipseed, 488 F. Supp. 1138 (N.D. Miss. 1980). When the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board refused to approve Mississippi: Conflict and Change for use in Mississippi public schools on the grounds that it was too concerned with racial matters and too controversial, the authors filed suit. US District Judge Orma R. Smith ruled that the criteria used were not justifiable grounds for rejecting the book. He held that the controversial racial matter was a factor leading to its rejection, and thus the authors had been denied their constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of speech and the press.

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Kreimer v. Bureau of Police for Morristown, 958 F.2d 1242 (3d Cir. 1992). In detailed analysis, the court of appeals held that a municipal public library was a limited public forum, meaning open to the public for the specified purposes of exercising their First Amendment rights to read and receive information from library materials. Such exercise could not interfere with or disrupt the library’s reasonable rules of operation. The court then upheld three library rules, which (1) required patrons to read, study, or otherwise use library materials while there; (2) prohibited noisy or boisterous activities that might disturb other patrons; and (3) permitted the removal of any patron whose offensive bodily hygiene was a nuisance to other patrons. Case v. Unified School District No. 233, 908 F. Supp. 864 (D. Kan. 1995). When the Olathe, Kansas, School Board voted to remove the book Annie on My Mind, a novel depicting a lesbian relationship between two teenagers, from the district’s junior and senior high school libraries, the federal district court in Kansas found that it had violated the students’ rights under the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the corresponding provisions of the Kansas State Constitution. Despite the fact that school board members testified that they had removed the book because of “educational unsuitability,” which is within their rights under the Pico decision, it became obvious from their testimony that the book was removed because they disapproved of the book’s ideology. In addition, it was found that the school board had violated its own materials selection and reconsideration policies, which weighed heavily in the judge’s decision. Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board, 64 F.3d 184 (5th Cir. 1995). A public school district removed the book Voodoo and Hoodoo, a discussion of the origins, history, and practices of the voodoo and hoodoo religions that included an outline of some specific practices, from all district library shelves. Parents of several students sued, and the district court granted summary judgment in their favor. The court of appeals reversed, finding that there was not enough evidence at that stage to determine that board members had an unconstitutional motivation, such as denying students access to ideas with which board members disagreed; the court remanded the case for a full trial, at which all board members could be questioned about their reasons for removing the book. The court observed that “in light of the special role of the school library as a place where students may freely and voluntarily explore diverse topics, the school board’s non-curricular decision to remove a book well after it had been placed in the public school libraries evokes the question whether that action might not be an attempt to ‘strangle the free mind at its source.’” The court focused on some evidence that school board members had removed the book without having read it or having read only excerpts provided by the Christian Coalition. The parties settled the case

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before trial by returning the book to the libraries on specially designated reserve shelves. Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 F. Supp. 2d 530 (N.D. Texas, 2000). City residents who were members of a church sought removal of two books, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate, because they disapproved of the books’ depiction of homosexuality. The City of Wichita Falls City Council voted to restrict access to the books if three hundred persons signed a petition asking for the restriction. A separate group of citizens filed suit after the books were removed from the children’s section and placed on a locked shelf in the adult area of the library. Following a trial on the merits, the district court permanently enjoined the city from enforcing the resolution permitting the removal of the two books. It held that the city’s resolution constituted impermissible content-based and viewpoint-based discrimination, was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest, provided no standards or review process, and improperly delegated governmental authority over the selection and removal of the library’s books to any three hundred private citizens who wish to remove a book from the children’s area of the library. Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F. Supp. 2d 996 (W.D. Ark. 2003). The school board of the Cedarville, Arkansas, school district voted to restrict students’ access to the Harry Potter books, on the grounds that the books promoted disobedience and disrespect for authority and dealt with witchcraft and the occult. As a result of the vote, students in the Cedarville school district were required to obtain a signed permission slip from their parents or guardians before they would be allowed to borrow any of the Harry Potter books from school libraries. The district court overturned the board’s decision and ordered the books returned to unrestricted circulation, on the grounds that the restrictions violated students’ First Amendment right to read and receive information. In so doing, the court noted that while the board necessarily performed highly discretionary functions related to the operation of the schools, it was still bound by the Bill of Rights and could not abridge students’ First Amendment right to read a book on the basis of an undifferentiated fear of disturbance or because the board disagreed with the ideas contained in the book. See also: Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 102 S. Ct. 2799, 73 L. Ed. 2d 435 (1982) Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile (Ala.) County, 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987)

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Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education, 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987) Virgil v. School Board of Columbia County, 862 F.2d 1517 (11th Cir. 1989) American Library Association v. U.S. Department of Justice and Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d. 874 (1997) Mainstream Loudoun, et al. v. Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library, 24 F. Supp. 2d 552 (E.D. of Va. 1998)

Appendix D: Sample Discussion Questions to Begin Queer Examinations of The Merchant of Venice Stephanie Ann Shelton

At the beginning of the play: 1. At the opening of the play, several of Antonio’s friends offer explanations for Antonio’s sadness. In light of these friends’ guesses, consider Antonio’s behavior both before and after Bassanio enters in act 1, scene 1. How might we describe and/or understand their relationship, based on this shift? 2. A number of Shakespearean scholars suggest that Antonio’s affection for Bassanio is romantic, not just friendly. What evidence is there in scene 1 that supports this interpretation or that challenges this interpretation? 3. Based on students’ reactions to the suggestion that Antonio may be attracted to Bassanio, consider why it is more comfortable to read Antonio and Bassanio’s relationship as platonic rather than romantic. 4. In act 1, scene 2, how do Portia and Narissa reinforce stereotypical feminine behaviors? Keep these notes in mind when the two characters enter in disguise in act 5, to reexamine gendered behavior. 5. How does Portia and Narissa’s relationship mirror Antonio and Bassanio’s? How are your reactions to two close female friends different from your reactions to two close male friends? What might be some reasons for your different or similar reactions? At the end of the play: 143

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1. What characteristics, beyond appearance and costume, permit Portia and Narissa to “pass” as men in act 5? What do these characteristics suggest about the ways that we understand masculinity and femininity? 2. In recalling discussions of the play’s opening, discuss the scenes during which Antonio prepares to die for Bassanio and during which Antonio convinces Bassanio to give up his wedding ring. How do these moments help to better understand and define the nature of the two characters’ relationship?

Appendix E: Poetry Reading Assignment Matt Mitchell

Once each quarter, you will be required to deliver a reading of a poem in front of the class, supplemented by a brief commentary and discussion. You may select any poem from the Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry that has not yet appeared on our syllabus, or you may select any other poem by an African American (or Afro-Caribbean) author. You will not be required to completely memorize the poem (although a successful performance from memory will be richly rewarded by the grade giver), but you should be intimately familiar with its rhythms, syntax, and vocabulary when you step in front of the class. You may glance at the page occasionally, but you should make frequent eye contact with your audience and deliver your lines with confidence, emotion, drama, and style. Your performance will be followed by a concise but incisive commentary (approximately three minutes long): some reasons you selected this poem and what you especially like about its style, voice, tone, content, form, rhythm, and vocabulary; you might also mention some biographical information about the author and his or her historical/cultural context, if it would illuminate the poem’s meaning (you are welcome—indeed encouraged—to prepare notes for this portion of the program). Draw our attention to memorable or intriguing phrases and imagery and sketch out some interpretive possibilities. You will then lead a brief discussion of the poem (for seven to ten minutes), soliciting comments and observations from the class. You should prepare a few specific questions to stimulate and guide discussion; draw our attention to specific lines and phrases with ambiguous or openended interpretive possibilities.

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Your grade will be based in equal measure on the confidence and effectiveness of your performance of the poem and on your commentary and discussion. If you select a poem that is not included in the Oxford Anthology, please turn in a neat and legible copy of your poem to me by the Wednesday before your reading, so I can make copies for the class. Your audience should have the poem in front of them during discussion. If you select a poem from the Oxford Anthology, please be prepared to announce your selection (author, title, page number) in class the Thursday before your reading. Note: If you are so inclined (or so bold), you are welcome to deliver a rap (a cappella) as one of your poetry readings (the other should be a more conventional written poem). Please be sure to turn in a neat and legible copy of the lyrics to me on the Wednesday before your performance. One verse will suffice, but you aren’t limited to one (feel free to skip the hook). Deliver the rap in your own voice and style; don’t make this an imitation of the original rapper. Also note: If you would like to rehearse your reading of the poem beforehand, please let me know (but not on the day of the reading itself). I’d be glad to listen to a run-through and give you notes.

Index

1984, 120 2001: A Space Odyssey, 120 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, ix, 37, 38, 43–44, 45, 46, 47–49, 51–52, 56 academic freedom, xi, 27 Adler vs. Board of Education (1951), xi administration, 16, 21, 26, 37, 40, 42, 50, 60, 115 African American Vernacular English. See Black English A Lesson Before Dying, 120 Alexie, Sherman, ix, 37, 38, 43–44, 45, 46, 47–49, 51–52, 56 “All Falls Down”, 101–103 allies, 16 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 73 American Library Association (ALA), 118 And Tango Makes Three, 6 Angelou, Maya, 24 Animal Farm, 9 anti-Semitism, 62 Apocalypse Now, 14 art, as challenging, 27 assignments. See classroom resources Atwood, Margaret, 18 authority, teacher, 20 A Wrinkle in Time, 7

Baldwin, Anna, 50 Baldwin, James, 72 banned books, x, 4, 13; appeal of, 5 Batch, Kirsten, 118 Beatty, Paul, 86, 93–94 Beim, Lorraine, and Jerrold Beim, 1 Beloved, 86, 95–98 bias, teacher, 18 Blackburn, Mollie, 60 Black English, 108 Bloland, Dagny D., 4, 5 The Bluest Eye, 71, 72, 75–79 Blume, Judy, x, xiii, 38 book challenge, viii, 3, 6, 8, 37, 47–54, 72, 79 boundaries: student, 19, 20; teacher, 18–19 boyd, danah, 118 Brando, Marlon, 14 Britzman, Deborah, 63, 68 Bruchac, Joseph, 52 Bryant, Kobe, 90 Buck, Pearl S., 65 canonical literature, 71–72, 75, 77, 79, 80, 86 The Catcher in the Rye, ix censor, vii, x, xiii, 3; censorship, x, 37, 50, 52; consequences of, x, 53; self, viii, 14 challenge, policy, 17 Chase, Chevy, 90 Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU), 73

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Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), 118 Chocolate News, 90 Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, 117 civil discourse, 125 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 106 C.K., Louis, 98 classroom, practices, 16 classroom resources, 6, 8, 10, 16, 17, 18, 54–55, 66–67, 94, 95–98, 99–100, 101–103, 120, 129, 143–144, 145–146 code switching, 27 colleagues, viii, 14, 20, 25, 28 College Dropout, 101–103 Colonel Kurtz, 14 color-blind. See postracial Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School, 108 Common Core State Standards, 11, 72, 72–75, 79, 80, 120 context: classroom, 15, 88, 97, 98, 103, 106; cultural, 26, 93; literary, 6, 17, 69, 89; of language, viii, 23, 26, 89, 91; social, 27, 29–30, 89 controversial, vii; competing definitions of, xiii conversations: classroom, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 64–68, 69, 87, 88–89, 91, 91–94, 95–98, 102–103; difficult, viii, 14, 17, 21, 59, 61, 97, 125 creative writing, 16, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30 credibility, 118, 119–120, 121 critical thinking, 3, 5, 11, 119, 121 Cullen, Countee, 100–101 cultural liberalism, 87 culturally relevant content, 17 curriculum, x, 4, 54, 55, 119; role of, ix “dangerous ideas,” potential importance of, xi, 37 DeWitt, Peter M., 60, 61 digital literacy, 118 Dillon, James T., 123 disabilities, 19 discussion. See conversations, classroom Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, 105 Douglas, William O. (Supreme Court justice), xi

Dreaming in Cuban , 72 Dumas, Henry, 99 ELA exemplar texts, 74–75 Ellison, Ralph, 72, 88, 92, 93, 94 English Journal, 61 equitable access, 117–118 e-rate, 118, 119 exploitation, 13, 14 Fahrenheit 451, 9 Ferguson, Missouri, 124 First Amendment, xi, 54 Fletcher, Ralph, 4, 5 freedom of expression, xi, 26, 27, 32 “fuck”, 15, 25, 26, 29, 33, 34, 44 Fugitive Slave Law, 98 Gaines, Ernest, 11 Gamson, Josh, 63 Garcia, Cristina, 72, 78 Garner, Donna, 77 Gates, Henry Louis Jr., 71 Gay Lesbian Straight Educators Network (GLSEN), 60 gender: binary, 63; performance, 62, 64, 65, 66–67, 68; roles, 63, 67 genderqueer, 63, 68 The Good Earth, 65 Green, John, 8 Greenberg, Polly, 1 Grier, David Alan, 90 “Ground Rules for Civil Discourse”, 125 Hall, Donald, 63 The Handmaid’s Tale, 18, 19 Harlem Renaissance, 63 Harry Potter, 7 Hentoff, Nat, xi Herman-Wilmarth, Jill, and Caitlyn L. Ryan, 61 hip hop. See rap music Hobbs, Renee, 118 Holy Sh*t, 15 homophobia, 18, 20, 21, 60 homophobic language, 29, 59, 60–61, 69 Hughes, Langston, 63 Hurston, Zora Neale, 76, 88, 93

Index identity: cultural, 94; fluidity, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 68–69; racial, 87, 88, 93 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 24 “Incident”, 100 Indian Education for All (IEFA), Montana law, 40–41, 43, 50 intellectual freedom, 73, 79, 81, 117, 118 internet, 117; filters, 72, 118, 119; safety, 118 “Internet Filtering: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights”, 118 Invisible Man, 72, 86, 92, 94 Judge Woolsey, 6

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National Writing Project (NWP), 4, 9 Native American history, 39, 40 Native American literature, 39, 52 Native Son, 86, 87, 91, 99 NCTE, vii, 4, 34; Beliefs about Students’ Right to Write, vii, viii; Students’ Right to Read, vii Niccolini, Alyssa D., 15 No Child Left Behind (NCLB), 73 N-word, viii, xii, 85, 86, 88–91, 106, 108, 109, 113; not spoken, 98, 99–100, 101–103; racial humor, 87; read aloud, 95–98, 99–100, 101–103 The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why, 91

Kite Runner, 10 lab school, 25 language, of war, 15 language, racist. See racially charged language least objectionable standard, xi, 14 L’Engle, Madeleine, 7 lessons. See classroom, resources Lewis, John, 106, 109, 113 Lewis and Clark, 39 LGBTQ: bullying, 61; topics, 61, 69, 72 Looking for Alaska, 8 Louisiana State University, 113 March: Book One, 106, 113 material selection, 62, 133–135 Mayo, Cris, 60 mentorship, viii, 27, 30, 31, 47, 115; context of, viii, xii, 43, 44 Merchant of Venice, xii, 62, 64–68, 68–69, 143–144 miller, sj, 61 mistake, teacher, 20, 61 Mohr, Melissa, 15, 17 Montana, 38, 39, 40, 43, 50 Montana Librarians’ Association, 50 Montana Office of Public Instruction, 50 Morning Edition, 90 Morrison, Toni, 71, 72, 75–79, 95–98 multiculturalism, 71, 72, 75, 77–79, 80 Nash, Diane, 109 National Public Radio (NPR), 90

Obama, Barack, 75, 76, 78 O’Brien, Tim, 14, 21, 129 obscenity, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 85; history of, 15, 17 Oh, Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard, 1 Orwell, George, 120 Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, 38 Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, 119 pan-optimism, 15 parents, 26, 43, 72, 87, 115; involvement, 5, 8, 9, 43–44, 44; objections, 3, 16, 21, 47–49 Patterson, Steve, 64 Pat Williams Intellectual Freedom Award, 38 pedagogy, xii, 92; queer, 62–63, 68–69, 143–144 Places I Never Meant to Be, xiii poetry, 24, 32, 33, 34, 99–100, 101–103, 103, 145–146 policies, classroom, 28, 88, 106 Pollack, Mica, 108 popular culture, 85, 90, 91 pornography, charges of, 75–78 postracial, 87, 109 profanity, viii, 14, 15, 85; colloquial or commonplace, ix, 26, 29, 30; in student work, 25, 26 professionalism, xi Promoting Mental, Emotional, and Social Health, 123 Pryor, Richard, 90

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Index

PubMed, 119 queer, theory, 63, 64 RACE writing strategy, 110 racially charged language, 85, 86–87, 88, 92, 105 racial slurs, xii, 11, 29, 85, 90 racism, 14, 17, 87 racist, perceived as, 87 Rankine, Claudia, 105, 113 rape culture, 18, 19 rap music, 85, 87, 89, 93, 98, 101–103 rationale, 16, 26, 41, 42, 43, 56, 62 Ready, Willing, and Able, 4 Ridley, John, 90 risk, worth taking, 21, 103 Rock, Chris, 91 Sacagawea, 39 Salinger, J.D., ix Sarafina! (film), 1 Saturday Night Live, 90 The Scarlet Letter, 3 Schlessinger, Laura, 90, 91, 93 school libraries, xii; as a third space, xii, 122; role in teaching, 7, 8, 19, 120–121, 122, 123, 123–125 Schultz, Katherine, 122 sexism, 14, 17–18, 20–21, 62 sexist language, 29 sexual orientation, 65 Shakespeare, William, 62, 64–68 Shakur, Tupac, 91 Smitherman, Geneva, 107 social-emotional learning, 117, 122, 123, 123–125 social justice, 62, 88 “Son of Msippi”, 100 student: agency, 4, 5, 11, 26; black, 87, 88, 101–103, 106, 107, 113; choice, 4, 5, 26, 103; gifted, 4, 86, 93; language, 15, 85, 91, 101–103; LGBTQ, 60; minority, 86, 107; nonblack, 85, 87, 107; offers of help during book challenge, 50; rights, ix, 3, 21, 117; voice, viii, ix; white, 86,

87, 89, 93, 101–103, 103, 107, 113; writing, 4, 10, 13–14, 21, 30, 32–34, 94, 101–102, 109–113 Supreme Court, xi swearing. See profanity taboo, vii, 26, 28, 85, 86, 98, 103 Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture, and Education in African America, 107 Tarantino, Quentin, 91 Taylor, Subramaniam, and Waugh, 121 teacher: black, 105; stance, 91, 101–103; white, 86 Tea Party, 71, 73 The Things They Carried, 14, 16, 129 Their Eyes Were Watching God, 86 Tiedje, Michelle, 125 trigger warnings, 19–20 Two is a Team, 1 Ulysses, 6 uncomfortable conversations, potential importance of, 86–88 United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses”, 6 University of Illinois, 4, 118 Upward Bound, 105, 106 Using Discussion in Classrooms, 123 Vietnam, 14 violence, 14, 15, 20; racist, 8 voice, in student writing, 26 Vonnegut, Kurt, 8 Walker, Alice, 72, 75 Weave, Katherine, 123 West, Kanye, 101–103 What a Writer Needs, 4 The White Boy Shuffle, 86, 93–94 white privilege, 87 Whitlock, Reta, 63 Wilson, Darren, 124 Wright, Richard, 76, 86 Zeldis, Malcah, 23, 24, 30

About the Authors

Jabari Asim is an associate professor of writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College in Boston and the executive editor of The Crisis, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s flagship journal of politics, ideas, and culture. His nonfiction books include The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why, What Obama Means . . . for Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future, and Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life. His books for children include Whose Toes Are Those? and Fifty Cents and a Dream. His works of fiction include A Taste of Honey and Only The Strong, a novel. Amy L. Atkinson is the current University of Illinois Laboratory High School librarian. In addition to teaching eighth and ninth graders the joys of information discovery and assessment, she strives to create engaging library programming that embraces the challenging as well as the entertaining. When she’s not planning the next hot topic discussion session, you can find Amy reviewing books, telling stories around Champaign-Urbana, officiating at weddings, and/or hitting the road for a weekend getaway—sometimes all at once. Jalissa Bates is an English educator and cofounder of The Young Scholar Society, a Web site dedicated to resources for teachers working with African American students. Bates was selected as a National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Scholar in 2012 and a recipient of the 2015 National Council for Teachers of English Early Educator of Color Leadership Award. Bates is an English instructor for Louisiana State University and Baton Rouge Community College’s Upward Bound program, a historic federal program for first-generation college students. 151

152

About the Authors

Amy Collins is currently teaching in public education in Billings, Montana, and is a proud member of the Billings Career Center teaching staff, where she teaches social studies to high school junior and senior students. In addition to her passion for education, photography, and blogging, Amy is an avid traveler with more than a bit of wanderlust. Amy is the 2012 recipient of the Montana Librarians Association Pat Williams Intellectual Freedom Award. Her goal in her classroom is to prepare students to be contributing and engaged citizens in their communities. Loretta M. Gaffney is a former middle school librarian who writes and teaches about YA literature, censorship and intellectual freedom, youth services librarianship, and teen readers. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois and is currently at work on a book about the politics of YA literature (under contract). Loretta lives and works in Los Angeles. Frances Jacobson Harris served as the librarian at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School for twenty-seven years. In that capacity she teamtaught a required computer literacy course for eighth- and ninth-grade students covering information literacy and Internet ethics components. She is the author of I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online (2nd ed., American Library Association, 2011) and has presented and published widely on topics related to young adults, Internet ethics, and digital information. In retirement, she is finally getting to read all the books she wants. Suzanne Linder taught English, Social Justice, and Gender Studies at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School for seventeen years. Along the way she traveled with students to Mississippi, Greece, and Italy; converted a car to run on waste vegetable oil; produced, with students, a documentary on what it means to be labeled gifted; and mentored a student-led writing center. She currently serves as an instructional coach and teacher consultant at the Fab Lab, a community makerspace at the University of Illinois. Elizabeth Majerus has taught Language Arts and English at the middle school, high school, and college levels. She currently teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School, where she is head of the English department. She is an avid reader of challenging and challenged books. Matt Mitchell has taught English at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School since 2004, including junior-senior courses on African American literature, The Twentieth-Century Novel, The Coming-of-Age Novel, and Postmodernist American Fiction.

About the Authors

153

Stephen E. Rayburn has been in and out of English classrooms for some forty years. He has taught from middle school to college, from rural to urban, from public to private. For the last twelve years, he has been at the University Laboratory High School, where he currently teaches Freshman American Literature, Nonfiction Writing, Shakespeare, and The Early American Novel. In spite of his long years in the classroom, he still seeks a better way of reaching his students, his current interest lying in what brain research shows us about how humans actually learn and what that may mean for his classroom. Stephanie Ann Shelton is a PhD candidate in the Language and Literacy Education Department at The University of Georgia. She is a teaching assistant in The Institute for Women’s Studies and serves as the managing editor of the Journal of Language and Literacy Education. She received the Carol J. Fisher Award for Excellence in Research and Genelle Morain Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching from her department, as well as the Graduate Student Diversity Engagement Award from the university. She currently serves as the cochair of the Literacy Research Association’s Gender and Sexualities Innovative Community Group.