Book Review: Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy
“We live in a period where there’s no time for “urgent-free pedagogy.” Our instructional pursuits must be honest, bold, raw, unapologetic, and responsive to the social times.”
In the article, "Inequality at School: What’s Behind the Racial Disparity in our Education System” by Kirsten Weir for the American Psychological Association, she states what many of us educators already know, “compared with white students, black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled, less likely to be placed in gifted programs and subject to lower expectations from their teachers.” She goes on to argue that in some of these cases, teachers are not acting out of malice, but instead out of implicit bias. We have to ask though, does this make it right or okay? Absolutely not. For that reason, it is on us, as educators, to take a hard look at those said biases and begin to read, learn, and understand how to become better educators for all of our students. If we can’t do that… we have no business being educators. Period.
One book that we highly recommend to help guide the implementation of culturally responsive teaching practices into your classroom is Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad. In the book, Dr. Muhammad provides a four part Historically Responsive Literacy Framework that “is essential for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices.”
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is an associate professor of language and literacy at Georgia State University and director of the Georgia State Urban Literacy Collaborative and Clinic. Through her studies and research of 19th century Black literacy societies, she found that the literacy societies promoted literacy as a conduit for lifelong learning while also countering racism and oppression. Dr. Muhammad realized that literacy was synonymous with education. Through this lens, Dr. Muhammad created the four pursuits, or learning goals, as part of her Historically Responsive Literacy Framework for Teaching and Learning. These pursuits for teaching include:
Identity—defining self and making sense of one’s values and beliefs. Teachers should ask themselves: How does my curriculum and instruction help students to learn about themselves or others?
Skills—achieving proficiencies through reading and writing meaningful content. Teachers should ask themselves: How does my instruction help students to learn skills and standards for my content?
Intellect—gaining knowledge and learning to think deeply. Teachers should ask themselves: How does my instruction help students to learn new knowledge and concepts?
Criticality—developing the ability to read texts to understand power, authority, and oppression. Teachers should ask themselves: How does our curriculum and instruction help us understand power, equity, anti-racism and anti-oppression?
Dr. Muhammad states that, “Collectively teaching these four goals or standards helps to cultivate students who are socio-conscious beings, who deeply have a strong sense of self and others, and who are academically successful.” When we have a true and deep understanding of others, including the students in our classrooms, we are less inclined to succumb to those implicit biases mentioned above. When our students have a strong sense of identity, it can become a refuge or safe harbor.
Any unit of study or lesson plan can be created using this framework across all disciplines of study. We urge you to pick up this amazing book. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad provides multiple examples and lesson plans to walk you through the whole process and teach how to implement this framework into your own classroom.
If you get a chance teacher friends, we urge you to sign up for one of her amazing professional development workshops. She has been a part of many professional development opportunities recently, and some of those were free. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad also has an Instagram account that you should definitely follow. She is an invaluable resource in curriculum design and instruction.
So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy her book! It will make for some awesome summer reading and may even inspire you for the coming school year.
Happy Reading!