Classroom Talk for Social Change: Critical Conversations in English Language Arts

Learn how to foster critical conversations in English language arts classrooms. This guide encourages teachers to engage students in noticing and discussing harmful discourses about race, gender, and other identities. The authors take readers through a framework that includes knowledge about power, a critical learner stance, critical pedagogies, critical talk moves, and vulnerability. The text features in-depth classroom examples from six secondary English language arts classrooms. Each chapter offers specific ways in which teachers can begin and sustain critical conversations with their students, including the creation of teacher inquiry groups that use transcript analysis as a learning tool.

Book Features:

• Strategies that educators can use to facilitate conversations about critical issues.
• In-depth classroom examples of teachers doing this work with their students.
• Questions, activities, and resources that foster self-reflection.
• Tools for engaging in transcript analysis of classroom conversations.
• Suggestions for developing inquiry groups focused on critical conversations.

Melissa Schieble is an associate professor of English education at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Amy Vetter is a professor in English education in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Kahdeidra Monét Martin is a presidential research fellow and doctoral candidate in Urban Education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.