Pose, Wobble, Flow: A Culturally Proactive Approach to Literacy Instruction

This book proposes a pedagogical model called “Pose, Wobble, Flow” to encapsulate the challenge of teaching and the process of growing as an educator who questions existing inequities in schooling and society and frames teaching around a commitment to changing them. The authors provide six different culturally proactive teaching stances or “poses” that secondary ELA teachers can use to meet the needs of all students, whether they are historically marginalized or privileged. They describe how teachers can expect to “wobble” as they adapt instruction to the needs of their students, while also incorporating new insights about their own cultural positionality and preconceptions about teaching. Teachers are encouraged to recognize this flexibility as a positive process or “flow” that can be used to address challenges and adopt ambitious teaching strategies like those depicted in this book. Each chapter highlights a particular pose, describes how to work through common wobbles, incorporates teacher voices, and provides questions for further discussion. Pose, Wobble, Flow presents a framework for disrupting the pervasive myth that there is one set of surefire, culturally neutral “best” practices.

Book Features:

• A structure for career-long growth for ELA teachers, including ways to adapt pedagogy from one year to the next.
• A focus on culturally proactive positions within ELA classrooms to ensure criticality in how we teach and how we advocate for the teaching profession.
• Six different poses that are standards-aligned, critical, and expand the possibilities of what takes place in school.
• Guidelines for creating original poses beyond the scope of the book, discussion questions for courses, and resources for classroom teachers.

Antero Garcia is an assistant professor in the English department at Colorado State University. Visit his blog at www.theamericancrawl.com. Cindy O’Donnell-Allen is a full professor in the English department at Colorado State University, where she directs the CSU Writing Project.