Day 5

9:00 - 9:30

Welcome, Reviewing Reflections, and Checking in on Agreements

• Remember to update our names on Zoom to include pronouns.

• Continue to use the Parking Lot for questions, setting up Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and sharing resources.

• In small groups, review reflections from Day 4 in word cloud format and discuss working agreements

  • • Word cloud generator

• In whole group, use virtual circle check-in routine to share what groups discussed about our working agreements; one group member goes into the center of the circle to identify who will speak on behalf of the group

9:30 - 9: 55

Writing Into the Day: What is "Great Inequity"?

• Introduce today's focus question: What is the role literacy plays in the face of great inequity?

• Choose your own adventure by exploring the following sources. Then, journal about the following question(s): What is “great inequity”? What “great inequities” might our students be facing?

  • • Watch:

      • 2016 Harvard GSE Commencement Speech: Donovan Livingston (5 mins)

      • The Unequal Opportunity Race: African American Policy Forum (4 mins)

      • Clip: A Tale of Two Schools (4 mins)

        • • From ERASE Racism documentary of the same name

      • Race and the Imagination: Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (6.5 mins)

      • Building Culturally Relevant Schools Post-Pandemic with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings (11:10-20:03, 10 minutes)

    • Read:

      • The Systemic Birdcage of Sexism by Marilyn Frye (2 pages)

    • Re-read from last list:

      • Baldwin, J. (1963). A talk to teachers. The Saturday Review, 39, (42-44, 60).

      • Janks, H. (2010). Orientations to literacy. In Literacy and power (pp. 21-33). Routledge.

      • Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159-165.

• You may add all or some of your writing to this shared document.

9:55 - 10:15

Reflecting on Inequities & Social Identities

• We are going to use our reflections to help carry us into thinking about how those inequalities may actually play out.

• We all have different social identities, those that confer us access or lack thereof to power/privilege. Age, gender, religious or spiritual affiliation, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status are some examples. When thinking about inequalities people experience because of their identity, we can often think of two groups: agent and target.

  • • Agent: Member of dominant social groups privileged by birth or acquisition who knowingly or unknowingly exploit and reap unfair advantage over members of the target groups.

    • Target: Member of social identity groups who are discriminated against, marginalized, disenfranchised, oppressed, exploited by an oppressor and oppressor’s system of institutions without identity apart from the target group, and compartmentalized in defined roles.

• Review Target vs. Non-Target Groups document. Reflect on your own identities.

• Use the dialectic of privilege and oppression by Mary Crawford to think about your own identities.

10:15 - 10:45

Journaling About Our Experiences as Agents and Targets of Oppression

• Take a moment to write about two specific moments that you will share with members of your home group.

  • Journal Prompt #1: Draw or write about an experience with oppression involving school in which you were dominant/oppressor (you can write on the back of the handout or in a journal). We suggest you use these four questions to help guide your writing. (Where are you? Who else is there? What is happening? How do you feel about it?)

  • Journal Prompt 2: Draw or write about an experience with oppression involving school when you were subordinate/target. We suggest you use these four questions to help guide your writing. (Where are you? Who else is there? What is happening? How do you feel about it?)

10:45 - 10:55

Break

10:55 - 10:20

Telling Our Stories as Agents and Targets of Oppression

• Pick one story/experience to share with the group (2 minutes each timed). Remember to observe the working agreements.

• The purpose of telling and listening to these stories is to practice the skill of noticing and naming the inequities that play out in our institutions so that we may be strategic in using literacy to disrupt the inequity.

• Use the serial testimony format where each person will share for 1-2 minutes uninterrupted (honor the silence).

  • Round 1: After each person shares, everyone will silently name/type the system of oppression (“-ism”) which the storyteller describes in their story and write it on their own copy of the wheel. You may also choose to jot down notes in your wheel or in your journal.

  • Round 2: Engage in cross talk - Invite storytellers to name the system of oppression at play in their stories. Continue to fill in your chart as necessary. Other listeners can add if they also heard another oppression.

11:00 - 11:45

Reflecting on Sharing Our Stories as Agents & Targets of Oppression

• Respond to the prompts in Jamboard:

  • How did it feel telling your story? How did it feel to listen to others’ stories

  • What was familiar to you? What was different from your experience?

  • Which “-isms” were missing from the stories your group told?

• Discuss in whole group what stood out from everyone's reflections.

11:45 - 11:50

Closing and Afternoon Activities

• Journal groups

• Reaction Sheet

• Suggestion: Review and add to posts on the TPS Teachers Network

• Preparing Readings for Day 6:

  • • Bain (2006)

    • Nieto (2003)