Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #DisruptTexts
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Five Native and Indigenous Media to Watch instead of football this weekend. #DisruptTexts
1. #ReservationDogs is beautiful. Cried, laughed, everything in between. You really don’t know what you’re missing, then you watch & understand. It’s so special. npr.org/2022/08/08/111…
1. #ReservationDogs is beautiful. Cried, laughed, everything in between. You really don’t know what you’re missing, then you watch & understand. It’s so special. npr.org/2022/08/08/111…
2. #RutherfordFalls - I’m still very upset about @peacock not renewing this series! It’s smart, funny, and has so much talent! Really hoping it finds a nee home elsewhere🤞🏽 tvinsider.com/1059276/ruther…
3. #PreyMovie - I was not a fan of the original Predator movies but this one? YES. I’m all about the counter narratives. vogue.com/article/prey-a…
I had assumed that the #DisruptTexts movement was organic. But I recently discovered disrupttexts.org, and I think that, in addition to publishers springing into action to meet market demand, they may possibly be playing a role in fostering abandonment of classics. 1/
Because, there is perhaps much less money to be made selling classics. 2/
I need to be VERY clear that I am wholly in favor of *expanding* the cannon and adding relevant, engaging texts for students in middle school, high school, and (of course) college. Students can and should read Baldwin, Marquez, Tan, Walker, Morrison, Malcolm X, and on and on. 3/
A thread about our newsletter article by @tem2 on the 12/27 @WSJ Opinion piece by #kidlit book reviewer @MeghanGurdon about #DisruptTexts and an alleged banning of Homer's Odyssey. mythoversal.substack.com/p/banning-homer
We publish Greek mythology stories on a mythology website. No one wants to put Homer in classrooms more than we do. We also oppose censorship, Twitter mobs, and cancel culture. Gurdon's article seemed designed to press all of our outrage buttons. Or someone's outrage buttons.
But the article turned out to be slanted and untrue. The first lie came in the headline. The school/district/department/teacher cited have not banned any books. #DisruptTexts also is against banning books. NO ONE quoted in the article favors the banning of books.
After spending a couple of days engaging with #DisruptTexts and its most vociferous Twitter defenders, here is what I've learned:
1. Many of its most outspoken defenders are also outspoken racists. Almost every one that I spoke to focused on my skin color and whatever stereotypes they could fabricate from it in their responses.
2. On a related note, their primary means of argument seems to be largely ad hominem. There was very little discussion of the actual issues. Instead, insults, insinuations, and mockery seemed to be the rules of the game.
The best teachers I know teach their students to critically interrogate *every* text they read. They teach both Morrison & Shakespeare. Baldwin & Frost. Contemporary YA & 19th century novels. They reject the idea that they are mutually exclusive. They build & imagine a new canon.
So much of what we've been taught is "valuable" literature comes from a consensus that kept many ppl out of the room. There is enormous value in a lot of canonical work, there are also enormous problems. Who is included? Who isn't? The best educators name & address that directly.
One of the things that I've found most encouraging over the past several months are the ways so many educators have reexamined what books they are teaching. Who have thought more critically about how to use literature to help their students see themselves, and to see others.
So my biggest problem with the whole #DisruptTexts thing isn't their treatment of "the canon" (whatever that means) but their literary theory.
It turns every book into an echo chamber.
It turns every book into an echo chamber.
Traditional literary theory sees a book carrying a certain purpose, a message, engagement with certain themes and ideas.
T.S. Eliot believed that great authors introduced readers to ideas themselves, and we as readers are to engage with those ideas.
T.S. Eliot believed that great authors introduced readers to ideas themselves, and we as readers are to engage with those ideas.
#DisruptTexts, however, relies upon what we'd call "critical" literary theory.
In this case, a book becomes an artifact and we read to interrogate and learn about the time/culture in which it was written. As Foucault would have it, reading becomes more like archeology.
In this case, a book becomes an artifact and we read to interrogate and learn about the time/culture in which it was written. As Foucault would have it, reading becomes more like archeology.
#disrupttexts activism, led by teachers, pertains to school literature. Math ppl might feel like this discussion is tangential to our work as math teachers.
i'm going to try to explain here how this is centrally related to math education, using their principles.
i'm going to try to explain here how this is centrally related to math education, using their principles.
1) "We have been socialized in certain values, attitudes, and beliefs that inform the way we read and teach texts, and the way we interact with our students. How are my biases affecting the way I’m teaching this text and engaging with my students?"
Math teachers, for us too.
Math teachers, for us too.
2) "Literature study in U.S. largely focuses on White (and male) dominated society, as perpetuated through a traditional, Euro-centric canon. Ask: What voices—authors or characters—are marginalized or missing in our study?"
Replace the words "literature study" with math.
Replace the words "literature study" with math.
There seems to be an assumption by many on both sides of the #DisruptTexts debate that there is a conflict between classic texts and diverse texts. I have to admit that I find this assumption incomprehensible. Any meaningful list of canonical texts would inevitably be diverse.
A list of world great books would surely include the Bhagavad Gita, Confucius's Analects, Monkey, the Qur'an, the 1001 Nights, poetry by Basho, Tao Te Ching, the Vedas and Upanishads, writings of Dogen, the Dhammapada, various sutras, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and many others
Any serious list of American classics would have to include texts by WEB Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Morrison, Booker Washington, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, MLK, Charles Chesnutt, Nella Larsen, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, etc.
1/6 Cowards swim in the sea of intentional ignorance and ingest the water willfully. They are the “anti-intellectuals’ they claim others to be. And they reveal themselves when the racist structures they build and maintain crack and crumble.
2/6 The cowardly and racist reporting by the WSJ targeting @DisruptTexts and several thoughtful educators is shameful but not surprising.
3/6 Intentional ignorance is to claim that children are harmed if they do NOT read classic texts and to name them as ‘foundational’ without acknowledging how white supremacy is the cause for believing them to be ‘foundational’ in the first place.
1/8 When I was a middle school ELA teacher, I was reprimanded for letting my students self select books & for setting aside most of 1 day a week for silent sustained reading. My detractors used words like "rigor" & "canon" & "literary merit."
2/8 I did have a strong ally, though--the school librarian. She explained that my students were the only ones who regularly used the library, who were actively discovering what they loved.
3/8 I saw so much growth throughout the year. Discoveries & delight & personal revelations. It wasn't magic. Some still struggled. But I felt it was the best I could do in the time allotted.
I am seeing a resurgence of interest in educators calling on other educators to stop pushing kids out of class, to do deep reflective work on their own implicit bias, and to implement restorative practice approache to discipline. #ClearTheAir Thread/
While I deeply appreciate the challenges educators are posing to one another, and also agree, that we as educators must call on our peers to do deep reflective work about our own internalized bias and the ways we view student “misbehavior”,
this moment calls on us to approach school safety within a larger context. In short, we need a Yes/And solution to safety, discipline and racial justice in our schools.
It doesn’t matter how many stories with diverse characters you bring into your classroom if all of those stories portray the same narrative. #WLBookAudit #teach4ic
Yes. We want to diversify our book shelves, but if our attempts only introduce students to a single story, we may be doing more harm than good.
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Good morning, #DisruptTexts friends! The entire team is coming to you this morning for the @TheEdCollab Keynote!
Follow our official @DisruptTexts account as we live tweet today & we pursue anti-bias, anti-racist teaching every day. ✊🏾
(psss... we're also doing a giveaway!)
Follow our official @DisruptTexts account as we live tweet today & we pursue anti-bias, anti-racist teaching every day. ✊🏾
(psss... we're also doing a giveaway!)
Today we're talking about the FOUR Core Principles about what it means to truly #DisruptTexts.
On Monday we played a game of rigged Monopoly.
🗣Shout out to @Tolerance_org for their dope lesson (I made some changes, but the spirit still remained).
Let me tell you all about income inequality in America. Woooo boy... it had my kids FIRED UP. (1/x)
🗣Shout out to @Tolerance_org for their dope lesson (I made some changes, but the spirit still remained).
Let me tell you all about income inequality in America. Woooo boy... it had my kids FIRED UP. (1/x)
I’ll try to be succinct, but that ain’t my strength.
There were four players and one, the 🚗, got a huge head start with extra cash and two free properties.
The ⛵️ essentially played by normal rules.
There were four players and one, the 🚗, got a huge head start with extra cash and two free properties.
The ⛵️ essentially played by normal rules.
I'll break down this collage inspired by @halseanderson's SPEAK in the next few tweets. #SpeakLoudly #DisruptTexts #Room407 #THIS407
@halseanderson First, I want you to know that this "exquisite corpse" (some of you might call these floor or table "storms) came together in ten minutes. Tops. From one brand new magazine delivered yesterday (I didn't want you to think I had been sitting with this and pre-composed in process.
@halseanderson Artist friend Melissa Sweet asked me about "exquisite corpses" in the classroom yesterday. I had been thinking about floor storms in the past couple of weeks. Artists. In community. We seem to know how to tap into something latent in another. The question/invitation is the tap.
In my COMM 594 class, we are considering "conflict management" theory. In my discussion post, I cite connections to THE CRUCIBLE. Classmate, Kristi, responds: "It's pretty nifty how conflict management theory can be just a stone's throw away from literary analysis." New Idea. Go.
In interest of #DisruptText, we might miss that the text had already been disrupted as many are: by being innately disconnected from other possible "truths." This is one of the dangers of "covering" titles and texts. And one of the reasons for standards asking two or more texts.
Kristi suggests the Elizabeth Proctor we see in Act IV demonstrates what Omdahl and Fritz (2006) call "cognitive reappraisal" as a means of symbolizing her character's presence as a means to "characterize and sustain resilience." Whether Miller knew this or not isn't essential.
A problem of the anthropomorphic presentation within picture books we might share with younger, will-be readers is that they are read aloud without further appreciation of shared traits or characteristics with the human reader. Story is read. Left at that. #DisruptTexts 1/?
Presented here is a case for moving from “left at that” to “leads to this.” @ProfessorNana calls this “laddering.” I like to think of this as “leading.” But, in order to do it, one must have a deep awareness and appreciation of picture books both past and present. #DisruptTexts
Here, for #bookaday day reading,I was reminded of a 1971 William Steig title while reading @carlsafina’s 2019 adaptation for young readers. Texts separated by almost fifty years now side-by-side for deeper consideration for both lead and need reader alike. #DisruptTexts
When we say, "We got work to do," it's important to define the "we", and perhaps shift away from talking and toward actions that will produce results. Shout out to all educators and allies doing the work of making sure students (who will grow up to be voters) #DisruptTexts
Lately, I've been talking with @nenagerman and others about the role of the anti- racist educator in spaces serving predominantly white children vs. spaces with children of color.
Some thoughts: systems and structures predominantly serving children of color are often environments that perpetuate narratives of subordination and white suburban supremacy.
2018: My Year of Reading. A thread that follows my reading journey from January to December. Every book I've read with a 280 character review. Tagged a few folks who influence the shape of my literary life 📚 #THEBOOKCHAT #DisruptTexts #TeachLivingPoets 📚
1. Never Let Me Go; Kazuo Ishiguro: A supremely crafted narrative begins unassumingly, but quickly reveals a different notion of childhood innocence and coming of age. The conversational tone fooled me into thinking I was walking into a world I understood. Nobel worthy.
2. We Should All Be Feminists; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: As an author who breathes eloquence, Adichie doesn't disappoint. This short book/long essay is insightful and logical and human. If we want to raise boys without the toxic masculinity, this is on the required reading list.
So I'm going to post some links.... All purchases go to supporting initiatives I am a part of/helping to lead. Recently had somebody reach out asking for my Venmo to compensate me for all they learn from me on Twitter. I appreciate that. Here are additional ways...[THREAD]
#Educolor is my heart home. It is where familia, intense dreaming, and powerful activism centered around educational equity starts and ends for me.
#DisruptTexts is a little thing we have going on recognized by @NYTimesLearning and @chicagotribune so let's keep disrupting the literary canon and all THAT.
teespring.com/stores/disrupt…
teespring.com/stores/disrupt…
In so many places labeled "urban" or serving "low-income" communities (I hate labels but will use the language I have for the time being) teachers have neither the content, nor pedagogical knowledge to experiment with the canon.
Schools can and will be shut down and principals fired, forced to retire, or reassigned if literacy scores look a certain way for too long.
This leads to a panicked and constant "putting out fires" or "avoiding disasters" type of energy and climate in schools. So, adults in charge of making curriculum decisions lean on what "worked" for them--the classics.
There's been a lot of discussion about the #lauraingallswilderaward and #LauraIngallsWilder 's place in the literary canon, and a lot of it centers around nostalgia. But your nostalgia has never been a great reason to make kids read anything. So let's #DisruptTexts it!
Before we do that, let's look at some articles that help us to frame WHY we're disrupting the Little House series:
vox.com/culture/2018/6…
vox.com/culture/2018/6…
And this thread is also a really good read:
