Research in the Teaching of English Aug 2018

“Untold Stories”: Cultivating Consequential Writing with a Black Male Student through a Critical Approach to Metaphor

Sakeena Everett

Abstract

Several writing studies have affirmed the literacies of young Black men in schooling contexts in humanizing ways, which has importantly moved us beyond rationalizing their literacy practices in educational spaces. Less of this important research has directly focused on young Blackmen who are deemed academically high-achieving in traditional English language arts (ELA)classrooms. Thus, academically high-achieving young Black men are often silent in literacy education and research; they have “untold stories,” as described by Shawn, the focal student inthis critical ethnographic case study. In an effort to provide literacy supports for these students and their ELA educators, I developed a consequential literacy pedagogy. In this article, I focuson consequential writing—one product of the consequential literacy pedagogy. Consequential writing concurrently develops academic and critical literacies. This layered literacy approach is intentionally developed by, for, and with historically marginalized communities to equip them to act against inequity within and beyond academic spaces through the learning, teaching, and sharing of writing. The current study cultivated consequential writing with a Black male student through a critical approach to metaphor. Metaphor is ideal for developing consequential writing due to its ability to simultaneously engage critical, creative, and cognitive literacies. In this paper,I address the following research question: How did an academically high-achieving Black male secondary student utilize the generative power of metaphor to cultivate consequential writing?Next, I illuminate the transferability of this work to support ELA educators in cultivating consequential writing with students beyond this study. Finally, I discuss some unintended consequences of consequential writing for Black youth in academic spaces that do not honor their lives or minds.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2018-08-15
DOI
10.58680/rte201829754
Open Access
Closed
Topics
qualitative research race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Masterson (2022)
    Literacy as a Race, Students as Machines: Conflicting Metaphors in a Remedial R…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. ife (2022)
    A Run // on black study
    Research in the Teaching of English
  3. Johnson et al. (2020)
    Revealing the Human and the Writer: The Promise of a Humanizing Writing Pedagog…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  4. Caraballo et al. (2020)
    Announcing the 2018-2019 Alan C. Purves Award Recipient: Demanding Critical Lit…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  5. Ybarra (2020)
    “We Have a Strong Way of Thinking … and It Shows through Our Words”: Exploring …
    Research in the Teaching of English

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 13 works outside this index ↓
  1. Behizadeh (2015)
    Xavier’s take on authentic writing: Structuring choices for expression and impact
    Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy  ↗
  2. Bhattacharya (2017)
    Fundamentals ofqualitative research: A practical guide
     ↗
  3. Fauconnier (2008)
    Rethinking metaphor
     ↗
  4. Fludernik (2005)
    The metaphorics and metanymics of carcerality: Reflections on imprisonment as source and target
    English Studies  ↗
  5. Gutiérrez (2016)
    Social design experiments: Toward equity by design
    Journal of Learning Sciences  ↗
  6. Haddix (2009)
    Black boys can write: Challenging dominant framings of African American males in literacy…
    Journalof Adolescent & Adult Literacy  ↗
  7. Howard (2016)
    Why Black lives (and Black minds) matter: Race, Freedom Schools, and the quest for educat…
    Journalof Negro Education  ↗
  8. Paris (2014)
    What are we seeking to sustain through culturally sustaining pedagogy? A loving critique …
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  9. San Pedro (2017)
    Toward projects in humanization: Research on co-creating and sustaining dialogic relationships
    American Educational Research Journal  ↗
  10. Schon (1993)
    Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem solving in social policy
     ↗
  11. Tatum (2012)
    The sociocultural benefits of writing for African American adolescent males
    Reading & Writing Quarterly  ↗
  12. Tuck (2009)
    Suspending damage: A letter to communities
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  13. Tuck (2014)
    R-words: Refusing research
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 19 View in citation network →

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