Research into Practice. Critical Conversations in the Classroom: Interview with Melissa Schieble, Amy Vetter, and Kahdeidra Monét Martin

by Rebecca J. Morris, March 2021

Research Recap by Melissa Schieble, Amy Vetter, and Kahdeidra Monét Martin

Classroom Talk for Social Change is a book for English language arts teachers, teacher educators, literacy coaches, and school leaders looking for resources and guidance on how to lead difficult conversations about social identities including race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and other oppressions in the classroom. Critical conversations support students with the tools to speak back to injustices they encounter in and out of school, support grassroots activism among youth, and build students' literacies for full participation in civic life and democracy. The book was inspired our own love of language and literature and our dedication to supporting new and experienced teachers to foster meaningful dialogue about power with students in ELA classrooms. The book is influenced by scholarship focused on dialogic instruction, which is an approach to pedagogy that supports authentic, inquiry-driven dialogue in ELA classrooms. We offer a fresh perspective by intersecting dialogic instruction with theories about culturally sustaining pedagogy and critical literacy. Both theories denaturalize literacy pedagogies based in a "standard" or strictly skills-based approach. Instead, these theories bring into focus a lens on power, privilege, and oppression and aim for linguistic, cultural, and social pluralism in school spaces.

We had several goals for bringing this work to educators. First, the book increases ELA teachers' interactional awareness about critical conversations. Interactional awareness means being mindful in the moment about the dynamics of classroom discourse and knowing when and how to improvise through talk moves, for example, to foster critical conversations. Ultimately, the main goal is to impact the kinds of conversations that happen in ELA classrooms and in society writ large.

We take readers through a framework for fostering critical conversations. The framework includes building knowledge about power, adopting a critical learner stance, enacting critical pedagogies, using critical talk moves, and embracing vulnerability. The book integrates classroom examples from six ELA teachers in urban, rural, and suburban school contexts. The final chapter supports teachers to form their own inquiry groups to study critical conversations using their own classroom transcripts and provides resources for engaging in this work.

Interview with Rebecca Morris

Rebecca Morris: Congratulations on the publication of your book! I felt so fortunate to hear the three of you speak about your book in the publisher's webinar, along with moderator Limarys Caraballo. Would you introduce yourselves, and talk about your inspiration for this book?

Amy Vetter: As a former high school English teacher, I was interested in having critical conversations with my students, but as a white teacher, I often asked myself if I was facilitating them in a way that was helpful or harmful. I carried that dilemma with me as I became a professor in English education. I've always been interested in how learning occurs in classroom interactions. Melissa and I started working together on a research project several years ago that examined how preservice teachers used discourse analysis to examine transcripts of lessons they taught. We asked them to look at how they positioned themselves as teachers, how students positioned them, and how they positioned students. In a reflection, they wrote about how those positions lined up (or did not) with their teacher vision. We also asked them to write about and discuss how their identity markers, such as race or gender, shaped classroom interactions and teaching practices. Most often, preservice teachers had difficulty with this kind of critical self-reflection, and as a result, they didn't have much to say when we engaged in our own critical conversations about power and privilege in teaching. I realized that I needed to do a better job a facilitating that critical self-reflection, but I wasn't sure how. Thus, my inspiration for this research project and book was to first learn how to better foster critical conversations as a teacher educator and open spaces for teachers to learn how to do the same in their own classrooms.

Kahdeidra Monét Martin: Like many literacy teachers, I am driven by my passions for language as a writer and lover of literature. Growing up in the multicultural and multilingual city of New York, linguistic variation had been a consistent point of curiosity and delight for me. With its exploration of African American and West Indian female friendships that mirrored my own life, The Friends by the author Rosa Guy was my all-time favorite book as a child. As a graduate student, the critical conversations book project was an incredible opportunity to explore my interests in discourse, critical ideologies, and anti-racist teaching pedagogy. Frankly, I didn't even know that the field of critical conversations existed! And I was just thrilled to be involved in research that tackled discussion about issues of race and class in particular. As an educator myself, I teach courses on humanizing, inclusive, and culturally sustaining pedagogy, and I am excited to build my skill set in facilitating discussions on these issues with diverse groups of students.

Melissa Schieble: As a former English teacher, I have always been inspired by the moments in classroom life when students are engaged in authentic and meaningful discussions. My research and teaching have been heavily inspired by a dialogic approach to instruction and also the work of critical literacy. I believe our job as ELA teachers is to help students become "text critics"—to learn to read the ways a text signals the "kinds" of people we should be, and how others deserve to be treated, by engaging with a story. I also have been inspired by books such as Courageous Conversations by Glenn Singleton, by the work of scholars such as Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz's archeology of the self, and by our interest in really opening up what critical conversations looked like in U.S. classrooms. We felt a book that integrated some of the best ideas and theories out there with a focus on ELA classrooms was needed.

RM: A topic of increasing importance in school librarianship is trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive teaching. School librarians may be looked upon as that "trusted adult" for some students, a caring person they can turn to each year they attend the same school, and in a related way, the library might serve as a place of routine and familiarity. You've mentioned some connections between trauma-informed pedagogy and critical conversations. Could you talk more about this for us?

RM: In the webinar you did with the book's publisher, Dr. Schieble talked about always being present in a discussion and modeling active listening. In the book, we learn that active listening includes attending to nonverbal cues and silences. In today's environment of virtual learning, many educators are realizing new needs and challenges in our communications and conversations. What guidance might you offer to educators who want to build their own and their students' critical listening skills in a virtual classroom space?

MS: Perhaps one of the most important ideas I learned through writing this book is the crucial role that listening plays in critical conversations. Learning how to listen with care and purpose during critical conversations shapes what is subsequently said. We refer to this practice as critical listening. Critical listening holds potential for teachers and students to question their assumptions and consider experiences and backgrounds with which they might not be familiar. For example, we argue a critical listening skill for white teachers and students is to recognize one's level of knowledge about racism and know when to hold back and shift to listening with purpose to multiple or differing perspectives. We argue it is a crucial skill and form of participation for students (and teachers) to develop critical listening skills to engage with critical conversations about power, privilege, and oppression.

RM: School librarians are likely familiar with classroom culture. A new layer of this topic that I learned in reading your book was the idea of taking a deeply nuanced and reflective approach to establishing a space where students might share critical conversations, particularly around notions of privilege and power dynamics. Could you explain some steps that educators might take in order to, as you describe, "create conditions where all students can participate in critical conversations"?

AV: In our book, we talk about the ways in which vulnerability, safety, and bravery play a significant part in creating a classroom culture for critical conversations. Creating that culture is complicated and dependent on the students in the room and the sociopolitical context of the school and area. With that said, we suggest that educators can do four things to create opportunities for students to participate in dialogue: establish norms for conversations, engage in critical listening, practice vulnerability, and model repair. I can talk briefly about them here. First, educators can establish norms or expectations for conversations. We recommend drawing on the work of brave spaces (Aaro and Clemens 2013) in which participants develop norms such as taking risks, owning your privileges, and speaking from personal experiences. Second, we recommend reminding participants to listen, especially when peers are sharing personal and oftentimes marginalized experiences. Such critical listening skills can include asking questions, such as: What can I learn from listening in this moment? What emotions am I experiencing as I listen? What questions do I need to ask to learn more?

Third, we recommend supporting students to practice vulnerability during conversations by sharing experiences and reflecting on those experiences, as long as those experiences do not cause traumatic reactions. Such vulnerability can indicate change and learning and help others to share differing perspectives. Finally, we want all students to speak their truth and participate in critical conversations. With that said, we recognize that there will be times when someone is called out on their racist, sexist, or other oppressive patterns. If that happens, the teacher might opt for a conflict resolution approach and model listening for emotions and underlying needs of both students in what we call modeling repair. We illustrate what that would look like in the book in five steps. Another option is to practice repair by talking with the individuals after class.

RM: And to follow up with that question, many school librarians might find themselves in co-teaching scenarios—in fact, as an educator of pre-service librarians, I hope that they do! In these relationships, librarians might be entering into an established, or perhaps developing culture among a classroom teacher and their students. What guidance might you offer to a librarian interested in facilitating critical conversations when teaching in collaboration with a colleague?

MS: We first advise librarians working in co-teaching scenarios to assess their classroom, school, and community context. What beliefs about literature and learning does the teacher display through the way the classroom is organized? Are there posters by authors of color, for example, and are diverse identities and communities represented in the teacher's classroom library and curriculum resources? Depending on the answers to these questions, the work will begin from differing access points. If it is clear a teacher is committed to dominant traditions in ELA, a New Criticism approach using "classic" canonical literature written by mostly white men, we recommend beginning with suggesting texts and instructional practices that humanize the curriculum. Chapter 5 in the book provides several practices and resources to build critical conversations from a humanizing stance. We also recommend seeking advice from organizations such as Teaching Tolerance for a wealth of resources and classroom ideas. Our last piece of advice is to do the work, every day, to commit to building a co-taught classroom where talk about social change is happening. Librarians play a crucial role in the school and classroom community through read-ins and making visible the books and media that students "see" and interact with in school spaces. Often, librarians can be the most influential in transforming teachers' and parents' beliefs about books that have been traditionally marginalized in classrooms: graphic novels, LGBTQ-themed books, or texts addressing difficult topics such as racism and sexual assault.

RM: You describe "action talk moves," in part, as a way to "help students think about how their understandings of the world shift over time and how they might change their behaviors based on those new perspectives." For school librarians, the opportunity to use action talk moves might unfold in the course of teaching and guiding student research. Students might uncover new information or perspectives that challenge something they assumed to be true or that sheds new light on a subject. How might school librarians use action talk moves with students? Can you give us a few example stems or prompts?

AV: School librarians can use action talk moves to help students see how they might put their research into action. For example, if a student is doing research about gendered beauty standards or equitable dress codes in school, librarians can ask students how their research has added to or made them think differently about the topic. They can also ask students what they would like to do about the issue now that they have more information and knowledge. Could they write a letter to the principal offering solutions to a new dress code? Could they create a campaign that pushes back against toxic beauty standards? Once students have settled on what they want to compose, school librarians could offer model texts for students to use as a guide. Overall, these talk moves should help students think about potential actions to address critical issues within their local and broader communities.

RM: What are your next projects? What are you excited to work on next?

AV: Towards the end of our three years of work, we developed the framework for critical conversations that we discuss in our book. I would love to work with a group of pre- and/or in-service teachers over 3-5 years and engage them in that framework consistently over time to see how it supports teachers' fostering critical conversations in ELA classrooms. Along with that, I would love to see how this work changes within various rural, urban, and suburban contexts across the United States. Finally, I would love to talk with students about their experiences engaging in the critical conversations. Overall, I still think we have much to learn and I would like to continue unpacking how educators can do this with students in productive ways.

KMM: I am really curious about the efficacy of critical conversations during this time of increased precarity and stress because of the pandemic and shift to online teaching. Inequitable access to electricity, the Internet, and mobile technology can uphold old barriers and recreate new ones. How do best practices for synchronous and asynchronous learning align with principles of critical conversations? How can we implement trauma-informed and culturally responsive online education? These are the types of questions to consider as we move into a prolonged virtual teaching and learning space.

MS: I am interested in studying the dynamics of silence and non-verbal communication during critical conversations. From this study, we learned that most of the power in critical conversations happens in small spaces—an eye roll, a look toward a peer, an arm cross, strategic silence, and insidious ways of talking around issues such as racism and sexism. I am really interested in studying the dynamics of classroom discourse at this level and also learning more about critical listening.

Recommended Resources

https://www.trepeducator.org/

The Trauma Responsive Educational Practices (TREP) Project works to develop the individual and organizational capacity of educators and schools serving children growing up in neighborhoods that have high levels of toxic stress, such as violent crime, concentrated poverty, concentrated foster care involvement, and housing instability.

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/a-trauma-informed-approach-to-teaching-through-coronavirus

An article by Teaching Tolerance, "A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching through Coronavirus: Experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Share Their Recommendations for Educators Supporting Students during the COVID-19 Crisis" (March 2020). Includes links to other articles on responding to racism and coronavirus.

https://www.morningsidecenter.org/

Morningside Center provides professional learning and lesson plans to build students' social and emotional skills, facilitate community-building, implement restorative practices, and promote courageous conversations about race. They are based in New York City, but lesson plans are open access. They provide after-school training to youth workers in the city.

https://tanenbaum.org/programs/education/

The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding offers free and low-cost curricula to increase religious pluralism and decrease bullying. Their Seven Principles for Inclusive Education builds inclusive and respectful classrooms and are the foundation for all of their curricula and teacher training programs.