Leading the Call: What Would it Mean for English Language Arts to Become More Culturally Responsive and Sustaining?

The teaching of English Language Arts can be, at its worst, an enforcement of Whiteness, a staunch insistence that all students comply and bend their affiliations to a culture not their own. But such a colonizing agenda does not work, and it is not ethical. The author breaks down the varied responses to culture and demonstrates ways to provide culturally sustaining instruction that allows students to use the literacy strengths they already possess to support classroom learning and help position them as community members.