Antiracism and Culturally Responsive Teaching: Elevating Student Voice to Lead Critical Dialogue on Race

Schools in America today operate to assimilate and oppress students of color, continuing to uphold systems of white supremacy that specifically harm Black and Indigenous students (Paris & Alim, 2014, 2017). Given this climate of systematic violence pervasive in schools, it is of paramount importance that all educators commit to unfaltering antiracism. This Capstone Project sets out to answer the research question: How can the implementation of culturally and linguistically responsive discussion protocols elevate students to lead critical conversations about race and identity in an English classroom? Through this inquiry, this study designs curriculum for a high school, English elective course entitled, “Me Against the World: Hip Hop, Identity, and Revolution”. This curriculum outlines six units of study that all focus on centering student-led, culturally and linguistically responsive discussion protocols to hold dialogic space critically examining the intersections between identity, race, and community-directed change. The discussion protocols highlighted in this course are modified from the work of Dr. Sharroky Hollie and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy (Hollie, 2018). This Capstone Project hopes to provide practical application for all educators seeking to implement culturally sustaining theory into their classrooms. This work aspires to lend itself to the argument that through culturally responsive discussion protocols, our learners can raise their voices to actualize a more equitable world