Discussions of race and racism can be unpredictable and difficult to navigate, but that doesn’t mean that we can shy away from them or shut them down. Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students by Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides addresses the fears and concerns teachers may have and provides concrete methods for navigating discussion of race in the classroom. One of the strengths of this text is that the authors provide examples of real classroom discussions that they then unpack to see where the teacher could have navigated the situation more effectively or point out where the teacher was successful when students became heated. They also provide a framework utilizing backward design to develop units for students to increase racial literacy, because in some texts, it’s difficult to know where to start. Using commonly taught works, like A Raisin in the Sun, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Crossover, and One Crazy Summer, Borsheim-Black and Sarigianides explain how to use a Critical Race Theory lens for literary analysis, planning for discussions involving race, exposing Whiteness and White supremacy, and designing assignments to build racial literacy.
I also think it’s important to acknowledge that while this text focuses on instruction for White students, the authors also address the reality that most teachers do not have homogeneous racial groupings in their classes and that they need to think about how their curriculum and instructional choices impact BIPOC students. The authors offer concrete ways to address this, as well.
With the courses I’m teaching, I can’t shy away from discussions of race, and I wish I had read this book earlier in my career. I’ve had moments in my classroom where I’ve struggled and situations that I didn’t feel equipped to handle. While I know I’ll never be able to predict the way a discussion will go, after reading this, I feel like I have a more concrete way to plan units, analyze the texts I teach, design assignments, and prepare for discussions.