From critical to extraordinary: a narrative analysis of a black woman educators’ extraordinary literacies

Abstract

Critical literacies theory is a useful construct for examining language, power, and social context. However, it may take a rationalist approach that obscures the socio-emotional and spiritual impact of oppressions. This study seeks to address the call for critical literacies studies to take an affective turn to investigate the relationships between power, social context and “interior lives.” Therefore, I conducted a qualitative study framed by Black feminist thought to examine how two Black women educators experienced privilege and resisted oppression through their uses of “extraordinary literacies.” I used narrative methods and Black feminist theorizing to investigate and analyze Black women teachers’ stories of literacy practices in personal and professional settings. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of examining literacy practices using more inclusive methodologies, and the promise that it holds for revealing more expansive iterations of social justice work, which is necessary to truly work towards equity and liberation.

Keywords:

• Black women
• critical literacy
• extraordinary literacy
• Black
• Black feminist thought

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Francheska D. Starks, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education, Health and Human sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research focuses on centering marginalized perspectives in education and educational research. She examines teacher pedagogies that support culturally and linguistically diverse learners.