Reading queer counter-narratives in the high-school literature classroom: possibilities and challenges

ABSTRACT

Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a 13-week Gay and Lesbian Literature course, this paper explores how a high-school teacher and her students engaged with queer-themed literature. Focused on episodes around the class’ engagement with two of the novels read in the course – Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle and Michael Cunningham's The Hours – the paper offers insights into how these queer counter-narratives opened up spaces for unanticipated queer moments which intervened disruptively into the heteronormative space of the English literature classroom, while also revealing the persistency of heteronormative discourses. This research raises questions about the pedagogical frameworks which guide the implementation of curricula focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer topics in secondary schools. I suggest that queer counter-narratives provide productive sites where teachers and their student readers can negotiate the paradoxes of contemporary queer subjectivities as they wrestle with notions of identity, normalcy, and norms related to diverse sexualities and genders.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQ
• queer pedagogy
• queer literacies
• counter-narratives
• English language arts
• secondary education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Kirsten Helmer is affiliated to Institute for Teaching Excellence & Faculty Development, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

Notes

1. By using the term norm-disruptive instead of queer, I emphasize the function and power relationship related to diverse sexualities, genders and sexes while at the same time acknowledging that not all people with sexualities and/or genders that fall outside received norms identify or name themselves as queer. The phrase also recognizes the impossibility of an exhaustive representation of all diverse sexualities, genders, and sexes.

2. The Queer Literacies Framework developed here is not to be confused with Miller's (2015) Queer Literacy Framework, which delineates 10 principles that teachers should assume as they promote (a)gender and (a)sexuality self-determination and justice.

3. Sara decided to have her real name used in publications. The names of the students mentioned in the article are pseudonyms to protect their identities.

4. I define being ‘out’ as having publicly disclosed one's sexual orientation/sexual identity.