Meet Me at the Corner: The Intersection of Literacy Instruction and Race for Urban Education

Abstract

This article focuses on some languaging that occurred during a race event within a literacy lesson involving a racially White, female adult and a racially Black, male child. I analyze an excerpt from this race event, illustrating an approach to race analysis which might be useful to the field of urban education. I ask, “What is the racial significance of this teacher’s language during literacy instruction?” In other words, I am pursuing what a practice theory of race might allow us to know when this alternative account of race is used to examine an observed episode of teaching. Accordingly, I introduce practice of race theory (PRT) and report my race critical discourse analysis of one teacher’s observed instructional language. Findings are relevant to literacy instruction, and future literacy research is recommended, especially in urban education.