Critical Pedagogy in an Urban High School English Classroom

I felt that this article gave great insights on our education system. One part I really liked reading in particular was when teachers taught hip hop music coinciding with poetry. I think music is a great way to help kids understand bigger pictures. Music and poetry go hand in hand and a lot of students do not see that. By combining something that all students like and poetry together, students may begin to have a new sense of appreciation for poetry. I also like how the authors mentioned that this poetry unit was at the end of the year. By doing this, students were more likely to become more comfortable with the class which would lead to more personal and authentic poems. I would love to one day incorporate something like this into my future classroom. I think poetry is often forgotten or talked about poorly. I think by pairing poetry with something that students find enjoyable like music, poetry becomes more relatable and interesting.  This article also goes into depth about some things that English teachers may fear. For example, this article goes into depth about an incident with the film A Time to Kill. I feel like it is so important to show students films and books with controversial topics. I do not think there is any way to avoid this as an English teacher. However, if we reiterate that we are watching or reading this film or book in a safe space in which we are looking to analyze these issues, it becomes easier for both teachers and students. One of my favorite lines of this article was: "Teachers need to be prepared for the emotions that will be evoked by the visual text." As teachers, we need to be aware that students will have emotions about clips they say. Some will be good emotions and others will be bad. Regardless, we as teachers need to understand this and not push this under the rug. It's going to happen and we should be prepared for this. This article also mentions how we as teachers need to be ready to talk to other adults, teachers, and parents about what their students are watching. This article mentions how we should not shy away from these texts and films because they are an important part of our past and culture. I completely agree with this.  I loved reading this article and it gave me new insights on education.