Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

I was re-inspired to teach after reading "Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom" by Jeff Duncan - Andrade and Ernest Morrell. I have been struggling with my self confidence in creating lesson plans that will motive and encourage learning while empowering the student. The article gave insight and reasoning for incorporating videos, music and discussion into the classroom while "empowering individuals and collective as agents of social change."

One aspect of the article I found useful was the multiculturalism aspect. The teachers used texts like Beowulf, Othello, Macbeth and other and encouraged the students to look at the treatment of those who were considered to be "others." This was an insightful approach top the readings of classic literature and empowers readers to compare the old "others" to the "others" of our time. The most important quote of the article for me was "An oppressive rendering of a culturally divers text is still oppressive." This was powerful for me because of our past discussions on oppression and the realities of the word. Empowerment is an important element in the teaching of multiculturalism and can be achieved not by focusing on an author or character or color or race, but by encouraging students to look through a multicultural lens at all aspects of the world.