During an impromptu pre-department meeting chat with literacy colleagues, we began to think about examining our syllabi for diversity of required and recommended texts. We noted that often people examine reading lists for K-12 students in terms of diversity, such as children’s literature, adolescent literature, and the secondary canon.
Below are the texts listed on my course syllabi for all courses I currently teach on a regular basis. I have put white male authors in red text for a quick glance at diversity.
Assigned and Recommended Texts in Taught Courses
[In many courses, students choose among these texts, and in some courses, students have choice outside this list. These are texts offered on course syllabi as limited choice but required in courses.]
White male author
Why We Teach Now, Sonia Nieto
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, Robin DiAngelo
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too, Chris Emdin
The Poverty and Education Reader edited by Paul C. Gorski and Julie Landsman
Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children, Sarah Carr
Police in the Hallways: Discipline in an Urban High School, Kathleen Nolan
Scarcity, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir
Beware the Roadbuilders: Literature as Resistance, P.L. Thomas
Me-Search and Re-Search: A Guide for Writing Scholarly Personal Narrative Manuscripts, Robert Nash and DeMethra LaSha Bradley
Reading Educational Research: How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered, Gerald Bracey
Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay
Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 12th Edition, Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup
The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing, John Warner
James Baldwin: The Last Interview: And other Conversations
Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
No Name in the Street, James Baldwin
I Am Not Your Negro, James Baldwin and Raoul Peck
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education, Mychal Denzel Smith
A House of My Own, Sandra Cisneros
Known and Strange Things: Essays, Teju Cole
The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson
The End of Imagination, Arundhati Roy
Sex Object, Jessica Valenti
We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit
Best Practice: Bringing Standards to Life in America’s Classrooms, Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde
Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write, Cunningham and Allington
Girls, Social Class and Literacy: What Teachers Can Do to Make a Difference, Stephanie Jones
Writing and Teaching to Change the World: Connecting with Our Most Vulnerable Students, Stephanie Jones
When Kids Can’t Read—What Teachers Can Do, Kylene Beers
Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men, Michael Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds: Culturally Responsive and Socially Just Practices in U.S. Classrooms, Sonia Nieto
Teaching English by design, Peter Smagorinsky
Writing Instruction That Works: Proven Methods for Middle and High School Classrooms, Arthur N. Applebee and Judith A. Langer
Critical Foundations in Young Adult Literature: Challenging Genres, Antero Garcia
Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-truth America, Chris Goering and P.L. Thomas, eds.
Comic Connections: Reflecting on Women in Popular Culture, Susan Eckard, ed.
Course Syllabi
EDU 111: Perspectives on American Education
EDU 115 (MAYX): The Reel World: The Depiction of Schools on Film
EDU 250/ EDRD 750: Scholarly Reading and Writing in Education
FYW 1259: Reconsidering James Baldwin in the Era of #BLACKLIVESMATTER
EDU 452: Teaching English in Grades 7-12
EDU 451: Literature for Young Adults; EDRD 748: Adolescent Literature Survey
dr. p.l. (paul) thomas 