Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

My biggest hope and goal as a teacher is to have a classroom like the one described in this chapter. I admire Duncan- Andrade and Morrell for really stretched themselves to make a classroom where their students left feeling more aware of the world around them, and furthermore, the students actually applied what they learned and took action in their own community. It was truly inspiring. This was a great example of all the things we have so far discussed in class, that is, their class room incorporated several of the critical pedagogies we have gone over in our own class this quarter. Duncan- Andrade and Morrell encouraged their students to be free autonomous agents and make their own meaning and decisions about common notions. Their class also focused on response and discussion based learning, while meeting common core state standards (as far as I can tell).

What I really loved about this article was how the authors were able to engage their class by incorporating pop culture into their lesson plans. I think that is so important, and like McLaren says in The Critical Pedagogy Reader, “We do not stand before the social world; we live in the midst of it” (63). If we want our students to have an awareness of the world and the problems that surround them, we need to not just focus on “the dead white guys.” Don’t get me wrong, I love classics, reading them and then writing fat essays on them­­­­--it is a huge reason why I decided to go to college and major in English Lit, or what my father would consider the “worst thing to major in” (seriously, if you google “worst college majors,” English Literature is always on the list). But I didn’t care, because I loved it (and, my dad was super supportive for that reason). However, I see a huge problem in the way we are teaching high school English. Not every student is going to be a freak like me and devour Hamlet. Using hip hop, and then comparing it to Shakespearian sonnets is genius. I would have ate that up in high school. And it worked. The students in this article were excited about what they were learning, and making an effort in their learning process.

The thing that most moved me, was that students were taking a stand for their education and themselves. There is no way that these were the first students at North High who recognized how mistreated they were, not just by their peers and teachers, but by their community. But Duncan-Andrade and Morrell were able to use their curriculum to guide these students into taking an active stance in how they wanted to see these issues resolved for the future students at North High. Duncan-Andrade and Morrell chose dominate texts that would aid in “the development and maintenance of a revolutionary consciousness for both teachers and the students in their classroom,” (184). Having the students read books that looked at post-colonialism, racism, sexism, and social injustices, while combing lessons with hip hop, videos, and current world problems helped students have a better awareness of not only their communities, but themselves. I am so thankful I read this article before I dived into my three week unit plan, because I will definitely be incorporating more pop culture in the hopes that it will give students a more enriched learning experience.