a teaching and learning model that brings the history of ...

1 GHOLD Y MUHAMMAD AN EQUITY FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY RESPONSIVE LITERACYC ultivatingGeniusGHOLD Y MUHAMMADFOREWORD BY BETTINA L. LOVEC ultivatin g GeniusDr. Gholnecsar Gholdy Muhammad earned her in literacy, language, and culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Her research has focused on the social and historical foundations of literacy in Black communities and how literacy development can be reconceptualized in classrooms today. Dr. Muhammad is the recipient of multiple research awards from the National Council of Teachers of English and from Georgia State University and UIC. She s an associate professor at Georgia State University, where she also serves as the director of the Urban Literacy Collaborative and Clinic. She works with teachers and youth across the and South Africa.$ this book, award-winning researcher Dr. Gholdy Muhammad presents a teaching and learning model that brings the history of illustrious African American literary societies to bear on the way we teach today.

2 The four-layered framework identity, skills development, intellect, and criticality is essential for all young students, especially students of color, who tradition ally have been margin alized by learning standards, gov-ernment policies, and school practices. Dr. Muhammad offers a blend of pedagogical approaches that revolutionize teaching and learning across grade levels and content areas. You ll learn how to design historically responsive learning goals and lesson plans that put this groundbreaking research into practice. In this powerful new book, Gholdy Muhammad reminds us that literacy can be a source of power for young people and a key to transforming their lives. In this accessible and thought-provoking book, educators will find Muhammad s framework and the examples she uses illuminating and useful. For those who seek to use literacy as a force for equity, this book will be an invaluable tool and guide. Pedro A.

3 Noguera, Distinguished Professor of Education, Faculty Director, Center for the Transformation of Schools, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies In every generation a new voice emerges that serves as a reminder of our deeper human ity and its connection to the printed word. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is that voice as she reminds us of the genius running through the veins of children. cultivating Genius, if read and understood in the spirit in which it is written, will increase the probability that children realize and exercise their latent power within. The field of literacy has a new gift, wrapped in its own bow of genius. Alfred W. Tatum, Dean and Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. Author of Reading for Their Life. This is the most important book that I have read in the last half-decade. There were several times that I had to put it down to emote, to think, to mourn, to dream.

4 Those of us who love and teach Black children are constantly having to disrupt, subvert, undermine, and destroy classroom practices and school policies that murder souls and steal futures. In this, we are robbed of countless opportunities to co-construct powerful, literate realities for children and their communities. Gholdy Muhammad reminds us that we are architects, too not just fighters. And cultivating Genius is one of our most powerful blueprints for building on the literacy legacy of our African American forebears. Cornelius Minor, Brooklyn-based Educator, Consultant, and AuthorCultivating 1-310/21/19 5:59 PMNOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONA ccess Your Companion Website! cultivating Genius is a timely, important, and educator-friendly book that is needed now more than ever before. One cannot fully engage the power of what is available through culturally responsive lesson planning with-out applying Dr. Muhammad s brilliant and innova tive framework.

5 This practical guide illuminates and translates theory in ways that will help educators bring about the change needed in literacy classrooms change that culturally responsive and sustaining pedago-gies promise. In a sentence: This is the book we in the teacher education literacy field have been waiting for. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University Dr. Gholdy Muhammad has her ear attuned to the pulsing needs of youth of color and their teachers. She masterfully brings theory to vibrant life in classrooms, providing educa-tors with a framework that turns to history to guide precisely the rich, responsive, and multifaceted literacy learning we urgently need in the present. In short, Dr. Muhammad s concept of Historically Responsive Literacies is a game changer in literacy education. Elizabeth Dutro, Professor, Literacy Studies Chair, Literacy Studies Program School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder Gholdy Muhammad has written a truly brilliant, necessarily bold, and absolutely beautiful book!

6 From her focus on utiliz ing a Historically Responsive Literacy framework to her recognition of historical and contempo-rary embodiments of Black Excellence, Black Joy, and Black Love, cultivating Genius advo-cates for educational equity, transformation, and engaged teaching that cultivates the genius of our students. What a read! Valerie Kinloch, Ren e and Richard Goldman Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School, University of Pittsburgh, School of Education cultivating Genius is about (re)membering that equity and excellence have always been the hallmark of literacy traditions of Black and Brown peoples. It is about (re)storying the models for literacy teaching and learning in ways that (re)mind us all that identity, skills, criticality, and intellect have always been the foundation of African American literacy teaching . Muhammad brilliantly writes an important (re)member ing of who we are and our ways of being literate, one that puts culture and community at the very heart of learning and teaching .

7 That is where equity and excel-lence reside. cultivating Genius (re)members that truth. And if equity and justice are to be attainable goals, we must (re)member it, too. Cynthia B. Dillard, (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa), Mary Frances Early Professor of Teacher Education, University of Georgia cultivating Genius is a rare glimpse into the future. It is at once a framework for advanc-ing equity in literacy education and a needed treatment for undoing the historical ills of racial injustice. It is smart and wonder fully clear. This book offers the perfect blueprint for reimagining the possibilities of the classroom. David E. Kirkland, Professor, Urban Education at New York University, Executive Director, New York University, Metro CenterCultivating 4-610/21/19 5:59 PMNOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONAN EQUITY FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY RESPONSIVE LITERACYC ultivatingGeniusGHOLDY MUHAMMAD SP_CULTIVATING 110/17/19 1:41 PMNOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONP hotos : cover and throughout: johnwoodcock/Getty Images; 24: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock; 31: Accessible Archives Inc.

8 ; 41: SDI Productions/iStockphoto; 46 top: Bongani Mnguni/City Press/Gallo Images/Getty Images; 46 bottom: AP Photo/Bill Hudson; 47: Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society; 48: kali9/iStockphoto; 53: Wilson Group Network, Inc.; 55: kali9/iStockphoto; 62: SDI Productions/iStockphoto; 66: Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock; 71: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images; 73: xavierarnau/iStockphoto; 83: Bettmann/Getty Images; 89: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock; 106: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock; 130: General Research Division, The New York Public Library; 131: Zurijeta/Shutterstock; 136: SpeedKingz/Shutterstock; 140: University of Detroit Mercy, Special Collections, Black Abolitionist Archive; 151: Library of Congress. All other photos by Josh Mo se for Scholastic from Hidden Name and Complex Fate from Shadow and Act by Ralph Ellison. Copyright 1953, 1964 by Ralph Ellison. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc., a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

9 All rights from To Be a Slave by Julius Lester. Copyright 1968 by Julius Lester. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights from Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela. Copyright 1994, 1995 by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights from the speech What Is Your Life s Blueprint? delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to students at Barratt Junior High in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967. Copyright 1967 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., renewed 1991 by Coretta Scott King. Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY. All rights : Lois BridgesEditorial director: Sarah LonghiEditor-in-Chief: Raymond CoutuDevelopment/production editor: Danny MillerSenior editor: Shelley GriffinAssistant editor: Molly BradleyEditorial assistant: Sean CavanaghCover designer: Tom MartinezInterior designer: Maria LiljaScholastic is not responsible for the content of third-party websites and does not endorse any site or imply that the information on the site is error-free, correct, accurate, or part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

10 For information regarding permission,write to Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 2020 by Gholdy rights reserved. Published by Scholastic in the : 978-1-338-59489-8 SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic company names, brand names, and product names are the property and/or trademarks of their respective does not endorse any product or business entity mentioned 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 40 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 Text pages printed on 10% PCW recycled Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012To Al Mujib (The Responsive).I dedicate this book to my mothers: Maria, Ajile, Evelyn, and Bernice. And to my Baba. SP_CULTIVATING 210/17/19 1:41 PMNOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONC ontentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..5 FOREWORD BY BETTINA L. LOVE ..6 INTRODUCTION: Restoring Equity and Excellence to Today s Classrooms ..8 PART ONE: Drawing From history to Reimagine Literacy Education.