Counterstorying as Shining a Light: Teaching about Slavery through Narratives

Abstract

The article critiques schools’ current reification and overreliance on teaching slavery as a history of exceptional individuals and unbroken progress toward freedom. The authors explore how the counterstorying of narratives of formerly enslaved individuals in both preservice and inservice education coursework complicates and engages the histories and legacies of slavery. Thomas’ frame for critical race counterstorying (2020) and critical literacy (Janks 2013) form the theoretical lens for countering curricular violence. The authors focus on The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano as representative of the current canonical frame, then introduce interviews with formerly enslaved African Americans from the Federal Writers Project, Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon, and the graphic novel Abina and the Important Men by Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke to demonstrate how counterstorying slavery shines a light on power and resistance.