Warrior Scholars & Bridge Builders: Civic Dreaming in ELA Classrooms

Abstract

This study explores how two high school English language arts (ELA) teachers leveraged disciplinary literacy practices in their classrooms to help students explore their identities as citizens and imagine a more just and equitable democratic society. Using a figured worlds framework, the study articulates a sociocritical approach to civic literacy learning that challenges neoliberal constructions of citizenship and literacy and situates ELA classes as crucial sites of civic education. Findings demonstrate how the intersection of teacher and student identities, literacy practices, and learning contexts create distinct classroom civic worlds in which civic dreaming can take place and democratic praxis can be enacted. The authors suggest a need for the field of ELA to consider the intersections of race, literacy, and citizenship to challenge social inequities through classroom learning.