Muhammad’s framework focuses on the five educational pursuits of Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy. In the previous blog post, I focused on the interactions of the pursuits of Identity, Skills, and Intellect. Now, I will look at the integration of the pursuits of Criticality and Joy and the balance that needs to be struck between them by looking at the lesson plan on Amanirenas.
As set forth in the Standards for Classical Language Learning, there are five overarching goals for Latin and Greek learners.* These are commonly referred to as the “5 C’s”: Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. When my school began using Gholdy Muhammad’s “equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy,” our classrooms gained the possibility of a “6th C”: Criticality.
Muhammad defines Criticality as considering the question:
“How will my instruction engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression?”**
For example, we can think about the systems of power that perpetuate oppressive -isms and -phobias: racism, colorism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, xenophobia, and colonialism (to name a few). I have used the following questions to broadly elucidate a critical examination of the text:
- Who is the author of the story? What is their perspective? Their bias? How can we tell?
- Who is the narrator of the story? Why would the author choose them as the narrator?
- Who is NOT the narrator? As a result, what details/perspective are missing?
This lesson plan on Amanirenas pays particular attention to the pursuit of Criticality, but none of Muhammad’s pursuits exist in a vacuum; they all work together. First, students consider the queen’s identity in terms of her social position, leadership qualities, gender, and race (as we view it today), at which point they can also consider aspects of their own identities. Skill and Intellect crucially facilitate students’ access to the texts. Then they take a critical look at how characteristics like race and gender can impact one’s ability to lead, considering intersectionality in both ancient and modern society (for example, by talking about the modern leadership of Vice President Kamala Harris). Students also interrogate how various systems of power at play have affected how Amanirenas has been remembered. Lastly, Criticality cannot exist without the pursuit of Joy, which Muhammad has articulated since the original publication of her framework. Through classroom activities like drawing and improving on a museum’s description of a bust of Augustus, students find Joy in the act of learning. And in fact, even though confronting -isms and -phobias can cause anxiety for some, for my students, integrating modern criticality with our subject matter often brings Joy.
At a broader level, looking at instances of classical reception and inviting students to participate in this centuries-old tradition can create Joy. I ask students to create their own artwork, music, or playlists embodying their understanding of the story. We often look at and compare modern art and fan art of Greco-Roman stories, which challenge how they have previously been depicted. As an example, see Ana Martínez’s series of photographs, “20 Dioses y Diosas para 2020.” It brought my students, who are primarily people of color, great joy to see the Greek gods not as white marble statues but as dynamic and imposing Black figures. This is an example of how criticality and questioning can interact with joy and the arts.
Over the past two years, as I have shifted the focus in my lesson plans toward the pursuits of Identity, Criticality, and Joy, it has transformed my teaching and my students’ learning, too. (For that I am extremely grateful to M.E. Hersey, our Director of Curriculum & Instruction, for facilitating my professional growth.) I believe that calling, naming and critiquing oppressive aspects of the past has greatly changed how my students connect with stories. Because I have changed the essential questions that I ask, the kinds of discussions we have in class have changed. For my students, I have seen increased retention of the stories we learn — and of the language used in the telling of these stories. Focusing on Criticality, Joy and Identity don’t take away from students’ ability to acquire skills and knowledge; on the contrary, all five pursuits work together to engage our students more deeply in their reading and analysis of texts.
Click below to download the lesson plan.
* This guiding document, which envisions Latin and Greek language learning for students grades P-20, is a collaborative project between the American Classical League (ACL), the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS), the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS), the Classical Association of New England (CANE), and the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN).
** It is worth noting that the word “critical” has been politicized, for example in the co-opting of the term “critical race theory” by people who oppose teaching about equity, power and oppression.
Before you go…
This piece is part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series. Please help us shape the program for years to come by providing your feedback on this link.
If you’d like to learn more about the other content available in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series, please click on the image below.
