This reading highlights the various occurrences and the affects of curriculum violence. This can be defined as an educator's action of constructing a set of lessons that negatively affect and or damage students emotionally or intellectually. Racial trauma was one of the many appearances that was discussed within the reading. There have situations in which students had to act our various topics of slavery, making wanted posters for slaves, and other forms of discomfort and deprivations. It can also occur outside of racial trauma another form discussed is within the reading is the queer community.

The use of the word violence is an important away from this breakdown. As we view violence as just a physical harmful act, when it can be a from of emotional damage such as those who have faced it within what should have been a positive learning experience. Not seeing it for what it is, violence, takes away from the struggle these students are faced with. It is an act that can make students feel worthless, unvalued, and damage how they grow to see themselves and taking away from that experience only risks deepening the pain more. We must reclaim a safe, welcoming and equitable earning environment. We as educators need to work on building critical thinkings skills, be mindful of implicit biases, and find the joy in learning.

Books like Clothes:

Many ideologies of examining the reading of Black males fell within stereotypes such as, "Is it because he is lazy or illiterate?". Alone with the assumption that the students do not want to engage with the text," it serves no meaning to them", so there was no motivation to reading it. But the concepts reflected in the reading encourage diving deeper in understanding students reading experiences. One key idea mentioned was specific to the schools lack of engaging the text to the students rather than students not engaging with texts. It also reflected literacy engagement , such as scaffolding students learning and corresponding this with her specific identities. It begins with discovering your students ideologies and or identities and finding ways to incorporate and adjust instruction to meet their needs. To build the bridge in connecting students ideologies and identities with your instructional practices.

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading: This article reminded me a lot about what we are learning in many different classes these last few years. It is important that we are sharing literature that all of our students can relate to, not just young white students. By not reading literature that they understand and relate to, it dis-encourages them to interact with the readings and they do not want to read it and are not interested. It is difficult to want to learn about something that has no impact on your life. Books that people read at a young age can impact their identity and the understanding of themselves and those around them.

In the second article Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading, the author highlights on including literature that represents all different students. The author explains the importance of having literature that every student in your classroom can relate and connect to. It is difficult for students to enjoy reading when they feel disconnected to the characters, plot, etc. By having books that fill the needs of a diverse classroom, students will be more inclined and motivated to read because they feel that they have a sense of belonging.

Books Like Clothes: This article talks about engaging young Black men with reading. Young Black men are too often labeled by systemic racism. Labeling them as noncompliant and unwilling to learn. The reading talked about the urgency of removing these socially negative prejudices by getting to know your black students. Taking the time to understand who they are and what they like read. Providing Black men the opportunity that other students have like scaffolding, and engaging them with text that reflect and challenge them through a lens that they can relate too.

The second article, books like clothes, was also very interesting to me because I have seen examples of this when I observed in GEMS in a 7th grade class. The article made a good point that the students need to want to read before they can actually read, and the books that are required in schools are hard for students who don't see themselves in the books to get engaged with. Old literature like Beowulf is likely to be not interesting at all to a lot of the students because it's hard to relate to any part of the story, but even less interesting to black students because none of the characters are black. Refusing to read a book for this reason is not out of laziness but because of disengagement because the material itself was the problem. The solution to the problem is more systematic because there are required texts that teachers have to use that are curated by the district, but teachers do have some freedom in what they teach and how they teach it, so using books with mirrors and windows into the lives of children of different backgrounds is crucial to make it so students feel like they belong in the classroom community and that engaging in work is worth their time.

I found this article to be very interesting and informing. I really like how the author uses the word violence to mean different things. Violence does not have to be a meaning for physical abuse. Violence can also be a term used when you are emotionally abused. This is something that I had never really considered when thinking of the word violence. I also found it interesting and quite appalling that there are some teachers that force students to act out specific historical events. (Especially slavery!) Educators must be aware of their words and actions toward students. It is in my opinion that teachers are there to help you learn and feel protected. I believe that when students are feeling upset because of something, and the teacher does nothing, they have failed. Teachers are there to bring students up and make them feel included. They are not there to make them feel bad and ruin school for them. I think it is important that teachers take a step back and observe/make sure that this curriculum violence is not happening in their classroom. We must protect our students at all costs.

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading

I enjoyed this reading. I think it is so important that we as teachers try to include and implement readings and activities that include all of your students. Students will not connect with a reading if they do not feel a part of it. Therefore, they are not learning. Teachers need to be aware of what they are choosing for their students to read. There are some texts in school that students will just not want to read. We as teachers need to be able to engage them. This way students will be more willing to read and pay attention. Choosing books that students resonate with helps create an inclusive classroom environment. Teachers need to not assume that when students are not doing the work, they are described as lazy. Maybe try seeing things from their point of view and understand where they are coming from. I know that there are specific books that teachers are required to teach. They should at least try to plan and teach in a way where they are including everyone.

This article made me step back and think about my experience and my former classmate's experiences in elementary school. Violence is such a powerful word and the article explains that there are different meanings to the word. Curriculum can affect students on a mental or emotional level that creates scars that last a lifetime and truly impact their school identity. Although it can impact the students horribly, the teacher might have no idea what damage they have caused. It makes me think about how I will teach lessons in the future and how it affects my students. Sadly, there are many ignorant people in our country and if you are a teacher, you have to be knowledgeable about events both past and present. We have to be unbiased and think about what teaching methods we will use to teach topics such as slavery. Our classrooms will be filled with various cultures, ethnicities, and experiences and we need to not be insensitive to a certain group. I think the best way to teach certain historical events is to not make it "entertaining" as the article was talking about reenactments. Stick to the facts, let your students understand the topic and truly absorb the knowledge you are giving them while being respectful of the history.

Books Like Clothes:

In past classes, we have talked about topics in reading such as stereotypes, disadvantages, and making the readings relatable. The first idea that stuck out to me was about making readings relatable to the students. One thing I think is important for students to do is to put themselves in a character's shoes to truly understand the text. This can be difficult if there is not a single character they can do this with. Many times when a student does not want to read a book there are stereotypes thrown around about why they are not. As educators you have to look deeper than "they do not like it" or "the student is lazy". Engagement is so important when picking books for a syllabus. Why would a student read a book if it has nothing to do with them? How are they supposed to connect with the book or be able to answer discussion questions posed to them? This article highlights all of this from the perspective of Black men and it is not a small issue. In the article, they talked about a teacher who recognized a student who did not succeed with the first book and instead of stereotyping him or just ignoring it, he made a change to his teaching. The teacher took time to replan the next book to be accommodating to this student and maybe even others experiencing the same thoughts. Something I am very passionate about is knowing your students. Sometimes a bad grade isn't just a bad grade and in Derricks example, it was much more than that.

"Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading": I like how this article explains that when young Black men in K-12 are not engaged with reading academic texts, far the most part it's because they do not see themselves in the texts; their lack of engagement is not because they are illiterate, neither is it because they have no interest in reading! Thus, if they are not interested in what they are reading, they are unlikely to still read it. This approach to reading academic texts is partly due to resistance to dominant ideologies typically taught and reinforced by ELA curriculum. I had not thought about Black male youth reading ideologies in this light before, but it honestly really resonated with me. As someone who enjoys reading and learning about classical literature, it was thrilling to see how Mr. Kegler was able to build a bridge for his Black male students to connect to The Illiad! I will definitely take notes for my future classroom.

This reading brings attention to the affects of curriculum violence and how this is affecting students today. This reading touches on the relationship students have with their teachers and how their is often a sense of trust establishes between child and adult. When this trust is broken it can be hard for children to understand what is happening or that they are being treated unfairly. The examples presented in this article illustrate "school based racial trauma" which is a term I have never heard of and was uneducated on before reading this article. Based on what I have read I think a lack of equity in the classroom attributes to this issue and educators being educated and self aware on diverse cultures adds to the problem. People might assume that physical trauma is the only kind of abuse individuals can face but in reality emotional trauma caused by teachers in the classroom is real psychological damage done to children.

Books like Clothes

I thoroughly enjoyed this article because I think it is so important for teachers to be self aware of the content we are implementing in our classroom and this goes for the readings we are assigning as well. We do not want the curriculum or content to be damaging to any of our students own identities. This could deter them away from reading and encouraging students to read for enjoyment is very important. When students feel connected to what they are reading this cam build a stronger and more positive relationship to reading. As educators trying to see things from the students point of view and not push material onto them is a way to include everyone.

I am glad I am better aware and more educated on these ideas, but the article did leave me with several questions that I hope to continue to investigate as I develop my personal teaching pedagogies and begin teaching. One of my greatest wonders is how can we make learning history authentic and real without being harmful? I strongly agree with what the article said about not shying away from teaching certain histories because of the fear of perpetuating curricular violence, although articles like this do always make me nervous about unknowingly teaching things "wrong" in a way that hurts students. I think it is important to hear some of these awful examples of what NOT to do, but I wish there were examples of better ways to do things as well. How can teachers walk the line between realistically showing the dark parts of our history without emotionally damaging our students? I think part of it, as suggested in the article, is to ensure we are not ONLY teaching about the bad/dark parts of history and also ensure that we are helping students draw connections between history and the present so that the issues do not seem like they are of the past/ irrelevent/ do not impact people still today.

My other big question is what can I do as a single classroom teacher when I am given required curriculum to teach that may not align with my values, and/or I am given restrictions on what content I am not allowed to teach?

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading: A quote that stood out to me was, "Youths are not failing to engage texts; many of the texts we teach in schools are failing to engage youth (Mahiri, 2004)." I think this sentence epitomizes the article's messaging about how we need to alter deficit-based viewpoints about our students (e.g. they are disengaged) and instead reexamine our own teaching materials and practices. I enjoyed reading the example in this article because it helped me to see how I might look at my curriculums and adjust how I teach it based on feedback from my students.

One of the key points that stood out to me in this article is the statement of "Ideologies...influence a person's engagement and participation in socially specific and culturally governed activities such as reading," (p. 200). I was very interested in how the author tried to examine the ideologies of the reader and how the author pointed out that the readings in schools are failing to engage the reader rather than the other way around. I think this is extremely important for teachers to understand, as it is detrimental to explore texts and utilize relevant readings and material that does engage the reader not only in actually reading the text, but thinking about the text critically, understanding the deeper (potentially hidden) meanings, and applying the readings to their own lives and ways of thinking. Not wanting to read does not make the reader a bad person, lazy, or incapable. It is a matter of the teacher tailoring not individualized readings for the students, but relevant and meaningful readings that students can connect with.

Ending Curriculum Violence:

My first reaction when reading this article was that the activity described by the author, among other acts of curriculum violence, are just blatantly inappropriate, distasteful, and absolutely out of touch. Truthfully, it put a bad taste in my mouth. As educators, as the author so eloquently said, there are a variety of other ways in which teaching curriculum surrounding heavy and very real topics such as slavery, the Holocaust, and more can be done, without traumatizing and embarrassing students by doing things such as picking cotton. I believe that, from reading this article, it is extremely important to be sensitive to the needs of others and how what educators teach can affect students, no matter what the intention, "good" or bad, may be.

In the second article books, like clothes, it talks about how we need to encourage boys, and specifically young black men to read. I found this very interesting, because I am in a placement where there is a total of six kids in the entire class out of 22 kids. The students that struggle the most actually aren’t the African-American students are the Napoli students. I think it is difficult for students of color and other students who are considered a minority in schools to enjoy simple things like reading, and school, because a lot of the books that are created and also the Curriculum isn’t always inclusive of other cultures. I feel as an soon to be teacher that it is my job to make sure that the materials in my class are diverse and that there is something for everyone.

"Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading" - Representation is most pivotal when parties have never experienced it in an authentic and empowering light before. I've seldom seen this representation in what we consider to be canonical works because such works were written by white, most often old, men. They do not account for parties that exist beyond their scope of privilege and power. As a result, this article is essential for others to read and comprehend because possessing representation and recognition in the classroom, ESPECIALLY in the literary curriculum, galvanizes students into greater understanding and engagement. This journal merely recapitulates that when students see themselves, truly see themselves within literary characters with autonomy and definition, then they are propelled to participate more.