Jason Reynolds in his keynote at the ALA Annual Convention this past summer talked about how we are all walking libraries. I loved this metaphor because it provided an image as to how each person is made up of a collection of their identities, experiences, and memories. We are all databases in motion. While many websites, blogs, and social media accounts are contributing to the call for the presence of more diverse texts, the work is still in progress. This comparison only clarified the position to mandate more diverse texts in classrooms and in the publishing industry overall because we have to honor the collective and individual experiences in our schools. Our main libraries, our classroom libraries, read aloud choices, and book talks all need to be purposeful and selective in voice, author, and representation. Because the goal, in the end, is to honor diverse voices as part of our daily and yearly norm.

When speaking about diverse texts, it is important to remember diverse to whom? The School Library Journal summarized the updates to the widely known infographic regarding diversity in children’s books. These infographics remind us that while progress has been made, there is still work to do in the field of education and in publishing. As teachers, we are reminded that diverse texts are a way to access comprehension and unlock engagement in our students because students see themselves in our curriculums. The concepts of windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors are more than analogies; they are points of access to be humans with our students. Cornelius Minor in We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be reminds teachers that the very act of using diverse texts is engaging to our students because we are including them in the content and the strategies in our rooms. He also reminds us that “teaching without this kind of engagement is not teaching at all. it is colonization (28). Zaretta Hammond in Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students also reminds us “Instead, I want you to think of culturally responsive teaching as a mindset, a way of thinking about and organizing instruction to allow for great flexibility in teaching” (5). The use of diverse texts in our schools is a mindset and necessity- not a strategy.

In the midst of everything lately, I have become laser-focused on the concept of my own comfort zone. This is not just a boundary of physical space, but also a mental periphery of my privilege that extends beyond the tone and color of my skin, my socioeconomic status, my personal education, access to resources and networks, and my formative years of experience. As a teacher, I have been thinking about the status of things that I have grown comfortable with for a long while. Because in my classroom, I am all things comfortable. I own that space because I have made it mine. I have filled it with two cups of love, one cup of understanding, a heaping mound of constantly learning new strategies and resources, and a dash of a look across the room that can say “Please, don’t try that same stuff with me today.” My classroom is where I often feel the most like me.

However, I wonder if that comfort zone is just a thing in my mind I have created to develop a sense of mastery. I am reminded in this process that there is no mastery when it comes to being an ally to my students who are Black, indigenous and people of color. There is only fighting against the comfort zone. While there are many things I disagree with about the system of education and my role as an educator, I have spent 10 years teaching and not much has changed.

Zaretta Hammond's book Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students provides the link to understanding the importance of being culturally responsive and the science behind our students’ learning. In terms of the writing workshop or the general teaching of writing, culturally responsive teaching involves a shift in mindset regarding my instruction, but more specifically about students that I often will label as "struggling writers." It is not a coincidence in teaching that the term "culturally responsive teaching" often is parallel to conversations about students of color, English language learners, or students of lower socioeconomic status. My general education classroom looks entirely different from my advanced education classroom. Part of CRE Education is challenging the labels that are placed on our students. This post will outline some key points from Hammond’s book, and it will make some suggestions for the writing workshop within the English Language Arts Classroom.

This post is inspired by Donalyn Miller after her #NerdTalk at #NerdCampMi on July 8, 2019. She is a warrior and book whisperer for reading in the classroom, but more so, she is also a person who is not afraid to “make good trouble.” She started her #NerdTalk by voicing that she was the teacher who often raised questions to the administration at the end of the staff meeting. While many of her points on reading have helped form the construct of my teaching identity when it comes to reading, I have to be louder about another element that makes up who I am as a teacher. As an advocate for diverse literature in the classroom, it is my duty to be downright rowdy when it comes to putting materials and books in my classroom and in my district’s classrooms. #NerdCamp was a grouping of largely white women, like most of the demographic of the teaching profession, and Donalyn Miller spoke to white educators directly in the call for boisterous and clear advocacy of diverse texts in schools. We all have to be a deafening, strong force when it comes to diverse texts.