Tough Talk, Tough Texts: Teaching English to Change the World

After carefully establishing her argument that teaching English can indeed change the world and help support and develop social justice, Cindy O’Donnell-Allen draws upon a variety of research and scholarship to serve as the foundation for implementing a teaching strategy she calls Civil Discourse Sequence.With appropriate nods to culturally responsive teaching and progressive pedagogy, O’Donnell-Allen explains that focusing instruction around values of empathy, compassion, and agreeable disagreement can help students transfer these skills to other life contexts outside of school that will serve them—and culture in general—well, effecting the development of a kinder, more humane world. Moreover, she shares practical instructional strategies and techniques for achieving these goals as she explains how to choose “tough texts” that will facilitate the “tough talk” that students need to learn how to manage in order to navigate our increasingly complex world.It’s a rather ambitious and aspirational premise, but her sincerity is persuasive. So persuasive, in fact, that I plan to implement some of these strategies in the course I teach for pre-service ELA teachers. Recommended for pre-service and in-service ELA teachers and teacher educators.