A PACT for Antiracist Pedagogy

Project Leader(s): Laura Brady, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ SpeakWrite Program
Collaborator(s): SpeakWrite Programs include Biology; Communication Studies; English; Forensic and Investigative Science; History; Philosophy; Psychology; World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics; Women's and Gender Studies

A PACT for Antiracist Pedagogy. Words — written, read, spoken, and heard — can help transform the way we teach and interact across disciplines and courses. The SpeakWrite Program recognizes the power of language to promote social justice. We propose using the program’s framework of questions related to purpose, audience, conventions, and trouble spots (PACT) to guide an interdisciplinary reading/teaching group focused on antiracist pedagogy. The reading/teaching group will interrogate the ways we discuss race, language use, and achievement across disciplines. Participants will identify curricular actions and structural changes to integrate social equity into education and support underrepresented groups.

The reading group will rely on Zoom-based meetings and will be open to faculty and peer tutors. In addition to reading at least one book in common, the group will draw on several open-source materials to make sure that discussions will be as accessible and inclusive as possible. We will create a resource page on the SpeakWrite website. By increasing awareness of attitudes and opening conversations about implicit bias, this project is likely to create discomfort. To borrow John Lewis’s phrase, that’s good trouble.