ABSTRACT

Through accessible language and candid discussions, Storytelling for Social Justice explores the stories we tell ourselves and each other about race and racism in our society. Making sense of the racial constructions expressed through the language and images we encounter every day, this book provides strategies for developing a more critical understanding of how racism operates culturally and institutionally in our society. Using the arts in general, and storytelling in particular, the book examines ways to teach and learn about race by creating counter-storytelling communities that can promote more critical and thoughtful dialogue about racism and the remedies necessary to dismantle it in our institutions and interactions. Illustrated throughout with examples drawn from contemporary movements for change, high school and college classrooms, community building and professional development programs, the book provides tools for examining racism as well as other issues of social justice. For every facilitator and educator who has struggled with how to get the conversation on race going or who has suffered through silences and antagonism, the innovative model presented in this book offers a practical and critical framework for thinking about and acting on stories about racism and other forms of injustice.

This new edition includes:

  • Social science examples, in addition to the arts, for elucidating the storytelling model;
  • Short essays by users that illustrate some of the ways the storytelling model has been used in teaching, training, community building and activism;
  • Updated examples, references and resources.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction to the Second Edition

Storytelling and the Search for Racial Justice: Race Talk Matters

chapter 1|20 pages

Critical Teaching/Learning about Racism through Story and the Arts

Introducing the Storytelling Project Model

chapter 2|14 pages

Stock Stories

Reproducing Racism and White Advantage

chapter 3|18 pages

Concealed Stories

Reclaiming Subjugated Memory and Knowledge

chapter Essay #2|4 pages

Unpacking History through Place-Based Learning

Concealed Stories of Asian American Resistance

chapter 4|13 pages

Resistance Stories

Drawing on Antiracism Legacies to Map the Future

chapter Essay #4|5 pages

Community Storytelling for Racial Reconciliation

Telling the Hard Stories That Can Lead to Community Change

chapter 5|13 pages

Emerging/Transforming Stories

Challenging Racism in Everyday Life

chapter Essay #6|5 pages

Critical Literacy

Imagining Other Ways of Being

chapter 6|18 pages

Cultivating a Counter-Storytelling Community

The Storytelling Model in Action

chapter Essay #7|10 pages

The Classroom is N

A Structured Approach for Cultivating a Counter-Storytelling Classroom Community

chapter Essay #8|3 pages

Storytelling gives the School Soul

Creating Counter-Storytelling Community