ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I describe the teaching and learning that took place during a summer writing institute for middle school Black adolescent males. This description is offered as a counternarrative to the dominant representations that exist in educational research about the social and academic experiences of Black adolescent males. It is well documented that Black males are disproportionately placed in special education, school suspensions, and expulsions and leading in school dropout rates, unemployment, and juvenile incarceration (e.g., Davis, 2006; Noguera, 2008; Polite & Davis, 1999). The recent 2010 Yes we can: The Schott 50 state report on public education and Black males reported that in some of the largest school districts in the country, including New York City, Philadelphia, and Detroit, 75% of African American males do not graduate from high school (Holzman, 2010). There is an increasing correlation between low graduation rates and high incarceration rates for Black males (Howard, 2008). Black males outnumber all other ethnic groups in the prison population and have a rate of incarceration five times higher than that of White males.
