ABSTRACT
We were privileged to observe Holiday, an African American adult education teacher and colleague at our Adult Learning Center, teach a unit on African American songs. This lesson was part of a unit on African American literature that took place within the Critical Literacy Lab (CLL). Holiday distributed the lyrics from the song “Lean On Me” to the adult education students in her classroom. She asked them to listen to the song first, without reading the words. The students listened, many of them singing along and swaying in their seats. She played the song again and asked her students to follow along with the words in their packet. The students followed with their pencils. They continued to sing along and dance in their seats. Line by line, Holiday and her students went through the song and talked about what the lyrics meant. The cultural knowledge they brought with them served as an entry point for their literacy learning.
