ABSTRACT
In this chapter we focus on several critical classroom moments involving students of color in Parks’s classroom. Though Parks’s class was in many ways structured toward critical conversations about race, class, and gender in literature, students of color did not always find easy spaces to construct agency. Because the culture of this classroom was often dominated by White male students and jock females who supported their opinions, speaking out in class was often difficult for students who disagreed with the discourses forwarded by these popular White students. Opinions based on discourses other than those that dominated the class were often used by the powerful students in this class to position students in particular ways. For some students, refusal to be positioned amounted to refusal to participate in class. For others it meant continually defending their beliefs and positions.
