Madeline M. Craig
In The Anti-racist Writing Workshop, Felicia Rose Chavez describes the traditional writing workshop model as “an institution of dominance and control upheld by supposedly venerable workshop leaders (primarily white), majority white workshop participants, and canonical white authors memorialized in hefty anthologies, the required texts of study” and the “ritual of silencing the author when critiquing their work” (8).
Workshop models are typically implemented at the start of the school year, including lessons that strictly follow a schedule of mini-lessons, small group instruction, and opportunities for students to apply narrative skills taught through the “appropriate” mentor text to their independent writing. This dominant model of teaching writing upholds the classic conventions of power and white supremacy, asking students to relate to the ideas of white authors, write like canonized white authors, and uphold writing conventions decided to be “best” by mostly white critics of classic literary works. The use of model texts in this way affirms the idea that the participating writers are secondary in the experience and have little control over their own work. This model is reflective of “systemic oppression that breeds behavioral norms” (9) and can be limiting at best, but also damaging enough to make writers of color disregard writing as a form of protest and self-expression altogether. Instead of being used as a tool to help writers produce their best works, it tends to lead toward the direction of tension, competition and a sense of failure (10).
Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies or practices, and general public attitudes to redistribute power towards shared equity among all (11). In an anti-racist writing workshop, students participate in a workshop that includes to following guidelines:
- The narrative writing workshop that forgoes classic models of prose and poetry for diverse, contemporary models that exemplify the power of voice.
- This model de-centers instructors as facilitators and restructures workshop mini-lessons to build a community of courageous writers open to sharing their writing journey (12).
- Instructors are required to unpack their bias, privilege, and perspective. “To embody a sense of purpose in a culturally and community-responsive pedagogy, they must be reflective and be able to critically interrogate their own identities and experiences” (13).
- The demand that writers remain silent during the feedback process is eliminated, and instead empowers students by implementing a goal-driven method in which writers will formulate questions for readers on what criticisms they desire prior to sharing their writing with the group.
- Finally, this model removes writing expectations of grammar, syntax, and structure that rigorously enforce that writing must follow set conventions to be validated. Instead, students will acknowledge the construction of power within linguistic structures and be encouraged to explore creativity, voice, and craft above the acquisition of academic language.