I agree with some of what Natalie Wexler writes – there’s a lot of good stuff in the book, she co-authored, The Writing Revolution, and she makes an important point about the need to help our students learn broad background knowledge to enhance reading comprehension.

I’m not as enthusiastic about some of her other stances in the so-called “Reading Wars” (see The Best Resources For Learning About Balanced Literacy & The “Reading Wars”).

But, really, for the purposes of this post, where I agree or don’t agree with her on instruction is not the point.

The imporant point is that I’m really not thrilled by her using the murder of George Floyd to score points for  her positions in reading instruction, which she does in her recent Forbes article, How ‘Reading Instruction’ Oppresses Black And Brown Children.

And I’m not alone.

Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching And The Brain, had concerns about it, too, especially since Wexler used quotations from her in the article.  She shared those concerns on Twitter, and gave me permission to include them in this post:

 

Instead of trying to figure out how to use George Floyd’s murder to support any of our pet positions, we White educators, instead, should use it as a wake-up call to re-evaluate many of our stances to see if not only do our answers meet the needs of Black students and other students of color, but if we’re even asking the right questions….

Addendum: