Teaching Black Boys in the Elementary Grades

Alfred W. Tatum is provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Metropolitan State University of Denver and former dean (2013-2020) of the College of Education and professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he served as director of the UIC Reading Clinic for 14 years. He is known for his research, writing, and professional development in support of African American boys.

Contents
Foreword Josh Parker vii
Acknowledgments ix
1.  An Advanced Literacy and Knowledge Perspective 1
Early Wounded Years 4
High Text Volume 4
The Black Intellectual Tradition 6
Seven Pathways to Advanced Literacy and Intellectual Development for Black Boys 9
Black Male Erasure Is Given Birth in the Elementary Grades 10
Reading, Race, and Advanced Disciplinary Reading and Writing 13
Refusal to Authorize Texts and Topics for Black Boys 16
2.  Iconography of Darkness 18
Black Boys and Knowledge of Self 19
The Poverty Penalty 20
The Need for a Threefold Embrace 21
Rewarded and Suffocating Darkness 21
Suffering Neophytes 22
Darkness: The Progenitor to Suffering 23
Partial Faulting: Never Rise From the Bottom 24
School-Related Darkness 25
Stolen Legacy and Literacy 27
Excusatory Powers of Darkness 28
Home-Related Darkness 28
In Search of the Light 30
3.  A Multidimensional Reading Model 33
Interrogating Literacy Authorization 35
A Research-Based Multidimensional Literacy Model 36
Meaningful Exchanges With Texts 38
Guidelines for Text Selection 41
The Anatomy of the MDRM Lessons 44
MDRM and the Black Intellectual Tradition 51
Measuring Impact 57
Black Boys Deserve All Kinds of Texts 59
Literacy Sins of This Nation 63
4.  Social and Scientific Literacy Authorizations 68
Building Relationships With the Disciplines 68
The MDRM Model Lesson 72
Focus on the Universe, Society, and the Body 77
Interdisciplinary Probing: Black Boys and Consciousness 82
Sample Texts and Lessons From the Interdisciplinary Probing 89
Fourth-Grade Boys' Writing Artifacts 99
Exalting Advanced Reading Through Literacy Authorizations 103
Sample Literacy Improvement Plan 104
5.  Black Boys and Writing: The True Intellectual Exercise 109
Textual Literacy Frames 111
Sample Textual Literacy Frame 112
Writing Across Multiple Texts 113
Responsive Writing Instruction 116
Neither Innocent Nor Kind 125
The Souls of Black Boys 128
6.  Toward an Early Intellectual Infrastructure 129
Interdisciplinary Movement and Black Boys 132
Disciplinary Disconnect 136
Elementary-Aged Black Boys and Texts 138
Nurturing a Culture of Intellectual Collaboration 143
Harsh Schedule of Reading and Writing 144
Researching the Literacy Development of Black Boys in the Elementary Grades 147
Afterword 153 Cornelius Minor
References 155
Index 160
About the Author 166