Comparative
Anti-Racist
Pedagogies

Length: 2–3 pages, single-spaced

Purpose

This assignment invites you to choose a site of anti-racist struggle, resistance, or worldmaking—a place where the questions of this course come alive. Your proposal will frame a semester-long investigation into how racism operates, how communities resist, and how anti-racist pedagogies might be imagined, practiced, and sustained. This is not a neutral exercise. It is an act of love, care, and solidarity. This proposal prepares you for deeper analysis and creation in Assignments 2 and 3.

What to Include

Site of Anti-Racist Struggle or Possibility

Select a specific site—a movement, a text, a practice, a community, an archive, a pedagogical experiment—where questions of racism and anti-racism are being taken up with urgency. Your site can be local or transnational, historical or contemporary, institutional or grassroots.

Examples (but not limited to):

• A grassroots anti-racist movement organizing across borders (Black Lives Matter, Dalit resistance, Palestinian liberation, climate justice led by Global South communities)
• A community-led archive or digital storytelling project preserving silenced racial histories
• An artist, musician, or cultural worker whose work enacts anti-racist worldmaking
• A political speech, biographical narrative, or manifesto that articulates anti-racist vision
• A pedagogical experiment inside or outside institutional walls: a course, a workshop, a mutual aid project, a freedom school
• A social media campaign or digital community building anti-racist solidarity transnationally
• A policy or institutional practice you wish to interrogate through an anti-racist lens
• A moment of refusal, rebellion, or reimagination in your own educational experience

Context & Stakes

Briefly explain: Where and when does this site emerge? Who is involved? Who does it center? What forms of racism, colonialism, or interlocking oppression does it confront? What historical systems does it reckon with or refuse?

Why It Matters

• Why should this site matter to the world, this planet, and the people we co-exist with?
• What kinds of transformation does it dare to envision—in society, in ourselves?
• How might it help us design courses, assessments, and conversations that value the humanity and dignity in each of us?

Guiding Questions

Pose 2–3 critical questions to guide your inquiry. These should be analytical, political, and pedagogical.

Initial Approach

Describe what materials or methods you might use: movement publications, manifestos, zines, social media archives; oral histories, interviews; scholarly texts; art, music, performance; participant observation.

Formatting

• 2–3 pages, single-spaced • Times New Roman, 12 pt • Citations: MLA or APA • Submit via Canvas

Before Submitting: What to Look For

A Note

Choose a site you care about deeply. Let your inquiry be rigorous, your analysis intersectional, and your vision unbound. Anti-racism is not a single-issue struggle. Neither is this course.

Length: 10–12 pages, double-spaced (excluding citations)

Why This Assignment?

This assignment is an act of critical excavation and deep listening. You will analyze how racism operates through educational structures, discourses, and practices—and how anti-racist pedagogies emerge to confront, refuse, and transform them. Building on your project proposal, you will now examine 2–3 pedagogical artifacts or practices alongside the racist trends they respond to. This analysis directly prepares you for your final project.

What You’ll Do

Select 2–3 pedagogical artifacts, practices, or sites connected to your semester topic. Pedagogical artifacts can include:

• Syllabi, course materials, or assignments designed with anti-racist commitments
• Grassroots educational initiatives: freedom schools, community workshops, mutual aid education projects
• Digital pedagogies: social media campaigns that teach, TikTok abolitionist classrooms, YouTube series
• Cultural texts as pedagogy: music, art, film, zines, podcasts that function as sites of learning
• Institutional interventions: diversity training, curriculum reform efforts, student-led transformations
• Movement pedagogy: how movements teach their members and the public
• Personal narratives or testimonies that enact pedagogical power
• Your own teaching or learning experiences, analyzed with theoretical rigor

Required Sections

1. Introduction (1–2 pages)

Re-state your topic and its stakes. For each artifact: what it is, where it emerges, who created it; its intended audience; the racist trend it responds to; why you chose it.

2. Comparative Pedagogical Analysis (5–7 pages)

Examine how each artifact functions as pedagogy in relation to the racism it confronts, comparing across: Racist Context • Vision of Anti-Racism • Relationship to Learners • Crossing Borders • Methods & Materials • Site & Context • Transformative Potential. Cite course thinkers—Lorde, Mignolo, hooks, Freire, Patel, Love, Simpson—to deepen your analysis.

3. Discussion: Tensions & Possibilities (2–3 pages)

Synthesize what your comparative analysis reveals about racist structures, the tensions within anti-racist pedagogies, and what these pedagogies make possible—and cannot yet dismantle.

4. Conclusion: Lessons for Our Pedagogies (1–2 pages)

Reflect on what you have learned. Pose lingering questions. Explain how this analysis informs your final project vision.

5. Works Cited

MLA or APA style. Not included in page count.

Before Submitting: What to Look For

A Final Reminder

Listen carefully, name the violence they resist, compare rigorously. Let your inquiry be humble, your analysis be sharp, and your imagination be bold.

Two Parts: I. Final Project (100 pts)  |  II. In-Class Presentation/Sharing (50 pts)

Purpose

This is your culminating intervention—the moment where critical analysis of antiracist pedagogies transforms into educational worldmaking. Building on your semester-long investigation, you will now propose, create, or enact a pedagogical project that teaches otherwise. Your work must move beyond critique toward liberatory practice.

Your project must answer: What does it mean to teach as an act of solidarity? To build classrooms that heal rather than harm? To enact pedagogies that demand the impossible?

Final Project (100 points)

Option A: Academic Paper — Blueprint for Liberatory Pedagogy

10–12 pages, double-spaced. Analyze an existing antiracist pedagogical practice or community teaching initiative. Propose frameworks for building educational futures rooted in justice and collective liberation. Sections: Introduction • Analysis of Resistance • Liberatory Proposals (3–5 principles) • Conclusion.

Option B: Action Research — Groundwork with an Educational Initiative

Fieldwork Journal + Final Report (8–12 pages). Engage directly with a grassroots educational initiative, freedom school, or organization doing antiracist pedagogical work. Deliverables: ongoing fieldwork journal + final report detailing pedagogical practices, your role, analysis of strategies, and co-created recommendations.

Option C: Multimodal Project — Pedagogical Worldmaking

Create a public-facing educational work that teaches toward liberation. Formats include:

• A syllabus for a course that doesn’t yet exist but should
• A zine or curriculum guide for community teaching
• A podcast or video series amplifying antiracist pedagogical practices
• A workshop or toolkit for educators committed to antiracist teaching
• A digital teaching resource or open educational materials
• A speculative classroom design imagining what liberatory learning spaces could look like
• An artist’s book or creative work that teaches through form and content

Deliverables: The creative work itself + Creator’s Statement (2–3 pages) explaining your pedagogical, political, and aesthetic choices.

In-Class Presentation/Sharing (50 points)

Share your final project in a format that invites dialogue and collective learning. This is not a defense but an offering—a pedagogical act in itself. Introduce your project, showcase your process, reflect on what this work taught you, and invite collective imagining.

Evaluation Criteria

A Final Invitation

This is not the end of our learning. It is the beginning of our practice. Teach with courage. Practice solidarity. Demand the impossible.