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17
ILLUMINATING THE CALL ■ corbitt
As the United States enters into the 2024
presidential election cycle, teachers
and students across the country will
navigate instruction against a backdrop
of intensifying public, partisan discourse.
Growing up, I remember how my own
teachers silenced the din of candidates
and pundits during election years to avoid
“getting political” in the classroom. With
few notable exceptions, my schooling
experience did not provide opportunities for
democratic participation. ese cumulative
silences perpetuated the myth of “apolitical”
classrooms:learning environments
somehow divorced from civic context and
consequence. Admittedly, visions of being
an apolitical teacher who “taught youth how
to think, not what to think”—as if curricula
wasn’t always entrenched in ideology—
lingered in my ambitions as a prospective
teacher.
Graduate study helped me problematize
the idea of apolitical schooling. My
preservice peers and I learned that
public education in the United States was
founded on principles of industrialization,
colonization, nationalism, and
heteropatriarchy (Apple, 2013). We read
Freire and considered how content and
pedagogy impact young learners’ abilities
to “read the world.” I also began to
interrogate the ways my own identity and
personhood were privileged throughout my
schooling experiences. But it wasn’t until
my rst year as a classroom teacher that I
started to witness how youth live lives of
signicant political and civic consequence.
In particular, during our “Mistakes and
Challenges” unit, my seventh graders
investigated the ways public institutions
make mistakes. Drawing on personal and
community experiences, many students
decided to critique the New York City Police
Department’s Stop-and-Frisk program.
ey then wrote letters to local ocials
calling for the program’s discontinuation.
Witnessing the students’ activism helped me
realize that teaching and learning is always
relevant to our civic lives—whether or not
we acknowledge the political impact of
schooling.
Acknowledging that students are civic
actors, I turn my attention to the theme
of this Voices from the Middle issue:
imagination. How are our imaginative
spaces political? Do the ways that educators
dream and speculate with youth have civic
implications? To address these questions, I
think alongside educators and researchers—
particularly feminist scholars of color—who
are leaders in radical, imaginative work
with young people. First, I consider how
communities and nations are shaped by
sociopolitical imaginaries. en, I review
some ways that youths and adults have
leveraged the potency of imagination toward
justice. I hope to highlight the promise and
precarity of imaginative thinking so that
educators can account for its sociopolitical
utility and impact.
Tracing the Impact of Social
Imaginaries
To understand the social impact of
imagination, we must rst challenge the
assumption that imaginative practices
are entirely ctional or unreal. Collective
imagining is situated in our shared contexts
and realities. Sometimes imagined ideas
can resonate with the ideologies and
sociopolitical discourses of a historical
moment, shaping how communities come
to understand and interface with the world.
The Politics of Imagination: Dreaming
toward Justice-Oriented Civic Futures
ALEX CORBITT
ILLUMINATING
THE CALL
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Voices from the Middle ■ volume 31 ■ number 3 ■ march 2024
18
CONNECTIONS FROM readwritethink
Books featuring teens as change agents call attention to young people who are lobbying
for change in their schools, communities, and the larger world. Tune in to this podcast from
ReadWriteThink.org to hear about teens who work for change by participating in political
campaigns, defying social hierarchies, and even going to war.
Lisa Storm Fink
www.ReadWriteThink.org
https://bit.ly/36HSR3v
ese shared ideas comprise social
imaginaries that organize our political
and civic lives. e United States’s
“War on Terror,” for example, was
mobilized by depictions of Middle
Eastern countries as lawless, fanatical,
dangerous, and Other (Abu El-Haj,
2015). Despite the legitimacy of our
nation’s trauma and grief in response
to the tragic 9/11 attacks, the sweeping
stereotypes of Middle Eastern communities were the
stu of imagination. So too were the “weapons of mass
destruction” that prompted the United States’s military
occupation of Iraq. e imaginative legacy of the War on
Terror continues today as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza
has taken over 40,000 Palestinian lives. e insidious
imaginative logics that justify this genocidal violence
perpetuate a vision of humanity that is measured on
a sliding scale, rendering certain communities and
cultures less-than-human.
Despite the ways imagination can be weaponized,
it can also be a potent medium for healing, restoration,
humanization, and decolonization. To imagine toward
justice, we must organize around visions of the future
that humanize, center, and advocate for our most
vulnerable communities. To this end, Garcia and Mirra
(2023) call for educators to engage youth in speculative
education that takes “visionary and future-oriented
approaches to teaching and learning that operate
beyond the bounds of current social, economic, and
cultural arrangements that perpetuate white supremacy,
capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and related
forms of oppression” (p. 4). Heeding the urgency for
speculative education, I will highlight a few emerging
examples of research and inst ructional prac tice that prompt
youth to think and create toward socially just futures.
Imagining with Storytelling Traditions
Storytelling oers youth opportunities to imagine and
generate new worlds. Building new worlds entails the
process of subcreation (Wolf, 2012) in which storytellers
iterate on elements of the real world
to develop dierent models of society.
Speculative ction genres—such
asscience ction, horror, and fantasy—
utilize unique conventions that are
particularly powerful for dreaming
toward an otherwise. ese genres can
be explored by youth to reconsider and
recongure social values, traditions,
and systems. In this section, I hope
to highlight the promise of speculative ction in and
beyond the middle grades classroom.
Science ction is typically a future-oriented genre that
considers how technological advancement and cosmic
exploration shape humanity’s relationship with politics,
social movements, and diverse cultural traditions.
Research on science ction writing highlights how young
learners use the genre to discuss contemporary civic
problems, hypothesize potential solutions, and predict
how their solutions could impact society in the years to
come (Toliver & Miller, 2019). Although science ction
speculates toward the future, Toliver (2022) reminds
us that Afrofuturist approaches to the genre are deeply
rooted in the reclamation and recovery of the past. us,
science ction writers tap into the tradition to think
across dimensions of time, space, and technology to
meditate on themes of human progress.
Horror is a genre that uses supernatural, dystopic, and
psychological elements to investigate issues of fear and
monstrosity. Although horror is popular among middle
grades youth, it is sometimes dismissed as a genre that
solely intends to thrill readers. My colleagues and I argue,
however, that horror can critique the monstrosity of
oppressive systems that dehumanize people—particularly
historically minoritized communities (Jones et al., 2022).
Youths can leverage the horror to confront personal
fears and invite audiences to witness their humanity
(Corbitt, 2023). Over the past decade, there has been an
inux of horror literature and lm that critiques issues
of racism, colonization, gentrication, and heterosexism.
Collectively, these texts work to raise audiences’ empathy
and critical consciousness.
To imagine toward justice, we
must organize around visions
of the future that humanize,
center, and advocate
for our most vulnerable
communities.
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19
ILLUMINATING THE CALL ■ corbitt
Fantasy builds on traditions of
folklore and mythology to tell tales
of magic, heroism, and political
intrigue. Societies in fantasy narratives
are situated in worlds with complex
relationships between various races
(e.g., elves, dwarves, goblins), spiritual
practices, and the natural world. More
than mere escapism, fantasy challenges
audiences to think across themes of
morality and dierence. Research on
fantasy fans demonstrates how young
people come together to “restory” and
redesign their favorite texts—such as Harry Potter—in
ways that better represent their identities, histories, and
experiences (omas, 2019). is research shows how
the impact of speculative ction can mobilize entire
communities and fandoms around justice-oriented
worldbuilding.
Imagining with Tools and Technologies
Digital tools and technologies also shape the way
we think, create, and imagine social futures. Like
classrooms, digital platforms are value laden and
impact how individuals are positioned in learning
environments. Online forums like Wattpad center
collaborative restorying practices in which youth build
inclusive fandoms around their favorite stories and
shared identities (Coleman & Hall, 2019). Applications
like TextingStory allow youth to cra narratives in ways
that reect their everyday writing practices (e.g., texting
friends and family). inking with modalities beyond
the written word, young writers can use tools such as
sound recording equipment and stop-motion soware
to ag and protest civic injustices (Wargo, 2021). In our
post-COVID world, digital contexts like Zoom can be
sites of solidarity as youth share their experiences of civic
belonging and trouble ideologies of national borders
(aku rta, 2023).
Playing toward utopian visions of what our world
could be—or what Múnoz (2019) calls the “not-yet-here”
—youth learners can convene on gaming platforms to
engage in acts of protest and critical world formation.
Cortez et al. (2022) examined how Black players in
massive multiplayer games, such as Grand e Auto
V, took activist stances to imagine new Black futures.
Despite the ways that videogames have historically
excluded Black and Brown players, today’s youth
employ a breadth of technical knowledge to repurpose
and reclaim game worlds. e process of redesigning
game worlds toward justice requires the critical analysis
of game mechanics. e rules of
gameplay are political because
they impose certain hierarchies
and power relationships between
players and game features. us, the
process of rethinking game rules is
also an invitation to reimagine the
institutional, political, and economic
systems of our everyday, oine society.
e advent of ChatGPT and
the rapid development of articial
intelligence soware has rattled
the education eld with fear and
optimism. Some educators lament these emerging
technologies, worrying that youth will use them as
undetectable methods of plagiarism. Others argue that
articial intelligence could have creative aordances
in classroom instruction. Beyond the binary positions
of this public discourse, scholars have highlighted
how articial intelligence reects the cultural and
political values of its datasets (Benjamin, 2019). When
machine learning is informed by majority white and
heteropatriarchal texts, the resulting programs largely
erase women, disabled persons, people of color, and
LGBTQIA+ communities. is erasure threatens to
constrain the way historically minoritized youth dream
and imagine with digital tools. us, we must engage
youth in imaginative work that critically reects on
our relationships with the precarities of emergent
technologies (rall et al., 2024).
Imagining with the Natural World
Climate change is an issue that will increasingly impact
today’s youth and future generations. In particular,
climate-related crises disproportionately aect low-
income communities of color. To advocate for climate
justice, schools should be imaginative spaces where we
rethink our relationships with nature and conservation.
To engage in this work, McGinty and Bang (2016)
remind us that learning communities must think
alongside Indigenous ways of knowing and being with
nature. Rather than conceptualize the natural world
as a resource to exploit, youths might employ critical
perspective-taking strategies to reect on human-nature
relationships from viewpoints of the environment. Such
activities could serve to critique ideologies of colonialism,
capitalism, and industrialization that have resulted
in ecological devastation. rough these imaginative
processes, youths and adults might better dream, plan,
and enact more sustainable relationships with the natural
world.
Rather than conceptualize
the natural world as a
resource to exploit, youths
might employ critical
perspective-taking strategies
to reflect on human-nature
relationships from viewpoints
of the environment.
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Voices from the Middle ■ volume 31 ■ number 3 ■ march 2024
20
Complex problems require complex solutions, and
the call to address climate change in schools is an
interdisciplinary charge. e ways schools silo learning
across the content areas may be incompatible with
innovative approaches that youth are taking toward
climate activism. So, school systems and educators must
also reimagine how content is taught and contextualized.
By braiding together literacy, social studies, science,
math, and arts instruction in new ways, we might
hold space for innovative, project-based conservation
practices.
Conclusion
Across news, media, and entertainment, young people
are ooded with competing visions of what the world
could and should be. e imaginative work we facilitate
in our classrooms can equip students with critical
tools to interrogate and critique the social and political
imaginaries they encounter. In striving toward more
just futures, we might challenge youth to dream beyond
systems that resist change and that claim “this is how
society has always been.” e imagination can unsettle
sedimented social, economic, and political practices
that have perpetuated injustice. us, dreaming can
be a radical civic proposition that invites others into a
future that holds higher standards for empathy, care,
humanization, and conservation.
References
Abu El-Haj, T.R. (2015). Unsettled belonging: Educating Palestinian
American youth after 9/11. University of Chicago Press.
Apple, M. W. (2013). Can education change society? Routledge.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the
new Jim Code. Polit y.
Coleman, J. J., & Hall, L. A. (2019). What story, what identity, Wattpad?
Teaching youth to restory YA literature. The ALAN Review, 18(19),
65–70.
Corbitt, A. (2023). Speculative f(r)ictions: A youth restorying horror
and monstrosity. Journal of Literacy Research, 55(4), 383-405.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X231215778
Cortez, A., McKoy, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2022). The future of young
Blacktivism: Aesthetics and practices of speculative activism in
video game play. Journal of Futures Studies, 26(3), 53–70.
Garcia, A., & Mirra, N. (2023). Other suns: Designing for racial equity
through speculative education. Journal of the Learning
Sciences, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2023.2166764
Jones, K., Corbitt, A., & Storm, S. (2022). Humanizing horror:
Re-reading monstrosity in popular literature. English Journal,
112(2), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.58680/ej202232173
McGinty, M., & Bang, M. (2016). Narratives of dynamic lands: Science
education, indigenous knowledge and possible futures. Cultural
Studies of Science Education, 11, 471–475.
Muñoz, J. E. (2019). Cruising utopia. New York University Press.
Thakurta, A. (2023). Solidarity-as-project: Charting democratic
co-inquiries in an Asian American girl and woman–centric
English education community. English Education, 55(4),
257–278.
Thomas, E. E. (2019). The dark fantastic: Race and the imagination
from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York University
Press.
Toliver, S. R. (2020). Can I get a witness? Speculative fiction as
testimony and counterstory. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(4),
507–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x20966362
Toliver, S. R., & Miller, K. (2019). (Re)writing reality: Using science
fiction to analyze the world. English Journal, 108(3), 51–59.
https://library.ncte.org/journals/EJ/issues/v108-3/29969
Wargo, J. (2021). “Sound” civics, heard histories: A critical case of
young children mobilizing digital media to write (right) injustice.
Theory & Research in Social Education, 49(3), 360–389.
Wolf, M. J. P. (2012). Building imaginary worlds: The theory and
history of subcreation. Routledge.
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9
ANNOTATIONS ■ skillen, seglem, and clark
FEATURED
AUTHORS
Nicole Mirra is an associate professor
of urban teacher education in the
Department of Learning & Teaching
at the Rutgers University Graduate
School of Education. Her research
utilizes participatory design methods
in classroom, community, and digital
spaces to collaboratively create civic
learning environments with youth and educators that
disrupt discourses and structures of racial injustice and
creatively compose liberatory social futures. She previously
taught secondary literacy and debate in Brooklyn, New York
and Los Angeles, California. Her books include Educating
for Empathy: Literacy Learning and Civic Engagement (2018),
Doing Youth Participatory Action Research: Transforming
Inquiry with Researchers, Educators, and Students (2015), and
Civics for the World to Come: Committing to Democracy in
Every Classroom (2023). Her work appears in peer-reviewed
journals including American Educational Research Journal,
Harvard Educational Review, Review of Re-search in Education,
Journal of Teacher Education, and more.
Antero Garcia is an associate
professor in the Graduate School
of Education at Stanford University
and Vice President of the National
Council of Teachers of English. His
research explores the possibilities of
speculative imagination and healing
in educational research. Prior to
completing his PhD, Garcia was an English teacher at a
public high school in South Central Los Angeles. He has
authored or edited more than a dozen books about the
possibilities of literacies, play, and civics in transforming
schooling in America. His recent books include All Around
the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology and Civics
for the World to Come: Committing to Democracy in Every
Classroom. Antero currently coedits La Cuenta (lacuenta.
substack.com), an online publication centering the voices
and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in
the US. Antero received his PhD in the Urban Schooling
division of the Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies at the University of California, Los
Angeles.
Alex Corbitt, is an assistant
professor of literacy at the State
University of New York at Cortland.
His research examines how youths
and adults represent their identities,
communities, and civic lives through
processes of play and coauthorship.
FEATURED AUTHORS ■
Prior to earning his PhD at Boston College’s Lynch School of
Education and Human Development, Alex taught English
language arts at a public middle school in the Bronx, New
York. His work appears in peer-review journals including
English Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, Linguistics and
Education, Curriculum Inquiry, and English Teaching: Practice
& Critique.
Rich Wallace has authored or
coauthored nearly 100 novels and
nonfiction books for young readers.
His recent work with Sandra Neil
Wallace has garnered an Orbis Pictus
honor from NCTE (for The Teachers
March!), the International Literacy
Association’s Social Justice Award (for
Blood Brother), the Carter G. Woodson Children’s Book Award
from the National Council for the Social Studies (for Race
Against Time), and many others.
Gale Galligan is a New York Times
bestselling cartoonist who is best
known for their four graphic novel
adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club.
You can spot them in The Claudia
Kishi Club, a documentary on Netflix
in which Asian-American creatives
pay tribute to the iconic character of
the beloved book series. Gale’s first original middle grade
graphic novel, Freestyle, was published in October 2022;
it received four starred reviews. They have also written for
IDW’s Sonic the Hedgehog and contributed to the Marvel
Super Stories anthology.
Gale holds an MFA in sequential art from the Savannah
College of Art and Design. When they aren’t making comics,
Gale enjoys knitting, drumming, and spending time with
their adorable family. They are also a founding member of
the Comics Advocacy Group, a 501(c)3 nonprofit which is
dedicated to making careers in comics more accessible and
sustainable. Gale lives in Rockland County, New York.
For more information, please visit Gale online:
@robochai / galesaur.com.
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