Confronting Book Banning and Assumed Curricular Neutrality: A Critical Inquiry Framework

Recently, false accusations of Critical Race Theory (CRT) being taught in elementary and secondary schools have emerged in response to culturally relevant, sustaining, and revitalizing curricula; this pushback makes it difficult for many educators to safely employ culturally relevant literature in their classrooms. This article confronts the increasing censoring of curriculum (via book banning and other policies) that privileges White, unidimensional perspectives on language, culture, and curricular topics. Specifically, we suggest a critical inquiry framework (CIF) to guide how students read such text and that draws on the tenets of Yosso's Cultural Wealth model. Our CIF is rooted in (1) student examination of the economic and political contexts of literary production and constructs of linguistic and cultural legibility, (2) critical engagement with the represented values of literature, and (3) research and critical engagement in the unrepresented and misrepresented values, languages, and cultures of the literary artifact. Collectively, these components contribute to a framework of how to engage traditionally canonical texts in ways that are culturally sustaining and revitalizing by troubling the assumed neutrality of such literature. The article demonstrates the utility of the CIF in its application to sample text; F. Scott's Fitzgerald's essay "Winter Dreams." We offer consideration for pedagogy and other mediating issues.