Thompson, Ayanna. "How to talk about race in the classroom." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/how-to-talk-about-race-in-the-classroom. [Date accessed].

How to talk about race in the classroom

Creating a classroom space that allows students to talk about race without having to be an expert.

Download the transcript
Ayanna Thompson
Arizona State University

Frequently in our culture, the only times we talk about race are in moments of crisis. Ayanna Thompson offers a guide on how to approach race in the classroom, reminding teachers, “You don’t have to be the expert on race. You just have to be the person who can raise the issues.”

Further learning

Video

Titus Andronicus as the gateway drug

Students believe they know what Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or Macbeth mean, but rarely do those “meanings” stem from the students’ close engagements with the texts. Using Titus Andronicus at the beginning of any Shakespeare class forces students to experience Shakespeare anew.

Ayanna Thompson
Essay

Teaching race in Titus Andronicus

Helping students make sense of race in Titus Andronicus with a strategic framework for in-class discussion.

Ayanna Thompson

Recommended

Video

Premodern race as a critical canon

Heng offers insight on approaches to teaching the traditional, canonized literature of premodern Europe through the lens of premodern critical race studies.

Geraldine Heng
Video

Early modern Orientalism

Dadabhoy's course asks students to read  premodern texts to deconstruct enduring fictions about Islam and Muslims across time and place.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
RaceB4Race Highlight

Performing diversity work in medieval studies

Sierra Lomuto examines the field of medieval studies and how it privileges whiteness in knowledge production. The Global Medieval/Early Globalities as a methodology can open up current structures and create a spacetime beyond Europe.

Sierra Lomuto