Memes and social messages: Teaching a critical literacies curriculum on DAPL

Memes and social messages: Teaching a critical literacies curriculum on DAPL

This article documents the design and implementation of a culturally responsive critical media literacies curriculum centered around media representations of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Students (grades 6-8) were invited to discuss media imagery relating to DAPL and to create memes reflecting their understandings. To situate this work, we articulate a framework that blends critical media literacies and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. We analyze students’ spoken and multimodal responses to a curriculum that purposefully foregrounded Native perspectives and digital media. Ultimately, we argue that students must be invited to leverage their epistemic privilege in responding to contemporary social issues.

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