Abstract—The ultimate goal of college remedial reading courses are to teach students how to read critically. Teaching students how to read a text usingcritical lenses help to shift their thinking in order to gain a deeper understanding of a text from different perspectives, and to become a better thinker. Students bring their whole self to reading, which includes their multiple identities, cultural background, and worldviews. Teaching students to read through the critical lens of race beckons their whole self and prevailing societal views. The critical lens of race is used to analyze and discuss basic and complex texts. How is the racial lens used to discuss a creative vignette about names? What do students learn about the power of names using the critical lens of race? In reading a vignette about how a girl feels about her name, the connotations of words knotted to racial identity were broached and explored. First-year college students discover truths about others’ perceptions by conducting interviews about race and names. Students presented their findings and analysis on the weight of a name through the critical lens of race.
Index Terms—College remedial reading, critical lenses, race.
Darlene Russell is with William Paterson University, USA (e-mail: russelld@wpunj.edu).
Cite: Darlene Russell, "Do you See What I See? Teaching the Critical Lens of Race in a College Remedial Course," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 80-83, 2015.