Agency, Advocacy, and Action: The Art of Shaping Global Citizens and Defining Solidarity

English classes are natural spaces to read the world and expand the walls of the classroom space beyond books and people in the physical space. The opportunity to do so allows for English teachers to shape global citizenship and show their own solidarity through their craft. How do we model solidarity and global awareness and action? How do we leverage grammar and other discipline-related skills and crafts in the name of voice, advocacy, agency and change? As new laws emerge in an attempt to censor and prohibit this work from impactfully and effectively happening in classrooms, equity advocates in schools across the country struggle to engage in liberatory instruction (Love, 2000). This workshop will tackle the challenges of being equitable in school settings by unpacking equity and solidarity through action. Equity work is meeting students’ social emotional needs, building criticality (Mohammed, 2020), getting to know students beyond a surface level (Singleton & Hays, 2008), integrating holism (Safir & Dugan, 2021) in our views of students and the funds of learning they bring into the classroom (Jaber, 2022).