Retracing the erasure of canon formation: Rethinking the reading list for English language learners

Abstract

There is an increasing trend in course design for reading and writing classes to include multimodal texts such as comics, television programs, music videos, and social media posts on course syllabi. Often the practice is justified by arguing that students need to develop critical literacy skills and multiliteracies and that these popular texts are more accessible and enjoyable for learners because they are already consuming them in their personal lives. However, this practice may be hampered in achieving its goals if the process by which such texts are chosen and placed in conversation with one another remains obscured. This article presents a proposal to create reading lists for syllabi that are collaboratively constructed with students in ways that attend to how texts are invested with authority by the communities in which they circulate. This critical pedagogy involves making the syllabus an object of inquiry and then inviting students to co‐construct with the teacher the narrative it tells.