A critical discourse analysis of racial literacy in teacher education

What does racial literacy look and sound like in a teacher education book club? Using the tools of critical discourse analysis, we describe, interpret and explain how each member of the group draws on a range of discursive and embodied resources for racial literacy; particularly, how they maneuver the book club discourse to resolve what constitutes anti-racist action in the book. In this article, we demonstrate the complex ways in which the students seek to make meaning around this issue and in doing so, draw on and develop a set of semiotic tools we refer to as racial literacy. We trace the multiple modes (visual and linguistic) used by individuals and the shifts in these modes over the course of the conversation. Such shifts, we argue, hold the potential for the development of a more intricate form of racial literacy.