Education Commons^™

Theo Huxtable Becomes A Historian: Culturally Relevant, Disciplinary Writing In The Secondary Social Studies Classroom, Teaira Mcmurtry Phd

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This article brings together three conceptualizations —Disciplinary Literacy (DL) (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008), Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009), and the African Verbal Tradition (AVT) (Smitherman, 2000)— to demonstrate how a groundbreaking event in history, such as the Civil Rights March on Washington is taught through the confluence of literacy practices reading, writing, and thinking--specifically, historical practices in social studies such as sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration.

This mini-unit uses the classic sitcom The Cosby Show as a frame to teach students the investigative process of writing a historical analysis about a recent historical event. In the show, entitled “The …