"We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries. To thee from tortured souls arise."

                                           —Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask

In classrooms across the country, too many diverse learners, especially African American students, are still asked to perform resilience while hiding their truths behind metaphorical masks. Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem "We Wear the Mask" remains a poignant, yet painful and poetic, reminder of how Black students and educators are often expected to suppress their identity in pursuit of acceptance. But what if classrooms were spaces where the mask could come off? What if schools honored "Black Joy" as much as they analyzed Black pain?

What if the curriculum itself became a space of healing? That's where multimodal instruction, Afrofuturism, and project-based learning (PBL) come in, not just as teaching strategies, but as commitments to equity, creativity, and culturally and linguistically responsive education (CLR).

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC): Centering Voice and Thought

As students explored climate justice, Dunbar’s poetry, and Afrofuturistic design, writing was not an isolated activity, it was a tool for liberation. Through podcasts, reflective journals, artist statements, and community interviews, students wrote to think, speak, and act.

This is the power of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), which supports learning across disciplines by encouraging students to use writing as a mode of meaning-making, not just for test-taking. As Bazerman et al. (2005) remind us,

“Writing is not merely a way to demonstrate knowledge; it is a way to create it” (p. 15).

In the following "We Wear the Mask" unit, students didn’t just learn science or poetry—they authored knowledge across domains in formats that were relevant to them and their communities. Whether composing a spoken word poem about environmental grief or annotating a heatwave map in two languages, students used writing to reflect, respond, and reimagine.

WAC, when combined with UDL and CLR, serves as a bridge between disciplines and lived experience, amplifying student voice and critical thinking at every turn.

12.13.2025

Black Studies/US History

Identity Unit

Masked

What I am afraid of;

Afraid more of my own thoughts

Than anything

Things like

You're only half any kind of human, not even

What are you doing here

And

So different

What I am is not how I look

I seem so regular and safe

So I must be

As people's perceptions of me are

Beauty only runs skin deep

So if you are one that finds beauty in pain

Look further

But who would want such a broken thing?

What use is a pitcher with a leak?

As decoration?

What if it was broken from the moment it was made?

Thrown on the sidewalk, pieces of chipped clay

Put your hands in the dirt

Toes in the grass

Your hands on your heart

Smooth folds in the ground corn mix

Mija, come close

I want to tell you

How I labored over in the field

Picking cotton

Abuela

Say it ain't so

That you labored there for hours

Just so I could have a life like this?

Aye, chica, it is

And the only thing I can make

Is tortillas

With flour

Mi mamá said

The flour made us white

Not in our skin

But how we were raised

Que the somber smile

And greying tears

For this pain

Is unimaginable

You are so brave for telling this story

But why, to the normal, ignorant child I am

Are you afraid

Of something as small as caterpillars?

Mi Abuela respondió:

"I hated the cotton fields. They were hot, dusty and full of dry cotton canes that scratched me and pricked me. Worse than the heat and dust were the tent caterpillars that seemed to hide in every weed and cotton ball that needed to be picked. If you weren't careful, you would end up squishing them under your feet. There is nothing more disgusting than a caterpillar with all its green and yellow guts oozing out underfoot. Sometimes, as one grabbed a handful of soft, fluffy cotton, along came one of the unspeakable denizens. If one grabbed the cotton fluffs too hard, one could accidentally squish the bug. Once I got tired and laid down along the rows of cotton plants. I woke up to the feeling of creepy crawling caterpillars on my arms and legs. I screamed and screamed and ran around while flaying my arms around me trying to get rid of that creepy sensation."

And so she was sent to school

And learned English

Meanwhile I can't even due her the honors

Of speaking her mother tongue

So, what have I done with my life?

Nothing. I fear of failure.

For her

Y para mi familia

She'll leave me

And us

And no one will know

That she was a wonder

And so I retreat into the caves

The dark caves where no one can see

Who I am or what I came from

Because I haven't done her sacrifices justice

And I sit there; I cower.

UNMASKED

From Mask to Voice: A Culturally Responsive Project-Based Unit

“We wear the mask that grins and lies…”

                                 —Paul Laurence Dunbar

When students were introduced to Paul Laurence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask, the teacher wasn't just preparing for a poetry unit; The teacher was also preparing students for life. She opened the door to a powerful, shared inquiry into identity, voice, and what it means to be seen.

This wasn't a "read-and-analyze" assignment. This was a co-created, project-based journey framed by Gholdy Muhammad's (2020) Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) model, Lev Vygotsky's (1976) sociocultural theory, and the inclusive design principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (2018). The curriculum was rooted in Black joy, criticality, intellect, and, most importantly, collaboration.

And here's the beautiful part:

it wasn't just teachers doing the designing. Students, families, and community members collaborated to create this unit. Yes, "co-created"!  They brought in their stories, their creativity, and their truth.

What Happened in the Classroom?

The learning began with a guiding question: "What does it mean to wear a mask, and what does it take to remove it?"

Students sat in circles, not rows. They read Dunbar's lines out loud. They wrote journal entries about the masks they wear every day. They asked deep, sometimes uncomfortable questions:

• Who do I feel safe taking my mask off with?

• What parts of myself are hidden?

• Who put the mask there to begin with?

And then, the real work began:

From Analysis to Art: UDL + Multimodal Access

Under UDL, students were invited to express their learning in ways that made sense to them. Some recorded podcasts. Others built mixed-media masks with reflective artist statements. A few crafted spoken word poems, layered with music and sound effects, they edited themselves. Each group created a short film exploring ancestral memory and environmental justice, blending Afrofuturism with Dunbar's themes. Another student, quiet but fierce, created a comic strip inspired by "We Wear the Mask," featuring a superhero named TruthGirl. No one was left out. No one was boxed in.

Learning as a Social Experience: Vygotsky in Action

SOCIAL INTERACTION IN THE HOME

As Vygotsky reminds us, learning is a social act. Students weren't just working side by side; they were learning with and through each other. We had students interview elders in their communities about the masks they had worn. Families joined us for an evening showcase, where we watched, listened, and learned from student-created content. One grandmother shared, through tears, "I've never heard my grandson speak about himself like that. I see him now."

This wasn't just school. This was healing. This was culturally responsive education in full bloom.

Black Joy Was the Anchor

Even though Dunbar's poem is rooted in struggle, our unit refused to stay there. We didn't focus on trauma; we focused on transformation.

Students laughed during recording sessions, added joy playlists to their podcasts, and said things like:

• "This was the first time I felt like my story mattered."

• "I didn't know school could be like this."

That's the heartbeat of HRL: Joy, Identity, Criticality, Skills, and Intellect, all working together to uplift, not just instruct.

So, What Did We Learn?

• We learned that when students are trusted with power, they rise.

• We learned that poetry, especially Black poetry, isn't something to study; it's something to live.

• We learned that learning occurs most effectively when it's shared across generations, cultures, and communities.

• And we learned that masks don't come off because we demand it. They come off when students know they're safe, seen, and valued.

Want to Try This in Your Classroom?

Here's a sample flow you can adapt:

Final Thoughts: From Mask to Voice

When educators center culturally and linguistically responsive teaching, when designing curriculum and instruction with students, not just for them, we move from performance to purpose. From survival to sovereignty. From mask… to voice. Let's continue building learning spaces where every student feels seen, heard, and free to be their authentic selves.

Project-Based Learning Framework:

• Driving Question: How do masks, literal and metaphorical, shape how we move through the world?

• Anchor Text: "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

• End Project: Create a podcast, poem, or visual art piece that explores personal and cultural identities, using music, interviews, and/or speculative storytelling.

Students used digital tools to record podcasts, remix Dunbar's words with beats, create Afrofuturistic visual collages, and write spoken word pieces titled "When I Took Off the Mask." We built identity maps, listened to Nina Simone and Kendrick Lamar, and analyzed lyrics alongside poetry.

Through UDL, students had multiple entry points:

• Visual: mask-making, collages, digital posters      

Sample Mask:

We Wear the Mask Project

• Auditory: podcasts, music production

• Kinesthetic: dramatization and movement

• Linguistic: journaling, scriptwriting, annotation

• Interpersonal: group interviews and peer reflections

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mVdP8LbDiPA5a8Ax7

Let these Nine Essentials guide your multimodal instructional design, assessment, and learning community culture-building for inclusive, joyful, and transformative learning experiences.

Through CLR's Nine Essentials, every student's way of knowing and being was honored, from home language to community knowledge to creative genius.

Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy (CLR): Nine Essential Elements

MULTILINGUAL CURRICULUM

CLR is not a strategy; it is a mindset, a framework for validating and affirming students' cultural and linguistic identities while promoting high academic achievement. Based on the work of Dr. Sharroky Hollie (2018), the Nine Essentials of CLR provide a roadmap for equity-centered, responsive teaching.

1. Sociocultural Consciousness

• Definition: Understanding how race, culture, language, and power shape teaching and learning.

• Classroom Application: Reflect on implicit bias, incorporate students' backgrounds in instruction, and teach with cultural humility.

2. High Expectations

• Definition: Holding all students to rigorous academic standards with a belief in their success.

• Classroom Application: Set challenging goals with scaffolds, provide culturally relevant feedback, and reject deficit mindsets.

3. Culturally Competent Communication

• Definition: Valuing students' cultural communication styles and patterns.

• Classroom Application: Use call and response, group talk, storytelling, and community-based discourse structures.

4. Culturally Congruent Instruction

• Definition: Using instructional methods that match students preferred multiple intelligences and cultural learning styles.

• Classroom Application: Embrace collaborative learning, oral expression, movement, rhythm, and visual modalities.

5. Culturally Relevant Curriculum

• Definition: Incorporating texts, themes, and content that reflect students' identities, histories, and communities.

• Classroom Application: Integrate authors of color, local issues, and community voices into lessons.

  For example, Sankofa, Sankofa by Letta S. Baker Mason

6. Validating and Affirming Practices

• Definition: Recognizing students' cultural assets as strengths in the classroom.

• Classroom Application: Highlight student voice, affirm linguistic diversity, and showcase heritage and identity.

7. Restorative and Respectful Classroom Management

• Definition: Building classroom culture through community and empathy, not punitive discipline.

• Classroom Application: Use restorative circles, shared agreements, and culturally sensitive redirection.

8. Responsive Literacy Practices

• Definition: Teaching reading and writing through culturally affirming content and practices.

• Classroom Application: Include spoken word, bilingual texts, local literacies, and multimodal storytelling.

9. Linguistic Responsiveness

• Definition: Valuing and incorporating students' home languages and dialects.

• Classroom Application: Respect language variation, teach code-switching as a tool, and embed heritage language use.

Connections to Practice:

These essentials align seamlessly with Goldy Muhammad's HRL pursuits: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy.

• They support UDL by providing multiple pathways for engagement, expression, and representation.

• They empower project-based and Afrofuturistic curricula rooted in community voice, digital equity, and justice.

Black Joy, Digital Learning, and Equitable Partnerships

Let's be clear:

multimodal learning is an equity-driven approach, especially when combined with access to technology and support for digital storytelling.

Storytelling the Afro-future:

Click the link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12iPDgktCfs44yrz3II6vl34TKA5-crKl/view?usp=sharing 

Too often, tech access is framed in deficit terms, who lacks what? But when we reframe tech as a tool of liberation, it becomes a vehicle for students to:

• Tell their stories
• Speak their truths
• Imagine new worlds

• P. D. Barlow

  5.0 out of 5 stars

  Great for curious minds

  Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2024

"My daughter loved it! She likes books that talk about what the future may be like. Her favorite part of the book was the roller coaster and she can’t stop talking about it."

EQUITABLE DIGITAL LEARNING

That's Afrofuturism in practice: students using digital tools to not only reflect on the past but to design futures grounded in joy, justice, and imagination. Afrofuturism, as defined by Womack (2013), is "an artistic and critical movement that imagines liberated Black futures through speculative storytelling, ancestral memory, and technological innovation." When students remix poetry, blend spoken word with beats, or create short films about environmental justice in a future Black city, they aren't just completing a school project; they're future-building.

One student said in her podcast reflection:

“When I made my poem and added the music behind it, I felt like I was telling the world who I really am, not the quiet girl, but the powerful girl. It felt like breathing.”

BRILLIANCE SHINING IN STEM

This is the power of equitable digital learning partnerships: when educators, families, and communities work together to ensure students are not just consumers of tech, but creators, critics, and curators of their own learning.

Dewey, Joy, and Justice: Environmental Learning Through a UDL Lens

John Dewey believed learning should be grounded in real-life experiences. That’s precisely what happens when students explore environmental justice through culturally responsive, project-based learning. Whether designing heatwave solutions or telling climate stories in multiple languages, students engage with the world, not just worksheets.

Dewey's theory aligns beautifully with Gholdy Muhammad’s HRL (2020), where identity, intellect, criticality, and joy guide instruction. It also reflects Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, demonstrating that students learn best through collaboration and within a cultural context. With UDL, we offer multiple ways for students to connect, including building, talking, drawing, coding, and storytelling. When students learn through community issues, in their home languages, and with access to digital tools, we’re doing more than teaching science; we’re preparing them to shape a better world.

Culturally Responsive Components of Classroom Management

Culturally responsive classroom management extends beyond behavior control; it is a relational, instructional, and culturally informed practice that fosters identity, belonging, and community. It is deeply aligned with the following frameworks:

1. Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) – Gholdy Muhammad

HRL emphasizes that classroom culture must be built around the five pursuits: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy (Muhammad, 2020).

Classroom routines should affirm students' identities (e.g., name rituals, affirmations).

• Management should be community-centered, where students co-create expectations and engage in restorative dialogue.

Example: Instead of issuing silent lunches for conflict, students hold a peer mediation circle grounded in critical thinking and joy.

2. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) – CASEL Framework

SEL competencies, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making are foundational to responsive classroom management (CASEL, 2023).

Educators incorporate emotional check-ins, reflection spaces, and breathing exercises into their daily routines.

• Relationship-building is prioritized over compliance.

Example: Use morning meetings and reflection journals to build emotional regulation and empathy.

3. Sociocultural Theory – Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky (1978) argued that all learning and behavior are socially mediated. Culture and language are central to cognitive and behavioral development.

• Classroom management should recognize cultural communication styles, community norms, and peer learning.

• Teachers act as co-learners and guides within students' Zones of Proximal Development (ZPD).

Example: Students co-create behavioral norms in multiple languages and practice them through role play and storytelling.

4. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) – Geneva Gay

Gay (2010) defined culturally responsive teaching as instruction and interaction that affirms students' cultural heritages while promoting academic success.

• Behavior expectations must be culturally congruent, not assimilative.

• Educators must recognize and validate varied expressions of respect, participation, and engagement.

Example: Group talk, call-and-response, or movement-based transitions are used as culturally affirming strategies instead of labeling them as disruptive.

Key Strategies for Culturally Responsive Management:

Data Analysis of Culturally Responsive Multimodal Strategies

           Lessons from the Likert Scale and Heatwave Graph: Diverse Teacher Voices

Analysis of the Heatmap

The heatmap indicates that the educator placed a strong emphasis on peer collaboration, cultural responsiveness, and instructional flexibility. These priorities suggest a learning environment that centers on community, equity, and adaptability, core conditions for addressing educational opportunity gaps.

Final Thoughts

The teacher's approach illustrates how a process-based philosophy can support students' academic and personal growth. Drawing from students' cultural knowledge, emphasizing inquiry, and supporting learning through collaboration and technology align with UNESCO's call for education systems that nurture humanity, empathy, and lifelong learning.

Teacher reflection:

“Multilingual and neurodivergent students found their rhythm in the poetry and music. I saw joy in their bodies as much as in their voices.”

When the Curriculum Breathes Joy, Students Breathe Freely

We teach toward liberation.

When educators integrate multimodal strategies (CAST, 2018), Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy (CLR) (Hollie, 2018), Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) (Muhammad, 2020), and Afrofuturistic joy (Womack, 2013), students are not merely compliant; they become co-creators of knowledge. They design, perform, critique, and imagine. They speak beyond the mask. Let us stop teaching like joy is optional. Let us build equitable, culturally responsive classrooms where every student can thrive digitally, creatively, confidently, and unapologetically.

BLACK JOY, SELF-EFFICACY, AND SUCCESS ARE THE OUTCOMES