Activating Joy Through Culturally and Historically Responsive Read-Alouds

Abstract

Activating joy is a rigorous and serious pursuit in literacy education. In this article, we guide educators through the framework of culturally and historically responsive education and its five pursuits: identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy. Our focus is on the fifth pursuit -joy– and we support elementary school teachers in pursuing joy during read-aloud in their classrooms. As we advocate for activating joy during read-aloud, we ask educators to consider joy and its relationship to justice and humanity. We suggest that to activate joy, educators must start with stories that center and celebrate our young people, their lived experiences, and their histories from a place of self-empowerment. We offer practical examples of culturally and historically responsive read-alouds that center five types of joy.