Teachers and diverse students: A knowledge-to-action reader response model to promote critical consciousness

Anti-immigrant vitriol is growing, even disturbing our educational spaces. Teachers are also affected by the negative discourses around them and need to develop knowledge that shapes their attitudes and actions regarding immigrant youth. This article details a professional development with high school teachers that used reader response to develop critical consciousness, the ability to name, and then act on tensions and unjust practices. Specifically, the purpose was to develop knowledge that might affect teachers’ attitudes and actions toward (im)migrant students in their classrooms and schools. The teacher educators engaged in a semester-long reader response initiative that consisted of reading and responding to a series of both informational and narrative texts about the (im)migrant and refugee experience. The high school teachers illustrated various levels of growth from gaining knowledge to engaging in action to better serve students at their schools, suggesting this reader-response model may be used to develop aspects of critical consciousness about other social justice issues in our society that affect teachers and the manner in which they engage with diverse students.