Undoing the Doubling of Disablement in the ELA Classrooms: A Critical Teacher Story for New Inclusive Habits

This dissertation explores the doubling of disablement in the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. My use of the phrase doubling of disablement is a reference to DuBois’ concept of double consciousness. As an African American living in a segregated America, DuBois describes living as a black man with a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (p. 7). This experience led DuBois to claim that “One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings” (p.7). I argue that too often the traditional ELA curriculum asks differently abled students to read about their abilities from an ableist perspective while also enduring institutionalized ableist expectations and measures. As a result, the ELA curriculum may continually uphold the bind of a “two-ness”-- a sensation or tension between the institutionalized ableist gaze and the lived experiences of each student. As a critically reflective active teacher, I story my attempt to rework the ELA classroom to incorporate new, more inclusive habits of pedagogy that loosen the double disablement. I align my use of habits with the Deweyian notion that habits are more than mere routine. Rather, habits are actions of deeply held, oftentimes unconscious, beliefs. All habits are formed “under the influence of the customs of a group” (Dewey, 1927). Therefore, reversing the doubling of disablement requires that English teachers critically examine the beliefs behind their habits. This project turns back towards Dewey’s notion of habits, and I incorporate the values of critical literacy and Disability Studies in Education to better identify new critical commitments as the root of new habits that enact inclusive pedagogy.