Reenvisioning Writing Pedagogy and Learning Disabilities Through a Black Girls’ Literacies Framework

Much of the special education research on writing has focused on skill acquisition and remediation. However, a significant problem with this approach is that it does not account for the sociocultural nature of writing or the importance of culturally sustaining pedagogies in writing instruction. In this article, the author uses practitioner research to examine the ways that Raquel (pseudonym), a seventh‐grade black girl identified as having a learning disability, enacted her identity as a writer when components of the Black Girls’ Literacies framework were integrated into her writing instruction and how this agentive identity offered a counternarrative to the institutional identity ascribed to her as a student with a learning disability. Findings suggest that by integrating the Black Girls’ Literacies framework into language arts instruction, students such as Raquel might be empowered to identify as writers and use writing to critique society and envision a more just and equitable world.