“The creative aspect woke me up”: Awakening to Multimodal Essay Composition as a Fugitive Literacy Practice

This article details a self-study dissecting an interracial group of students’ theories of Blackness in a postsecondary classroom. I begin by conceptualizing fugitive literacy practices as tools with which to awaken and animate education as the practice of liberation from whiteness and anti-Blackness. I then approach multimodal essay composition as one such practice and illuminate its application in a classroom. I show how this practice affirmed students as empowered producers of knowledge. I contend that pedagogues must pivot away from the disruption of whiteness and anti-Blackness as a defined target, and turn toward the destruction of both as a desirable goal. I conclude by considering further inquiries that this provocation invites vis-à-vis curriculum and pedagogy in English teacher education.