Amanda Cherry, a middle school Language Arts instructor at Southern Hills Middle School in Boulder, Colorado, presented a lesson plan called “Queer That Class!” reportedly to a A Queer Endeavor conference, which describes itself “queer-led” organization that seeks to expand “gender, sexual and family diversity in education”.
In the session, Cherry says the presentation will teach instructors “about queering the content of your secondary Language Arts classes”. She explicitly seeks to inform fellow educators how to introduce middle school children to Queer Theory, including “pronouns, Critical Lenses and Queer Theory”. Cherry notes that she has been teaching 6th graders for 12 years, but has been teaching her students Queer Theory for six years, since she connected with the Queer Endeavor project.
Queer Theory, which is linked to Critical Theory – the basis for Critical Race Theory – teaches children to view books, poems, and other texts through the lens of a person who is LGBTQ, or to examine what impacts such texts may have on those who are LGBTQ. Cherry seems to suggest that her 6th grade students are first learning about Queer Theory in her classroom. Read more…