“Just, at least, try to understand”: Culturally situated reader response and curriculum curation for Black girls

Studies centralizing youth responses to literature have changed the landscape of literacy classrooms and continue to shape literature instruction. Still, there is limited scholarship that explores the intricate ways in which Black girls respond to literature which inhibits curricular possibilities for Black girls in literacy spaces. Considering the dearth of research on Black girls’ reading responses, this article builds on the theoretical foundations of Culturally Situated Reader Response and the Black Girl Literacies Framework to ground the following research questions: (1) What culturally situated positions did Black girls assume as they transacted with a speculative short story? and (2) In what ways do Black girls’ responses highlight the complexity of Black girls’ reading response practices? In centralizing these questions and theoretical framings, the author highlights how Black girls’ incisive responses to a literary text suggest the need for educators and researchers to expand how we consider culture in our pedagogical and curricular decisions, particularly related to Black girls’ literature engagement.