As a teacher/activist, Julia Torres's work is grounded in empowering students to use the Language Arts to fuel resistance and positive social transformation. Ms. Torres facilitates workshops and professional conversations about anti-racist education, social justice, and culturally sustaining pedagogies. She writes about these and other topics at at juliaetorres.blog.

Topics include:

• How Julia uses side-by-side teaching, expert groups, and culturally relevant texts to shift traditional power dynamics in her classroom

• How grades foster attitudes of competition, compliance, and insecurity in students of color, dividing them and pitting them against one another

• How Julia helps students "unlearn" disempowering attitudes from past experiences

• Why implementing progressive practices like going gradeless can be extremely difficult in urban school settings

• Why teachers from non-urban settings should visit and learn from teachers in urban settings

Resources mentioned:

• Julia's Twitter thread on grades

• Going Gradeless in Urban Ed (Teachers Going Gradeless)

• On Reading...and Grading (juliaetorres.blog)

• Building Bridges (juliaetorres.blog)