Teaching Literature for Liberation provides free educational materials for K–12 teachers to enable and encourage the teaching of literature associated with historically marginalized experiences of race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, religion, class, and ability. Inspired by and designed as a literary complement to Learning for Justice’s Teaching Hard History framework, our project was originally named Teaching Hard Literature. We still honor our THH inspiration, and have since revised our name to more accurately encompass our mission centered on the liberatory power of literature and language arts education.

Teaching Literature for Liberation is a collaboration between the Center for the Liberal Arts and the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia as well as K–12 teachers from around the United States, in association with the Learning for Justice programs of the Southern Poverty Law Center. We are educators—teachers, scholars, and librarians—bringing together literary expertise, classroom experience in public and private K–12 education, and a shared commitment to dismantling racism and teaching justice through literature.

If you have questions about TLL or would like to get involved, please contact managing director Cristina Griffin ([email protected]).