In this chapter we will sketch out some ideas for how the lesson described in the previous chapter could be reworked through the lens of the other critical approaches we describe in this guidebook. These are not meant to be full lesson plans, but rather initial impulses to show how content can be adapted to align with different learning goals.

Antiracist pedagogy

The core element of this pedagogy is that race and racism should be explicitly discussed and analyzed as explanatory factors for the power structures in society. Equally important for antiracist pedagogy, however, is that a lesson or activity focused on race should not be a one-off occurrence in a course, as this is likely to lead to a superficial handling of the content and possibly even re-entrench an othering view of racial minorities. Assuming, then, that your course has explored the topic of race before, a possible reworking of this lesson plan could be a comparison of the monument in Vienna with a monument to or commemoration of enslaved peoples in the United States of America. This would allow for a consideration of how race/racism impacts commemorative practices. Alternatively, you could focus on the text instead of the monument itself and have the students write a similar summary text for anti-Black racism found in Civil War monuments in the United States. Here you would need to be careful, if your class is primarily composed of White students, to make sure minoritized voices are given a chance to represent themselves. At the very least you would need to problematize the practice of dominant racial groups writing about or for minorities.

Decolonization

The main goal of a decolonizing approach to language teaching is not (just) diversity, but decentering. The connection between language and power should be made explicit and students should be guided towards questioning cultural content and the underlying power structures, rather than passively accepting the presented information. Due to the strong ties between decolonization and social justice pedagogy, a lesson with a decolonizing perspective could more or less follow the social justice-oriented lesson template described above. The discussion about monuments and identity, and the students’ personal experiences with monuments, could be expanded to include a brief consideration of what gets memorialized and on what timeline, inviting the students to critically consider who controls the narrative of memorialization.

Inclusive pedagogy

Remember here that inclusivity involves both materials and methods as well as the variety of backgrounds and perspectives your students bring to class. With that in mind, I would alter the first iteration of the plan to offer different ways to engage with the monument, perhaps by having students draw their associations with “library” (the unofficial name of the monument is “The Nameless Library”) or swap stories with a partner about their experiences in libraries (preferably prior to matriculation at the university!). Alternatively, students could each, prior to any discussion, first list words in the target language that they associate with libraries and then make a similar list of their associations with the monument. After discussing the similarities and differences between the lists with a partner, and coming up with a couple statements about them, the groups could present to the whole class, which could then summarize the findings and attempt to analyze them. Each student would then write a brief text explaining their associations and how they compared with those of others, which would also touch on the role of monuments and their meaning in society. Note here that indeed some control was ceded to allow for a greater range of interpretations, instead prioritizing the broader cultural take-away.

Literacy-based pedagogy

The key concepts here are the authenticity of the texts used and the emphasis on the connections between words and meaning/content/culture, with the goal of encouraging analytical, critical thinking from the earliest days of language instruction. Accordingly, the reading text would need to be swapped out for an overview of Jewish life in Vienna, probably one intended for children. In addition, I would likely have students read and discuss in small groups the words inscribed on the monument itself, and how they affect their reactions to it.

Multiliteracies

If I were to approach this lesson from a multiliteracies perspective, I would need to keep three things in mind: the goal of producing meaning, the process of working through the processes of experiencing, conceptualizing, analyzing, and (perhaps even) applying, while of course using various modalities to achieve them. And as can be the case, here most of the building blocks are already present: students experience various monuments and the city by means of Google Streetview, learn history by means of a text, and then analyze the contents of the text and the nature of the monument, before applying the insights to their home culture. To better fit the framework, I would add either a brief video of reactions to the monument or have each student come up with one or two words in reaction to it, which would then launch the penultimate activity. The goal of this additional activity would be to show how people of different backgrounds react differently to the “Nameless Library” (the unofficial name of the monument). Thus I would preserve the throughline of a critical consideration of the monument’s meaning and role in the city’s identity while using multiple modalities to interpret language and culture.