“I never trusted the institution of schools. I didn’t see myself in books and I knew the way Native stories were told. The story of me getting here is a series of sunken ships.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“In the teaching of English, there is never enough emphasis on creative writing. Not creative writing for the sake of creative writing, but writing as thinking.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“We have not been able to agree on what makes good writing. And ‘good’ writing has been completely based on one side’s standard.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

When @thommyorange spoke about how he became a reader and writer, striking how it was *not* because of school. Ask: do Ss become readers and writers because or despite of us? #NCTE19

“The more specific your writing is, the more universal it becomes.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“Did these characters need to be Indian in the story? They didn’t do anything Indian” — an example of a workshop comment on a short story which reminded @thommyorange of the standard of White male, but what if the point is for the Indian to not have to do “Indian” at all? #NCTE19

. @thommyorange now speaking truth to power about the assumption of character whiteness and the pressure to conform to performative White-centered views of what it means to be “Indian.” #NCTE19

. @thommyorange: “I was never handed a book because a teacher thought I would connect to it. Too often, we’re so steeped in White, male authors in the English curriculum.” #DisruptTexts #NCTE19

“We have an opportunity this time to change things that have been really bad for people of color... I say this not in the spirit of anti-Whiteness but in that an institutionalized White Supremacy is a real thing.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“We are made of stories. And more than that, we are made of all the stuff that makes us tell stories. And how those stories make up who we are.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“Writing into something that wasn’t there was very close to my heart.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“For us to be only be historically depicted means we’re already gone. And that’s an awful thing to live with.” @thommyorange #NCTE19

“The pain that we experience is earned. I believe it is ethically wrong to steal anyone else’s story.” @thommyorange #NCTE19