Teaching "Friday Night Lights" Critically

Theoretical Considerations and Exemplary Sequences

Abstract

Sports arenas have always been a mirror for societal changes and affairs, as player protests during the Covid-19 pandemic and the FIFA World Cup showed. Therefore, it was even more surprising when H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights (1990) “exposed” the open secret of institutionalized segregation and racism that run rampant in Texas high school football operations. While Black players were key contributors on the field, they were often excluded from “white” society once they were unable to perform. This article uses a critical foreign language pedagogy framework (Gerlach, 2020) to design exemplary teaching sequences based on the events described in Friday Night Lights. The goal of these sequences is to further the learner’s critical literacy using a framework designed by McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2004).