A FEW NOTES ABOUT CRITICAL LITERACY

MELLINEE LESLEY

Second Grade Elementary Student:

“The [reading] test is not the easiest, you know. You have to put proof on it and sometimes there’s 20 or more questions. You have to read in the test, and it could be about anything. When I’m not doing the test, just normal reading, I enjoy it. I just go with the flow. So, I have to practice a lot and stay slow on a [reading] test.”

High School Junior:“It’s really not my favorite thing to do cuz I’m, whenever I read in other classes it’s on grade level, and I just don’t understand the words and there just, I mean, if I had—cuz, there’s times when I look at a word, I don’t know what it is but when somebody reads it to me or tells me what that word is, I’m like, oh it’s that word. Sometimes I don’t even read what we’re supposed to. I just act like I’m reading. Just look down at the book. Then, pay attention to everybody that’s, the ones that are really reading, when they turn the page, then I’ll turn it. I like it when everybody reads out loud cuz you know you’ll understand it more when they read out loud.”

Student in a Developmental Reading Class:

“When I read, I usually do it at the last minute. I read late at night, that’s when I feel more comfortable. I usually put it off or sometimes not even read it.”

Junior in a State University Teacher Education Program:

“I was an extremely slow reader and that is the main reason that I do not like to read. Since I have never been a great reader, I never believed in myself to develop into a great writer. Through elementary school, all the reports and tests that were given over the books that we read almost made me feel stupid because I never could remember what it was that I had read. While I would read the books and write the reports, I was still just an average writer. Feeling like this, made me very self-conscious of my writing. Not fully understanding what I had read made it very difficult to make complete sense. I tried reading a lot more in college because I did not have the after school activities, but it did not last long. It continued to frustrate me that I could not understand the books that I was reading. I would go to my professors and ask questions about better ways to read. All the suggestions that they gave me did not work for me.”

Think quietly to yourself or write some notes to the following questions:

What makes each of these students a developmental reader?

What places these students “at risk” for failing in their high school, developmental reading, and credit-bearing classes they will take in a variety of content areas?

What kind of reading instruction do you think these students have had in the past?

What kind of reading instruction do you think these students will get in the next level of education they pursue (e.g., middle school, high school, developmental reading, “regular,” credit-bearing college classes)?

What kind of reading instruction do these students need?

Now Consider a Different Set of Questions:What sense of literacy agency does each student

present about themselves through these passages?

What are the underlying or subconscious theories about reading guiding their statements?

What kind of reading identity does each student exhibit about themselves through these passages?

Why are these students unengaged from reading in school settings?

How can we help these students develop different views of reading in school?

What should be the fundamental goal for reading instruction with each student?

Reading is important in our society because it:(1)Builds a Mature Vocabulary(2)Facilitates Better Writing(3)Prepares Students for the World of Work(4)Helps Students Succeed in College(5)Makes Students Smarter(6)Helps Students Develop a Moral Compass(7)Helps Students Experience Greater Financial Reward(8)Arms Students Against Oppression

--Kelly Gallagher (2004)

Goals of Reading Redefined:

Arm Against

Oppression

Vocabulary

BetBetter Writing

Prepare for College &

Work

Smarter Moral Compass

Financial Reward

How Do We Promote Literacy Agency?

Understand “Normative” Theories of “Struggling” Reader Identities (Alvermann, 2001). See Learning Module 8.

Implement a philosophy of Critical Literacy

Critical Literacy

Critical literacy is defined in the field of education as reading and writing practices that challenge an omnipresent, unstated social agenda of power where language is never neutral but rather imbued with politicized ideologies (Freire, 1993; Lankshear & McLaren, 1993). Viewing language as a form of social action, critical literacy raises questions about whose views are valued and represented in text.

Van Sluys, Lewison and Flynt’s (2006) Typology of Critical Literacy:

Disrupt the Commonplace

Consider Multiple View Points

Focus on the Sociopolitical

Take Action

Disrupt the Commonplace:(1) Text Selection

a. Teach with Complete Texts (not just passages in isolation)

b. Incorporate Reading Materials Found in the World (e.g., Popular Media Texts)

b. Allow Opportunities for Student Choicec. Select Texts With Relevant Cultural and “Social

Justice” Themesd. Select “Challenging” or “Grade Level” Texts

that Emulate the Level of Reading Difficulty Required in Subsequent Coursework

e. Do not rely on a textbook as the sole text in a class

Examples of Books With Social Justice Themes:

Disrupt the Commonplace cont.

(2) Reflection over the personal and academic literacy journey of students prior to the coursea. In-Depth Phenomenological Interviews/Writing (Seidman, 2006)

1. Life History2. Contemporary Experience3. Reflection on Meaning of Items One

and Twob. Literacy Narratives

Consider Multiple View Points

(1) What are the dominant ideological perspectives presented in the course texts?

(2) Sharing Literacy Narratives Using a Text Rendering Technique

(3) Dialogue Journals Completed in Class

Focus on the Sociopolitical(1) Reconsider what constitutes basic skills compliance

in reading instruction.(2) Question the social structures that foster a need to

monolithically label students as “proficient” or “struggling” readers. We are all “struggling” readers depending on the demands of particular texts.

(3) Challenge “cycles of remediation pedagogy” (Lesley, 2004) where students receive the same ineffective (usually skills oriented) instruction in reading intervention settings and make little or no progress.

(4) Avoid the “dehumanizing effects of submissive, rote learning” (Long, 2008).

Take Action

(1) Critical Metacognition (Lesley, 2004): Ways Students used Metacognition as a Form of Resistance:

Change school narratives from teacher narratives to student narratives (e.g., encourage students to articulate their literacy identities for themselves)

Move from a knowledge-telling stance to a knowledge-transforming stance (Dahl & Farnan, 1998)

Change literacy labels from fixed, deficit models to process-oriented models Approach literacy in a concentric, thematic fashion as opposed to a linear

fashion Approach reading in personally-relevant ways in order to develop student

purposes for reading

(2) Literacy Agency(3) Questioning and Changing the Commonplace

Practices of Schooling