Critical literacy: Bringing theory to praxis. (original) (raw)
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Changing student demographics, globalization, and flows of people resulting in classrooms where students have variable linguistic repertoire, in combination with new technologies, has resulted in new definitions of what it means to be literate and how to teach literacy. Today, more than ever, we need frameworks for literacy teaching and learning that can withstand such shifting conditions across time, space, place, and circumstance, and thrive in challenging conditions. Critical literacy is a theoretical and practical framework that can readily take on such challenges creating spaces for literacy work that can contribute to creating a more critically informed and just world. It begins with the roots of critical literacy and the Frankfurt School from the 1920s along with the work of Paulo Freire in the late 1940s (McLaren, 1999; Morrell, 2008) and ends with new directions in the field of critical literacy including finding new ways to engage with multimodalities and new technologies, engaging with spatiality- and place-based pedagogies, and working across the curriculum in the content areas in multilingual settings. Theoretical orientations and critical literacy practices are used around the globe along with models that have been adopted in various state jurisdictions such as Ontario, in Canada, and Queensland, in Australia.
This paper examines the intersection of critical literacy informed by critical social theories and formations of the self imagined within poststructural theories. Specifically, it considers how singular views of formations of the self as either identity or subjectivity create problems for understanding the complex interrelations between the two concepts within critical literacy. The in-school literacy practices related to popular culture texts of one adolescent male are used to illustrate how singular conceptualizations of formations of the self (as identity or subjectivity) limit the complex interplay that readers engage in as they negotiate positions between identity production and subjectivity construction. Reflections on the possibilities of a broadened application of critical literacy that acknowledges the working of both identity and subjectivity are discussed.
Critical Literacy & Critical Literacy Pedagogy: From Theory to Practice
Different approaches to critical literacy have led to educators and researchers on different pedagogies and practices. Critical literacy gives emphasis on understanding and acting upon issues and problems of global world as democratic values. Apart from this general aim of critical literacy, it also aims to active and participatory education through personal and social transformation embodied with real experiences of individuals in educational settings. It is also about becoming social activist and becoming aware of them in the world for reasons which are perhaps sometimes transformative in the sense of being political agent who can be an active citizen. On the contrary, the issue of formal, rule-bounded literacies, critical literacy emphasizes the meaning-making process via texts, media or multi-literacies and lead people to make connection between literacy from different perspectives and people’s lives. In this respect, critical literacy should be implemented in classroom settings to make students critically literate and hopefully take action toward global issues such as injustice, oppression and so on.
Critical Literacy: Conflicts, Challenges, Adaptations and Transformation
This case study explored how the involvement of two ESL instructors in critical literacy research, including master's thesis, made them experience different challenges, ideological conflicts and successes. One of them was teaching ESL in secondary classes when she carried out her thesis about critical literacy. She also cooperated with the researcher in a critical literacy study after she had finished data collection for her thesis. The other participant taught ESL in elementary classes and is currently teaching at universities. The study, which took place in Lebanon, revealed how the varied ideological positions, views and contexts of the two instructors made them go through different transformations. The data suggests that involving teachers and masters' students in critical literacy research constitutes and important platform to train them in the various complex dimensions of critical literacy, particularly in settings where this approach faces significant resistance. Keywords critical literacy and professional development, critical literacy: challenges and transformations of novice and experienced teachers, ideological conflicts in ESL critical literacy classes
Critical literacy in teaching and research 1
Education Inquiry, 2013
This article explains Janks' (2010) interdependent framework for critical literacy education, how it was developed and how it can be applied. The explanation focuses on each part of the framework: power, identity/diversity, access and design/redesign and it provides an argument for their interdependence. The framework is then applied to three illustrative case studies all of which relate to critical literacy education. The first relates to curriculum, the second to pedagogy and the third to research.