Before I begin discussing the prompt for the week, I want to mention how fabulous the article "A Critical Literacy Perspective for Teaching and Learning Social Studies," by Lina Bell Soares and Karen Wood, is. The article is a must read for all teachers, but it is especially informative for Social Science teachers.
Now that I have mentioned the awesome article I am discussing, I will unveil the prompt I chose to tackle: (2) How do you define critical literacy? What ideas do you have for fostering critical literacy among your students after reading the article?
Before reading this article, I would define critical literacy as the ability to dissect what you read for bias and purpose, or to read for deep and sometimes hidden meanings. Luckily for me the article has a more precise definition. According to the article, "The term critical literacy describes a pedagogical approach to reading that focuses on the political, sociocultural, historical, and economic forces that shape young students' lives. It is an approach that teaches readers to become critically conscious of their own values and responsibilities in society" (8).
After reading the article, I have blended my response of analyzing texts for bias, purpose, and multiple perspectives, with the idea of encouraging students to become critically conscious of their own values.
The article gives excellent ideas of how I can apply critical literacy in my classrooms. The article presents "Ciardiello's (2004) five themes for enlightening readers on issues of social justice: examining multiple perspectives, finding an authentic voice, recognizing social barriers, finding one's identity, and finally, the call to service" (10). For all five themes, the article gives ideas about how a teacher can foster critical literacy.
One concept that really stuck out to me was the importance of examining multiple perspectives and looking for bias. This is extremely important in studying history, and I am glad that this article spent some time explaining that finding multiple perspective is paramount in social studies. According to the article, teachers who practice critical literacy need to "Provide opportunities for their students to understand that no one text tells the whole story" (16).
In my own class, I am going to provide my students with plenty of opportunities to read texts about an event from multiple perspectives, and I am going to find relevant texts from voices that are often left silent.
Another strategy that I am going to take from the article is allowing my students to dig deeper on their own, by structuring open ended questions that force them to read critically.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a wonderful posting. I agree with you that social studies and critical literacy are natural pairings. I actually think that the lesson you already gave--the one comparing/contrasting Malcolm X and MLK Jr.--moved toward critical literacy because you presented multiple perspectives on the same issue.
I also think that--for teachers to truly implement critical literacy--they need to establish themselves as learners with their students. I had a tenth-grade teacher who used to say, "This is not a democracy, this is a theocracy, and I am God." I think it's difficult to have critical literacy in classes like that because the teacher positions himself as somebody who cannot be questioned. So I think one component of critical literacy is that teachers value their students' opinions as being valid and legitimate sources of learning. I think you did that, too, when you legitimized students' comments after soliciting their opinions.
So, in sum, based on the limited amount of teaching that I've seen you do, it seems like you are moving toward a "critical literacy" approach to social studies already! Thanks again for your posting.