Critical Literacy

Guest Authors: Maria Cristina Piras and Piotr Rzemek
2nd Year Students at the MA in English Philology, University of Białystok, Poland

One of the assumptions within critical literacy is that texts contain ideology. Thus, critical literacy aims to examine issues of power, representation, and equity. Critical literacy is based on the Frankfurt School of Social Critical Theory, which has as its goal the reform of social inequities and injustices (Kellner, 1993). Critical educational theory, also known as critical pedagogy, applies the tenets of critical social theory to the educational arena, examining how schools reproduce inequality and injustice while also providing opportunities for individuals to develop critical consciousness and participate in societal change. Through curricular decisions that reflect a country’s political and economic objectives (Cadiero Kaplan, 2002) and literacy practices that are sanctioned by dominant groups, schools contribute to the maintenance of unequal social relationships (Powell, 1999).

A critical literacy approach not only teaches students skills and techniques for traditional textual analysis and creation, but it also educates them to read and write against texts: to recognize and comprehend that language and texts are not necessarily neutral and ideological. As a result, critical literacies encompass not only academic literacies related to reading and writing texts for traditional reasons, but also activities related to reading and writing in opposition to standard school curriculum and dominant popular culture (Habermas, 1975). The emphasis on students’ voices and dialogue as tools for students to reflect on and generate meaning from texts and discourses characterizes the critical literacy classroom. Because learning is fundamentally a social act that is related to its real-life context and relies on language as a mediator, dialogue is essential (Rogers, 2002).

However, one of the main problems in teaching critical literacy is that not all students’ voices are created equally, because there could be students more authoritative than others and this can intimidate socially subordinate students.

These problems reflect also on the teachers due to the fact that there isn’t a single definition of critical literacy. Indeed, the two definitions known are that critical literacy is a combination of aspects of comprehension skills based on objective analysis and an attitude that focuses on sociopolitical issues. The definitions mentioned above derive from other philosophical traditions that affect the classroom.

To conclude, the teacher must use a critical literacy perspective to highlight controversial issues and help the students not only to read the texts critically, but also to be main actors to transform the society.

Another challenge to implement critical literacy for the teachers across all levels of classrooms concerns classroom management. In order to avoid that more authoritative students intimidate subordinate students, the teacher must distribute authority among all the members. This transfer may be complicated as students who expect classrooms that position the teacher as the authority often do not know how to use authority and may not recognize that their empowerment is a responsibility to acknowledge the voices of others. The results can be that some students act contrary to the democratizing spirit of critical literacy and disrespect the teacher’s knowledge.

In conclusion, critical literacy is appropriate for the schools of penal institutions and correctional facilities to help students that are struggling in understanding their own marginalized place in society. Teachers of critical literacy must ensure that their classrooms differ from the institutions in which they are set.

References

Beck, A. S. (2005). A place for critical literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(5), 392–400

Borsheim‐Black, C., Macaluso, M., & Petrone, R. (2014). Critical literature pedagogy: Teaching canonical literature for critical literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(2), 123–133