Critical literacy is the ability to take a text and dive into it, engage in the reading and make it your own. It is the ability to understand what you are reading, why you are reading it that way, and how the author/situation is affecting your understanding. Being critically aware is a major part of being an educated reader. Critical literacy can start as young as you want it to start. It is questioning, interpreting, digesting, and recreating what you have read in order to make sense of it, and give it a deeper meaning and understanding in your own thinking.
The thing that I find most intriguing about critical literacy is that it goes beyond the text. It goes beyond the traditional way of looking at a story as a passive reader to looking at the story as something that is up for interpretation, where there is no right answer. I feel that a lot of times students are put off by reading because when they answer comprehension questions there is often a right and wrong answer, but when you are thinking about something critically there is the option to interpret and define things for what you think they are supposed to be.
Also, by looking at the details of who the author is, where is the author from, where is the story located, what is the background information? Why has the author chosen this character to follow that closely? What would/could change if something was different in the story? These questions allow students to be an active reader and understand that texts have biases. As human beings, we all have biases. As I am writing this blog, I have a bias. My background is different from the next persons, creating a different view of what is important in literature. It is important to understand where the texts have come from so that we can try to step out of the box that the author has presented us.
In teaching students how to be critical analyzers, teachers are giving students the opportunity to be the author of their own reading. In my future classroom, I think that this could be a great way to increase my students’ understanding of literature. My only questions would be what is the best way to implement these questions for younger ages and how often should this approach be used?
Dear Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful post. You brought to our attention some very important ideas.
I appreciated your focus on the younger ages. It forced me to question at what age are students emotionally, morally, socially, and intellectually ready to critically analyze a text. The answer to this question will be very different depeding on who you ask. Some will say that four year olds can critically analyze what they are reading while others say only high school or college students are cognitively ready for this complex task. There is no clear cut answer to the question.
You posed an interesting question at the end of your post. Assuming that younger students are ready for critical analysis, what specific activities and questions can you use in the classroom to guide the critical analysis? I apprecaited our professor, Rachel ML's, comments concering her four year old daughter's ability to critically analyze the fairy tale stories she reads. Questions revolving around what the stories made them think about or learn and why they think this way are questions that younger students would be able to answer. I think the "why?" question is a significant question that forces younger students to critically think about what they are reading. The older they get, of course, the more prepared they will be for more complex tasks revolving around critical literacy.
I hope this helps! Thank you again for your wonderful post!
Courtney B.
Elizabeth:
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting thought into your blog. I am particularly interested in how you mentioned that we all have biases. I cannot agree with you more. This is a common misconception. People often say, "Oh I am not bias. I do not favor any one or any position." Whether we like it or not, our background knowledge and pasts do mold our viewpoints and morals.
When it comes to implementing critical literacy in the classroom, I believe it should not be blatantly taught often, but critical literacy themes could subtly underly any discussion. For instance, a teacher may ask "Why does the author write the way he or she does?" I believe in the necessity of critical literacy aspects in school, but I do not believe in the dominance of them.
Elizabeth, I think Courtney did a great job of responding to the "when" question and of trying to search out how to implement critical literacy to younger students who might not even be at a critical literacy cognitive "stage."
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like that you highlighted the point that, in critical literacy, there is no right or wrong answer. It's important for students to be comfortable sharing their responses without the fear of being "correct." However, I would argue that there are some answers that are absurd. How do we monitor the responses, but still allow them to be wide open?