Critical Literacy Summer 2008
I spent two weeks this summer in an intense collaborative workshop at our local intermediate school district site studying Critical Literacy.
Critical Literacy is one of the underused steps in the four processes that readers should utilize when coming across text, those being 1) Code breaker 2) Meaning Maker 3) Text User 4) Text Critic (Freebody and Luke 1990)
Wikipedia has a strong collection of evidence to review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_literacy
International Reading Association
http://www.reading.org/resources/issues/focus_critical.html
What I loved about my 2 week experience with critical literacy is that it validated how bringing real world, authentic learning to the classroom is valid today and completely necessary. I also received terminology to use such as agency, deconstruct, reconstruct, discourse, metalanguage, attention economy, and more. Defining these terms make me stronger by adding to my teacher toolbox and give my students agency over their own learning.
Every day involved an expert speaker also. We listened about poverty, standardized testing, the new literacies, English Language Learners, generations. After every thought provoking workshop I came home wanting to discuss current trends in different areas. My husband and I spent hours going over the information we were deconstructing and reconstructed it to meet our educational needs. My talks on the phone with my sister went deep that week discussing the issues of poverty culture, the difference between generation x and the millenials, and immigration to the United States.
During the week we also had a book study group using adolescent literature. Books such as
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Hattie Big Sky
,
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Copper Sun
,
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The Book Thief
,
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Sold
were read, discussed, and cried over. Many of us came to class so upset by the issues in the books we were reading we had a hard time focusing.
Our groups were also required to give a presentation. My group chose to speak to the use of protocols to move learning forward. I am going to post that power point on slideshare for your viewing pleasure.
I wrote the blog as a response to the Reading Initiative Discussion board that I would suggest joining.
http://www.reading.org/resources/issues/focus_critical.html
