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Critical Literacy: A Professional Development Resource
Abstract
This booklet, which is intended as a support to the delivery of professional development of Australian literacy educators on critical literacy, presents a seven-step systematic model of all contexts through which a text may be constructed and studied. The first two sections discuss the model's use as a comprehensive framework for future teaching, learning, and assessment activities and the importance of viewing critical literacy as a generic learning ability that is valuable across the curriculum. Next, critical literacy is defined as the ability to look below a text's surface meanings by asking continuous questions of the text and thereby examine one's own values and attitudes and consider alternative positions and points of view. After a brief examination of the politics of text, the following seven contexts of text are listed and explained: situation, form, author(s), voices, genre, rhetorical strategies, and world view. Presented next are a set of questions for use in analyzing each context. The booklet's remaining four sections consist of definitions of the concepts of text, reading, and self-reflection and discussion of the following: the differences between implicit and explicit meaning, the pyramid of meaning; and differences between literacy and critical literacy. The booklet contains 26 references. (MN)
... Critical Literacy (CL), which is also termed as "Critical Language Awareness" (CLA), has become increasingly popular in English educational field in many English speaking countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA) since the 1990s. The advocates of CL claim that teaching and learning CL skills is extremely important for students, who are tomorrow's citizens, in the information era (Lohrey, 1998). Towards the education of English as a second language (ESL), the concept of CL is also regarded as beneficial and crucial for ESL learners and has recently been adopted in the instructional practices in different areas across the globe. ...
... Then, the teachers can assist their students to achieve this sort of knowledge as well through classroom activities (e.g., Asking students questions, Classroom discussions, Small-group discussions, etc.). Lohrey (1998) provides some significant interpretations on each of these contexts, described as following: ...
In this present article, I intend to interpret and argue that Critical Literacy or Critical Language Awareness is a meaningful concept for ESL learners to transparently understand and English educators need to apply it in their daily educational practices. Through reviewing the relevant literatures, the theoretical knowledge of Critical Literacy is introduced at first. The second part concentrates on explaining the importance of implementing Critical Literacy in the instruction of ESL. Finally, rooted in former researchers’ findings and argumentations, I elaborate on the analysis of the predictable difficulties and barriers about the cultivation of Critical Literacy for both native and non-native English speakers. In a meanwhile, some suggestive strategies are provided respectfully so as to assist ESL instructors to cope with these problems at the practical stage.
... These functions tell us that every expression, message, measurement, computation, symbol, discourse, or text we exchange with others has something explicit that is revealed while at the same time there will be a large amount of accompanying contextual meaning that remains hidden. What usually remains hidden is the social, linguistic, cultural, and situational contexts in which the expression is embedded (Lohrey, 1998). For example, look at your text message that says, 'I'm going to be a couple of minutes late'. ...
In order to understand the world, we should begin to understand the way language works. It is the most abstract context of mind and involves the symbols of discourse, measurement, mathematics, money, as well every sign we use to signify something. However, the main purpose of language is to make and convey meaning. So, two questions arise: how does language work, and what is the meaning of meaning?
... Segundo Lohrey (1998) A propaganda original convoca as mulheres a se reunirem para auxiliar os soldados, "The soldiers need our help! Gather 'round American Women", enquanto na releitura realizada pelos alunos, figura 8, também há uma convocação, porém, não relacionada às mulheres, e sim aos homens: "Honey, I need your help! ...
O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar o resultado de três trabalhos de uma turma de 1a série do Ensino Médio, de uma escola bilíngue (português-inglês), em uma proposta de letramento crítico em L2 (língua inglesa). Os alunos foram desafiados a fazerem uma releitura de uma propaganda em língua inglesa com cunho sexista, tornando-a neutra. As seguintes categorias foram consideradas para a análise das releituras: 1) sintaxe/léxico, 2) layout e 3) propósito das propagandas. A maioria das releituras foram bem-sucedidas, atingindo as expectativas em relação ao uso da L2 e às categorias de análise descritas anteriormente, mostrando um alto nível de criticidade e proficiência na L2. Apesar de nem todas as releituras terem atingido o objetivo específico de neutralizar o cunho sexista das propagandas, todas demonstraram desenvolvimento do letramento crítico em L2, demonstrando criticidade ao analisar as propagandas originais e domínio de elementos linguísticos e não linguísticos em suas releituras.
... (Luke, 1995, p. 104; see also Luke & Freebody, 1997), probing the text's representations and biases (Pennycook, 1999), and problematizing the author's interests and (often hidden) agenda. Critical reading also involves attending to the cultural and institutional contexts of the text's production and to the ideologies expressed by and through the text (Lohrey, 1998). The critical stance assumes that texts are inherently ideological, representing specific voices and ideas while silencing others, and that critical analysis can empower readers (e.g., Freire, 1996). ...
Dialogic pedagogy, in which students and teachers voice thoughts, co‐construct meanings, and generate multiple interpretations of texts, can promote literacy skills and reasoning. Yet, such teaching is challenging and requires, among other changes, adopting dialogic stances. In the language arts, expressive and critical reading stances have been shown to encourage and support dialogic discussions. How can teachers develop such dialogic reading stances? In this study, we investigated the processes through which teachers negotiated reading stances in a professional development program. Specifically, we studied teachers’ participation in rereading discussions designed to open texts to multiple interpretations as preparation for leading productive dialogue in language arts lessons. We used systematic observation and microethnographic methods to analyze nine rereading discussions among 17 teachers, coaches, and researchers. Five reading stances emerged in the discussions: expressive, critical, instrumental, moralistic, and historical. Focusing on three case studies, we investigated the interactional conditions under which dialogic stances did and did not emerge and the opportunities and limitations of different reading stances for opening texts to dialogue. Our analysis shows that dialogic stances gained legitimacy during discussions in which leadership and facilitation supported gradual elaborations of the text. In contrast to our initial assumptions, we found that expressive and critical stances sometimes narrow interpretive possibilities, whereas instrumental and moralistic stances can be generative of dialogue during rereading discussions. We show the potential of cultivating dialogic stances for the promotion of dialogic pedagogy in the language arts and discuss the advantages and limitations of rereading discussions as professional development.
... Through critical literacy practices, learners become capable of assessing societal messages about attitudes, values, and power relationships conveyed through the text. In this way, they are also able to reflect upon their own reactions, biases, and realities in relation to the text, which will result in a more complete understanding of texts (Brown, 1999;Lohrey, 1998). ...
This study aimed at unveiling the impact of genre-based critical literacy instruction on adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension. Twenty-three preparatory year students enrolled at a state university in the western part of Turkey volunteered to participate in this quasi-experimental study. The reading section of the Testing of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered as the pretests and posttests. Following the pretests, a four-week genre-based reading instruction curriculum was implemented in both groups. In the experimental group, text critiquing activities were incorporated into instruction in addition to code breaking, text participating, and text using activities. In the control group, on the other hand, only code breaking, text participating, and text using activities were involved in the teaching process. At the end of the instruction process, the posttest was administered. The Related-Samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and the Mann-Whitney U Test were used to analyze the data. The results of the study did not show a significant difference in the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups, which was not in line with the studies that have been previously conducted. This study implies that an extended intervention period is required to reach more definite results. Further research with a larger sampling is needed to examine the efficacy of critical literacy instruction.
... That is to say, CLA fosters critical and analytical attitudes and skills through understanding and interpreting spoken and written texts (Van Duzer & Florez, 1999). This is achieved by questioning the who/what/why/how of a text's production and interpretation (Lohrey, 1998). By posing a problem based on a text and analyzing it with critical questions, readers could learn to recognize that all texts contain a hidden bias that writers sometimes consciously intend to include. ...
This study aims to explore the feasibility of teaching critical reading—a practice based on critical language awareness—in local English language classes where learners tend to be receptive about the contents, and to describe the pedagogical applications of the theoretical framework of critical reading to English reading classes in the settings where English serves as a lingua franca. Through the action research in my critical reading practices at a Japanese university, critical reading activities could serve as a catalyst to change learners’ passive attitudes towards texts: they did not uncritically accept the contents and value of texts from an anglophone country, but rather willingly expressed their own opinions and values towards the texts. This study concludes that critical reading could be a feasible pedagogy for English language classrooms, although some modifications to fit local settings would be required.
This article engages speculatively with Rachel Tonkin’s award-winning work of children’s literary non-fiction Leaf litter: Exploring the mysteries of a hidden world as a potential text for study in the primary or secondary literacy/English classroom. It considers the affordances and issues that may accompany teaching this text, and the pedagogical moves that might make it useful in contemporary times and in pursuit of racial and planetary justice. This work foregrounds the role of the pedagogical imagination in curriculum design, in anticipating how teachers, students and texts perform in the classroom. A more inclusive pedagogical imagination might be pursued, not through reliance on white, Western epistemologies, but through a First Nations First dialogic approach that recognises the intimate entanglements of human and other bodies and matter. This also includes identifying the ubiquity of the white “we”, a coercive pronoun that literacy classrooms can challenge.
As a way to amend the field of FL teaching, in particular the teaching of EFL to and
learning of EFL by adolescents, this article aims to underscore the importance of literacy focused instruction specific to FL learning and teaching. In what follows, we discuss literacy teaching practices that exist in ESL contexts and the pressing need to integrate literacy-focused pedagogies in EFL classrooms. To help EFL teachers to bridge this pedagogical gap, we suggest that literacy instruction in the target language should be delivered through regular and continuous exposure to various kinds of literacy, and we provide examples of specific literacy strategies to use with adolescent EFL learners.
This paper explores a group of Singaporean English language teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about critical literacy as well as their perspectives on how best to teach literacy and critical literacy in Singapore schools. A face-to-face survey was conducted among 58 English language teachers by using open-ended questions. The survey covered various topics related to literacy instruction including text decoding, meaning construction, and critical analysis of texts. The participating teachers believed strongly that reading and writing are transactional and interactional practices. However, they were less certain in their beliefs about teaching critical literacy including the critical, analytical and evaluative aspects of text reading. Some teachers saw a conflict between using time on teaching critical literacy and preparing students to pass their exams. As critical literacy is not a requirement at exams, they found it difficult to justify using time teaching it. The results suggest that the teachers’ belief systems are strongly influenced by the broad macro-structure of the educational system in Singapore and their own educational experiences.
Critical litera1.,y Readings and Resources
- Wendy Morgan
- Pam Gilbert
Wendy Morgan, Pam Gilbert, et al., Critical
litera1.,y Readings and Resources, Norwood,
South Australia: Australian Association for the
Teaching of English, 1996.