Category Archives: critical literacy

Beatles, Popular Culture, Relevance, Perspective …

February 9, 2014critical literacy, education, Reflections, Social JusticeBeatlers, cultural perspective, Ed Sullivan, teaching for relevanceckosnik

I (Clare) was reading in the newspaper that Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ performance on “Ed Sullivan.” http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2014/02/08/beatlemania_a_moment_in_time_never_to_be_repeated.html

I probably should not admit it but I clearly remember the event. My entire family was gathered around the TV. “Nielsen says 45 percent of all TV sets in use at the time were tuned into the broadcast, with fans and the uninitiated alike gathered shoulder to shoulder in their living rooms.” The article on the Beatles commented that they “landed on a trigger point when they hit America. It was a pop culture sonic boom spurred by talent, timing and luck that’s still rattling the windows.”
So I had a few thoughts when I read the article about the Beatles:
· For me there are a few key events in my youth that gripped the national (and often) world stage. Events where I remember so clearly where I was sitting when I heard the news, how I felt … . For example, I remember so vividly when the school principal announced on the PA (something rarely used) that JFK had been assassinated and I can recall as if it was yesterday sitting with my family watching the live footage of the first walk on the moon … I wonder what will be key events for our youth today?
· In our highly diverse world, events in one culture/country can be viewed very differently in another (on a small scale, my grandmother was appalled by the Beatles and their long hair). As a classroom teacher I used to bring current events into the classroom because I felt it was important for the curriculum to go beyond the classroom walls. As a teacher educator who teaches literacy courses I spend a lot of time on non-fiction, in particular perspective in newspaper and news reporting. How can we prepare student teachers to bring current events (and global events) into the classroom for discussion and interrogation when there are such different views? (The current Olympics would be a good springboard for discussion). I know as an experienced teacher the skill and diplomacy needed to handle discussions that can be controversial. Current events need to be in the curriculum if we want to be relevant but it is not a simple task.
And for those of a certain age, listen to your favourite Beatles song today and sing along as if you are a teenager. Clare

Newer Modes of Communication Challenging the Written Word

February 5, 2014critical literacy, education, literacy, Reflectionscommunication, digital communication, language development, linguistics, teacher education, writing, youth culture and languageckosnik

Smartphones and templates offer a newer mode of communication and slowly, it seems, a new language is taking shape. Short, incomplete sentences with alternatively spelled words are dominating the domain. Incomplete thoughts… and abbreviations http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php are rapidly becoming familiar.

I’ve (Yiola) bin thinking about literacies and what txt and tweets and FB mean for literacy development. IDK what to make of this. It’s interesting cuz language changes. wordz change. punctuation ceases to exist. LOL
youth 2day use symbols, short forms, a variety of new symbols to communicate.
I’m still wondering how #hashtag came to be the symbol that it is. #justdontunderstand
The exclamation point has indicated strong emotion. now we have 🙂 😉 and 😦
Is one more correct than the other?
Plz share some insights… i’d luv 2 hear ur thoughts on the implications for teachers, teacher educators, parents. I mean, how r we to communicate and facilitate language development if we r not in tune with social media discourses of youth today? Do we ignore it? Incorporate it? Explicitly teach the differences between formal / traditional language and social text?
ttys, yiola

Narratives of Teacher Educators

January 28, 2014critical literacy, curriculum; teachers, education, Literacy teacher educators, Reflectionscritical literacy, narrative, Pooja Dharamshi, teacher educators, teaching and learning, Vivian Vasquezpoojadharamshi

I (Pooja) recently finished reading Negotiating critical literacies with teachers: Theoretical foundations and pedagogical resources for pre-service and in-service contexts (Vasquez, V.M., Tate, S.L, & Harste, J.C., 2013). This book provides a theoretical framework, insightful examples, and pedagogical resources for ways to incorporate critical literacy practices into pre-service and in-service teacher education. The final chapter of this text entitled “Teaching and living critical literacies” especially interested me. This concluding chapter focused on the narratives of the authors who are all teacher educators. They shared early childhood memories, classroom teaching experiences, and turning points (e.g. being the first in the family to attend college; protesting the Viet Nam War). Much of what the book’s authors shared in their written narratives reflected closely what many of our critical literacy participants in our SSHRC study have expressed. Many can identify turning points and life events in their early childhood, which contributed significantly to their philosophy and stance towards teaching and learning. Maya from our study identified being placed in a low-track after immigrating to the U.S. as a defining moment. This has influenced her practice because she now focuses on having her student teachers understand multiple perspectives and interrogate their assumptions of students, curriculum, and schooling. Providing a specific example of this pedagogical stance, Maya told us about how she conducts an entire lecture in Spanish, locating student teachers as second language learners.

This final chapter reinforced how meaningful it is to create space for the voices of literacy teacher educators. The narratives of our participants are rich with experiences that influence their practices in the classroom. Stacie L. Tate, book author and teacher educator, articulates this well: “When people ask how I decided to become a teacher and researcher, I always reply, “I was groomed for this.” (p. 99).

Critical Literacy vs Language Acquisition

January 18, 2014critical literacy, education, literacycritical literacy, language acquisition, literacy, teacher education 21st century literacyckosnik

Critical literacy and Language acquisition. I (Yiola) have pondered these two concepts — what they mean, what they entail, and why they are important. In much of the literature I have read, there appears to be distinct 2 camps: those who study language acquisition that is, how we learn to read and write: how we develop phonemic awareness, and learn to decode, and develop syntax and those who study critical literacy: a newer approach to learning how to analyze and understand texts in a socially conscious way. I have asked myself, are they in two distinct domains of Language discourse? They appear to be. Do you agree? Yet, when I think about teaching literacy to children in the context of schooling and what readers and communicators need to know, then critical literacy is a form of language acquisition. Children must know how to read and analyze texts, and they must know how to read and analyze the world. Children acquire language through critical literacy. Critical literacy is then a significant part of language acquisition. In teacher education literacy courses, is the concept of critical literacy taught with the same importance and priority as the more traditional methods and means for language acquisition? Ultimately I’m wondering, what are the essential components of literacy curriculum for 21st century teacher education programs?

Classroom Teachers and Critical Literacy

December 16, 2013classroom teachers, critical literacy, education, literacy, literacy, Literacy teacher educators, research, team membersckosnik

I am fascinated with classroom teachers’ pedagogy. In particular, how elementary school teachers teach critical literacy to young children. How teachers plan, what materials they choose and the discussions they facilitate in the classroom were some of the areas I asked classroom teachers in relation to their efforts to build critically literate students. My research team spent half of the school year observing classroom teachers` daily practices with a special focus on critical literacy. We also interviewed the teachers to gain an understanding of their thinking about their practice. One interesting finding is the close connection between content (often driven by narrative texts) and pedagogy. That is, teachers (in the early primary grades) focused heavily on narrative texts to relay information about critical social issues and designed learning opportunities (discussions, extensions) based on the texts. This process resulted in children sharing their own stories and understandings of the critical social issues (i.e. identity and exclusion, inequitable distribution of resources, class). Understanding teachers` classroom practices is connected to phase two of our study on literacy teacher educators. I want to know how the two sets of pedagogical practices connect: how does the pedagogy of literacy teacher educators who have a critical stance transfer to classroom teachers’ practices?