Critical Literacy and beyond


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Critical Literacy and beyond

• You need to know your horn know the chords
  know the tunes. Then you forget about all that
  and just play.

Ruth HarmanJ. Andrés Ramírez
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Focus on Ideology
Who is involved
The Channel
Purpose
Subject Matter
Register
Context
Discourse-Semantics
TEXT
Lexico-Grammar
(from Eggins 1994 p.113)
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Critical Literacy
Reading the world and reading the word
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Definition of Critical Literacy

• Explicit scaffolding of linguistic features in
  the hidden curriculum.
• Acknowledgment of student voices and
  incorporation of students and teachers funds of
  knowledge in curriculum design and
  implementation.
• Collective and consistent questioning of text
  production consumption and dissemination
  appropriate social action if necessary or
  possible

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Arguments

• Childs Text
• I am worried because one day the politicians
• might explode a nuclear bomb and everyone
• will die a horrible death.
• Adults Text
• Concern has been expressed over the possible
• detonation of a nuclear device which could result
• in widespread mortality

Example from Derewianka B (2002)Exploring How
Texts Work.
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Critical Questions

• Who produced the text
• What is the text about
• Why was the text written in this way
• Who is left out of the text

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Student Drawings of MCAS (Wheelock et al 2005)
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Context of MCAS

• The main force behind MCAS is an organization
  called MassInsight (Federal Reserve Bank Bank
  Boston Bell Atlantic Boston Edison
  Massachusetts Association of Realtors State
  Street Bank Intel IBM the Massachusetts
  Business Roundtable). Why are they so interested
  in promoting MCAS Who passes and who fails

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Critical Questions about Test Design

• Do the grade level tests contain the topic
  focuses we expect to find in the classroom
• Is a necessary focus missing
• Does the design take proper care to elicit and
  measure achievement that can be tied to
  standards-guided school instruction and not
  simply to aptitude and socio-economic factors

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MCAS Writing Prompts

• Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System
• Writing Prompts
• Writing Prompt - Grade 4
• Think about a friend who has been an important
  part of your life. How did you become friends
  with this person Think about when you met what
  you did and how your friendship grew.
• Write a story about this friendship. Give enough
  details to tell the reader about this friendship.

• Genre Recount and Narrative
• Field friendship (concrete participants
  material and behavioral processes)
• Tenor Imperative and interrogative mood. Lack
  of modalities. Neutral stance (e.g.the reader)
• Mode Test question with bold fonts two parts to
  directions. Question words (how when what)

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Grade of 6

• Genre Narrative
• Field concrete participants variety of
  material existential and behavioral processes
  details (about puck in game etc) sophisticated
  use of vocabulary (glide petrified)
• Tenor use of similes of adverbs (e.g. elegant)
• Mode Clear orientation initial event
  complication clear paragraphing

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Grade of 2 Genre confusion

• Genre Recount
• Field some concrete participants (soccer
  kickball)
• Tenor Declarative mood final sentence direct
  plea to reader
• Mode One paragraph with some variety in theme.

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How to move MCAS testers on

• Be more specific in tenor (how can a student
  write for an unidentified reader Be more
  specific and give context to writing prompt)
• Field Align the prompt to a subject studied in
  English Language Arts curriculum (the vaguer the
  subject matter the more confused students can
  become)
• Mode Use the same terminology so that there is
  no generic confusion (your first paragraph seems
  to call for a recount and the second for a
  narrative)

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Case Study Critical Pedagogy in the ESL Context

• Generative
• Caminante no hay camino se hace camino al
• andar (walker there is no road we make the
  road as we walk).
• A sense of Direction
• Backward Design A sense of Direction (Wiggins
  and McTighe 1998)
• A sense of Discourse
• CDA Genre Theory (Martin Luke Williams)
  mulitiliteracies and multimodality.

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Implications for teaching

• Explicit scaffolding of language of schooling
• Critical discussions about ideologies inherent in
  MCAS testing
• Acknowledgement of students funds of knowledge
  with authentic purposes
• Examples from the school setting that provides
  evidence for possible Community action (i.e.
  writing for a newsletter boycotts analysis of
  MCAs tests by teachers and students community
  meetings letters to legislature )

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49 of students response to MCAS in one study
Boredom
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References

• Critical Literacy (2004). Retrieved from
• http//www.education.tas.gov.au/english/critl
  it.htm June 2005
• Derewianka B. (2000). Exploring how texts work.
  Sydney Primary English Teaching Association.
• Goldsmith Susan S (2002) MCAS circa 2001 A good
  as it should be Journal of
• Education 183 (1).
• Freire P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
  New York Continuum.
• Kamberelis G. (1999) Genre Development and
  Learning Children Writing Stories
• Science Reports and Poems. Research in the
  Teaching of English 33(4) 403-460
• Kress Gunther (2000). Genre and the changing
  contexts for English Language Arts
• Language Arts 6 (6) 461-469
• Luke Allan (2000) Critical literacy in
  Australia A matter of context and standpoint.
• Journal of Adolescent Adult Literacy
  43(5) p448-461
• Mass Insight (2005). Retrieved from
  http//www.massinsight.com June 2005
• Muspratt S. Luke A Freebody P. (Eds.).
  (1997) Constructing critical literacies
• teaching and learning textual practices.
  Allen Unwin.
• Stratman D. (2000). Remarks made to New
  Democracy MCAS conference. Paper
• retrieved from http//www.massrefusal.org/pap
  ers/nov00conference.html June 2005.
• Wheelock A. Bebell D. Haney W. What Can
  Student Drawings Tell Us
• About High-Stakes Testing in Massachusetts
  Retrieved from