Why does critical literacy provide to young students with a better understanding of the world? FINAL VERSION

There are a lot of different situations taking place in the 21st-century world. Situations that cannot be ignored by educators because they might be or become -in a near future- big threats to our young students if they are not ready to face them. Therefore, raising our students’ critical thinking skills with new capabilities and specific mental abilities has become in recent years a compelling need. But the question is: why? The answer is very simple, because “Critical Literacy (CL) seems to offer one of the most resourceful ways in which teachers and students can get together to analyze, question and finally dwell in today’s dynamic world.” (Farralelli, 2009). Accordingly, it is essential for educators to help students take action by expanding their mindsets to better understanding the perspectives of other overlooked groups in society, for example. In this way, Critical Literacy would provide opportunities for them to determine their ability to discern the purpose of texts and also their ability to identify ideologies that can lead them to accept, reject or reconstruct them critically (Luke, 2000). Therefore, it is important for educators to start creating classroom atmospheres that encourage and challenge students to become critically literate.

            Critical literacy has its origins in progressive traditions and the Frankfurt School. It argues that to become truly literate, students must move beyond simply decoding text and absorbing facts and information to think critically about what they learn and apply to their lives. On one hand, Shor (1999) states that critical literacy is using the language to question the social construction of the self. When we are critically literate, we examine our ongoing development, to reveal the subjective positions from which we make sense of the world and act in it. On the other hand, Freirean critical literacy (named after Paulo Freire), is conceived as a means of empowering disempowered populations against oppression and coercion, frequently seen as enacted by corporate and/or government entities. This starts with the desire to balance social inequities and address societal problems caused by the abuse of power and it proceeds from this philosophical basis to examine, analyze, and deconstruct texts. These two concepts, at first sight, seem to have no similarities between each other but in fact, if we think carefully, they might have a deep correlation between them and it is the part where they are both “social”, they both need to connect with the outside world to achieve their objectives which development can be different in a way but at the end there is one only goal: to make sense of the world. However, besides that, critical literacy can be limited because not all schools are willing to correct political inequities and injustices within the context of school-based literacy curricula. These social injustices, for example, can prevent bright and deserving students to reach their potential or show their abilities because the wealthy not-so-bright students take over and leave them behind using their resources (Clarke, 2016). Furthermore, students can experience injustices from different perspectives which can variate between being a victim, an observer, a beneficiary or, a predator (Schmitt, Baumert,   Gollwitzer, & Maes, 2010) and these injustices can lead them to develop changes on their well-being,  emotions,  motivation,  and  behavior which can affect their development in class and in their social lives. Despite the fact that some students could be involved in situations like those, critical literacy, on the opposite, attempts to emphasize students’ reading comprehension and their ability to critique over time through thoughtful deliberation and practice. Because as knowledge is socially constructed, open-ended, and continuously unfolding, it is important for educators to be patient, thoughtful risk-takers as they strive to increase students’ enthusiasm by using engaging texts and teaching techniques that help them to embrace their own conceptual perspectives.

            According to what was mentioned before, it can be said that using critical literacy within the classrooms could provide many advantages to students in a variety of ways, but in this paper I will explain the four ones that in my opinion are the most remarkable for them which are: 1) increasing awareness of social issues, 2) emphasizing reading comprehension and the ability to critique, 3) growing students’ interest and enthusiasm in conducting research on topics relating their own lives for social changes and, 4) helping them find ways to participate in society more actively. These factors are key to encourage critical thinking skills in students and to create an open and accepting class where they can express their ideas and feelings towards an issue. Because teaching critical literacy is becoming more and more necessary in schools for children and teenagers and this fact cannot be ignored anymore.

            Firstly, the increase in students’ awareness of social issues encourages them to understand and question the attitudes, values, and beliefs of written texts, visual applications, and spoken words which help them to actively avoid being misinformed or manipulated. As Ira Shor (1999) stated, “critical literacy thus challenges the status quo in an effort to discover alternative paths for social and self-development” which is in fact, the beginning of an intellectual process that can be very enriching to young students and by encouraging them to find ways these social issues relate to their own personal lives, students’ minds are expanded to see cultural and racial differences as a positive thing. However, there might be settings where silence is imposed which could be complicated for the development of students’ critical thinking skills. But on the contrary, critical literacy education promotes individual freedom and expression (Morell, 2007), therefore, it could only give to students good improvements throughout their development of such skills, including the opportunity to express themselves without any restriction.

            Secondly, critical literacy education emphasizes students’ reading comprehension and their ability to critique because as it is a knowledge construction and/or reconstruction of content, students are able to develop better critical capabilities with the aim that eventually they can empower themselves to embrace their own conceptual perspectives turning them into ideas or solutions when facing a specific issue and that they can share them with others to then take social actions. Also, educators can help foster students’ higher order thinking through in-class discussions about these social topics in what is known as a dialogic environment. Here, the traditional banking model of teaching is replaced by educators giving students a chance to openly express their ideas and thoughts on the issues being taught in class. Nonetheless, critical literacy education can be limited when attempting to do so because not all schools are willing to correct political inequities and injustices within the context of school-based literacy curricula. However, the findings of Morrell’s research study in 2004 demonstrated that critical literacy education could produce proficiency in academic and other literacies which means that schools should start implementing it in their literacy curricula

Thirdly, growing students’ interest and enthusiasm in conducting research on topics relating their own lives can also lead them to take personal responsibility for social changes in their communities and as they might have improved their ability to understand the messages found in online articles and other sources of media such as news stations or journals, reading different texts or additional readings that accompany those texts can also help students practice critical literacy. Moreover, this experience doing research might also develop in some students, new capabilities or skills that they did not even know they had and with the educators’ help and guidance both can learn from each other but principally, the students are the ones who eventually will be able to master this skill and can become more critically literate. However, an obstacle that can prevent students to achieve this goal is motivation, because there might be some students who might be not interested and to avoid this educators need to use special strategies with them, like, for example, Encouraging and valuing students’ independent thinking as they read, write, speak, listen, and view; so that they feel comfortable and confident in the classroom.

            Lastly, as students are developing and mastering the skills mention before along with others, they will help them understand the personal and wider implications of reading a text which goes beyond that just reading. These implications include being able to analyze, critique and question the messages inherently present within any form of text. But besides that, it is important to stand out that throughout this process, students may encounter with sources and information that can make them doubt on if it is true or false. However, as they may have already developed some other critical thinking skills they will be much better equipped to face and solve the problems of the future. But what is more, they would be able to reflect on the different texts they read (critical reflection) and they would know how they could apply the knowledge they have discovered through dialogue to their own life situations in order to take concrete actions to change society and right injustices, they would go beyond just reading, they would be able, by practicing critical literacy to challenge both the author of the text in addition to the social and historical contexts in which the text was produced, in brief , the implementation of critical literacy education within classrooms could help students find ways to participate in society in a more active way (Soarse & Wood, 2010).

            To conclude, I think that critical literacy does provide a variety of advantages and benefits to young students. Because it not only involves learning how to think critically but it also develops in students a deeper and better understanding of their external worlds, giving them the chance to find ways to participate in society, supporting democracy, using knowledge and information to make decisions and, making them able to take actions on what really matters. Also, their intellectual development and self-control are abilities which are also stimulated and cultivated together (students and educators) with tolerance and mutual esteem, they learn to use multiple literacies (reading, writing, meaning-making, etc.) to tell their own stories and represent themselves as new storytellers, learn to work collectively, engaging in a problem-posing dialogue with the individuals and institutions in their community. However, despite the fact that teaching critical literacy requires broad changes in the educational practices, goals, and structures of schools so that language instruction is opened up to include multiple literacies, it leads to a need for students to be able to communicate, function and create change personally, socially, economically and politically on local, national, and global levels. Because, critical literacy could improve the way of teaching, make students more aware of the situations that are happening worldwide and take social actions, but most importantly, it could encourage them to be agents of change.

References

            O'Byrne, I. (2018, May 11). What is “Critical Literacy” in Education? Retrieved from:  https://wiobyrne.com/critical-literacy/

            Briles, R. (2012, July 5). Benefits of Critical Literacy in Social Studies Classrooms. Retrieved from: https://sites.google.com/site/criticalliteracyinss/benefits-of-critical-literacy

            Shor, Ira. (1999). "What is Critical Literacy?" Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice, Vol. 1(4), Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/jppp/vol1/iss4/2

            Bishop, E. (2014). Critical Literacy Bringing Theory to Praxis. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Volume 30(1), p. 59, para. 5. Retrieved from: http://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/article/viewFile/457/pdf

            DeVoogd, G.L & McLaughlin, M. (2004). Teaching Critical Literacy. Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students' Comprehension of Text. (pp. 35-38). Retrieved from: http://educationalleader.com/subtopicintro/read/scholastic/scholastic_343_1.pdf

            Farralelli, Marianna. (2009). Using a Critical Literacy Approaching the EFL class. Journal of NELTA, Vol. 1 4, p. 26, para. 2. Retrieved from: https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NELTA/article/viewFile/3088/2706

            Clarke, P. (2016, n.d.). Office for Social Justice. Social Justice in Education. Retrieved from: http://www.osjspm.org/social-justice-in-education

            Pretsch, Johanna & Ehrhardt, Natalie & Engl, Lisa & Risch, Björn & Roth, Jürgen & Schumacher, Stefan & Schmitt, Manfred. (2015). Injustice in School and Students’ Emotions, Well-Being, and Behavior: A Longitudinal study. Social Justice Research. (pp. 4) Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bjoern_Risch/publication/272355721_Injustice_in_School_and_Students%27_Emotions_Well-Being_and_Behavior_A_Longitudinal_study/links/550c34b40cf21287416020d2/Injustice-in-School-and-Students-Emotions-Well-Being-and-Behavior-A-Longitudinal-study.pdf?origin=publication_detail

            Goodman, S. (n.d.) The Practice and Principles of Teaching Critical Literacy at the Educational Video Center. Teaching Critical Literacy at the EVC. (pp. 209 – para. 1, 2, 3) Retrieved from: https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/123/docs/Teaching_Critical_TeachingLiteracy.pdf