Chapter 6 Critical Literacy:Helping Students Get Beyond Sift-and-Surf Mode to Deeply Synthesize Texts

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2009). Background Knowledge: The Missing Piece of the Comprehension Puzzle. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

• Understand the role of critical literacy as a means for promoting acquisition and application of background knowledge

• Connect critical literacy to 21st century learning

• Examine instructional approaches that can be utilized in classrooms to promote a critical-literacy stance

Today’s Purposes

Table Talk

Discuss a time when your content teaching became a tool for helping a student to make a decision. What were the circumstances? What did you do to facilitate?

What is Critical Literacy?• The practice of challenging texts through an

analysis of the role that power, culture, class, and gender play in the message

• The habit of questioning information using three questions:

• In whose interest?• For what purpose?• Who benefits? (Tasmania (AU) Dept. of

Education, 2006)

• “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” –Upton Sinclair

• “Until lions have historians, hunters will be the heroes.” –African proverb

What’s Your Reaction?

How did you use

your background knowledge

to inform your understanding?

In what ways did you apply principles

of critical literacy in order to

hold this discussion?

• Students need to be able to think and to use knowledge and information to make decisions

• The growth of the Internet has made critical literacy vital in a global community

• Civic engagement is dependent on a thoughtful and informed constituency

Critical Literacy in the 21st Century

Background Knowledge and Critical Literacy

• Critical literacy is about making sure students know what to do with their background knowledge

• Transforms knowledge from a list o’ facts to something that is operational (conditionalized and transferable)

• Allows learners to construct heuristics (methods for solving problems)

• Promotes critical thinking by problematizing content in order to examine it closely

• Disrupting a common situation or understanding

• Examining multiple viewpoints

• Focusing on sociopolitical issues

• Taking action (Van Sluys, Lewison, and Flint, 2006)

Instructional Approaches for Promoting Critical Literacy

Disrupting the Commonplace

• Looking at the role of race and gender– Through My Eyes (Ruby Bridges, 1999)– The Breadwinner (Ellis, 2001)– Persopolis (Satrapi, 2004)

• Examining class and power– Metamorphosis (Kafka)– Others?

• In order for students to understand a complex event, they must seek multiple perspectives

• Casts a dimensionality that challenges adolesent thinking

• This is an essential standard in science and history

Examining Multiple Perspectives

• Students explore stations describing different geological eras (Cambrian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic)

• Artifact for each era at station• Students research and report on life in

that era• Record presentations and comment on

the content of others using VoiceThread (www.voicethread.com)

Examining Multiple Perspectives in Science

• Issues of power, class, and privilege are especially difficult for students to examine because they are so closely anchored to identity

• Goal is for students to understand how this shades their background knowledge and how they understand and represent information

• Comparative essays are useful for foregrounding such issues

Focus on Sociopolitical Issues

Taking Action

• The link between critical literacy and citizenship• Center for Information on Civic Learning and

Engagement (CIRCLE) notes that current curricula emphasize “heroes and virtues” but lack “critical analysis of injustices”

• Students ages 15–25 exposed to this approach to civics education were “more trusting”

• Those from the same age group who experienced a civics curriculum that examined injustices as well as heroes were more likely to be registered voters (Levine & Lopez, 2004)

Left for Dead: Taking Action

• Middle school student

Hunter Scott became interested

in USS Indianapolis sinking in WWII• Made it his history project• His inquiry eventually led to a

Congressional pardon of the ship’s captain, who had been wrongly court-martialed

The Takeaway

Critical literacy is not about criticizing; it’s about teaching students to think about information rather than accept it at face value. As we build and activate students’ background knowledge, we want to be sure that we do so for worthwhile reasons. And what is more worthwhile than compelling students to action, whether it be for someone who has been marginalized, to right a wrong, or to change the world?

Table Talk

What are examples of critical literacy approaches you can use in your curriculum?

Assessing Your Practice

How do teachers foster background knowledge across the school day? 5 4 3 2 1 Using Critical Literacy to Build Background Knowledge

Critical literacy is central to all learning, with student queries driving how knowledge is understood and questioned. Students are encouraged to take action.

Critical literacy is fostered during two or more specific units designed units to provoke sociopolitical questions about representation and marginalization.

One specific unit has been developed to encourage students to analyze issues of race, class, gender, and/or power.

Contrasting viewpoints are presented as part of analysis of information, content, or concepts.

Content knowledge is viewed as singular and monolithic, with little opportunity to question or adopt an alternate stance.

Use the rubric to determine your goals for buildingbackground knowledge in your classroom.

• Read about promoting civics and active citizenship through critical literacy in articles written by Barack Obama, Jonathan Kozol, Erin Gruwell, Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher, and others at http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/RHI_magazine/

• Listen to a variety of educators discuss aspects of critical literacy in and out of the classroom at http://www.clippodcast.com/

• Read how a teacher uses song lyrics in middle school to foster critical literacy in science, economics, and history at http://www.readingonline.org/articles/lloyd/

Building Your Own Background Knowledge