Critical Literacy

With reading being a focus for us this year and trying to accelerate students in this area, I attended a Critical Literacy Webinar last night.

It was great to hear from a range of 'experts' in the area of Critical Literacy and to be able to ask questions and share ideas / resources.

Some of the key things that I took away from the webinar were:

What is Critical Literacy?

* The Four Roles of the Reader-

Dr Mike Paki spoke about Critical Literacy in it's simplest from as:

(Listening to the voices that are heard within the text, but also listening to the voices that are unheard) 

Children need to think after reading a text- What might be true? 

How and Why a text is shaped and by who? 

It was also discussed that texts can be highlighted at times of crisis or conflict, so we need to look at who the text represents. Does it represent my view? Who's view does it represent?

There are often multiple ways of knowing something and also multiple ways of showing something in a text. 

So Why and How is Critical Literacy Important?

It was discussed that language and texts carry the 'world view' or arongo of the person who wrote it. Therefore texts can carry bias/ unbias, and certain perspectives/ positions.

So it is important to ask yourself and of your students:

" What do you know about this text/ korero?"

"What do you think about yourself when you read these things?"

" Are you in this story." "Does it tell the same story as yours?"

There is a flood of information coming our kids way. So we need to help them to make sense of the text, look at different perspectives and to not take everything they read as 'truth'.

We need to support our students to have 'power over texts' and not to let texts have power over us.

It's all about understanding ourselves and others and knowing our identity.

How do we teach Critical Literacy?

* We need to teach it explicitly and share the intentions with the kids. We need to know our bias as we teach a text, Look at our adjectives and inflection in our voice. Think about our position as a teacher before teaching it.

* Think about text selection- give multiple readings that hold different positions.

* Questioning- does my questioning foster inclusion, exclusion?

* Dialogue- We need to allow for student talk and not just teacher talk. Do lots of think, peer, share and small group work.

* Acknowledge your bias to the students, humanise it! "My view is......" "What is your view?" "You need to create your own meaning of this."

* Don't be too scared to let the kids go off in other directions.

Other things to look into following the webinar:

'Planting Seeds' by Susan Sandretto

Talk Moves- Maths (to encourage lots of talk in the classroom).

Encourage students to have a go at ideas........not at the people with the ideas. It's about the Kaupapa (work), not people.

Reluctant students can share their ideas down on paper to encourage participation.

Check out the Opposing Viewpoints Database through EPIC- they have good articles from different perspectives.

www.nzcer.org.nz/criticalmultiliteracies

https//www.theperspective.com  (Has two different stories about different topics)

Look into the 'switching strategy'- how we can change the meaning/ mood of texts by adapting/ changing colours / images etc.

If we can't see our voice in a text, why not?

If not, let's get our voice out there!

MY VOICE MATTERS!