What is Critical Literacy? (...to me...)

What does critical literacy mean to you?

Critical literacy is about awareness. It is about being aware of your own mental framework that you come to a text with: your own attitudes, biases, predispositions, preferences, and ideas. It is being aware of the context of a text: the society in which it is being viewed, the culture in which it was written, and the time period in which it takes place. It is being aware of the subtleties of a text: what messages does the text convey, explicitly or implicitly? It is being aware of the culture and society that you live in. Why is a text controversial? What social norms does a text contain? Are we happy with things the way they are, or are there things we can do to change them, or raise a dialogue about them?

Critical literacy is about questions. It is about being able to ask questions of a text. The idea of asking a text questions is bizarre to someone who has never thought of approaching a text this way. You must not take a text at face value. You must ask, what is this text saying blatantly? What assumptions was this text built from? What messages does this text send? And why?

Critical literacy is about being able to take anything you encounter and reading it as a text. An example of all of these things- awareness, questioning, and finding texts everywhere- is the example that Professor Vasquez shared with us on one of our first class meetings: her young students questioning the poster featuring only male Mounties. They approached this poster as a text, and identified the underlying message that being a Mountie was considered a primarily masculine career.

When you are young, it is easy to accept things that you read and take them at face value. If you are young and presented with a book, you assume that the person writing the book knows more than you, and you don't think to criticize or question what is being presented. I remember getting to high school and being asked to critically analyze readings, and I didn't really know how. I didn't understand the idea of critiquing because I had never been taught or told to look at assumptions, biases, or points of view implied in a text. I like the idea of introducing children to these skills early because it empowers them. When students are shown that they can challenge texts, they take an active role in constructing their understanding of the world around them.

So much of education as we know it involves teachers and books imparting knowledge into children and children accepting and practicing what we teach them. Critical literacy allows students to build their own knowledge through inquiry. Critical literacy also allows students to conceptualize themselves as active members of the global community. They too can engage in dialogue about issues in texts, and they can engineer ways to change things they do not agree with. Giving students the power to disagree and the confidence to initiate change is one of the strongest elements of critical literacy.

Critical literacy is about courage. I think it takes a brave teacher to implement a curriculum of critical literacy. Critical literacy involves a lot of work on behalf of the teacher in exposing her students to texts that tackle diverse, often complicated issues. Critical literacy also involves a leap of faith, in that the teacher must relinquish some control to the students: she is not teaching them what to think but how to think, and she must work with what the students give back to her as a result. However, for a teacher that is willing to attempt these challenges, I think that integrating elements of critical literacy into a classroom is one of the best ways a teacher can empower her students and truly develop the critical thinkers our world needs.

Observations in a Local Bookstore and a Local Library

Bookstore Observations

Book #1 – Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio

Grace's teacher shows her class pictures of presidents, and Grace incredulously asks, “Where are the GIRLS?” Upon hearing that there have been no woman presidents, Grace announces that she wants to be president, and all of her classmates laugh. Grace runs against a boy in the school elections and the book explains the electoral process. Her opponent calculates that the boys in the school hold more electoral votes than the girls and assumes he will win. When a boy has to cast the deciding vote, he votes for Grace, explaining, “I thought you were the bets person for the job.” As the book closes, Grace declares that she will be president of the United States, and this time, no one laughs. This book is especially appropriate right now considering that Grace is an African-American girl, and the current democratic race is between an African-American and a woman.

Book #2 – I am Latino: The Beauty in Me by Sandra Pinkney

This book is filled with photographs of Latino children and describes the beauties of their culture. The narrative invites the reader to “listen to the melody of my language”, “feel my music explode”, “see the love in my family”, and “smell and taste my foods”. The book features the recurring line, “I am Latino[a], can you sense the beauty?” and closes with the exclamation, “I am Latino. I am the Beauty!” Pinkney's book is a beautiful celebration of Latino culture.

Book #3 – A Sweet Smell of Roses by Angela Johnson

In A Sweet Smell of Roses, two young African-American girls go to a march with Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a simply told story, illustrated with black-and-white drawings. An example of a page from the book is,

“Then we start to march,

Minnie and me.

We look ahead and walk faster like him.”

The smell of roses is a motif in the story, and the color red is the only color in the illustrations. This book is unique in the way it features children's roles in the civil rights movement with moving simplicity and sweetness.

Book #4 – Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth

Three children meet Stillwater, a panda who has come to their house by way of an Asian umbrella. Stillwater guides the children through three classic Zen stories about enlightenment and love. Zen Shorts features watercolor illustrations and tells the stories through pictures of animals wearing traditional Asian garments. Though this book is not overt, it transmits Zen ideas to its young readers.

Book #5 – A Letter to Amy by Ezra Jack Keats

A Letter to Amy tells the story of a young African-American boy who writes a letter to invite a girl to his birthday party. He goes out to mail the letter and the wind blows it away. Through its illustrations, this book shows its readers a realistic picture of an urban neighborhood, complete with graffitti, scraps of paper on walls, a Chinese hand laundry, and trash cans. It does not sanitize the city but presents it truthfully.

Book #6 – Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse

This book features an Inuit lady and daughter and shows their culture through its illustrations. The thank-you note on the inside of the front cover includes the following:

“The editor, author and illustrator would also like to thank CEW Graham of the McCord museum of Canadian History in Montreal for his patient and gracious assistance in checking this manuscript for accuracy in its portrayal of the Inuit culture.”

At the end of the book, the authors explain that “the masks in this book are modeled after the ceremonial masks traditionally used by the Inuit. The cocentric rings within the mask represent heaven and earth. The objects attached to the rings are the individuals shaman's symbols, or spiritual keepers. Often used to ask the spirits for good luck or prosperity, the human hand and fish represent a wish for abundant game.” The back of the book also explains the animals, symbols, and words used throughout the book, such as Igloo, lamp, Umiak, whale, and polar bear. The text of the book also includes many traditional Inuit elements, such as in when the child asks what would happen if she broke the ptarmigan eggs, put salmon in her mother's parka, and put lemmings in her mucklucks. The mother replies that, even through anger, “I'll love you until the Umiak flies into the darkness, until the stars turn to fish in the sky, and the puffin howls at the moon.” This original book presents Inuit culture authentically.

Book #7 – Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannan

The characters in Uncle Bobby's Wedding are guinea pigs, and the protagonist is a young guinea pig girl named Chloe. Chloe's Uncle Bobby, a male guinea pig, is marrying another male guinea pig, Uncle Jamie. However, the gay marriage is not the problem in the story; instead, the main issue is Chloe's fear that, once married, Uncle Bobby will not love her as much anymore. Once she gets to know Uncle Jamie, she realizes he will be a great addition to the family, and is excited for the wedding. The gay marriage is treated as normal, as if they were describing a straight wedding. It's very interesting to see how the author normalizes such a controversial issue in a children's picture book. This book was smushed in between a lot of other children's books; if I hadn't been looking for books on social issues, I would probably not have found this book very easily.

Book #8 – The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

After finding seven picture books, I decided to find a novel to complete the collection. Although I could not read this book in my limited time in the bookstore, flipping through the book and reading the back cover ensures me that this a great example of children's literature featuring another culture. The back cover reads,

“Imagine living in a country in which women and girls are not allowed to leave the house without a man. Imagine having to wear clothes that cover every part of your body, including your face, whenever you go out. This is life in Afghanistan, where the Taliban, members of an extreme religious group, run most of the country.”

The book also explains that “Deborah Ellis has been to Afghan refugee camps and heard many stories like Parvana's. All the royalties from this book will be donated to Women for Women in Afghanistan, dedicated to the education of Afghan girls in refugee camps in Pakistan.”

Note: This book was published in 2000; i.e., before the 9/11 attacks. Since 9/11, the plight of Afgan women has been prevalent in the media, but this book was published prior to those attacks. Thus, it was even more significant in exposing children to a different culture.

Are there many such books available?

Where are these books located in the store?

How are these books displayed and what variety is available?

When I entered the store, there was a section called “African-American Literature”. In the History/Politics section of the store, which is towards the back, there are sub-sections for Gay/Lesbia/Transgender Studies and Women's Studies (which is, interestingly, right next to the erotica and self-help sections, but there's another place and time for that discussion...) However, after a few minutes, I realized that, given that this is a class on children's literature, my seventy minutes would be much more wisely spent in the children's section.

The children's section has four bookcases for Spanish language books. In the history section, I saw several copies of I Am Latino: The Beauty In Me, right in the center of the display shelf. However, the shelf was up so high, I couldn't even reach the books! Eventually, I found a copy of the book mixed in among other books down below, but it took considerable searching. In the history section, there were sub-sections for Native American Studies (also probably too high for many kids to reach, being over five feet from the ground) and for African American studies. Each of these sections were less than half a shelf each in the corner of the section. There were only three books in the African American section and four in the Native American section.

However, perhaps the African American section, at least, was so sparse because of the large display wall of “African American classics”. This included Hoffman's Amazing Grace, Ringgold's Tar Beach, Trueit's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Rappaport's Freedom River, Myers' Jazz, and McDermott's Anansi the Spider, among others. The books include nonfiction, biographies, historical fiction, and fiction.

Some books were misplaced. For example, the novel on Afghanistan was in the “fantasy” section, which is near the historical fiction section. Perhaps it was supposed to be there instead?

Outside of these sections, I found relatively few images of people of color. (I did see a prominently placed fairy section, and an entire other wall of fairy books... just an observation). I was surprised, as I had expected to find a greater diversity of images and subject matter in the books.

Is the authorship of these books diverse?

The authorship does seem diverse. I noticed that more of the books seemed to be written by women than men; however, this may represent the authorship of children's books overall.

For whom are the books in the store accessible? For whom are they not accessible?

The books are accessible for most readers. However, there were sections, such as the Native American section, the We Are Latino book that I mentioned previously, and about half of the books on the wall of African American classics, that are very high-- I couldn't even reach some of them! Perhaps they need to re-think the layout of a section that is geared towards children. I think kids would be much more likely to read books that are within their reach, and although it's great to prominently display books, such as on the African-American classics wall, they won't do any good if they can't actually get into the hands of young readers.

Do the books portray any sorts of cultural stereotypes?

I was actively looking for cultural stereotypes as I examined these books because of this question. However, I couldn't really find any. I think that modern authors are really trying to be conscious of such things, and writers (and illustrators) that choose to work on books displaying different cultures and/or social issues are particularly careful to do justice to the characters they portray.

What do these books convey about the characters in them? Describe the neighborhood in which the bookstore is located. How might this location intersect with your observations?

I observed in the Borders bookstore in downtown Silver Spring, MD. I live in downtown Silver Spring, and the area is quite diverse. The bookstore's customers included families of all races. As this area is full of restaurants and stores, it attracts people from surrounding areas as well, so the clientele of the bookstore includes people of all different socioeconomic groups. I think that the considerably-sized Spanish language section may be in part to cater to the many Spanish-speaking families living in Silver Spring and the surrounding areas of Wheaton and Kensington.

Library Observations

Book #1 – Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Imperial China by Joanna Cole

This book includes many facts and historical details throughout. The book also has a modern Chinese character, a boy with funky hair, helping to remind children that things in China have changed since the times this book describes. At the end, there is a section that addresses errors and omissions in the text. For example, the author explains that, unlike what happened in the story, an emperor in Imperial China would not have spoken to ordinary people. This book is an educational look at a foreign country in a specific time in history.

Book #2 – Big Boy by Tololwa M. Mollel

This is a story about a boy living in contemporary Africa. Big Boy is a form of the prodigious child tale. The story itself does not give details of what country the boy lives in, and while it contains many words in an African language, the story does not tell what language this is. At the end of the book, it explains that the story includes details from the author's native country of Tanzania and words from the Kiswahili language.

Book #3 – Little Mamá Forgets by Robin Cruise

This story takes place in East Los Angeles. While her mother is busy with her brother and her father is at work, Lucy spends most of her day with her grandmother, Little Mamá, who tells her stories of long ago in Mexico. The story, while featuring the grandmother's memories, also includes elements of modern Hispanic-American culture. For example, the family structure of Latino families, which often includes close bonds with members of the extended family, becomes part of the story as Lucy's cousins and other family members come together for dinner. The story also includes details such as Latin-American foods, like rice pudding, Spanish words, and scenes of Los Angeles, including storefronts with signs in both Spanish and English, taxi cabs, traffic, chili dog vendors, and stores with Mexican flags hanging inside. This book paints a strong picture of the culture that defines Lucy's life.

Book #4 – For You Are A Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane

This book, narrated in the second person, describes the life of a child living in Kenya. At the end of the story, the author includes a comparison to the life of an American child. Details of Kenya in the story include things such as the family's hut with a fire burning on the floor, maize porridge, meeting the village chief, taking grandpa's cows to pasture, and so forth. The story also includes words in Swahili.

Book #5 – Jamela's Dress by Niki Daly

Jamela's Dress takes place in present-day South Africa. This book showcases African fabrics, but it also includes many other details. In one image, we see a road filled with cars and chickens. Another detail is the hand-clapping game Jamela plays with her mother. At the wedding which takes place at the end of the book, we see people wearing both traditional African and modern Western outfits, including the bride, who wears a white dress. This book is great because it shows modern South Africa. I think many books about Africa tend to show a more traditional picture of Africa, but this book merges the traditional elements with the modern to show children what life might really be like if they lived in South Africa today.

Book #6 – Farm Morning by David McPhail

This book is about a father and daughter waking up before dawn on their farm and taking care of their morning chores. These chores include feeding the animals, milking the cows, and gathering eggs. I chose this book as representative of a different culture because farm life is foreign to many children, and this book exposes them to the culture of people living on farms in the country.

Book #7 – My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits

Yoon is a girl who has recently moved to the United States from Korea. Yoon thinks that everything is different in America, and she is unhappy as she tries to adjust to her new school, especially as she does not speak any English. However, by the end of the book, she has begun to adjust to the changes, and accepts that “maybe different is good, too.”

Book #8 – Mama Provi and the Pot of Rice by Sylvia Rosa-Casanova

Mama Provi lives on the first floor of an apartment building, and her granddaughter lives on the eighth floor. Mama Provi loves to tell her granddaughter stories about growing up in Puerto Rico, but today, her granddaughter (like in Little Mamá Forgets, also named Lucy) is sick and cannot come to visit her. So, Mama Provi decides to make Lucy some arroz con pollo and take it to her. As Mama Provi climbs each floor, she meets her neighbors, Mrs. Landers, Senor Rivera, Mrs. Bazzini, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Woo, and Mrs. Kelley, and they all contribute different kinds of food to the meal Mama Provi is taking to Lucy.

Are there many such books available?

Where are these books located in the library?

How are these books displayed and what variety is available?

I spent my 75 minutes in the children's section of my local library. Unlike at the bookstore, there was no particular display or section where I could find “diverse” books. Instead, I just looked around the children's picture book section, which is arranged alphabetically. Some of the books were displayed above the bookshelves, but most of the books were on the shelves.

Is the authorship of these books diverse?

I found the authorship to be diverse, including men and women of various ethnicities.

For whom are the books in the library accessible? For whom are they not accessible?

The books are accessible for most readers. I thought the library did a better job than the bookstore of making sure that the books were within children's reach. There were also librarians readily available to help, and computers on which you could search for books (including a kids' search engine).

Do the books portray any sorts of cultural stereotypes?

The books in the library included older books, and there were also many more books than in the bookstore. However, among the books I read, I did not encounter any obvious cultural stereotypes, even though I was looking for them.

What do these books convey about the characters in them? Describe the neighborhood in which the library is located. How might this location intersect with your observations?

This library, like the bookstore I visited, is located near my home in downtown Silver Spring. The neighborhood is racially and ethnically diverse, and this was represented in the library patrons. I noticed many books portraying children in African countries. There is a large population of African immigrants in Silver Spring, and this may have influenced the library's decision to carry so many books featuring African cultures.

Interview with a Classroom Teacher

I interviewed Caitlin Bennett, a classroom teacher at Tyler Elementary School in Southeast Washington, DC. Ms. Bennett teaches an self-contained special education classroom with 10 students between the ages of 10-12 with learning disabilities, mild to moderate mental retardation, and/or Asperger's Syndrome. I thought that this would bring an interesting perspective to these questions.

What role does literature play in the classroom curriculum?

Ms. Bennett explained that literature provides a way for her to model how someone reads. She utilizes many teacher read-alouds and think-alouds to model her thought processes when approaching text. Literature provides students with exposure to varied vocabulary and is also used to teach literary elements, problem-solving, social roleplaying, and sequencing.

What kinds of books are chosen? Why and how?

Books are chosen based on students' ability levels and individual interests. Ms. Bennett also uses controlled vocabulary books such as Merrill readers. Students also each have their own book for uiet reading time. The teacher reads aloud about two books per week. The students are divided into three guided reading groups, each with their own related spelling list. Students work together to decode and discuss these books in their group and quiz each other on related concepts.

Who decides what books are used in the classroom?

Ms. Bennett has most of the control over what books are in the classroom, apart from the leveled readers provided by the district. The students can choose their own individual books from the class library. They self-select their quiet book with the teacher's input and guidance to make sure it is appropriately leveled. The teacher also provides students with special interest books; for example, Ms. Bennett brought in many books on African Americans for Black History Month. The class also takes a field trip to the local public library every two weeks for students to choose their own books, as well as books on tape, which are not widely available at the school library.

What is the teacher's theoretical perspective on teaching or specifically on using chidlren's literature in the classroom?

Given that she teaches special education, Ms. Bennett identifies most with a transactional perspective on reading. She explains that she thinks that each text means something different to each individual reader, and each reader brings something different to a particular text. Thus, a book cannot mean the same exact thing to two different people. Ms. Bennett translates this perspective into her reading instruction by having students answer questions such as, “what would you do if you were in this character's shoes?” and “how do you feel as you read this part?” These questions allow students to make their own connections to the story. Ms. Bennett provides students opportunities to share their individual interpretations through classroom discussion supported by the teacher.

Children's Literature in Websites and Media

Children's Literature Websites

1. Vandergrift's Children's Literature Page

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/ChildrenLit/index.html

Kay Vandergrift is a professor who teaches graduate classes in children's literature at Rutgers University. Perhaps indicative of her career as a teacher, her website is filled with provocative questions regarding children's literature. She splits her site up into several subjects, including sections about literature in the lives of today's children, sections on illustrated materials for young children, and sections about various genres of children's literature, such as modern realistic fiction, biographies, snow white stories, and poetry. Among her questions, I found many that dealt with critical literacy issues. Some of these include, “Are feminist and multicultural concerns represented in contemporary youth literature? If so, are they naturally integrated into the literary compositions?” “What are literary motifs and archetypes? Do such traditional elements perpetuate male paradigms and contribute to the silencing of females?” “Does modern realistic fiction for children and young people present alternative lifestyles and views of society?” “What factors have influenced the recent increase in censorship in the public schools and public libraries of this country? What kinds of materials are most frequently challenged?” “Do the majority of informational materials for children really reveal a respect for the child's ability to inquire and to know?”

2. Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration

http://eclipse.rutgers.edu/goose/

This website, also from Rutgers (apparently the place to be for children's literature studies!) looks at Mother Goose stories and also raises questions related to critical literacy. The website explains that Mother Goose stories are important in emergent literacy, as these stories are often told to young children before they can even read, and the rhymes are often used in early childhood classrooms. One interesting element on the site is an exploration of the popular images of Mother Goose, which notes that, in hundreds of images of a human Mother Goose, not one was a minority, and of the images of Mother Goose as an animal, the majority of the geese illustrated were white. Another interesting section of the site explains that Mother Goose rhymes have often been forms of social and/or political criticism. Some of the original rhymes mocked the British, and there have been modern interpretations of some rhymes designed to critique social and political issues of today. There is also a section on the censorship of Mother Goose rhymes. Did you know that, according to this site, the original version of “Ten Little Indians” (which, by using the word “Indian”, isn't even totally PC today) was actually “Ten Little [racial epithet for African Americans]”? Also, the original Mother Goose collection also included rhymes that used derogatory stereotypes of Jews.

3. American Indian's in Children's Literature

http://americanindiansinchidlrensliterature.blogspot.com/

The previous website made me curious about the representations of American Indians in children's literature. This long-running blog, written by a professor at the University of Illinois by the name of Debbie Reese, critically examines this exact topic. Among the interesting elements of this site are first person stories by parents and teachers, Native-American themed lessons, posts about Thanksgiving, and links to related articles. As this is a blog, there is also a lot of interesting commentary written by others at the end of each post. The blog moves past just children's literature and the classroom to also look at representations of American Indians in the media and popular culture. Reese examines classic texts such Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie (which she says dehumanizes American Indians) and presents alternatives with more truthful portrayals of Native Americans, such as Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House.

4. Celebrating Cultural Diversity Through Children's Literature

http://www.multiculturalchidlrenslit.com/

This website was compiled by Dr. Robert F. Smith, a Professor at Towson University. The site is divided by cultural groups, including African Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Middle Eastern peoples, Latino/Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Each section has an annotated bibliography of children's books dealing with that particular culture, the annotations being summaries of each story and the grade level for which each book is appropriate. Each section also has related websites. I think this is a great resource for teachers looking to bring more multicultural literature into their classrooms. However, Dr. Smith does not post any kind of criticism or evaluation of the books, so make sure to read them before you choose one to use in class to make sure that it is what you are looking for.

5. Africa Access Review

http://www.africaaccessreview.org/

Africa Access is a nonprofit organization that helps schools, libraries, and parents find quality literary and educational resources of Africa. The Africa Access Review is their online database, which includes over 1000 annotations and reviews of children's books. The reviews are by experts in African Studies including teachers, librarians, and professors. The website also includes a section on research projects about Africa. Africa Access also works in conjunction with the African Studies Association to present the Children's Africana Book Awards (CABA) each year, and this page links to the CABA web page. One particularly useful element of this website is a set of “evaluation criteria”, or questions that teachers can ask when evaluating materials of Africa that they plan to use with children. For example, the questions ask, “does the text focus on the lives of majority groups and avoid exaggerating small atypical groups such as the San or Masai?” “Is the there a balance between information of African men and women? Are the problems African women face placed in historical and global contexts?” “Are offensive, inaccurate, or biased terms avoided?” [includes list of biased/inaccurate/offensive terms and names, such as primitive, Bushmen, etc.]. “Are visuals representative and nonstereotypical?” “Do materials represent African viewpoints and perspectives?” The questions do not have answers, such as “if it does this, then reject the book”, but are merely questions for thought when evaluating texts. Teachers can use this to make sure that their collections offer a balance. For example, if one text does focus on an atypical African group, they may balance it with another text that looks at a majority group.

Children's Literature in the Media

This is a good time to be looking for Children's Literature in the media because, this week, there is a lot of it. This is because Sunday was Dr. Seuss' birthday, and many schools and organizations are celebrating the life and work of this prolific author. I found many newspaper articles covering various tributes by schools across the country celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday. (My own school is celebrating too, as I'm sure many of your schools may be as well). However, I chose to discuss an article I found on CNNMoney.com which reflects a greater representation of children's literature in the media. Here is the link: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0368967.htm

This article is discussing a partnership between the IHOP restaurant chain and 20^th Century Fox to advertise the upcoming film version of Horton Hears a Who. In the weeks surrounding the film's theatrical release, IHOP will sell four Horton-related foods-- Beezlenut Splash, Who-Cakes, Mayor's Breakfast and Jo-jo's Kid's Breakfast. I am not sure whether this entire thing is good or bad. On the one hand, you could say that it's great that they are making Dr. Seuss books into films because they will reach so many children that way. However, I wonder, if children are seeing Seuss on screen, will they still want to read the books? What's wrong with just reading the book, why do we need a movie version? What would Seuss have thought of all this? I don't think that kids will get the literary value of the text through a film, such as the rhymes, simplicity of stories, and illustrations. Also, isn't it a little sickening that IHOP is further commercializing this classic text in order to sell products to children? As much as I love the classic story of Horton, I can't help but feel a little uneasy about his cinematic turn and resulting media coverage.

Possible text change

I am considering changing my main text for my text set to Park's Quest by Katherine Peterson. The DC site and main issues will remain the same. I will update when I have made a firm decision.

Text Set

The book I chose for my text set is the novel Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam by Newberry Medal winner Cynthia Kadohata. This book is about a dog trained to aid the military in the Vietnam war. Cracker explores the relationship between the dog and his human trainer while portraying the realities of war in an accessible way for young readers. The DC site I will use is the Vietnam Memorial, which will give the perspective of focusing on the humans while also giving the point of view of remembering the war years later. I would like to use images of Vietnam War protestors to give the reader glimpses into the opposition to the war here in the US. A film I would like to use is the film Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, a documentary about the event in which thousands of Vietnamese orphans were airlifted out of Vietnam and adopted by families worldwide. Unfortunately, the film has yet to be released, but I can use the movie trailer, which gives a good amount of information and shows various perspectives about the event and its results, including its impact on the lives of those involved. Also, as a secondary text (if allowed), I would like to include Eve Bunting's "The Wall", a picture book about a boy and his father visiting the Vietnam Memorial.

Books of My Youth

The first book I ever read on my own was a book called Mr. Pine's Purple House. My mother bought it at a garage sale, and I read it to her when I was three. Several weeks later, my uncle, convinced that I had just memorized the words, made me read from various objects around the house. When I read him the label to a jar of Hellman's mayonaise, he was finally convinced that I could, in fact, read. This book continued to influence my life: at age six, we moved to a new house, where I finally had my own room; I persuaded my parents to have it painted a neon purple. Throughout my childhood, I would continue to look back at Mr Pine's, marvelling at the idea that, in a sea of white houses, Mr. Pine chose to differentiate himself, celebrating his individuality by painting his own house purple. Throughout my life, I have always held appreciation for those who can stand out, relish their own personalities, and celebrate their differences. I like to think that this value may have stemmed, even the slightest bit, from reading Mr. Pine's Purple House during my formative years.
There are so many books that have impacted my life that I could never choose one that rises above the rest, and I hate ranking things, anyway. Throughout my childhood, I found ways to be reading all the time- in the car, at the dinner table, even during commercial breaks while watching my favorite TV shows. There are so many children's books that influenced me. One I can identify as being particularly meaningful was the book Deenie by Judy Blume. I read this book at age 10, not understanding some of the more mature themes, but being very impacted by the idea of a young teenager having scoliosis and having to wear a back brace 24/7. I distinctly remember thinking, I hope that never happens to me. Four years later, it did. I was diagnosed with lumbar scoliosis and instructed to wear a plastic and metal back brace for 23.5 hours a day. At the doctor's office, I flashed back to Deenie, and later that week, I checked the book out of the library again. As I adjusted to this enormous change in my life, I took comfort in reading about Deenie's similar struggle and seeing that she managed to go on with her life. This book really helped me cope with the many new challenges of being a teenager with a back brace.

Reflection Point 2.6

David could have had his students work further with print and television advertisements, engaging issues of social equality, issues of gender and of class.

For example, women's bodies are often times objectified within ads. This could have been a topic of discussion. He also could have had his students study positive images in advertisements such as those of grassroots campaigns, political or otherwise.

There could have also been a long term project assigned where the students would write, talk about, and visually portray their own ideas about the issue(s). David could have pushed them further by having them engage in a debate where they had to argue for ideas that they didn't necessarily hold themselves or even to create their own positive ad to reflect what they have learned in the unit.

Blog Post 1: Based on the readings, create a thoughtful post on your initial reactions and questions regarding critical literacy and children's books

As I introduce myself to critical literacy, I notice a similarity between this framework and that of the culturally responsive classroom, which I recently learned about in my Foundations of Education course. On page 2 of Getting Beyond “I Like the Book”, Vivian Vasquez compares critical literacy to Flint and Riordan-Karlsson's idea of encouraging “conversation related to social issues” (Vasquez, 2). One of the tenets of culturally responsive classrooms is encouraging students to develop a critical consciousness and challenge social injustice (Gloria Ladson-Billings, cited in Sadker, et al). Also, both critical literacy and culturally responsive classrooms emphasize the use of diverse instructional materials. Cultural awareness and inclusion seems especially important in the diverse urban environment, and yet many urban classrooms still see Euro-centric, white-washed literature and traditional, teacher-centric instructional practices. However, I am beginning to see through my classwork that trends in education are moving towards a greater recognition of cultural diversity and an inclusion of this fact into teaching materials and practices.

Barbara Comber “states that critical literacies include practicing the use of language in powerful ways to get things done in the world, to enhance everyday life in schools and communities, and to question practices of privilege and injustice” (Vasquez, 2). I now teach the fourth grade, but when I started teaching last year, I taught middle school English. As part of my coursework, I took a class called “Methods and Materials in Secondary English”, which touched on critical literacy for a time. It seemed that, at the secondary level, the most focused area of critical literacy was the last element Comber mentioned: questioning practices of privilege and injustice. Perhaps I developed the wrong idea, as I only took this one course, but we focused a lot on looking at everyday texts and finding ways that they may support or subvert the structures of power, gender, and other such constructions in our society. I suppose different teachers can focus on different aspects of critical literacy as they apply to their content area, grade level, and objectives.

Vasquez writes that “critical literacy is also about imagining thoughtful ways of thinking about reconstructing and redesigning texts and images to convey different, more socially just and equitable messages that have real-life effects in the world” (Vasquez, 2). This concept made me think of an instance from my childhood. My mother, who was very into progressive education and getting me to think for myself from an early age, bought me a book of “politically correct” fairy tales. My aunts made fun of my mom (I come from a big Greek family full of aunts and cousins who are always into each others' business), but it really got me thinking, at a young age, that there must be a reason why people decided to re-write these stories. I definitely see the value of presenting such ideas to young children, because they learn to question the world around them rather than just accepting whatever is given to them. This is a skill that much older students still struggle with, and perhaps they would think differently had they been in classrooms that demanded such critical thinking of them in their earlier years.

Luke and Freebody's Four Resources Model also got me thinking. This model consists of four levels of thinking about text: code-breaking, meaning-making, text-using, and text-critiquing. My students are mostly at the level of meaning makers. Some of them are still code-breakers. Sometimes, my students can be text-users, but usually only if I force them to be for a specific writing assignment. They are rarely thinking at the level of text critics, although the bright students sometimes have breakthroughs. However, in the classroom, we definitely focus on the first three levels. I would like to argue it's because we have to, because if kids can't read, how can they ever reach the higher levels of approaching text? At the same time, I wonder if we are creating a vicious cycle. Luke and Freebody write, “access to different kinds of educational experiences becomes both a symptom and a cause of literacy performance.” Perhaps by not exposing our students to the higher levels of critical thinking, we are actually harming them, and keeping them at those lower levels. It is definitely an idea to consider.

I have a few questions about critical literacy. My first is, in a NCLB-driven system, how can we integrate critical literacy into our curriculum while still meeting all of the district-mandated standards and using district-assigned texts? Sometimes, the anecdotes in Vasquez' text reminded me of an emergent curriculum approach, following the students' interests to develop what you study. I wonder how critical literacy will look in a “big kids” classroom, especially with all of the content and testing expectations we have. Also, I wonder how I can take my class from one that has not been exposed to critical literacy to one where critical literacy works? How can one teach kids to have these kinds of discussions? Other than just providing thought-provoking literature, how can you lay the basic foundations for critical literacy? Finally, just a thought: when students are dealing with social and/or controversial issues, the teacher needs to be careful to keep from pushing her own personal agenda. I feel like a teacher could abuse the concept of critical literacy to promote her own beliefs; for example, if students are discussing eating meat and a teacher is a vegetarian, she may push students to take one her perspective. I think it is important for a teacher to check her neutrality to allow the students' voices to shape the discussion.

Works Cited

Freebody, P., & Luke, A. Further Notes on the Four Resources Model. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://www.readingonline.org/research/lukefreebody.html

Sadker, D. M., Sadker, M. P., & Zittleman, K. R. (2008). Teachers, Schools, and Society. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Vasquez, V. et. al (2003). Getting Beyond I Like the Book: Creating Spaces for Critical Literacy in K-6 Classrooms. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

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Hi! Welcome to my blog. This is a test post, just so I can see how this works.

~D.