1. A FEWNOTES ABOUT CRITICAL LITERACY
MELLINEE LESLEY

2. Second Grade Elementary Student:
“The [reading] test is not the easiest, you know. You
have to put proof on it and sometimes there’s 20 or
more questions. You have to read in the test, and it
could be about anything. When I’m not doing the
test, just normal reading, I enjoy it. I just go with
the flow. So, I have to practice a lot and stay slow on
a [reading] test.”

3. High School Junior:
“It’s really not my favorite thing to do cuz I’m,
whenever I read in other classes it’s on grade level,
and I just don’t understand the words and there just, I
mean, if I had—cuz, there’s times when I look at a
word, I don’t know what it is but when somebody
reads it to me or tells me what that word is, I’m like,
oh it’s that word. Sometimes I don’t even read what
we’re supposed to. I just act like I’m reading. Just look
down at the book. Then, pay attention to everybody
that’s, the ones that are really reading, when they turn
the page, then I’ll turn it. I like it when everybody
reads out loud cuz you know you’ll understand it
more when they read out loud.”

4. Student in a Developmental Reading Class:
“When I read, I usually do it at the last
minute. I read late at night, that’s when I
feel more comfortable. I usually put it off or
sometimes not even read it.”

5. Junior in a State University Teacher
Education Program:
“I was an extremely slow reader and that is the main reason that
I do not like to read. Since I have never been a great reader, I
never believed in myself to develop into a great writer. Through
elementary school, all the reports and tests that were given over
the books that we read almost made me feel stupid because I
never could remember what it was that I had read. While I
would read the books and write the reports, I was still just an
average writer. Feeling like this, made me very self-conscious of
my writing. Not fully understanding what I had read made it
very difficult to make complete sense. I tried reading a lot
more in college because I did not have the after school activities,
but it did not last long. It continued to frustrate me that I could
not understand the books that I was reading. I would go to my
professors and ask questions about better ways to read. All the
suggestions that they gave me did not work for me.”

6. Think quietly to yourself or write some notes to the
following questions:
What makes each of these students a developmental
reader?
What places these students “at risk” for failing in their
high school, developmental reading, and credit-bearing
classes they will take in a variety of content areas?
What kind of reading instruction do you think these
students have had in the past?
What kind of reading instruction do you think these
students will get in the next level of education they
pursue (e.g., middle school, high school, developmental
reading, “regular,” credit-bearing college classes)?
What kind of reading instruction do these students
need?

7. Now Consider a Different Set of Questions:
What sense of literacy agency does each student
present about themselves through these passages?
What are the underlying or subconscious theories
about reading guiding their statements?
What kind of reading identity does each student
exhibit about themselves through these passages?
Why are these students unengaged from reading
in school settings?
How can we help these students develop different
views of reading in school?

8. What should be the fundamental goal
for reading instruction with each
student?

9. Reading is important in our society because
it:
(1)Builds a Mature Vocabulary
(2)Facilitates Better Writing
(3)Prepares Students for the World of Work
(4)Helps Students Succeed in College
(5)Makes Students Smarter
(6)Helps Students Develop a Moral Compass
(7)Helps Students Experience Greater Financial
Reward
(8)Arms Students Against Oppression
--Kelly Gallagher (2004)

10. Goals of Reading Redefined:
Arm Against
Oppression
Vocabulary Bet Better
Writing
Prepare for
College &
Work
Smarter Moral
Compass
Financial
Reward

11. How Do We Promote Literacy
Agency?
Understand “Normative” Theories of “Struggling”
Reader Identities (Alvermann, 2001). See Learning
Module 8.
Implement a philosophy of Critical Literacy

12. Critical Literacy
Critical literacy is defined in the field of education
as reading and writing practices that challenge an
omnipresent, unstated social agenda of power
where language is never neutral but rather
imbued with politicized ideologies (Freire, 1993;
Lankshear & McLaren, 1993). Viewing language as
a form of social action, critical literacy raises
questions about whose views are valued and
represented in text.

13. Van Sluys, Lewison and Flynt’s (2006)
Typology of Critical Literacy:
Disrupt the Commonplace
Consider Multiple View Points
Focus on the Sociopolitical
Take Action

14. Disrupt the Commonplace:
(1) Text Selection
a. Teach with Complete Texts (not just passages in
isolation)
b. Incorporate Reading Materials Found in the World (e.g.,
Popular Media Texts)
b. Allow Opportunities for Student Choice
c. Select Texts With Relevant Cultural and “Social Justice”
Themes
d. Select “Challenging” or “Grade Level” Texts that
Emulate the Level of Reading Difficulty Required in
Subsequent Coursework
e. Do not rely on a textbook as the sole text in a class

15. Examples of Books With Social Justice
Themes:

16. Disrupt the Commonplace cont.
(2) Reflection over the personal and academic
literacy journey of students prior to the course
a. In-Depth Phenomenological
Interviews/Writing (Seidman, 2006)
1. Life History
2. Contemporary Experience
3. Reflection on Meaning of Items One and
Two
b. Literacy Narratives

17. Consider Multiple View Points
(1) What are the dominant ideological perspectives
presented in the course texts?
(2) Sharing Literacy Narratives Using a Text
Rendering Technique
(3) Dialogue Journals Completed in Class

18. Focus on the Sociopolitical
(1) Reconsider what constitutes basic skills compliance
in reading instruction.
(2) Question the social structures that foster a need to
monolithically label students as “proficient” or
“struggling” readers. We are all “struggling” readers
depending on the demands of particular texts.
(3) Challenge “cycles of remediation pedagogy” (Lesley,
2004) where students receive the same ineffective
(usually skills oriented) instruction in reading
intervention settings and make little or no progress.
(4) Avoid the “dehumanizing effects of submissive, rote
learning” (Long, 2008).

19. Take Action
(1) Critical Metacognition (Lesley, 2004): Ways
Students used Metacognition as a Form of
Resistance:
 Change school narratives from teacher narratives to student narratives (e.g.,
encourage students to articulate their literacy identities for themselves)
 Move from a knowledge-telling stance to a knowledge-transforming stance
(Dahl & Farnan, 1998)
 Change literacy labels from fixed, deficit models to process-oriented models
 Approach literacy in a concentric, thematic fashion as opposed to a linear
fashion
 Approach reading in personally-relevant ways in order to develop student
purposes for reading
(1) Literacy Agency
(2) Questioning and Changing the Commonplace
Practices of Schooling