Literature Review
Critical literacy sounds puzzle for people because they don’t understand what it means.
Critical literacy plays important role for the people who are studying in bachelor even master
degree, so critical literacy must not be confusing for them. According to Freire (1970), the
concept of critical literacy cannot be broken down from a powerful work. He convinces that
people can be fully aware of their social and political situation where they live if they are being
literate. Janks (2014) emphasizes that critical literacy should be obviously dunked and taught the
students in today’s education, so the students are being empowered by critical literacy and they
are able to connect what they read, see in their reality. For example, the students supposed to be
able to question whose voice is heard in the particular text and whose voice is not heard when
they are reading something. The students whether can judge or wonder why the text is written by
its way, who gets the benefit, and how is the text trying to position me (Harste et al., 2000;
Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2015; Luke & Freebody, 1999; Van Sluys, 2005). To emphasize,
Ennis (2015) claims that the students engage with some skills (ability to read critically, ability to
distinguish facts from opinions, and ability to investigate the validity of information).
Furthermore, McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2004) state that critical literacy sole about
methodology while McDaniel (2006) tell the way of thinking farther and the way of life are
considered as critical literacy. In fact, many teachers in some Asian countries where English is
often spoken as a foreign language are still lacking of knowledge on its implementation in the
class (Falkenstein, 2003; Kim, 2012; Ko, 2010). Gustine (2017) conducted a survey on critical
literacy as a pedagogical approach to teaching English in Indonesia which delivered three
concepts of critical literacy; the respondents can open their perspective in differentiating fact and
opinion. They wondered what and how the texts engage them because they already have prior
knowledge, critical literacy as a pedagogical model can create the English learning process
funnier, more enjoyable and realistic if the teacher and the student have strong bound, and for
better critical literacy implementing, the teacher must gain sufficient capability in reading text
knowledge. So they can develop their own design or modify for improving critical literacy in
their class. To conclude, the concepts of critical literacy are to examine the reading text, to know
the whole meaning of the reading text, so the readers can interpret the meaning, to evaluate the
reading text, and to reflect the reading text to ourselves.