Critical Literacy: Reviving the “I” in “Literature”
Is it A, B, or C? Is it “True” or “False”? These are common formats for tests in academia,
starting as young as Kindergarten and going as far as the university level. Based off this
approach, it would appear that everything we learn in schools is contained within these two
dichotomies. This is troubling, considering the complex, and gray-shaded world we live in. Is it
right to teach students that answers are black and white? Even if you disagree, the lens and
emphasis we approach texts with in our classes mirror this false duality. In this brief informative
article, I will be discussing the current most-common method of teaching texts, the new
academic movement of Critical Literacy and the benefits of such a movement for our students,
and some applications of Critical Literacy to consider using in your own classroom.
“Make sure you are participating in close reading when reading the passage!”- How
often did we hear this phrase ourselves in our English classes? Close reading stems from the
New Criticism Movement after the First World War. It “concentrates on such formal aspects as
rhythm, meter, theme, imagery, metaphor, etc. The interpretation of a text shows that these
aspects serve to support the structure of meaning within the text” (Lawrence University). This
approach does not allow the consideration of outside influences, instead taking a scientific
approach to teaching literature. If the evidence isn’t within the text, then it shouldn’t be
considered. This method of teaching literature has become ingrained into all of instructional
pedagogy, subsequently denying alternative forms of interpretation to the literature in our
classroom, and any sort of personal connection a student can make with the text. When we limit
the spheres in which we can look at literature, we are also limiting what we can get out of the
text. When students walk out of the classroom, their relationship to the text is left behind in the
academic sphere. There are no other points of application where New Criticism will come in
handy for them.
It isn’t just the fault of the teacher that New Criticism is the primary lens of analysis.
With the emphasis on standardized testing as a means of assessing student achievement in school,
educators are forced to provide students with a means that will produce accepted academic
answers on exams. “ The testing and right answer” heritage of schooling stands in direct
opposition to examining conflicting perspectives- a process that usually does not produce neat
and tidy conclusion” (Lewison, Leland & Harste, 2000). So how do we teach our students in new
ways while still adhering to the expectations of the common core standards? This is exactly the
question that the Critical Literacy movement answers.
P.L Thomas, a writer represented in The English Journal, says “Critical literacy allows us
to create classrooms where teachers as models of literacy and experts in literacy work hand in
hand with novices, with students experimenting with and evolving in their literacy”. Critical
literacy is comprised of four dimensions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Disrupting the Commonplace
Interrogating Multiple View-Points
Focusing on Sociopolitical Issues
Taking Action and Promoting Social Justice (Flint & Lewison)
The first aspect of critical literacy, disrupting the commonplace, encourages the reader to
see everyday life through new perspectives. By doing this, we are using systems of signs and
language in ways that are unfamiliar for the purpose of analyzing our experiences though
other lenses. Secondly, interrogating multiple view-points asks readers to consider the
perspectives of others, than juxtapose that experience to their own experiences. The third
aspect of critical literacy shows readers how sociopolitical issues and power relations are
unequivocally linked to language (Flint & Lewison).
These parts of critical literacy come together and allow students to take action and/or
promote social justice in their own social sphere. In order to understand how text constructs
our global consciousness, and how we are influenced by systems of power though words,
students need to be able to accomplish the first three aspects of critical literacy (listed above).
We can do this as teachers at the classroom level. By teaching students to think critically
about not just what the text is saying but what the text is trying to accomplish with its
audience, we are teaching students to read between the lines of texts. Which power structures
does the text support? Whose voice is absent? What language is used? What questions does
the work not raise? These are just some examples of questions you might ask students to
consider though the lens of critical literacy.
This still begs the previous question of how relevant this approach is to standardized tests
and the accountability requirements that teachers are subject to when instructing their
students. How can we avoid an authoritarian approach to texts, such as New Criticism, in
favor of one that is more relevant to the student’s lives outside the classroom? The academic
world largely considers that new movements in instruction that try to accomplish this goal
hold no accountability when it comes to core standards (Freir, 1993). Yet, to endorse one
practice over the other is harmful to our students. Thomas stresses that “In traditional classes
where all texts are selected by the teacher and all response to texts is the property of the
teacher, we are making the mistake of authoritarianism, of prescription. Yet, shifting our
classrooms to open environments…is actually the other side of the same coin that fails
students” (P.L Thomas).
We as teachers then become stuck in the middle of being held accountable by our
administrations and by our own civic duty to our students. However, it is extremely
important to realize that critical literacy is not an either-or lens for approaching literature.
New Criticism can (and should) still be taught alongside the critical literacy approach.
However, it then becomes the responsibility of the educator to provide the students with the
tools to assess a text the way they are expected to by those in academia, while additionally
providing alternative lenses that are more applicable to their everyday lives.