What in the “WORlD”?:
Examining Various
Forms of Text through
the Critical Mind
Matthew Bodie, M.A.
Cher N. Gauweiler, Ph.D.
Narrowing the Gulf Conference, 4/5/13
What’s in the WORLD
(Paul & Elder, 2008, p. 4)
Quickwrite…
• “The new education must teach the individual how to classify
and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to
change categories when necessary, how to move from the
concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems
from a new directions – how to teach himself. Tomorrow’s
illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the
man who has not learned how to learn.” (Toffler, 1970, p. 414)
a. What is Toffler’s stated message?
b. What is the unstated message?
Defining critical literacy…
• Goal is to increase students’ critical and social
consciousness…why?
• Teachers’ strive to engage students in dialogue*…how?
• Students examine multiple meanings of text through
various perspectives…by?
*What about “metadialogues”?
(Wood, 2006)
What is digital literacy?
One definition…
• “A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital
environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and
interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital
manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge
gained from digital environments.”
• Retrieved on 4/1/13 from:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/diglit/definition.html
What would Paulo Freire
think?
Just Because…
• Concept of students as “social actors”
•
•
•
•
First line begins with the words “Just because I’m...”
Second line begins with the words “It doesn’t mean...”
Third and fourth lines begin with the word “Doesn’t...”
Fifth line should be your strong statement, what you want the
reader to understand about who you are.
Example…
Black?
by anonymous, 9th grade, Wilson High School
Just because I’m black it doesn’t mean I am ghetto
It doesn’t mean I’m in a gang
Doesn’t mean I’m bad in school
Doesn’t mean I skip school
Look beyond the color of my skin and see the true me
Just because I’m black it doesn’t mean I fight all the time
It doesn’t mean I’m not going to graduate
Doesn’t mean I need to be followed around in the store
Doesn’t mean I eat fried chicken and drink Kool-Aid everyday
Feel my smooth beating heart, look into my eyes,
and realize the darkness of my skin can’t and won’t define me
Another one…
Just Because I’m Asian
by Quan, 9th grade writer
Just because I’m Asian
It doesn’t mean I’m smart
Doesn’t mean I play video games all day.
Doesn’t mean I only eat rice and I’m 4’9’’
Look beyond the shape of my eyes and see me inside
Just because I’m Asian
It doesn’t mean I’m obedient and scared of my parents
Doesn’t mean I’m a ninja
Doesn’t mean I shop at the Dollar Tree or do Karaoke at parties
Just because you label me doesn’t mean I have to do it to you.
Impediments to critical
thinking…
Ethnocentrism: a tendency an individual may have to view one’s
own race or culture as privileged, based on the entrenched
belief that one’s own group is superior to others
Sociocentrism: the assumption that one’s own social group is
inherently and self-evidently superior to all others; social
conventions, beliefs, taboos seen as “the only correct way to
think and live” (Paul & Elder, 2008)
A Broadminded View
• Some of my best friends are white
boys. When I meet 'em I treat 'em just
the same as if they was people.
(Ray Durem, 1951)
Example: What’s in a word?
(Paul & Elder, 2008, p. 13)
US
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
We plan.
We are clever.
We form strategies.
We have convictions.
We are proud.
We stand tall.
We build weapons to
defend ourselves.
• We intervene.
• We are freedom-fighters.
THEM
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
They plot.
They are sneaky.
They conspire.
They are fanatics.
They are arrogant.
They brag and bluster.
They build weapons to
threaten us.
• They invade.
• They are terrorists.
Unsilencing voices
• Who do we NOT hear from?
Considering different
perspectives…
• How do you come to know something you never knew, never
knew you could know, and that upon knowing it, you won’t
ever be the same?
•
•
•
•
Ryan’s perspective on war
Hitler Youth (Nazi perspective)
The Wild Girl (Native American perspective)
We all have different ways of “seeing” the world…depending
on who you are and your worldview
Idea #1: Defining Concepts
• Help students enter the language of YOUR “discourse
community”
• Concept Ladders
Point to Ponder:
Writing is God’s way
of telling us our
thinking is messy.
Idea #2: Composing through
RAFT
ROLE: Who are you?
AUDIENCE: Who are you writing to?
FORMAT: How are you presenting this information?
(POETRY, DIARY, SONG PARODY, INTERVIEW, LETTER, EDITORIAL, ETC.)
TOPIC: What are you writing about?
Brainstorm possibilities (currently in news)
Idea #3: Analyzing video
https://www.adbusters.org/abtv/slow_down_week.html
• What is the viewpoint of the ad?
• What else do I have to accept and/or do to accept the author’s
position?
• I have to accept that ___________________________ and do
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________.
References
• Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2008). How to detect media bias and
propaganda in national and world news. Dillon Beach, CA: The
Foundation for Critical Thinking.
• Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. New York: Random House.
• Wood, K., Soares, L., & Watson, P. (2006). Empowering
adolescents through critical literacy. Middle School Journal,
(need vol. & issue), 55-59.