Running head: CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 1

Introducing Critical Literacy in a Ninth-Grade English Language Arts Classroom

Rebecca Snow

University of San Diego

Spring 2018
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 2

Abstract

This action research project took place with 34 students at a large traditional high school

in a San Diego suburb. The study focuses on the effects of putting critical literacy theory into

practice in a ninth-grade English language arts classroom. The purpose of introducing critical

literacy is to give students not only a greater awareness of the oppressive structures that exist and

are reproduced in society, but also to give them a voice both inside and outside the classroom

that can lead them to become transformative members of their communities and the world. In

both phases of the research, I designed and implemented lessons that incorporated opportunities

for students to analyze how race, gender, class, and ability is presented in texts using critical

literacy strategies. I measured the results of this by collecting observations in my teaching

journal of their discussions, my conferences with them, and analyzing the writing content of their

weekly journal entries and papers before and after each research cycle. After the first research

cycle, I applied the strategies that had the greatest benefits to the second research cycle, where I

added additional strategies. Overall, the study’s findings support previous studies showing

introducing critical literacy into secondary classrooms increases students’ interest in engaging

with texts, increases their ability to critically read texts, and increases their ability to apply what

they learn from more critical perspectives of texts to new situations.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 3

Introducing Critical Literacy in a Ninth-Grade English Language Arts Classroom

I have had a critical perspective of most things since I was a child. I spent most of my

youth living with just my mom, and during these years, she often shared her experiences of

growing up poor during the Depression, living though WWII, and living through the Civil Rights

Movement and the years leading up to it. Through these stories, I was introduced to ways of

thinking critically about everything in the world around me.

Her stories about sympathetic people and organizations lending emotional and financial

support to her and her sister, who during their earliest years were shuffled between a series of

orphanages and family members, many of which were abusive situations and all of which offered

little opportunity, gave me a context for understanding class and equity. Her stories about

volunteering for the Red Cross during WWII, when many women filled the jobs that men left

behind and who were not all keen on going back to their lives in the traditional roles they were in

before the war, gave me a critical perspective of gender expectations and a realization that these

roles could be accepted or defied. Her stories about living though Jim Crow Laws in the years

leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, where every day, from nursing school in Washington,

DC, she and her African American classmate would ride the bus together back to their homes in

Virginia and would move to the back of the bus before they crossed the state line, while

onlookers craned their necks to stare, helped me understand how ideas about race were created

and reproduced in different ways by different groups, and in different places. This also

introduced me to the idea of resistance.

It was through listening to and thinking about these stories that I developed a critical lens

of the world around me. My analysis led me to the belief that people have to be aware of the

structures in the world around them to successfully navigate through them. Throughout my life, I
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 4

have observed that the people who are most oppressed by these structures who also have the least

awareness of them do not fare well when navigating them. Without awareness of these

structures, by first learning the language to talk about them and then using these words to

analyze the meaning of them in the context of societal structures, there is no way to understand

how these concepts work, and hence, there is no way to face them.

People need to learn the language to talk about oppressive structures to see that they even

exist, and then they need to analyze these concepts first in how they relate to their own lives and

then to the world around them. Based on who the students in my class were and their need for

greater critical thinking skills around issues related to people in the groups they represent,

introducing critical literacy into my classroom seemed like the greatest enduring understanding I

could offer my students.

Context

Each classroom and every student has unique characteristics and nuances. As I

approached my research, I framed everything I did from the perspective of the community the

students live in, the group of students in my classroom as a whole and the students as

individuals, each with their own lived experiences, including their needs and the assets they

brought with them through their funds of knowledge.

The School Site

The school site where my research took place is a Title 1 school. The English language

proficiency demographic profile is 51.3% English only, 7.0% initially fluent English, 12.6%

reclassified English learner, 28.6% English learner, and 0.5% other. The demographic profile for

parent education level is 11.2% decline to state, 12.2% not a high school graduate, and 35.8%
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 5

college graduate or higher. The meal eligibility is 64.2% meal eligible and 35.8% not meal-

eligible (San Diego Unified School District, 2018).

The overall graduation rate for all groups, according to the 2012 School Accountability

Report Card, is 95.1% for all students at the high school. The graduation rate for students with

disabilities is 70.8% and for English learners the rate is 40.0%. Of these students, 46% go on to a

2-year college, 45% go on to a 4-year college/university, 1% go on to a trade school, 2% join the

military, and 6% go on to work (San Diego Unified School District, 2010, p. 25).

The Classroom

When the small classroom where I did my research is filled with students, they are

packed in tightly and it can be difficult to move around the room. Throughout the room are

posters with motivational sayings and student work. There is a large Promethean Board at the

front of the classroom, which is used as a display screen for the teacher’s computer. Along one

wall is a white board which spans almost the entire wall, used to display student work attached to

the board with masking tape. The student desks and seats are a combination of hard plastic chairs

placed in front of long tables and chairs with attached desks. My cooperating teacher has

arranged the desks so that students can easily work in pairs or groups.

Students are assigned seats based on past success or needs and the teacher changes the

seating every 6-week grading period to give the students a different perspective and make any

adjustments that will help students perform better based on their seating position. Students are

cooperative and respectful to each other in class and during transitions between projects or when

entering and leaving the classroom (see Figure 1 for the ethnic demographics represented in the

classroom).
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 6

Figure 1. This figure shows the ethnic demographics of the students in the classroom. N=34.

Needs Assessment

I learned from class discussions and conversations between students that they had not

explored issues around political and social power and privilege between people of different

social classes, races, gender, and ability. One issue in particular, and the one that students’

attitudes about surprised me the most, was the concept of separate but equal. To help students

gain a better understanding of the African American character Crooks in Of Mice and Men, I did

some background work with the students on Jim Crow Laws, the state and local segregation laws

in the Southern United States also followed in practice in Northern states. We began by having a

class discussion about what Jim Crow Laws were, the history that lead up to them, and their

official end with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. After our discussion, I had

students get into small groups and handed each group a strip of paper with a Jim Crow Law

written on it, along with the city, state, and year it was from. Each group discussed the specific
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 7

context of their Jim Crow Law and how it affected both the internal and external lives of African

American and White people. Next, we came back together as a group and one person from each

group shared their takeaways. After the discussion, I asked students who believed that separating

people by group characteristics, such as race, would be a bad thing if we returned to that today

stand on one side of the room and students that believed it would be a good thing stand on the

other side of the room. I was stunned to learn that 15 of the 34 students in class, after discussing

the history of Jim Crow Laws in the United States, believed that even today reinstating laws and

practices that require people to be segregated based on group characteristics, including race,

would be positive. This meant over half of my students were not making connections between

the history of Jim Crow Laws and similar power dynamics present in society today. It was at this

moment that I realized I had to change my strategy if my students were going to truly understand

discrimination and oppression in our society today, the history that led up to it, and be able to

create a space to reimagine a different future for themselves.

Research Focus

Based on the realization I had to change my strategy, I decided to use critical literacy to

implement lessons to help students develop analytical skills that would make them more critical

consumers of information, both presented to them in the classroom and encountered outside the

classroom.

Research question. From analyzing the need of my students to develop critical thinking

skills around how race, gender, class, and ability relate to power and oppression in our society,

my research question became: What are the benefits of introducing critical literacy in a ninth-

grade English language arts classroom?

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 8

Literature Review

Being critical of something requires actively breaking it down and analyzing it. Literacy,

in this context, means to\ be competent at something. For a frame of reference, examples of other

types of literacy include computer literacy, media literacy, financial literacy, cultural literacy,

and scientific literacy. Like critical literacy, these literacies require the ability to understand,

analyze, evaluate, make informed judgments and decisions, and take effective actions within

each of these domains. Stated simply, critical literacy is thinking and speaking with a skeptical

attitude about texts. Once critically literate, one can take these concepts and put them into

practice as transformative actors.

This review begins with defining critical literacy and the transformative effects that can

result from introducing it, both in and outside the classroom in areas around social justice and

political activism. The review continues with an overview of implementing critical literacy in the

classroom and concludes with practical strategies for using critical literacy in a secondary

English language arts classroom.

As is the case with much of the literature on critical literacy in general, most of the

studies included in this research focus on critical literacy in impoverished urban and rural areas.

Because the students in my classroom live in a suburban neighborhood, I have given greater

attention in this review to the studies that focus on students in suburban classrooms.

What it Means to Be Literate

At its most basic level, being literate means to be able to speak, read, or write. However,

literacy also includes more complex constructs, especially at the secondary content area literacy

level where students are making meaning of discourses across several disciplines, including

history, literature, science, and mathematics (Moje et al., 2004). All students bring their
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 9

particular funds of knowledge with them to school (Moje et al., 2004), which are all of their

experiences outside of school. Words shape the way students perceive the world and the way

they are perceived in the world. Shor (1999) describes how people of different races, genders,

and classes are addressed differently, for instance, men and women, people of color and whites,

and elite and working-class students. The term critical literacy was created by social theorists

who aspired to undo social injustices (Shor, 1999). Words create worlds in that literacy and how

it is enacted has the power to limit and expand how one experiences the world through the way

they perceive the world and how they are perceived in it.

What Is Critical Literacy?

Reimaging texts from different perspectives uncovers the assumptions about groups of

people that permeate many of the texts students read. Luke (2012) equates the ruling class

ideology with the school ideology and posits that though exploring alternative versions of history

and science learners can question issues around class, race, and gender. Further, students’

experiences with critical readings of texts can be transformative when they extend the ideas

uncovered in these readings into real world solutions through political activism (Luke, 2012).

Similarly, Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys (2002) define critical literacy as disrupting the

commonplace, interrogating multiple viewpoints, focusing on sociopolitical issues, and

promoting social justice. Along that same path, Chambers and Radbourne (2015) describe

critical literacy as an awareness that all social practices, including all literacies, are socially

constructed.

Why Use Critical Literacy?

Critical literacy leads to what Freire (2018/1970) calls conscientizaçāo, or consciousness

raising, building a critical social consciousness that leads to developing the ability to engage in
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 10

self-affirmation and transformative social action, which liberates the oppressed as well as the

oppressor. Giroux (1988) argues that when critical literacy goes beyond reading and writing by

including political and cultural literacy through alternative narratives it is emancipatory, similar

to what Freire (2018/1970) describes as liberation, especially for working-class and poor

students, which leads to self-empowerment and social empowerment. Following the same logic,

Shor (1999) states that “discourse is not destiny” (p. 1), and through the introduction of critical

literacy in classrooms, teachers can help students redefine historical narratives and reshape not

only their own destinies, but can also reshape society.

Practical Applications of Critical Literacy in a Secondary Classroom

Approaches to critical literacy are abundant and the most appropriate for a particular

group of students can be chosen and adapted to fit their individual backgrounds and needs.

Critical literacy can be implemented in the classroom in several ways. In his 1916 book

Democracy and Education, John Dewey argued against what Freire (2018/1970) defined as the

banking model of education, where students are regarded as empty vessels waiting or needing to

have knowledge deposited into them, in effect dehumanizing these students, but instead that

students construct their knowledge as participants in their own education and learning

community and that class should not define the scope of education, a system of education he

referred to as democratic education (Shor, 1999). Instead, Dewey argued for constructivism—

students construct their knowledge both individually and socially—by having students learn

through teachers focusing on the learner rather than on the lesson to be taught. Dewey posited

learning will naturally result as students construct their own knowledge (Shor, 1999).

Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) is closely related to Dewey’s

constructivism and proposes that students interacting with a more advanced person can access
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 11

higher levels of content than on their own (Shor, 1999). Also related to constructivism, critical

literacy is a two-way process according to Freire; teachers and students both learn and

acknowledge this, which breaks down the power in the classroom (Shor, 1999).

Teachers can facilitate students to question and critique social issues and institutions in

relationship to power and equity. Through practice, in social action, and in the classroom,

students can critique texts and master understandings of power and privilege (Coffey, 2016).

Reading with and against texts. Borsheim-Black, Macaluso, and Petrone (2014) suggest

reading with and against texts, including canonical texts. Canonical texts are those that are in the

literary canon, a group of literary works that have been chosen by literary scholars as

representing the most important literary books and hence are contained in the literary anthologies

that many teachers use as a guide for the works they choose to teach their students. The authors

suggest reading first with the text, in other words reading exactly as texts are presented, with the

repeated discourses that are generally taken for granted. Then they suggest a second read against

the text, where students are encouraged to complicate texts by questioning these discourses.

Wilson (2014) also recommends reading with and against texts, first by introducing literary

theory to students and then by having them apply these theories to the texts they are reading with

“questions, such as, How do economic and social classes shape society? What advantages or

disadvantages does one’s class determine? How does class affect our thinking and behavior? Do

you see more harmony or conflict between social classes?” (p. 74). Bean and Moni (2003) also

prescribe reading with and against texts. They also suggest using questions that read against

novels such as:

What social function does the novel serve? What other positions might there be for

reading this novel? Who gets to speak and have a voice in the novel and who doesn’t?
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 12

How else might these characters’ stories be told? How might we rewrite this novel to deal

with gaps and silences?” (Bean & Moni, 2003, p. 645)

These questions are meant to guide students to identify and challenge power structures.

Berman (2014) and Coffey (2016) likewise recommend questioning and go further suggesting

reading from a perspective of resistance, exploring how the text would be different viewing from

a character or author with a different point of view, including through the lens of a different race,

class, sexuality, or gender. Similarly, Logan et al. (2014) posit reading against texts through

using large group discussions such as Socratic Seminars, which can engender questioning and

counter-narratives by bringing in different perspectives through discussion.

Question posing and problem posing. McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2002) advise

problem posing by asking questions that expose systemic oppression with questions that peel

back layers that have been normalized through reproduction of dominant ideologies. Teachers

can problem pose with questions such as, “Who is in the text/picture/situation? Who is missing?

Whose voices are represented? Whose voices are marginalized or discounted? What are the

intentions of the author?” (McLaughlin & Devogd, 2002, p. 41). These questions can create a

space where students can begin to see these dominant ideologies and explore other perspectives

and possibilities in the texts and beyond them. McLaughlin and DeVoogd also purpose

problematizing through something they refer to as switching. This strategy first asks the reader

questions about what gender, theme, setting, body style, clothing, ethnicity, race, or language is

represented in the text and then asks the reader to switch so an alternate version. This allows the

reader to see where situations of discrimination or oppression are taking place but not

immediately recognized because they have become normalized through reproduction, with the

intent of identifying, naming, and challenging power structures. Bean and Moni (2003) also
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 13

suggest questioning as an effective critical literacy strategy, such as asking students another way

a character’s story can be told, and Wilson (2014) likewise suggests posing similar questions to

students. As a response to the banking model of education defined by Freire, he also suggests a

problem-posing model of education where students do not accept information but problematize it

through questioning and analysis (Freire 2018/1970).

Student choice. One practical option that can be effective across all groups is to offer

students a choice of what to read. Coffey (2016) suggests comparing authors and novels by

exploring the race, gender, class of authors and characters, reinterpreting texts, producing

counter-texts, forming literature circles and book clubs, and incorporating technology, while

Behrman (2014) suggests offering choice through extending learning with research projects that

are relevant to the student and include critical analysis of how social and cultural influences

effect the problem.

Cultural diversity and cultural relevance. Exposing students to literature that

represents their lives and critical analysis can be especially helpful for LGBTQ+ groups through

the inclusion of queer literature. Because these students are not always apparent, this can be

useful in all classrooms. This strategy challenges heteronormativity and the power structure that

supports it (Logan, Lasswell, Hood, & Watson, 2014). Similarly, Janks (2000) and Morrell and

Morrell (2012) advocate for including diverse types of texts that affirm lives in the classroom

while at the same time introduce new ways of being in the world without creating a hierarchy of

dominance between the diverse and traditional texts. Chick (2004) offers four strategies for using

literature to illuminate and learn about diversity: introduce multicultural literacy studies, practice

critical multiculturalist literary analysis, situate the literature in its cultural contexts, teach the

conflicts about, between, and within the literature.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 14

Hip hop education. Love (2014) argues that hip-hop is the culture of urban youth and

when integrated with curriculum can help urban youth find their voice through projects which

include the five elements of rap (rapping, breakdancing, graffiti, deejaying, knowledge of self

and community). Students can then address an issue in their community using these elements

with a critical voice by challenging power structures and reflection through activities such as

storyboarding and moviemaking. Duncan-Andrade (2012) posits that teachers must inhabit

pillars of effective practice and use the cultural interests of urban youth, such as hip-hop, as the

framework for teaching literature across disciplines. Moje (2014) suggests hip-hop as well as pop

Latino, gangster rap, and traditional Mexican folk music, adding choice and cultural relevance to

Love’s and Duncan-Andrade’s visions of education through music.

Taking social action. Engaging in social action is a goal of critical literacy, and is often

done near the end of a cumulative project, which can lead to an additional project that builds off

the original one where students become members of a larger community through activities that

involve working with local populations outside the school, such as businesses, nonprofits, or

charities. Behrman (2014) and Coffey (2015) write that social action beyond the classroom can

include community-based research projects within a real-world setting that yield real-world

outcomes accomplished through problem-based activities where students discover a problem in

the local community and organize and collaborate to create a solution for it. Lewison et al.

(2002) describe social action that includes teachers engaging as social actors alongside their

students and Logan et al. (2014) propose political activism in the form of letter writing

campaigns and lobbying as viable social action opportunities for students.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 15

Summary

While there are many ways of enacting critical literacy in the classroom, it is important to

consider the individual group of students and their needs. What works in an urban classroom

may not be appropriate for a rural classroom. This is something I had to take into consideration

with my classroom, and make modifications, as there are few research studies in the literature

that focus on suburban classrooms compared to those that focus on urban classrooms. For

instance, many studies about critical literacy focus on using hip hop or other forms of music

popular with urban youth, as discussed earlier, as a means for introducing critical literacy. While

there are students in suburban classrooms who listen to and relate to themes encoded in hip hop

music, many, including roughly half the students in my classroom do not, based asking students

directly and making note of the results in my student journal. By collecting and analyzing

quantitative data and taking into account the interests, funds of knowledge, and needs of their

students, teachers can make the best choices for introducing critical literacy into their

classrooms.

Implementation

Cycle 1

Action and assessment plan. I assessed the benefits of implementing critical literacy

through the triangulation of the data collected from (a) observations noted in my teaching journal

about student classroom discussions (b) observations noted in my teaching journal about student

conferences, and (c) student writing. The data that was most helpful as I developed how to

approach introducing critical literacy for my students were the strategies I learned from journal

articles. Of the six strategies I outlined in my literature review, I chose the following three
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 16

strategies for Cycle 1: question posing and problem posing, student choice, and cultural diversity

and cultural relevance.

Description of implementation. To assess the benefits of using choice, the first

assignment I did in Cycle 1 was about American poetry, where I put the students in random

groups by having students counting off numbers. Choice is one way Berman (2014) and Coffey

(2016) suggest implementing critical literacy to help students make deeper connections with

what they are learning to give them a more critical perspective through personalization. After

they moved to join the members of their groups and settled in, I presented them with nine 8 x 10

photos of American poets, each attached to a large envelope containing a research packet, and

asked each group to choose their poet. With one exception, the person each group selected to

decide chose one who was similar to them in some way, either based on ethnicity, race, gender,

class, or a combination of these elements. The research project included learning more about the

poet they selected, their poetry, and how each poet’s life experiences informed their poetry. I

observed that students who did not previously like poetry were focused on finding more about

their poet’s life and poetry thorough internet research and working cooperatively in their groups.

In conversations with individual students, I learned that some of the things they liked about the

project were that they got to choose their own poet and learn more about them by doing their

own research. What I also learned from these conversations is that some students did not like

being placed in groups but preferred to choose their own groups, while less students preferred to

be placed in random or student chosen groups, and still less did not like to work in groups at all.

To gather specific data, I conducted an informal poll by a show of hands. Eleven students who

did not previously like poetry said they liked the project, while five students who did not

previously like poetry said they did not enjoy the project. Regarding being placed in groups
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 17

versus choosing their own groups, 24 students indicated they like to choose their own groups,

seven students indicated and they prefer to be placed in groups, and three said that they do not

like to work in groups at all.

Based on the results of the poll, for the second project in Cycle 1, which was a world

poetry research project, I let the students choose their own groups and decide on their own what

poet they wanted to research. First, I had each group select a country they would choose their

poet from. The only two rules I had about this was that no two groups could chose a poet form

the same country, to create as many diverse perspectives as possible, and no one could choose an

American or British poet, since we had studied poetry and poets from both of countries

extensively. In line with the strategies offered by Janks (2000), Morrell and Morrell (2012), I

wanted the research projects about poets from countries outside the US and England to have as

much attention and importance as those they researched from the US and England. When it came

time for students to choose their poets, I bent both of my original rules. To give them a choice, as

suggested by Berman (2014) and Coffey (2016), I bent my two rules. I let one group research

British poet Wilfred Owen, who we did not cover in our British literature unit; I let two groups

research poets from China, one contemporary and one from the 7th century; I let two groups

research poets from Mexico, one 20th century poet and one contemporary poet. By following

Berman and Coffey’s strategy, I made classroom activities relevant to students lived experiences

and personal interests, while there were still diverse perspectives and representations of poets

and their poetry culturally, technically, temporally, and thematically. For the same reasons, I also

let them stretch the meaning of poets to including contemporary music artists, a suggestion made

by students. One group chose the musician Bono, originally from Ireland, and another group
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 18

chose the musician Drake, originally from Canada. In the end, each group researched their first

choice of poet.

For the third and final project in Cycle 1, I had half the students read one article about

stories about disability and the other half read a different article about stories about disability so

students would increase their academic vocabulary by being introduced to new words and they

could determine from context and new ways of thinking about disability. I also chose this format

so students could connect the perspectives of disability in the news articles with the characters in

Of Mice and Men and with their own experiences with and observations of disability. I had them

write open-ended discussion questions to analyze how disability is and is not portrayed and

discussed in popular culture, media platforms, and public and private spheres. I selected a

Socratic Seminar as suggested by Logan et al. (2014). Using large group discussions such as

Socratic Seminars can bring in different viewpoints by having students engage in deeper

discussions, compare and evaluate their own and others’ perspectives of disability, explain their

own previous and new ideas about disability, and support their ideas from their own experiences

and the from the texts.

To engage students, I began by explaining how the lesson will build on what we did in

previous lessons where they did a project inspired by an article in The Atlantic about a modern-

day bunkhouse where men with intellectual disabilities lived and worked. I explained ways we

can compare disability as represented in Of Mice and Men to contemporary experiences with

disability, including imagining what the first-person experience of different types of disabilities

is like and considering nondisabled persons’ perceptions of people who are disabled and how

that has changed over time. I asked students to think about this as they read their articles. I

shared specific questions to think about while they were reading, such as asking them how
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 19

perceptions about disability have changed over time and what ways the lives of people who have

disabilities are the same and how they are different to scaffold how to frame ways of thinking

critically about issues in society. I also had students take notes to help them engage with the

reading.

Posing questions and problems is one way McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2002) and Bean

and Moni (2003) advise as an effective way to introduce critical literacy. I started by having each

student write three open-ended discussion questions to have them think critically about disability

and the contemporary representation and perceptions of it. I scaffolded by asking what an open-

ended discussion question is and building on their definitions when necessary and then gave the

students two examples of questions that are open-ended. I also explained how using who, what,

why, when, where, and how at the beginning of a question can help make a question open-ended.

I modeled how to write an open-ended discussion question with examples similar to those

recommended by McLaughlin and DeVoogd and Bean and Moni such as “Who is and who is not

disabled?” and “How are the lives of disabled people different and how are they the same as non-

disabled people?” Writing their own three questions helped the students engage by using their

ideas and experiences to relate to contemporary expressions and conversations about disability

and to help drive our discussion. After we went over the rules of a Socratic Seminar, we began

the seminar and students shared and discussed their questions. Sharing their ideas and learning

from their peers’ ideas supported engagement by giving them a space where they have agency to

express their ideas in the classroom. I also had students write a short reflection after the seminar

to have them engage in metacognitive thinking, which supported critical thinking. To further

engage students, I started a discussion about what metacognitive thinking is by asking them what

they know about the meaning, and then built on their definition by explaining that the reflections
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 20

they wrote are a type of metacognitive exercise where they can learn more about and analyze

their own thinking process. I also engaged students by connecting the activities of this lesson to

what we would be doing the following day, which was having students take positions on and

discuss another issue raised in Of Mice and Men, which is George’s decision to shoot Lennie.

Findings. For the poetry project, I learned that allowing students to make their own

choices in terms of who is in their group and what they research. This showed me that students

are more focused when they have more say in what and how they learn and it changed how they

felt about poetry, based on student feedback indicated earlier. Since then, I have tried to make

each lesson and project, and the activities and discussion that extend from them, as much as

possible, about the students lived experiences, which includes giving them choices. As I continue

developing and finetuning my curriculum design and instruction, I can help students make

connections to reading, writing, and discussions, and to learning in general, by offering them

choice, making activities culturally relevant, and posing problems.

Reading the articles about how disability is represented gave students a more complex

way of thinking about disability and discussing the topic deepened their understanding about

disability in contemporary society, how it is represented in popular culture and across media

outlets, and how is represented in literature. This helped support engagement by connecting what

they read about in Of Mice and Men with their own experiences. Students had been asking to do

a Socratic Seminar since I first arrived at the school. Since many of them were already motivated

by this type of activity, based on their asking to do one, I believed there would be a high level of

interest based on the results of student choice in the poetry unit, and that is what the results

yielded. The energy they created with their enthusiasm for the lesson was contagious and several

students who were not thrilled about doing the seminar enjoyed it and were engaged. I noted this
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 21

by writing down who was speaking and how many times, and by taking an informal poll the day

after the seminar where I asked by a show of hands which students were not looking forward to

the seminar but ended up enjoyed it, and counted seven hands. I also asked who was looking

forward to it and ended up not enjoying it and there were no votes. Overall, three students went

in not thinking they would like it and did not change their minds. In asking for details, their

overall sentiment was that they do not like group discussions in general. I also noted that these

were the same three students that were the only students who reported they prefer to work alone

rather than in groups. This is something I want to work with these students more often because

being comfortable and adept in discussions is a skill that they will need in their future classes and

most careers. A student asset that helped me effectively plan instruction was knowing that the

strongest leaders and students that speak the most in discussion are also exceptionally

cooperative and respectful, and their presence in a Socratic Seminar was a good model for

behavior and contributing ideas. My understanding of students’ needs informed my ability to

effectively plan instruction because students need opportunities to become better at synthesizing

information, forming and expressing their opinions, and citing evidence to explain and support

their ideas and to support student access to the lesson content. In general, the students in my

class needed to be offered more one-on-one support because they do not always ask for support

when they need it. I built in time in my lesson plan to spend time with each student as I

circulated the room a few times to check for understanding. I engaged students with the lesson

content because sometimes students need more modeling to understand a concept, so I made sure

I had the class help define what an open-ended discussion question is.

Next steps. If I were to do this over, I would have more students respond to the question

of what is an open-ended discussion question and I would build on their answers more to provide
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 22

a more thorough definition. Having students engage in more small group discussions,

particularly about topics that are student-driven, is one way of building students’ connection to

thinking critically about texts. For this unit, I built time into my lesson plan to spend time with

each student as I circulated the room a few times to check for understanding. This is something I

plan on building on by continuing to do this regularly as students are working in class. Because

this one-on-one interaction was effective, I will also extend this to plan for more time to work

directly with students by setting up student conferences every grading period, which is three

times every semester, where I will discuss with each student three strengths I have observed and

three areas where they can improve. I will create a progress or accomplishment form and write

these down for students and we will review together at each grading period. I will also discuss

and write down resources for each area where they need more support and let them know I want

them to check in with me anytime they need guidance. I will check in with them regularly also.

I asked students for feedback on how the Socratic Seminar went and read their reflections as

well. What I learned was that many students like that they were able to talk about how disability

related to their own lives and experiences and that they liked using those experiences and their

ideas to drive the discussion. They also expressed that they liked being able to learn about their

peers’ experiences and ideas because it gave them a chance to learn more about each other and

different perspectives. Many students expressed that they were happy to get to know their

classmates better and felt more connected to them. I think making these connections with each

other strengthens their learning because they are not only learning from each other, but they are

learning the value of learning from each other. This is something that can extend to other

classrooms and beyond to their careers and other environments, which can create motivation to

learn in other spheres. I think the overwhelmingly positive response from students about learning
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 23

from each other and including their perspectives as a core part of their learning experience

suggests that making learning experiences culturally relevant helps students make deeper

connections to learning. They are activating prior learning, building off their ideas, and making

connections between their basic school curriculum and their own lived experiences. Observing

the results of creating classroom activities around the experiences of students has been the most

important revelation for me in this process. Using critical literacy strategies to allow students to

work in groups more and giving them the choice to form their own groups, giving more choice in

what they research and allowing more opportunities for students to think critically about

privilege and oppression though posing questions and problems. Reading with and against texts a

part of the curriculum design are the next steps I planned to take to strengthen and continue

learning for my students.

Cycle 2

Action and assessment plan. I assessed the effectiveness of implementing critical

literacy in Cycle 2 through the triangulation of the data collected from (a) observations noted in

my teaching journal about student class discussions, (b) observations noted in my teaching

journal about student conferences, and (c) student writing. For Cycle 2, I chose to continue with

student choice, question posting and problem posing, and cultural relevance because of the

positive results in Cycle 1. I added reading with and against texts, with questions about power

and oppression including adding a resistant perspective of reading against texts with questions

about how the text would be different if it were viewed through the lens of an individual who is

different in ways such as race, gender, class. All this work was done through the lens of the

novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

Description of implementation. The first lesson I developed in response to Cycle 1 was

related to reading with and against texts, which Borsheim-Black et al. (2014) and Bean and Moni
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 24

(2003) advise as an effective way to introduce critical literacy, and I added reading against texts

from a resistant perspective, as suggested by Berman (2004) and Coffey (2016). I wanted to give

students the opportunity to recognize their own biases and reflect about their own thinking by

reading against their own narratives about themselves, and to make connections back to the

novel. To set the groundwork for doing work around bias, I wanted students to reflect on what

they already knew about it so they could begin building from a personal perspective. I began by

having students first write about bias with the following journal prompt: “Implicit bias refers to

the attitudes and stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions. They are

thoughts and feeling that are outside of awareness and control. Everyone has them. Think

about biases people may have that they are not aware of. How do you think implicit bias affects

the decisions made by people who have power in our society, such as government officials,

lawmakers, judges, law enforcement agents, physicians, and researchers? How do you think

implicit bias affects your own decisions?”

Next, to build on what they wrote in their journals, and to set the groundwork for deeper

thinking about implicit and explicit bias in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, I had the students

take the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT), specifically the Race IAT, which is a test that

designed to help people detect their own implicit biases. Before the test, we went over the

instructions on the website where the test is located, and after reading them together as a class we

talked about the difference between implicit and explicit bias, why someone might get a result

that is different than what they expect, and why these results might be upsetting to some people.

Their takeaway from the discussion was that people do not always feel the way they want to feel

about groups of people different then themselves, regardless of how they would like to feel and

project themselves outwardly. I also explained that we will discuss whether or not we got the
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 25

results they expected, but in class we will not discuss their actual results. By a show of hands, I

asked who was surprised by the results. Exactly half the class, 17 of 34 students, said they

received results they did not expect. The results of this and our brief discussion afterward helped

students understand how implicit bias works from a first-person perspective, and how someone

can have a bias toward someone who is in another group, but not actually be aware of this bias.

We also discussed ways in which we can consciously name our own biases and tangible steps we

can take to try to change them.

To begin my informal assessment, I began by posing questions, as McLaughlin and

DeVoogd (2002) and Bean and Moni (2003) suggest as a way to enact critical literacy. First, I

had them write down answers to questions about the novel To Kill a Mockingbird and then we

discussed them in a whole-class discussion. Some of the questions I asked related to the novel

were: Is there a stigma against the poor? How are people of color and women viewed as

compared to other characters in the novel? I also posed more general questions, such as What is

oppression? What are power structures? What aspects of identity could you classify as a power

structure? The answers around these questions varied greatly, but my greatest takeaway from

observing the students create discussions around these questions is that they learn a great deal

from each other, which supports Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development where a student can

reach the next level of learning with the assistance of a peer or teacher (Shor, 1999), including

giving them access to new concepts, placing them in a culturally relative framework, and even

new ways to talk about things, such as the phrasing of responses and follow-up questions.

For the formal assessment, I had students compete a written characterization and identity

project in a graphic organizer, produce a visual representation, perform a gallery walk, and

provide constructive feedback to other students.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 26

The characterization project was done on a graphic organizer and divided into four

sections. (see Figure 2 for an example of the characterization and identity graphic organizer). In

the first section, students had to choose two characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, write two

character traits for each of them, and include a quote and page number for each of them. In the

second section, they had to write down the meaning of the following words: gender, class, race,

identity, ethnicity, and intersectionality. In the third section, students had to think about the

concept of intersectional identities and how the experiences of specific aspects of characters’

identity were different. They had two female characters to compare, both who are poor; one

African American and one White, two male characters to compare, one poor and African

American and one middle-class and White, and then a space for comparing any two characters

from the novel. In the fourth section, they had to write about the character comparisons they

completed and include a quote from novel that is related to empathy. Then, I had them write

down three of their own personal traits and choose a scene from the novel rewrite it from their

own perspective using the personal traits they chose. For sections one and two, all but one

student was able to complete it in the amount of time given in class. For sections three and four

only 13 out of 34 students were able to complete it all the way to the end. I conferenced with

several students to determine why so many students were not finishing it and the feedback I

received was that it was “it’s too hard,” “it’s complicated,” and “it’s boring,” along with

admissions of not having kept up with the reading. I realized I had to change my strategy.

I got rid of sections three and four and brought in choice again along with reading against

texts from a resistant perspective, as Berman (2014) and Coffey (2016) advise as one way to

approach critical literacy, and using switching, as advised by McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2002).
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 27

Example of Characterization and Identity Project

Figure 2. Characterization and Identity Project.

I had students chose their own groups and begin to plan their gallery walk. Each group was to

work together to choose one character and use switching, to recreate their identity by viewing

them through a different race, class, gender, ability, LGBTQ+ status, or anything they wanted to.

I had written instructions for the gallery walk and peer-assessment on how long each step should

take and what each step comprises. Then I had them create a poster to represent their character

from their perspective. Finally, they did a silent gallery walk where their completed posters were
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 28

placed around the room and they moved from one poster to the next and offered feedback to each

of the groups on post-it notes.

Findings. Students exhibited the ability to take what they learned from the introduction

of critical literacy in canonical and contemporary texts and apply it to other texts and in

nonacademic situations. Importantly, this was also more apparent when this was connected to

students lives and previous experiences. The choices students made in their characterization

projects all showed that they were learning how to think more critically about perspectives and

identity as it relates to power and privilege. Where the gallery walk failed was in how much time

I allotted for students to prepare for the gallery walk and how much time I made available for

them to complete the walk. Additionally, the feedback that students were giving each other for

the most part was superficial, and here too is where I could have improved. With time spent to

prepare for how to give constructive guidance to others students the feedback would have had

more substance.

Next steps. As a teacher, I will continue to refine how I introduce critical literacy to

students and synthesize the practice into everything I teach. Because of the positive results of

Cycle 2, I will continue giving students choice, reading with and against texts, including reading

from a resistant perspective and using switching, making activities culturally relevant, and to

question pose and problem pose. I will extend reading with and against texts to include, among

other things, images, news, social media, film, advertisements, and information from

governments, to give students more perspectives on where and how they can read texts critically.

I will continue giving students choice in the areas of choosing group members and choosing

topics for research projects and extend student choice to asking for and including reading choices

and more student feedback in activity design. I will also continue to make activities culturally
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 29

relevant through having options to do projects and activities around subjects that speak to

students lived experiences and add exploring different ways of learning that are culturally

relevant, such as learning through different musical genres and incorporate other disciplines.

Conclusion
Significance

As I learned from my research, the most significant benefits of introducing critical

literacy in a ninth-grade English language arts classroom are an increase in student interest in

texts, an increase in their ability to critically read texts and an increase in their ability to apply

these critical readings to new situations. These benefits were achieved through using three

critical literacy strategies of student choice, cultural relevance, and problem posing in Cycle 1,

and continuing those strategies and adding a fourth strategy, reading with and against texts, in

Cycle 2. The increase in interest in texts came primarily from implementing critical literacy

through student choice in how they learn and what they learn. It was also the responses from

students to my questions about assembling groups and group topics. In my discussions with

them, students told me they wanted to make their own decisions about these. With a greater

number of students, 24 of 34, saying they prefer to choose their own groups, and all students

saying they like to choose their own research topics, this drove my decision to expand their

opportunities for choice to choosing their own groups and choosing their own research project

topics. As suggested by Berman (2014) and Coffey (2016) choice of topics that are relevant to

students is a way to help students make deeper connections with what they are learning through

personalization which results in greater interest. Another indicator that increased student interest

was the at the intersection of choice and inclusion of cultural relevance. Both Janks (2000) and

Morrell and Morrell (2012) advocate for including diverse types of texts, which I offered

students in their choice of poets to research, poems to analyze, and types of poems to write. One
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 30

of the most telling results was observing the group leaders in the American poetry project where

8 of 9 students chose to do research on a specific poet by choosing an image of a poet who was

similar to them either based on ethnicity, race, gender, class, or a combination of these. While it

is possible there could be an element of chance at work, it is noteworthy that the only student

who did not choose a poet who was similar to them in some was the final student who essentially

did not have a choice but had to take the only poet left. This is only an indicator and this would

have to be expanded to justify these results.

For the culmination of Cycle 1, I planned a Socratic Seminar, as suggested by students

and advised by Logan et al. (2014), to give students the greatest opportunity to express their new

relationships to traditional literary texts after reading them alongside contemporary texts and

though the lens of critical literacy, which they had been exposed to for about six weeks leading

up to the seminar. I also wanted to give them a space to do this that was student led. By

removing myself as teacher and becoming an observer, I would not only allow the students to

interact with each other without any significant guidance, but would also allow me to

comfortably collect data on the effectiveness of the implementation of critical literacy. Students

increased their ability to apply their critical readings of texts to other situations, as I observed in

their conversations in the seminar, in their writing, and in non-academic writing, where they

were using person-first language, asking each other open-ended discussion questions, and

applying academic vocabulary to discussions. Reading against texts and posing problems, as we

did throughout the novel, gives the students a realistic understanding of the world beyond texts,

as described by Morrell and Morrell (2012), and the ability to view the world critically, as

described by Freire (2018/1970). For the culmination of Cycle 2, I planned a Gallery Walk.

When only 13 out of 34 students finished the second half of the in characterization and identity
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 31

project, I removed that part of the project and added reading against texts through having

students reimagine the novel from a perspective of resistance, by having each group view one

character through the lens of a different race, gender, class, ability, or other status, to give

students an opportunity to work in groups to create alternate versions of events in the novel,

through visual and written perspectives. This is a strategy supported by research from

Borscheim-Black, et al. (2014), Bean and Moni (2003), Berman (2014) and Coffey (2016).

Through the use of this technique, all of the students were able to maintain a high level of

interest, as every student was able to complete the assignment.

Educational implications. The greatest educational implication from this study is that

critical literacy can open up previously unrecognized understandings of power structures that

exist in society and those understandings can translate into different situations outside the

classroom where this greater knowledge can be applied beyond just understanding to create

spaces where social action can take place.

My own teaching practices. Teaching through critical literacy had a strong impact on

my experience of leading a classroom. I felt as time went by the classroom become more of a

learning community, where I was a learner alongside the students. As we uncovered and broke

down power structures in texts, I began questioning my own relationship to power in the

classroom and increasingly grew to become more uncomfortable with the power dynamic

between students and a teacher, who is often a visceral presence in classrooms.

Limitations

As with all research studies, there were limitations in the results of my findings. The

following limitations need to be considered in the final results of the study: researcher bias, time,

and study size.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 32

Researcher bias. As I spent more time with the students, I began to get to know them

better and develop a rapport with them. The relationships I formed with the students may have

had an effect on my analysis of the study’s findings. Additionally, my own passion for critical

literacy because of my own experiences with it growing up and the associations I have because

of that have likely influenced my perceptions perhaps by inflating the need and effects of critical

literacy. Each person has their own world view that has been shaped and informed by their live

experiences, preferences, and social and political stances. I have a particular world view that

influence my feeling of the importance of introducing critical literacy to students. As I have

become more aware of my own personal biases, especially around issues of power and privilege,

including looking at how I benefit from my own privilege, I worked to name them and constantly

remind myself of them. I realized that these were formed by a greater need for thinking more

critically about the world around me and my place in it. As I learned more about myself, I began

to look at my peers and see they had many of the same perspectives I previously had and I

wanted to facilitate more critical perspectives in them. This passion for trying to show people

how power and privilege shape, and has shaped, the world, and how having access to words and

concepts around these can change perspectives translated into a passion to engage in critical

literacy in the classroom, and hence is a bias toward the importance of critical literacy over other

potential needs of students.

Time. Due to a number of circumstances, the time I had with the students was limited to

two and a half months. Cycle 1 was completed during the second month of my student teaching

and Cycle 2 was completed in a single week during my last week of my student teaching.

Additionally, I was not able to assess if students would be able to transfer their critical literacy to

situations outside the classroom as informed consumers of information. This is something I plan
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 33

to explore further as a teacher when I have my own classroom with projects that connect students

to community and world issues.

Study size and classroom type. The size of my study included a single classroom of 34

students in an honors English classroom. A larger sample size across several classrooms which

included non-honors English language arts settings would yield a greater understanding of the

significance of the research.

Reflection

The action research process overall was an extremely enlightening experience. Some of

the most important take-aways from the process are the value of meticulous backward planning

and anticipating student responses throughout that planning process and the value of making

content specifically related to the lived experiences of the students in the classroom.

One of the best decisions I made was in the first week to have each student in all four

classes complete a questionnaire that had questions about their home culture, school identity,

linguistic background, previous school experience, personal and academic interests, and learning

style. The answers to these questions gave me information that would have taken me a great deal

of time to determine and helped me find ways to connect individually with students. This also

gave me data I could use to determine overarching themes in the students’ experiences that I

used to create activities around, as well as information to help me determine needs that I could

relate to my research questions.

Challenges. As I began this process, on my third day of teaching I was given two 9th

grade classrooms to teach, including my focus class, without assistance or significant guidance

from my cooperating teacher. With no previous experience teaching in a traditional classroom, as

my previous student teaching experience was in a nontraditional setting in a juvenile justice

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 34

community school, I found myself first planning each day’s lesson one day at a time for a few

weeks, then a week at a time, and finally building up to an entire unit. While this experience

created a great deal of stress for me, it also gave me deep insight into the importance of thorough

planning, beginning with the end results in mind and working up to the actual activities in which

students would participate to meet those goals. An additional challenge I had to face that

impacted the amount of time I had to plan was additionally being given a 10th-grade class after

four weeks, and an additional 10th-grade class after another four weeks. Though my focus class

had only 34 students, I found myself teaching, creating lesson plans, and grading papers and

assignments for 132 students. I was overwhelmed by this experience and that impacted my

ability to implement my research cycles as early in my student teaching as I had initially

planned.

Outcomes. Implementing critical literacy in this classroom uncovered previously

unexplored ideas around power and privilege inherent in many aspects of society for students,

including those that exist within the school setting. By creating a space for students to explore

different perspectives, particularly their own, they discovered that much of the literature they are

assigned to read in school are the same ones that have been around for decades and reproduce

many of the narratives implicit in the dominant culture, without allowing other voices to emerge.

By first reading with texts and then against them, students were able to make new connections to

the way that literature reproduced the dominant culture and silenced other voices. Although there

was a diversity of experiences and backgrounds among students, most of the students made great

breakthroughs in the way they viewed each new text that was introduced to them, as evidenced

by their own questioning of the power structures embedded in these new texts and how they

mirrored elements that still exist in contemporary society.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 35

Not all the choices I made in the implementation of lessons were as successful as I had

hoped. The most successful one was the Socratic Seminar in Cycle 1, and my least successful

one was the Gallery Walk in Cycle 2. Leading up to the Socratic Seminar, I had time to introduce

the students to the concept and practice of reading with and against texts and I also spent a great

deal of time over the course of a one-month unit pairing our canonical text, Of Mice and Men,

with several contemporary texts that were either explicit in their representations of power and

privilege, or I worked with students to uncover these representations. We looked closest at

representation of disability, and began exploring gender, race, and class. I spent time explicitly

focusing on using person first language when describing people with disabilities, such as saying

a person uses a wheel chair instead of saying they are wheelchair bound, and using terms like

intellectually disabled instead of terms like slow or mentally challenged. As this unit progressed,

students began to use person first language in our class discussions, in their papers, and most

remarkably in conversations with each other.

In Cycle 2, the last week of my student teaching, we continued our exploration of race,

class, and gender and I introduced the concept of intersectional identities to them. I began by

having them explore these concepts individually and in pairs and then small groups, to have them

build on what they knew. The canonical text for this unit was To Kill a Mockingbird. I had

intended to present the novel alongside contemporary texts that explore these concepts but was

discouraged from doing so by my cooperating teacher, therefore I explored them both

independently and from the perspective of the novel. Without the support of contemporary texts,

and with more time, this would have been a great opportunity to have the students explore these

concepts through a series of several purposeful writing exercises that they could build a

connection to through their own experiences. I ended this unit on the last day of Cycle 2 with a
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 36

hastily planned gallery walk. This was also my last day at the school site. While the students

clearly had fun, as evidenced by their demeanor and an informal poll of favorite and least

favorite lessons, I did not spend nearly the amount of time I would have liked to by moving

deeper through concepts of race, gender, class and intersectionality. Further evidence that Cycle

2 did not yield the same level of results was in the quality of the work the students produced in

their final papers, much of which was formulaic writing, in their graphic organizers and for the

gallery walk, in the physical representations each group drew where they had to reimagine

identities of the characters.

Overall, my research suggests that with enough time to explore texts through critical

literacy, reading both with and against texts, and discussing explicitly how uncovering elements

such as power, privilege, voice, and oppression in race, class, ability, and gender dynamics can

create a new space for students to uncover and internalize how they relate to and analyze future

texts they encounter.

What I learned from my students. I feel like my students began their path though

critical literacy, and though creating a crack in the dominant narratives they are presented with at

school that journey will continue and benefit them both in the classroom in high school and

college, and perhaps more importantly will help them be more aware of how power and privilege

operate in the world and with that how they can become social actors and hopefully agents of

change in their own lives, communities, and the greater society.

While my students learned important ideas about the ways of the world from my

introducing them to critical literacy and through the relationships I built with them, from the 34

students in my focus class and from the entirety of the 132 students in all four classes, though my

conversations with them, conversations between them overheard, from reading their papers, and
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 37

in analyzing their drawings, I am quite sure I learned a great deal more from them then they did

from me. From these amazing young people, I learned about many ways that teenagers’ minds

work, that there are incredible leaps in intellectual development that take place in the space of a

single year, and that every child is an immensely wonderfully complex and unique individual.

Teaching through the lens of critical literacy will give each of them, especially those who are

most equity impacted, the ability to see power structures that they previously did not know

existed, or did not see a way of reinventing them, and with that knowledge, they have the ability

to create change and become the are the future teachers, inventors, scientists, researchers, and

leaders of our society.

CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 38

References

Bean, T. W., & Moni, K. (2003). Developing students’ critical literacy: Exploring identity

construction in young adult fiction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46, 637-

648. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40017169

Behrman, E. H. (2006). Teaching about language, power, and text: a review of classroom

practices that support critical literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49, 490-

498. doi:10.1598/JAAl.49.6.4

Borsheim-Black, C., Macaluso, M., & Petrone, R. (2014). Critical literature pedagogy, teaching

canonical literature for critical literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58, 123-

133. doi:10.1002/jaal.323

Chambers, J. M., & Radbourne, C. L. (2015). Developing critical literacy skills through using

the environment as text. Language and Literacy, 17(1), 1-20. doi:10.20360/g2fk58

Chick, N. L. (2004). Teaching diversity through literature: urging voyages toward deeper

understanding. In R. Gurung & L. Preito (Eds.), Getting culture: Incorporating diversity

across the curriculum (pp. 171-179). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Coffey, H. (2013). Critical literacy. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Learn NC.

1-9. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/214831585/Critical-Literacy

Duncan-Andrade, J. (2007). Gangstas, wankstas, and ridas: Defining, developing, and

supporting effective teachers in urban schools. International Journal of Qualitative

Studies in Education 20, 617-638. doi:10.1080/09518390701630767

Ed Data. (n.d.). San Diego Unified School District. Retrieved from http://www.ed-

data.org/school/San-Diego-Unified
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 39

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (50th Anniversary Edition; Originally published

1970). New York, NY:

Bloomsbury.

Giroux, H. A. (1988). Literacy and the pedagogy of voice and political empowerment.

Educational Theory, 38, 61-75. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1988.00061

Janks, H. (2000). Domination, access, diversity and design: a synthesis for critical literacy

education. Educational Review, 52, 175-186. doi:10.1080/713664035

Lewison, M., Flint, A. S., & Van Sluys, K. (2002). Taking on critical literacy: The journey of

newcomers and novices. Language Arts, 79, 382-392. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41483258

Logan, S. R., Lasswell, T. A., Hood, Y., and Watson, D. C. (2014). Criteria for the selection of

young adult queer literature. English Journal, 103(5), 30-41. Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24484242

Love, B. L. (2014). Urban storytelling: how storyboarding, moviemaking, and hip-hop-based

education can promote students’ critical voice. English Journal, 103(5), 53-58. Retrieved

from https://www.jstor.org/stable/24484246

Luke, A. (2012). Critical literacy: Foundational notes. Theory Into Practice, 51(1), 4-11.

doi:10.1080/00405841.2012.636324

McLaughlin, M., & DeVoogd, G. (2004). Teaching critical literacy: enhancing students’

comprehension of text (pp. 35-58). New York, NY: Scholastic.

Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K, Ellis, L., Carillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004).
CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 40

Working toward a third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds

of knowledge and discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38-70.

doi:10.1598/rrq.39.1.4

Morrell, E., & Morrell, J. (2012). Multicultural readings of multicultural literature and the

promotion of social awareness in ELA classrooms. The NERA Journal 47(2), 10-16.

Retrieved from

https://www.academia.edu/1782930/Multicultural_readings_of_multicultural_literature_a

nd_the_promotion_of_social_awareness_in_ELA_classrooms

San Diego Unified School District. (2018). Demographic data. Retrieved from

https://www.sandiegounified.org/demographic_data

San Diego Unified School District. (2018). Focus on learning: 2010 report. Retrieved

from

http://www.sandi.net/schools/sites/default/files_link/schools/files/Domain/2396/MMHS_

FOL_Final_2-16-10.doc

Shor, I. (1999). What is critical literacy? Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice 1(4), 1-

30. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/jppp/vol1/iss4/2

Wilson, B. (2014). Teach the how: Critical lenses and critical literacy. English Journal 103(4),

68-75. Retrieved from

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/1034-

mar2014/EJ1034Teach.pdf