Critical Literacy in Schools

What is Critical Literacy?

• Critical literacy not only emphasizes the ability to read and write but the ability to use reading and writing as the basis of higher-order thinking skills that allow a person to analyze and critically evaluate what is read and written (Tozer, Senese, & Violas, 2009).

The Importance of Critical Literacy in Schools

• Empowers Students– Change as members of society– Change society as members

• Students acquire analytical skills– Gained from support, guidance, and modeling

• Refocuses education • Nurtures the ability to see what secures/endangers

freedom • Stresses the importance of dialogue between teacher

and students

Leaders in Critical Literacy & Pedagogy

Paolo Freire 1921-1997

Ira Shor Howard Zinn

1922-2010

Paolo Freire

• Left law to become an educator• Had a reputation as a progressive educator• Icon of social change through education• Participated in educational movements in the

early 60s• Forced into exile from Brazil after he spear

headed a program to make five million adults literate and politically progressive threatened land owners

• Developed the “banking” concept of knowledge• Several social movements have adopted Freire’s

ideology• Taught at Harvard and Geneva

Freirian Pedagogy

• Considered an alternate view of a way to communicate between teachers and students

• Schooling as a means to a socially just society• Adopted as a means for breaking away from

political and economic oppression in third world countries

• In industrialized nations often viewed as a tool for political empowerment

Ira Shor

• Fascinated with the work of Paulo Freire

• Grew up in a white working-class family in the Bronx

• Professor of English at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island

Shor’s Pedagogy

• Works to integrate critical notions of social critique with techniques of pedagogy in ways that create new educational possibilities

• The end goal is to produce a thoughtful, just, and democratic education

• Engages students in a way that subverts the exploitation of the subordinate classes, the manner in which social structures reproduce themselves in the everyday life of the classroom, and the process by which authority regulates the poor

• The classroom is a venue for the construction of knowledge

Howard Zinn

• Historian, playwright, & activist• Grew up in Brooklyn in a working-

class immigrant family• Opposition for war and passion for

history shaped by his service in WWII• Involved in the Civil Rights Movement

when he taught at Spelman until he was fired for his support of student protestors

• Served as professor of Political Science at Boston University until his retirement in 1988

Zinn’s Viewpoints

• Recognizes the importance of social change through resistance and protest

• Identifies the educational system as preparing young people to live with contradictions and to accept those contradictions as being OK.

• Maintains Freire's sentiments that schools are not providing students with an accurate picture of reality

Implementing Critical Literacy

• Consists of acts of cognition• The authentic act of liberation is a praxis• Resist the banking methods of domination• Teachers and students should be co-investigators

inside the classroom• Focus on the community and humanization• Question the status quo• Involve students with an on-going problem that is

happening in real-time

References

• Tozer, S.E.; Senese, G. Vilas, P. (2009). School and society: Historical and contemporary perspectives. McGraw Hill: New York, NY.

• Lownd, Peter. (n.d.). A Brief Biography of Paulo Freire. Paulo Freire Institute. Retrieved on 4/21/11 from http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/

• Howard Zinn. Retrieved on 4/21/11 from http://www.howardzinn.org/