What is critical literacy seems to be the question on everyone's mind, especially mine. I am taking a class in critical literacy in an attempt to understand the underlying questions surrounding the discipline of social studies. In the field of social studies, especially in history, the writings are often distorted, biased, and sometimes elusive. To be an effective teacher, I must get to the root of the confusion surrounding these writings. How can I stand in front of a classroom and take primary source documents and/or their accompanying sources at face value? How can I pretend that some of these writings are wrong? I need to understand where critical literacy originates so that I can teach my students how to be critically literate. But as with most subjects, critical literacy goes beyond the boundaries of the written word. Movies, music, photographs, and cartoons express sentiments that must be critically examined in order to find some shred of true meaning. In a society that seems to take everything at face value or examine things to completely the original meaning is lost; where is the balance?
Blogging has become a way to express feelings in a personal yet impersonal way. I feel like I am having a conversation with myself. That I am asking myself these very important questions while trying to ascertain where I fit into critical literacy: where am I on this journey? At the same time, I realize that other people can and will read my inner most thoughts on this subject. You feel secure yet naked. It is as if someone is reading my inner most thoughts while they are still in my head, a very disconcerting thought. But maybe this new medium will provide a way to dialogue with others about the subjects that truly matter without worrying about the insecurities that arise from face to face meetings. Maybe it is here that the like minded can truly forum about topics that need discussing. I am interested in seeing the results from this experiment.
In the meanwhile, I am about to go on an adventure into the exciting, unknown and possibly disturbing area known as critical literacy. As I am teaching the future of this country I need to understand what is critical literacy to me as a teacher, but also applying critical literacy as it applies to my field: history.
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Power Rangers has a way of exciting folks.
Today in class we were review concepts of gases. i act the kids to draw a cartoon trying to explain the properties of gases, write a poem or sing a song. They did not make light of the project but using what they learned in class, the product seem very ordinary on their initial try. So I asked them to re-think what they have said in a cartoon, or poem and how could they be more creative? When they heard each others responses, they laughed but they heard the creativity and they work to get it "right" the @nd time around. Some group used the text on the chlorine gas bomb article that I gave them. Others used their classmates as resources.
I can see how they are digging deeper. It's is very interesting, but I do agree sometimes, I can not transition the way I want to.
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