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Literacy Ideologies
There can be no disinterested, objective, and value-free definition of literacy: The way literacy is viewed and taught is always and inevitably ideological. Auerbach (1991, p. 71)
As elementary school teachers, my colleagues and I rarely had time to reflect on the ideology, value, or politics of the language arts curriculum, but we discussed how our own beliefs about literacy and language development were not reflected in the materials or teaching methods we were encouraged to use. Such conversations led us to ponder why one reading curriculum or teaching method was promoted over others and to note that these policy reforms reflected dominant political structures. At no point during these conversations did we discuss the ideologies that informed our beliefs or the ideology of the curricula and educational processes that were considered the best method to teach language arts. Using critical literacy as a lens of analysis, this article addresses the questions of how literacy is defined, by whom, and for what purposes. Ideological constructions of literacy can allow us to critically
reflect on our beliefs about literacy and the language arts curriculum. As teachers and teacher educators,
it is imperative that we understand not only our own ideology toward literacy but that of the curriculum
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Copyright 2002 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
materials and processes that are utilized and promoted in our schools. For it is ideology that has the most profound impact on policy and curricula decisions made from the federal, state, and local levels of schooling. According to Galindo (1997), ideologies are systems of ideas that function to create views of reality that appear as the most rational view; a view that is based on common sense notions of how the social world ought to be (p. 105). Within any approach to literacy is an assumption of normative practice, that is, what counts as literacy pedagogically, socially, and politically. Since the 1700s schooled literacy ideologies have fueled educational and political debates about what it means to be a literate person in school and society. This notion is particularly important when considering the cultural diversity of students today, as these ideologies of schooled literacy are not part of all communities and, more often than not, are acquired outside ones cultural or social environment. Still, the success or failure of many children and school literacy programs is determined by such definitions of normative practice (Powell, 1999). In this article, I address the normative assumptions that are present within the language arts curriculum, our teaching methods, and educational policy. My premise is that any methodological approach to what it means to be a literate person is based on an ideological construct that is inherently political. As a result, ideological constructions of literacy can position literacy for either of two purposes. First, a critically progressive ideology toward literacy values individual empowerment and personal voice, basic morality and skill (Luke, 1988, p. 17). A critical whole lan-
guage approach toward reading instruction reflects this ideology when students learn to read by reading literature and other authentic materials drawn and related to their personal experiences. Such classrooms engage children in dialogue to critically examine and challenge the content of texts and discourses. This approach is designed to serve the interests of children and their historical context and place in the world. The second approach focuses on rudimentary functional job skills with a need to educate literate citizens able to compete in the labor market (Luke, 1988). This ideology is reflected when reading skills instruction concentrates on teaching sounds, symbols, and direct comprehension of text through skill and drill processes that focus on understanding rules, comprehending factual information, and being able to follow directions. This approach is designed to maintain the industrial, social order of society (Luke, 1988). Both of these ideological constructions toward literacy are reflected in the language arts and reading curricula in most elementary schools. Kincheloe (1998) defines curriculum in terms of the history of the word. The noun curriculum is derived from the Latin verb currere, which means running a racecourse, an action. In education, the word is reduced to the noun form, the
Mainstream educators forget that curriculum is an active process; it is not simply the lesson plan, the district guidebook, the standardized test, the goals and milestones, or the textbook. The curriculum, Slattery continues, is a holistic life experience, the journey of becoming a self-aware subject capable of shaping his or her life path (p. 129).
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When applying this interpretation to the literacy curriculum, it is easy to see how the noun form flourishes in the instructional practice of tracking or ability grouping. When students are grouped according to their reading or language proficiency levels, their level dictates which curriculum they will receive. As a result, there is no exploration of self or other, but a well-worn track narrowed by checkpoints, limits, and a defined end. Additionally, and most importantly, such groupings are a form of social control that functions to provide differential forms of schooling to different classes of students (Giroux, 1983, p. 47). To connect school literacy ideology to curriculum, the common curricula orientations of functional literacy, cultural literacy, and progressive literacy are first critically examined. The intent isnt to dismiss these forms of literacy engagement, but to analyze their common historical positions within schools. The second section of this
Literacy Ideologies
My premise is that any methodological approach to what it means to be a literate person is based on an ideological construct that is inherently political.
track. This difference in definition implies that curriculum, as commonly used, is dictated and static, not fluid or changing. According to Kincheloe (1998), who references Patrick Slattery, article articulates critical literacy as a schooled ideology and argues for literacy as social action. The final section presents examples of critical literacy engagements by elementary school teachers.
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A FUNCTIONAL LITERACY ideology is reflected in a curriculum that teaches students the skills deemed necessary to successfully participate in school and society specifically, skills to be a productive citizen or member of the workforce and, as such, to support marketplace ideologies (Apple, 1995; Kelly, 1997). A functionally literate person is generally considered an individual who can read and write well enough to understand signs, ads, newspaper headlines, fill out job applications, make shopping lists, and write checks (Williams & Capizzi-Snipper, 1990). This is considered to be a fourth- to sixth-grade level of competency. The functionally literate curriculum was originally defined under the premise of English for All and focused on sequential reading skills, grammar skills, and some of the basic cultural information usually found in literature with a emphasis on decoding and analyzing parts of texts-as-objects (Myers, 1996, p. 34). This is similar to the popular reading program, Open Court, which includes direct systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics and grade-appropriate decodable text (American Federation of Teachers, 2001). Reading focuses on decoding words and analyzing text by answering specific reading comprehension questions orally and in writing. Comprehension is the ability to understand vocabulary, directions, and
meaning from text (Oakes, 1985; Shannon, 1989). As such, functionally literate curricula and instructional practices are pre-packaged and restrictive; with a pedagogical focus that is individualistic, behaviorist, and competitive (Kelly, 1997, p. 10). Such instruction does not encourage students to challenge texts or ideas and further reduces literacy to a primary skill learned in parts. Such teacher-directed processes negate processes of critical thinking, culture, and power. At the same time, they support a societal structure focused on increasing the labor force with a goal for capital accumulation (Giroux, 1983). In the Open
The functional approach does little to engage texts and stories critically or to engage the historical and lived contexts of student lives.
Court reading program, for example, students learn to read and write by completing activities focused on comprehension, discreet vocabulary, and specific ideas and concepts (American Federation of Teachers, 200l). The emphasis is on learning to read, not reading to learn, and thus the functional approach does little to engage texts and stories critically or to engage the historical and lived contexts of student lives. Functional literacy prevailed during the Industrial Revolution and is equated with the school as factory model (Myers, 1996; Giroux, 1983). However such literacy instruction continues to be part of most curricula and has recently gained conservative support with state standardized testing and the back to basics movement (Luke, 1988; Apple,
1995). This curriculum is traditionally found in schools with large numbers of at-risk students and English language learners (ELLs). In classrooms where functional literacy curricula are used exclusively, teachers focus on basic skill instruction including phonemic awareness, spelling, and specific reading skills (Giroux, 1983; Oakes, 1985; Apple, 1995). Students need these skills in order to read and write; however, strict use of the functional literacy curriculum reinforces job-related skills and behaviors. Direct instruction techniques, including scripting for teachers and set benchmarks and goals, reinforce such skills. Further, a functional approach reinforces students compliance with classroom rules and procedures using praise and rewards. One noticeable and disturbing distinction in schools that utilize solely functional literacy curricula is that student representation tends to fall along ethnic and class lines, in that the majority of students tend to be ethnic minorities or from poor or working-class neighborhoods (Giroux 1983; Oakes, 1985). As Williams and Capizzi-Snipper (1990) note, functional literacy all too often becomes the schools tacit educational objective for non-native English speakers (p. 6). Primary language and nonstandard English discourses of minority groups and the poor are identified as deficits or deprivations that need remediation rather than differences of value (McLaren, 1988a). A CULTURAL LITERACY ideology focuses on the teaching of morals and values, with a curriculum that includes the classics or Great Books (Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1988; Ravitch, 1985; Myers, 1996). In contrast to a functional ideology, a cultural ideology places priority on the information readers bring to discourse. To comprehend written
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and oral discourse, members of a society need common background knowledge that allows them to comprehend the messages con-
valued hierarchically in society (Leistyna, Woodrum, & Sherblom, 1996, p. 334). So, what the cultural ideologue refers to as cultural
The cultural literacy curriculum is found in the core knowledge approach, which is based on the premise that in order to be successful, students must have core knowledge in one grade to grow and understand new and more complex information in upcoming grades.
veyed through conversation, newspapers, and other media that report historical events or engage ideas from world literature and history (Hirsch, 1988; Williams & CapizziSnipper, 1990). There is specific cultural knowledge that all Americans need to know to be successful, competent citizens. The cultural literacy curriculum is found in the core knowledge approach, which is based on the premise that in order to be successful, students must have core knowledge in one grade to grow and understand new and more complex information in upcoming grades (Hirsch, 1988). A student who does not have the core knowledge in one grade may struggle academically in future grades because she or he is informationally deprived (Butterfield, 2000). Individuals who promote a cultural literacy ideology (Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1988; Bennett, 1995) assume that this knowledge is part of the upper-middle-class culture. As a result, those from lower socioeconomic classes or ethnically diverse groups must learn this cultural knowledge to be successful in school, have access to the mainstream culture, or acquire cultural capital. Cultural capital are those forms of cultural knowledge, such as language, modes of social interaction, and meaning, [that] are knowledge is defined by the critical theorist as cultural capital. According to Hirsch (1988), cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children, the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents (p. xiv). It is believed that by gaining this knowledge students from marginalized communities, including those who speak a language other than English, will be more successful participants in oral and written discourses of the mainstream culture (Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1988; Williams & Capizzi-Snipper, 1990). While this concept seems altruistic providing all with a common ground for communication it is problematic as it negates individual and community experiences. Further, common knowledge is defined by a select group of individuals, such as Hirsch and others of the politically conservative elite (Macedo, 1994). The common knowledge advocated by this group consists of a descriptive list of the information actually possessed by literate Americans (Hirsch, 1988, p. xiv). Gee (1990) states that
cultural models are the basis on which choices about exclusions and inclusions and assumptions about context are made; every word in the
language is tied to a myriad of interconnecting cultural models. It is entirely unlikely that anyone could overtly teach the whole network of cultural models for any one culture. It is also unlikely that anyone learns any very significant cultural model just by overt instruction, by being told about it. (p. 90)
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However, it is this process that the ideology of cultural literacy advocates. To be culturally literate students are taught common core values, morals, and culture, specifically the dominant culture through mainstream history and the Great Books (Giroux, 1996). Critical theorists deem this curriculum as closed and elitist; its pedagogy is authoritarian, humanist, and universalizing (Kelly, 1997, p. 10). The teacher is the authority who relates the human condition through historical events and figures. These cultural universals, as articulated by Hirsch in his series of curriculum guides, include many historical events, artistic contributions, and people, such as World War II, the Beatles, and Ty Cobb; however, he leaves out a number of events, contributions, and people, such as the Asian Exclusion Act, Georgia OKeeffe, and Chief Seattle. Simonson and Walker (1995) point out that Hirsch knew his list of cultural literacy would not please everyone, but that he didnt acknowledge why this was so. He does not acknowledge his own biased position as an eastern U.S., Eurocentric, white male (Simonson & Walker, 1995). Thus the cultural literacy canon fails to acknowledge that most Americans are now aware of the contributions of repressed cultures, more alert to how history has been rewritten and molded to the vision of the majority population, and accustomed to the notion that culture, like language, changes and that we ought to be accustomed to those
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changes (Simonson & Walker, 1988, pp. xxi). Rather than include rich cultural diversity, the cultural literacy canon limits diversity by articulating a curriculum that can be invoked as an argument for the reproduction of societys cultural elite (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1993). By promoting a social hierarchy where select intellectuals, their professional colleagues, and the economically privileged become the only individuals deemed fit to determine the cultures sacred canon of knowledge, the elite assure their position and status. The cultural literacy curriculum reflects an ideology based in Western traditions, an ideology that not only attempts to control the spaces where knowledge is produced but to legitimate certain core knowledge. Such literacies link to positions of power. As Giroux (1983) states, reading in Western traditions is a process of learning that reduces classroom content to that deemed appropriate to the well-educated citizen (p. 212). Within this conservative perspective the individual experience, if different from the one articulated by the power elite, is not valued. Thus, the knowledge defined as literate by proponents of cultural literacy promotes a national image of cultural and social harmony. This curriculum sends the message to students that in our society, despite our countrys ebbs and flows, everything works out for the good of our citizenry. Histories of womens rights, labor, and immigration, class and political discontent, challenges to capitalism, and the continuous struggle over the purposes of the nation are deemphasized (Coles, 1998). The cultural literacy curriculum is designed to prepare students for positions of power and rejects individual experience while discrediting or ignoring the influences of popular cultures, ethnic cultures,
and racially diverse cultures (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1993). The individuals for whom this curriculum is designed are not the ones receiving it because students lacking such cultural knowledge are often found in schools that focus on functional literacy, where the emphasis is on skill and drill. The ideology of cultural literacy, while advocating for the disenfranchised, is positioned to maintain societal inequity. This elitist ideology deems alternative cultural and linguistic discourse communities within society as illiterate, because literacy is determined solely on the basis of knowing and being able to converse, read, and write about those topics that make one literate (McLaren, 1988a). This ideology does not dismiss the ideology of functional literacy. On the contrary, those advocating for a cultural literacy recognize that the functional skills of decoding and comprehension are necessary for students to
eracy does little to address the ideology that underlies functional literacy. Rather it indirectly supports methods that maintain the status quo. Cultural literacy, in contrast to progressive literacy, values individual experience as a mode of acquisition of skills and knowledge. A PROGRESSIVE LITERACY ideology advocates personal discovery with a curriculum that is student centered and liberal (Kelly, 1997, p. 10). Such literacy can be seen in elementary classrooms through the use of writers workshop and the language experience approach, where students engage in writing from a personal perspective emphasizing content over form (Edelsky, Altwerger, & Flores, 1991). The goal of progressive literacy teachers during the nineteenth century was to integrate literacy instruction into the curricula based on childrens interests, needs, and inclinations: that is to make literacy a natural consequence of childrens study of their physical and social environment (Shannon, 1989, p. 10). This curriculum is based on democratic ideas postulated by Dewey (1916) that include free interchange of ideas between students and educators and student-centered curriculum. Such a curriculum attempts to affirm and legitimize the cultural universe, knowledge, and language practices that students bring into the classroom (McLaren, 1988a, p. 215). A progressive literacy ideology requires students and teachers to engage in the process of learning to read and write based on themes and topics of interest to students, with vocabulary related to their lives (Shannon, 1989). The whole language curriculum is progressive, based on constructivist and cognitive views of learning that contend that children actively seek and construct knowledge and come into the classroom environment
Literacy Ideologies
The cultural literacy curriculum reflects an ideology based in Western traditions, an ideology that not only attempts to control the spaces where knowledge is produced but to legitimate certain core knowledge.
be successful in reading and accessing cultural knowledge. As Hirsch (1988) states, [cultural literacy] takes no position about methods of initial reading instruction beyond insisting that content must receive as much emphasis as skill (p. 1). Therefore, cultural lit-
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with innate goals and curiosities (Nicaise & Barnes, 1996). Constructivist approaches view social discourse as part of learning and view students as agents over their learning (Randolph & Everston, 1994; St. Pierre-Hirtle, 1996). Unlike cultural or functional ideologies that define set skills or knowledge bases to access literacy, a progressive approach values the literacy or knowledge discourse the individual brings to text, as seen in whole language learning (Edelsky et al., 1991). Within a progressive paradigm, reading is viewed as an intellectual process, where access to background knowledge facilitates progress from simple
viduals are the decision makers about what they read, write, and learn, and further that individuals will learn to read and write by being supported in actually reading and writing whole texts not by being required to do limited activities with bits and pieces of language (Weaver, 1998, p. 7). In contrast to functional literacy, which reduces reading to a technique of learning to read, progressive forms of literacy support a process of reading to learn. Thus literacy, in all its discourses of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking, develops in an integrated manner (Au, 1998). The transformation of
vidual idea is misguided and potentially dangerous (Powell, 1999). Therefore, progressive ideologies, while valuing the knowledge of the individual, still support a curriculum that remains apolitical and critically unexamined (Freire & Macedo, 1987; McLaren, 1988b).
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Literacy Ideologies
Students involved in a critical literacy curriculum read the world and the word, by using dialogue to engage texts and discourses inside and outside the classroom.
to complex reading tasks in comparison to superficial text comprehension (Macedo, 1991). The mastery of technical skills of decoding and comprehension are not ignored, but skills are developed with the explicit recognition of the importance of some form of shared cultural knowledge (McLaren, 1988a, p. 215). Where the functional approach supports teaching the parts that make up the whole, a whole language theory believes that the parts are more meaningful when learned in relation to other parts, where the whole is the discourse. This method exemplifies a constructionist view of learning, according to which concepts and complex processes are constructions of the human brain; therefore, research suggests, the greater the intellectual and emotional involvement in learning, the more effective the brain learns, uses, and retains what is learned (Weaver, 1998, p. 7). Accordingly, a progressive ideology supports whole language beliefs that literacy is best developed when indiliteracy skills into literate behaviors and ways of thinking depends on a community of talkers who make the text mean something (Brice-Heath in McLaren, 1988a, p. 215). While a progressive ideology values the learner as a knowing subject and provides a space for individuals to construct meaning, it fails to examine questions of cultural and political context. Such practices, while designed to empower, are not transformative because they ignore students cultural capital (Freire & Macedo, 1987). A progressive ideology is appealing, but its equally important to note that it is politically neutral. From a critical perspective this can be problematic because it fails to question or critically engage the sociopolitical context of the curriculum along with the socially constructed literacies of students. If we agree that literacy is socially constructed and dependent on a variety of social contexts, then to conceive literacy as a single, indi-
The ideology of CRITICAL LITERACY is defined by Kelly (1997) as a literacy of social transformation in which the ideological foundations of knowledge, culture, schooling, and identity-making are recognized as unavoidably political, marked by vested interests and hidden agendas (p. 10). This literacy expands on the progressive notion of personal discovery by placing both the teacher and student in a historical context and advocates the interrogation of the curriculum, which is that of the everyday world (Macedo, 1994; Kelly, 1997; Powell, 1999). Students involved in a critical literacy curriculum read the world and the word, by using dialogue to engage texts and discourses inside and outside the classroom. Aronowitz and Giroux (1993) apply the critical literacy perspective to the canons of cultural literacy and remind us the democratic use of literary canons must always remain critical . . . and must justify themselves as representing the elements of our own heritage (p. 38). It is within this critical approach that literacy curricula are most powerful and transforming because texts and discourses of cultural literacy are placed within a historical and cultural context that provides a sense of place
through historicity. Within a critical environment, historicity allows students to read any text or discourse from the perspective of their lives in relation to their present experience (McLaren, 1988a; Darder, 1991). A critical approach to historicity requires students (and teachers) to read history as a record told from one perspective that can be examined from other perspectives (Apple, 1995; Freire, 1998). Through this critique, students (and teachers) uncover the myths of civilization that place the cultural literacy canon in real-world contexts, and that are transformed, rather than revered. We need to widen our definition of literacy to reveal the hegemonic power structure and to value the discourses of traditionally marginalized groups. We do this when, along with our students, we question readings of the world and word through critical dialogue, when we identify and reflect upon those ideological and social conditions that serve to profit a few at the expense of many (Powell, 1999, p. 20) and when being literate is more than the ability to decode, comprehend, or critique. Critical literacy empowers us and our students to actively participate in a democracy and moves literacy beyond text to social action. Based on this review of schooled literacy ideologies, critical literacy is not a schooled ideology since it is designed to engage the individual in questioning the historical, political, and social intent of a text. I contend, however, it is within the context of schools that such questioning and reflection most naturally occur. In elementary school children are exposed to the functional, cultural, and progressive literacy ideologies. A critical ideology can only enhance students sense of place in the world through critique, dialogue, and reflection on their learning processes. In this
sense critical literacy is a schooled concept and should be considered in any discussion surrounding literacy curriculum and practice. Interestingly, we do not typically view literacy as both pedagogy and social action, but as a method that is apolitical. Schools have not traditionally been encouraged to teach all discourses; rather they have been commissioned to teach a particular discourse, or form of literacya literacy that is sanctioned by dominant groups (Powell, 1999, p. 13). Understandably, schools have not readily promoted critical literacy. Such processes reveal the underlying hegemony of literacy practices and further, work to unveil the
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Interestingly, we do not typically view literacy as both pedagogy and social action, but as a method that is apolitical.
structures of repression and domination within school practices and curriculum (Giroux, 1987). Thus, literacy curricula decisions are often the result of conscious choices tied to the political and economic structures of a country. However, the ideological position often remains unexamined. Administrators and classroom teachers implement the language arts curricula but dont engage in a critical analysis of the ideology that directs the curricula and recommended teaching processes. Such curricula, however, are inherently ideological in that they are qualified by the context of assumptions, beliefs, values, expectations, and related conceptual material that accompany their use by particular groups of people in partic-
ular socio-historical circumstances (Knoblauch & Brannon, 1993, p. 15). As such, the manner in which literacy and language are taught is based in an ideology that clearly defines literate acts through reading, writing, and engagement with text (Powell, 1999). Therefore, teachers and educators must not confuse what is with what must be and must recognize that common practices come not from divining decree, but from choices made sometime, somewhere (Hinchey, 1998, p. 7), within specific historical and cultural contexts that support both political and economic structures. Teachers can analyze and engage in unveiling their ideological approach and that of their curriculum and practice through critical literacy practices.
Literacy Ideologies
In response to conservative ideological policies and views toward literacy, many teachers and researchers have articulated critical practices and policies for literacy. Powell (1999) states, what is needed in our society is a different definition of literacy, one that acknowledges the hegemonic power structure and that values the discourses of groups that traditionally have been marginalized (p. 20). Critical teachers and teacher researchers have risen to this challenge by valuing student voice, linguistic diversity, cultural pluralism, and democratic schooling while emphasizing literacy and biliteracy as processes of empowerment. Children as young as four and five years old can engage in critical dialogue
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on issues of race and skin color. In a kindergarten class in Los Angeles, a student tells his teacher in Spanish, Maestro, my mom is giving me pills to turn me white (Segura-Mora, 2001, p. 18). The teacher, Alejandro Segura-Mora, not wanting to show how Ernestos comment saddens or alarms him, responds by asking why Ernesto would want to be white. Ernesto replies, because I dont like my color. Segura-Mora continues, I think your color is very beautiful and you are beautiful as well (p. 18). Segura-Mora uses the book Nina Bonita as a vehicle for students to explore issues of whiteness. He first covers the title of the book and asks if the black girl on the cover is pretty. Many students dont believe she is pretty due to the darkness of her skin. After reading the story to the children he revisits the earlier discussion of what is pretty. Segura-Mora also uses a version of The Ugly Duckling in which a black swan believes that to be beautiful he must be white in order to engage students in a discussion of how an authors background and perspective inform values of whiteness. The literature and activities open a dialogue on color and representation that continue throughout the school year. Segura-Mora shows us that rather than ignoring or avoiding issues of race and color, which many teachers find volatile or fear addressing, it is possible to bring them into the classroom and curriculum using literature to create an avenue for engaging student voice, history, and experience. Critical teachers promote classrooms that value student voices, experiences, and histories as part of the course content. At the core of such practice, or praxis, is Freires (1998) concept of conscientization: the ability of teachers to take on both exposition and explanation as elements of critical dialogue. Teachers
Defining Praxis
Praxis is a continuing process of critical reflection and action that is more than good practice or action based on reflection (Freire, 1972). Praxis is creative action involving a commitment to human well-being, the search for truth, and respect for others. A continual interplay between thought and action involves interpretation, understanding, and application. Praxis is always risky. It is directed at other human beings and requires that we make a wise and prudent practical judgment about how to act in a particular situation (Carr and Kemmis, 1986). For Freire, praxis is involvement in the experience of oppression, helping the oppressed to transform oppressors through reflection and action. Further Reading Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research. London: Falmer. This account of praxis in education discusses a critical approach to theory and practice, action research, educational reform, and the role of the profession. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin. Freires seminal work on transforming education. Chapter 3 focuses specifically on dialogue and praxis. Valli, L., & Price, J. (2000). Deepening Our Understanding of Praxis: Teacher Educators Reflections on Action Research. Teaching Education, 11(3), 267278. Case studies of teacher candidates in varying school settings provide contrasting lenses on praxis within the context of action research. Karen Smith
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provide critical classroom activities that help students analyze their own experiences so as to illuminate the processes by which those experiences were produced, legitimated, or disconfirmed (McLaren, 1988b, p. 217). Teachers are no longer dispensers of knowledge, promoting only one canon or belief, but agents of change, assisting students in seeing themselves within the larger historical, political, cultural, and economic structures where student voices exist. Such activities can be engaged in classrooms where students feel safe
and teachers support student engagement of texts. Lee (1998) relates a story of a teacher who read a picture book to her class titled Brides of America. One girl responded, This book is wrong because my mother isnt there and she is American. You should throw the book out. According to Lee, This girl had learned how to read words, but she also had learned to read herself into the picture (p. 171). Though the girl saw the book as incomplete it remained in the classroom, but the children determined that the title should be
Defining Conscientization
Conscientization can be defined as self-determination. This idea is linked to Paulo Freires Pedagogy of the Oppressed and refers to developing a consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality. Further Reading Brizuela, B. (1998). Cultural Action for Freedom: Editors Introduction. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 471475. Freire, P. (1998). Cultural Action and Conscientization. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 499521. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. London: Routledge. Karen Smith
verse of words, themes, and experiences, are challenged to go beyond themselves, into a new territory not generated from their backgrounds. The role of the teacher is to be a democratic problem poser. Such praxis and conscientization on the part of teachers are one key to implementing a critical literacy curriculum. Reflection must occur not only during the process of dialogue with students but with ourselves and our peers. Real change and empowerment can and does occur, but can be difficult, not because of the work it entails, but because it challenges us to deal with uncomfortable, threatening, tension-producing concerns that are personal as well as social in nature (Walsh, 1996, p. 227). In order to truly change literacy curricula in our schools, we must engage in critical dialogue not only with our students, but also with each other and school administrators. In doing so, we become activists for democratic schooling, facing both the risks and rewards of such an endeavor. The course may be arduous, but it is only through such activities that the hegemonic structures of ability grouping and special pullout for remediation can be revealed and dismantled. Once such oppressive tracks are removed, then more students may have the opportunity to explore, create, critique, and transform curriculum within environments that encourage individual voices through dialogue, reflection, and action. In the end, critical teachers and teacher educators must also consider the place of functional skills within a critical paradigm. While it is important to stress whole language processes, methods of engaging students lives and text critically, and the use of dialogue and reflection, we must be cognizant to also teach students to be successful in the skills
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changed to Some Brides of America or European American Brides. Lee concludes that real literacy consists of both reading and writing ourselves, and our communities, into the texts . . . and that even with very young children, we cannot afford to become so bogged down in grammar and spelling that we forget the whole story (p. 171). Shor (1992) advocates participatory problem posing as a way to transform academic knowledge into themes accessible to students. Such a curriculum involves a two-way transformation of subject matter and discourse (p. 77). The teacher introduces the subject matter as a problem for students to reflect on in their own language. Students, who come to class with their own uni-
and strategies required on schoolmandated tests and standards-based outcomes. Delpit (1995) cautions adherents of process approaches to literacy to be careful not to create situations in which students ultimately find themselves held accountable for knowing a set of rules about which no one has ever directly informed them (p. 31). Critical teachers who continually engage process over outcomes may do their students a grave disservice if they suggest, even implicitly, that the code or product is not important, since standardized tests of reading are the measure students have to contend with. As Delpit (1995) points out, students will be judged on their product regardless of the process they utilized to achieve it (p. 31). Thus, functional and cultural literacy curricula materials and processes whose political ideologies have been revealed through critical engagement have the potential to demystify textual codes so children who can read the world will be able to read the word and connect it to their world and beyond. Teachers and students will further engage the world and the word to redefine cultural literacy by including the culture of the many as opposed to the few. References
American Federation of Teachers. (2001). Seven promising programs for reading and English language arts: Open Court collections for young scholars (OC). Retrieved January 10, 2002, from http:// www.aft.org/edissues/whatworks/seven/ oc/index.htm Apple, M. (1995). Education and power. New York: Routledge. Aronowitz, S., & Giroux, H. (1993). Postmodern education: Politics, culture and social criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Au, K. H. (1998). Social constructivism and the school literacy learning of students of diverse backgrounds. Journal of Literacy Research, 30, 297319.
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Literacy Ideologies
Author Biography
Karen Cadiero-Kaplan is an assistant professor in the Department of Policy Studies in Language and Cross Cultural Education at San Diego State University.