Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children

In Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children, Vivian Vasquez shows how using critical literacy as the basis for an elementary school classroom can create students who ask questions and take social action on what they see as unfair in their lives. At times it was hard to believe that students who were so young accomplished what these students did.

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking about what these students must be like now. I would think that these young students continued to use their questioning and social action skills as they continue to grow as learners. As a high school teacher, I would love to have students in my class who were in this elementary school class. The skills nurtured by Vasquez are likely things that will continue to frame how the students looks at society and their world from that point on.

Another component of what Vasquez did that I appreciated was that her classroom was not only focused on social critique but also social action. When critical literacy emphasizes only social critique, it can lead to cynicism and discouragement. Encouraging social action and facilitating the social action when necessary can help to empower students instead of discouraging them.

Children's literature

I spent my day at a conference at AU dealing with critical literacy. The presenter, Dr. Jerry Harste, discussed using children's literature to build a curriculum. There were numerous interesting ideas of things that could be done in the classroom. However they were geared more toward an elementary classroom. As a high school teacher, I found myself thinking about how these ideas could fit in my classroom.

One class where I plan to work in some of these methods is my ecology class. To begin with, I think that often it isn't acknowledged that a textbook is not a neutral text. As we use our textbook, I need to find ways to help the students realize that it is not neutral, that it is written with its own bias.

Despite the age of my students, I think children's literature can still play a role in what I do. There are children's books about most topics, and using a relevant book could be a good way to begin breaking apart and analyzing the bias in what we read. Additionally, there are children's books that could be used as a starting point for social action by students.

This conference helped show me ideas of ways that I can branch out with what I do in my classroom. Even in a high school classroom, children's literature has the potential to be a powerful tool.

Why are we doing this?

To introduce my students to lab skills and the scientific method, we started with a basic lab -- how you can fit the most drops of water on a penny. I left it up to my students to come up with the potential variables and their procedure.

Initially, a student asked me, why are we doing this? Putting water on a penny didn't seem like real science to him. It was great to see him thinking about why we were doing it. As we talked about the lab and the different ways he and his partner could do it, I watched him start to realize that their could be more to it than he initially thought. He and his partner then came up with some very original ideas for how to accomplish their goal. I want to encourage questions and discussions like this on a regular basis because thinking critically about what we are doing everyday helps build a foundation for critical literacy. If students become accustomed to considering all possibilities and thinking about their biases, then critical literacy is something that will come more naturally.

When given the opportunity and being encouraged to think about all possible ways to fit the most drops of water on a penny, I was impressed with the creative ideas my students had. I am excited to start reading about issues in ecology with these students so that I can watch them apply their own outlook to the readings. I hope to see them carry over these critical thinking skills to our readings and class discussions.