On critical literacy...

Dear everyone,

The definition of critical literacy has been a bit unclear to me. My friend and I came to the conclusion that critical literacy was applying social justice to what we read. But Bomer and Bomer point do a fine job of defining what critical literacy is.
"When we notice something about particular values like fairness, social justice, and power relationships in something we read, we are applying knowledge gained from other reading we've done, from conversations we've had, and from the media to which we've been exposed. We also are testing the book's assumptions agains the concepts, discourses, and communities of our experiences."

I quite like the definition provided above as it shows how readers, students and teachers alike, bring their own values into the reading. Because people have different experiences, they bring different things to the book.

Part of our readings also discuss interpretations and critiques of text. "Interpretations draw on a bundle of moral, social, and emotional concepts (Bomer and Bomer 27)." The only thing I might question is: when are interpretations stretched too far? Is there a point where an interpretation can be wrong if it is so far out "there." Is there a limit to how much a student can interpret something? From a social justice standpoint, all experiences would be valid and worth measure. But what about the text itself? My belief is that so long as there is evidence within the text to support it, an interpretation can be valid. If there is no evidence, the interpretation is "weak." Various critiques claim only the author's interpretation matters. Others state that only the reader's interpretation matters. There is a third group yet (of which you will find me a part of) that says it's somewhere in between-- that both the reader's and the author's interpretations are equally important.

Reading text through a social justice lens:
Much of the reading talked about the kind of topics that will come up when critically reading and evaluating the text. Representation. Gender. Justice. Power. Silence. Diversity. Class. Language. Culture. The kind of topics that will be discussed will largely have to do with what you are reading. It is important to diversify the kind of texts being read in a classroom in order to model a variety of discussions within the social justice framework. Can you really expect to talk about LGBTQ sexuality in a text where sexual identity is not even mentioned? Diversity is the key to developing students' critical literacy.