Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children

10th Anniversary Edition

Vivian Maria Vasquez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317907428
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Lese- und Schreibfähigkeit

In this innovative and engaging text, Vivian Maria Vasquez draws on her own classroom experience to demonstrate how issues raised from everyday conversations with pre-kindergarten children can be used to create an integrated critical literacy curriculum over the course of one school year. The strategies presented are solidly grounded in relevant theory and research. The author describes how she and her students negotiated a critical literacy curriculum; shows how they dealt with particular social and cultural issues and themes; and shares the insights she gained as she attempted to understand what it means to frame ones teaching from a critical literacy perspective.

New in the 10th Anniversary Edition

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• New section: "Getting Beyond Prescriptive Curricula, the Mandated Curriculum, and Core Standards"

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• New feature: "Critical Reflections and Pedagogical Suggestions" at the end of the demonstration chaptesr

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• New Appendices: "Resources for Negotiating Critical Literacies" and "Alternate Possibilities for Conducting an Audit Trail"

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• Companion Website: narratives of ways in which the audit trail has been used as a tool for teaching and learning; resources on critical literacy including links to other websites and blogs; podcast focused on critical literacy and young children

1 Creating Spaces for Critical Literacy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315848624-2

Getting Beyond Prescriptive Curricula, the Mandated Curricula, and Core Standards

Although my students and I negotiated a critical literacy curriculum, which is described in detail in Chapter 2, we were not free from curricular mandates and the threat of standardized testing. Our school board dictated specific programs to follow (Fig. 1.1). As the classroom teacher, I made sure that I understood what was expected of me through the mandated curriculum in order to more readily map the work we were doing, our lived curriculum, against what was expected of us. Doing this made it much easier for me to articulate to parents, colleagues, and administrators the ways in which our negotiated curriculum surpassed the required curriculum (Fig. 1.2). I did this as a way of creating as much space as I could to engage in the literacy work that I felt would offer my students more opportunities for participating in the world by contributing to social change and that would give them access to more powerful literacies—that is, literacies that could make a difference in their lives, allowing them to participate differently in the world, for example, as young people, females, or underrepresented minorities.

FIG. 1.1. Sample Mandated Curriculum.

FIG. 1.2. A Chart Representing One Part of the Mandated Curriculum and a Sampling of What Was Covered Through Our Negotiated Curriculum.

Critical literacy, however, is not new, and there are growing accounts of teachers engaging in this practice. For example, Jenny O’Brien (1994) developed a unit of study around Mother’s Day cards and flyers that she framed from a critical literacy perspective. Some of the things she had her students do included drawing and labeling six presents for mothers you expect to see in Mother’s Day catalogs, drawing and labeling some presents you wouldn’t expect to see in Mother’s Day catalogs, or discussing what groups of people get the most out of Mother’s Day. O’Brien’s work offered the children an opportunity to consider a gendered cultural event, that is, an event that portrays mothers as being a certain way. The children then explored how these portrayals are connected to marketing and advertising, that is, how these portrayals lead to the selling of certain products associated with Mother’s Day. This is the kind of activity that would give children tools to participate differently as consumers.

Another example is Maras and Brummett’s (1995) study of the presidential elections. In Maras’ classroom one year, they initiated what they thought would be a generative unit of study on life cycles. However, it was a presidential election year, and so the presidential elections lay foremost in the children’s minds. As a result, the class engaged in a conversation through which a vote was organized regarding whether to return to the life-cycle agenda or to take on the presidential elections as an inquiry project. The vote was apparently one short of unanimous in favor of dropping the life-cycle study. As part of their inquiry into the elections, the children engaged in research both at home and at school. After dividing themselves into three campaign committees, for each of the presidential candidates—George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot—the children read and discussed the newspaper and the news with their families at home. In school, they also discussed magazine articles and newspaper articles regarding the elections. This inquiry became the springboard for Maras and Brummett to build a unit of study framed from a critical literacy perspective. This newfound curriculum was no longer based on predetermined, prepackaged units of study but on the things that mattered to the children. Maras and Brummett contributed to writings on critical literacy by offering an example of how to draw from the issues central to the children’s lives. They wrote about their experience with the presidential election project in Cordeiro’s (1995) Endless Possibilities.

Critical Literacy as Pleasurable Work

My experience in working with teachers who attempt to engage in critical literacy shows me that, in many cases, social issues are treated as variables to be added to the existing curriculum. This is done rather than using the issues to build curriculum because these issues are associated with cynicism and unpleasurable work. However, critical literacy does not necessarily involve taking a negative stance; rather, it means looking at an issue or topic in different ways, analyzing it, asking questions such as those shared in the introduction chapter, and hopefully being able to suggest possibilities for change or improvement. Often issues of social justice and equity seem to be looked upon as heavy-handed issues. The conversations that we had and the actions we took, although often serious, were very pleasurable. We enjoyed our work because the topics that we dealt with were socially significant to us. As you read on, I believe this will become more and more evident, especially when you meet the children, read what they have to say, and become familiar with some of the life work they accomplished.

In my experience, the extent to which I was able to negotiate spaces to engage in critical literacy practices was related to the extent to which I had understood possibilities for engaging in critical literacies. The understanding or conceptualization that I am referring to is not about beliefs held in my head. The conceptualization I am referring to has to do with the extent to which I was able to act on my beliefs—in essence, to “do critical literacy theory.” As my conceptualization of critical literacies changed, I was able to create different spaces for it in the curriculum, which led to further opportunities to deepen my understanding. These opportunities, in turn, led to the creation of even more curricular spaces. The relationship between conceptualization and negotiating spaces is therefore a recursive process (Fig. 1.3).

Deepening my conceptual understanding happened in a number of ways—engaging with critical literacy texts, hearing about others’ attempts to engage in critical literacy practice, and working on critical literacy practices in my classroom or other local sites. Although this is true for me, your experiences may look very different. What I intend to do here is simply to give you an overview of the process through which my conceptualization of critical literacy developed. As reader, you will need to find strategies and supports that work best for you.

FIG. 1.3. The Recursive Process of Conceptualization and Negotiating Curricular Spaces.

What Complexities Are Involved with Engaging in Critical Literacy Practice?

There are several questions that come to mind as I think about the complexities involved with engaging in critical literacies. Following are some of these questions:

What does it Mean to Become Critically Literate?

For me, becoming critically literate had to do with framing my teaching from a critical literacy perspective and practicing critical literacies in my life outside of school. This does not mean that contestation and controversy have driven my life. In fact, having engaged in critical literacies has added a different layer of pleasure and productiveness to my life that is invigorating. I have had to come to an understanding of how I am both privileged and disadvantaged within different contexts and, in so doing, have found ways to actively participate in questioning inequities and injustices that arise in my life outside of as well as inside of school.

How do I Go About Negotiating Spaces to Engage in Critical Literacies?

Comber and Cormack (1997) stated that literacy is constructed differently in different classrooms and across different contexts and school sites. Agreeing with this claim, I would suggest that the where of negotiating space and the how of negotiating space might differ also. The chapters that follow show that critical literacies can be negotiated “as curriculum” or “into the existing curriculum.” The as and the into are important here. For me, they delineate engaging in a sustained and generative critical literacy curriculum or a curriculum based on isolated critical incidents.

My students and I created a yearlong integrated critical literacy curriculum for social justice and equity. We did not treat the issues raised as an add-on to the curriculum; that is, we did not add critical literacy as an extracurricular item. Nor did we treat social issues as unofficial classroom agenda. Instead, the issues became central to our curriculum; they became the stuff that our curriculum was made of.

Where do I Find People to Support the Work I Am Doing?

As classroom teachers, we make sure our students’ everyday lives include plenty of opportunities to learn from their peers. But often we do not worry about this for ourselves. As such, it is easy for us to become isolated in our classrooms. In my attempts at negotiating critical literacies in my classroom, I have sought out support both within my school community and in the larger professional community.

Support within the School Community

In some instances, engaging in critical literacies is seen as a subversive act that happens behind closed doors. In my school, people who were not directly involved in our day-to-day curriculum were more supportive because they were able to watch our curriculum take shape and to see the learning that took place through viewing our audit trail and through reading our class newsletters. They could see the connections we were making to both the official paper curriculum (e.g., skills associated with reading and writing) and what is often thought of as unofficial curricular topics (e.g., gender, the corporate agenda, marginalization).

Constructing an audit trail made our curriculum accessible for public conversation. Now and again interested colleagues and visitors to our school stopped by and asked us questions about the various artifacts on our wall. The visibility of our curriculum invited participation and created space for others to enter into our class discourse. The audit trail became a visual articulation of how my students and I negotiated an integrated critical literacy curriculum while dealing specifically with issues of social justice and equity that stemmed from my students’ everyday lives. In Chapter 2, I have included the audit trail in its entirety.

Out-of-School Support Groups

Due to the fact that critical literacy is just recently taking root in early childhood classrooms, those of us who are attempting to engage in critical literacies have found it necessary to connect with others of like mind with whom to think through and share experiences. I would highly recommend either forming a study group or joining an existing one. You could start by contacting literacy organizations where you live or by contacting professional organization such as the Early Childhood Education Assembly of The National Council of Teachers of English (www.earlychildhoodeducationassembly.com) or the International Reading Association (www.reading.org). There are also courses now being offered at a number of universities.

Ending Teacher Isolation with Technology

Another opportunity to find others interested in critical literacy would be through joining listservs such as the one hosted by Rethinking Schools (www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/17_01/List171.shtml). Archives of the listserv are also available on their site. Or, if you participate in social networking, there are various groups that hold Twitter chats that are quite insightful and engaging. Signing up for this social networking tool is free and available...