Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy

Integrating Social Studies and Literacy in the Elementary Classroom

Kathryn M. Obenchain, Julie L. Pennington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138813748
• eBook ISBN: 9781317602736
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy educates pre and in-service elementary school teachers in teaching four key civics concepts through social studies and literacy integration. Written together by both literacy and social studies experts, it is based on a conceptual revision of the notions of civic education and critical literacy called "Critical Democratic Literacy" (CDL). The authors' dual expertise allows them to effectively detail the applications of their knowledge for teachers, from lesson conception to implementation to assessment.

Part I explains the theory and basic principles of CDL and provides background information on the role of democracy in education. Part II consists of four sample lessons designed using the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) C3 Framework and the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts (CSS ELA) standards. Part III includes a primer explaining the four civic concepts that frame the book. Fully aligned to both the CCSS ELA and NCSS C3 Framework, this timely resource provides future and current teachers with specific lessons and tools, as well as the skills to develop their own rigorous, integrated units of study.

PART I Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315747903-1

1 Educating for critical democratic literacy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315747903-2

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Thomas Jefferson

As Jefferson laid the foundation for a democratic society (or more accurately a democratic republic or representative democracy), he understood the necessity of empowering its people and that a democracy required informed citizens. Galston (2001) explains that “democracies require democratic citizens, whose specific knowledge, competences, and character would not be as well suited to nondemocratic politics” (p. 217). Therefore, one of the long-standing purposes of education, particularly public education, is the education of citizens, or as Jefferson stated, “the people themselves.”

The United States is built upon political philosophies detailed within the founding documents that clearly delineate what is required of its citizens, beginning with the Declaration of Independence's statement that governments need the “consent of the governed” in order to exist. Collectively, we, as citizens, are the “governed” and it is in our individual and collective best interests to make sure that we are well informed so that the advice and consent we provide is thoughtful, informed, and supportive of democratic ideals. Our role as citizens is reinforced in the Preamble to the US Constitution as it begins with “we the people” and not “we the states.” Privileging the people over the states was a deliberate decision made by the framers to strengthen the role of the individual citizen in political and civic life. For example, the House of Representatives, as defined in the Constitution, is the people's house. Its members represent the people of the United States, not the states. While we may elect representatives in our republican form of government, those representatives must be chosen by informed voters wisely and they must continue to be thoughtfully advised of the decisions that they should make to benefit the people of the nation, the nation itself, and in world affairs.

To fulfill the call of our founding documents, we need to be informed about our political institutions, their responsibilities, and their limits. We should understand key ideas, including how the idea of separation of powers differs from the idea of a balance of powers. We should know what our political and human rights are and we should possess the dispositions to value those rights and retain the skills needed to protect them for ourselves and others. As important as it is to be informed, we also need to knowledgeably and skillfully participate in political and civic life. The ability to productively engage in civic life is not innate. It has to be taught. We need to learn how to do this, and we need to help our students learn what is necessary for their participation. Educating citizens is an immense and worthy task. Our purpose as teachers is to educate citizens with all that they need to fulfill this most important role. According to Ichilov (2011), we should educate citizens in order to liberate and empower them to live their lives fully through a strong civic life. One way we can do this is through the disciplines of social studies and literacy.

Civic Education and Social Studies

Civic or citizenship education focuses on the content knowledge, democratic skills, and democratic dispositions required by educated citizens. Civic education can be a part of the formal curriculum in any academic discipline, as well as the informal curriculum. Examples in the informal curriculum include experiences like student council, classroom rules, playground policies, and service projects. However, civic education is most often found as part of the social studies curriculum. Social studies is often defined as the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities for the purpose of civic competence (Engle & Ochoa, 1988). There are three key components to this definition. First, social studies includes integration. For example, it is difficult to teach a really important event in history, like Westward Expansion, and just focus on history. The geographic themes of movement, place, and human-environment interactions; economic concepts that examine patterns and varied types of economic activity; political science ideas related to power and governance; and even the critical challenges to the term Manifest Destiny, all contribute to a deeper examination and understanding of this period in history. The second component in the definition of social studies is the reliance on the social sciences and humanities. As illustrated in the Westward Expansion example, social studies includes a variety of social science disciplines, including economics, geography, history, and political science, as well as the behavioral sciences and anthropology. Many teachers choose to ground their social studies lessons and units in one discipline, often history. Finally, the third component of social studies is its purpose—the education of citizens. In short, we learn for a higher purpose and that purpose is to fulfill our responsibilities as citizens. This can be challenging for elementary students who often believe that the purpose of their learning is to perform on a test. While we operate from this understanding of social studies, we should also note that this definition is not accepted by everyone in social studies. The rejection comes in part from those who believe that the components of integration and civic competence in the definition detract from the purity of the social science disciplines of history, political science, geography, and economics, among others, and dilutes the purpose of learning, as well as the actual learning of any of the fields (Ravitch, 2000). Although we appreciate this concern, we believe that the integrity of the disciplines can be preserved, and even seen as more relevant, when integrated effectively and for the purpose of civic life.

Education for the purpose of citizenship includes an examination of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the understanding of citizenship in terms of both status (legal and procedural) and practice (way of life), its historical and philosophical foundations, as well as knowledge of current laws and public policy (Niemi, Sanders, & Whittington, 2005; Weiss, Lutkus, Grigg, & Niemi, 2001). Within social studies, civic education also addresses the importance of competencies or skills. According to Torney-Purta (2002), “Schools achieve the best results in fostering civic engagement when they rigorously teach civic content and skills …” (p. 203). These skills include intellectual or cognitive skills, commonly referred to as critical thinking and higher order thinking skills (Patrick, 1999). This includes the ability to describe, analyze, and interpret information from a wide variety of sources. In addition to intellectual skills, Patrick (1999) and Hess (2008), note the importance of participatory skills that help students effectively engage and communicate in civic life. Finally, an educated citizenry possesses certain democratic dispositions and displays a democratic character, and represents the beliefs and attitudes that contribute to a democratic tradition, including valuing justice, the equality and dignity of each individual, diversity, respecting and protecting individual rights for all, and the protection and promotion of the public good (Patrick, 1999). A person who holds the basic components of an educated democratic citizen possesses knowledge about his or her rights and responsibilities in society. In addition, he or she is disposed to preserve those rights and responsibilities for self and others, and has the requisite competencies necessary to work toward the preservation of a democratic society. However, it is important to note that these components may or may not take on a critical perspective personally or when enacted in the classroom (Tyson, 2003). That is, the particular content, skills, and dispositions we choose to teach our students and how we teach them may or may not take on a critical perspective.

Westheimer and Kahne (2004) developed a framework that described three types of citizens—personally responsible, participatory, and justice-oriented. Only the justice-oriented citizen takes on a critical perspective because civic engagement occurs within the context of promoting social change by working with others in examining and working to change systems and institutions that oppress the natural and political rights of others. For example, elementary students may learn that good citizens follow the rules; following the rules makes them personally responsible. But, what if the rules are bad? What if they take away the rights of others? In those situations, being personally responsible is not enough. Participatory citizens in a sixth-grade class may volunteer once a semester to serve lunch at a homeless shelter. That is a good thing to do; it helps the community. But, according to Westheimer and Kahne, it does not go far enough because the cause of homelessness in the community is not examined. It does not ask what we can do to end homelessness. Another way to promote a more critical perspective in civic education is to incorporate multicultural democratic citizenship education. Parker (1996, 2001) and Marri (2003) note that multicultural democratic citizenship education provides specific attention to the necessity of diversity, membership in small and large publics, and the treatment of democracy as a path, not as a completed journey. Note that in this description, diversity is addressed as something more than an existing condition in society. Diversity is an asset and is necessary for healthy democracies. Further, to preserve and promote this asset, individuals are members of many communities or publics. The largest public is their membership as residents and citizens of the United States. This large public is also the only legalistic membership. Our citizenship or residency is linked to the nation, not to our state or city of residence. The state and city are two types of small publics that also have civic goals. We also belong to other types of small publics like ethnic communities, and even issues-based communities. Finally, this description also helps us remember that democracy is not achieved. As such, we are not done with our work. Democracy is a path that we continue to walk, finding new opportunities and realities that will help us redefine democratic societies and the necessary citizenship education.

Literacy

Historically, literacy has been closely related to democracy, as Graff (1987) states, “the Western tradition of an educated electorate, schooling in literacy as preparation for citizenship, and the equation of literacy and democracy were born [in Athens, Greece]” (p. 23). Centuries later, early literacy goals in the United States were aligned with definitions of literacy congruent with learning to read and write in order to become good citizens (Smith, 1896), as a means of assimilation (Graff, 1987), and as a mechanism for establishing an educated workforce (Guerra, 1998). In many ways, these definitions of literacy can be seen as functional. Functional literacy is bound by the needs and expectations for competency in particular settings (Scribner, 1984). Often it is relegated to a skills and task type of view of literacy, decontextualized and focused on testing in a scientific or objective manner, or involving basic literacy tasks such as completing forms, which depict only a rudimentary level of literacy (Lytle, 1991). Narrowing literacy down to skills such as reading and retelling texts verbatim can prevent in-depth understanding and application of the content read. Reading simply to perform simplistic tasks is important, but in order to be a part of society individuals must be able to read for their own purposes and evaluate information in order to make decisions. Functional literacy instruction can create semiliterate and functionally literate individuals. Macedo (1993) describes the semiliterate individual as someone who may be well read in one area but unable to “read the world” or apply their knowledge outside of one area, while a functional literate is one “groomed primarily to meet the requirements of our contemporary society” (p. 189). The historian Graff states, “The schools have never attempted to provide more than ‘basic,’ ‘functional’ literacy abilities. Literacy has never, in Western history, been concerned with providing a grounding in skills that were expected to be developed into higher, self-advancing critical tools.” (1987, p. 397). Education can be described as maintaining the status quo, ensuring that students are educated in order to serve the society's needs as determined by the institutions of schooling. At the other end of the spectrum lies critical literacy. Critical literacy can be viewed as a “political commitment to democratic and emancipatory forms of education” (McLaren & Lankshear, 1993, p. 380). Critical literacy strives to educate students beyond functional basic skills so they can participate, evaluate, and shape their worlds. Today, the conceptual understandings of literacy, (e.g., critical literacy, multiliteracies) continue to evolve (Janks, 2000) and press past the boundaries of reading and writing. Within these expanding areas lay the intricate distinctions of literacy in relation to culture (Clark & Flores, 2007; Freire & Macedo, 1987; Heath, 1983; McMillon & McMillon, 2004), to personal fulfillment (Guerra, 1998), to power and social justice (Morrell, 2007; Scribner, 1984), and to personal achievement and national issues (Arnove & Graff, 2001; Collins & Blot, 2003; Luke, 2000). While these conceptions of civic education and literacy thrive in some educational contexts and in theory, they have been constrained by policy movements during the past decade. Whereas literacy began as a functional tool for citizens to participate in democratic societies, today the retreat back to functional literacy connotes a reduction back to fundamentals out of apprehension rather than necessity.

Barriers to Educating Our Developing Citizens

Our current work in schools is insufficient for the preservation and progress of a democratic United States. Our democracy will not su...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Understanding Critical Democratic Literacy
• 1 Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy
• 2 Critical Democratic Literacy: Fostering Informed Resilient Engagement in a Democratic Society
• Part II Teaching Critical Democratic Literacy
• 3 What Can I Do to Be a Good Citizen? A Kindergarten Unit on Civic Virtue
• 4 When and How Should I Get Involved in Civic Life? A Third-Grade Unit on Civic Engagement
• 5 How Should I Talk About Important Civic Issues? A Fourth-Grade Unit on Civil Discourse
• 6 What Can I Do When a Law Is Unjust? A Fifth-Grade Unit on Civil Disobedience
• Part III Implementing Critical Democratic Literacy
• 7 Critical Democratic Literacy: Key Concepts and Pedagogy
• 8 Critical Democratic Literacy: Resources for Application and Implementation
• Index