Texts are crafted by people to communicate distinct stories, ideas, perspectives, and values. Texts can include speech, written/printed language, images, or multimodal content. Being crafted by people, texts are never "neutral" and should not be passively received as the single or ultimate authority on any given topic.
Critical literacy teaches children to use their existing meaning-making skills to actively interpret and create a variety of texts that matter to them and their world. This critical approach teaches children to analyze the implicit and/or overt messages contained in texts; to evaluate the veracity of different informational claims and sources; to identify perspectives and potential biases; and to consider the significance and likely implications of specific texts for themselves and others.
Importantly, critical literacy teaches children that texts wield social power. Texts can influence how people think, feel and act. Understanding how texts are constructed to exert social power can help children become more consciously alert and thereby effective readers and writers. As children engage in critical literacy activities they construct understandings about the ways that texts can perpetuate inequality and injustice; and, conversely, how texts can be used to envision and realize a more just and sustainable world.
Common questions, or critical stances, used to guide inquiry within critical literacy classrooms:
1. Who created this text?
2. What techniques are used to guide my attention and thinking?
3. How might different people receive this text differently?
4. What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this text?
5. Why was this text created?
6. Does this text privilege and/or disadvantage anyone?
7. How might this text be re-constructed to include a fairer representation of perspectives and/or envision a more equitable distribution of power?
8. What can I/we learn from this text to help make the world a better place? (fairer, more sustainable, more affirming and empowering)
