Article, Critical Literacy in the Classroom by Ann S. Beck Shows the Need for Critical Thinking

Knowing this about the gifted learner and coming to the realizations about the democratic classroom and working towards social justice, I have come to the conclusion that my reflection must include my current teaching situation, students, and practices. As Camp and Oesterreich (2010) stated in their article on critical teaching, “uncommon teaching offers the possibility of re-centering education on the students and away from the common-sense of scripted and restricted curricula to promote acquisition by students of a critical consciousness in order to become agents of change for social justice”.

Critical reading involves digging deeper into the author’s creation, and being able to understand it on different levels. Throughout the book, we are given tips on how to solely concentrate on reading without getting distracted. With writing and reading together, you can judge the essay you are reading more accurately. The sample essay by Nancy Mairs, shows different examples on

CCSS and teachers together need to be viewed as “sponsors of literacy” (99). Scherff discovered that her teaching strategies already fit into the CCSS, which inspired her to develop a chart including critical and higher-order questions and discussion starters along with the CCSS nine anchor reading standards questioning approaches for each level. Two doctoral candidates were asked to collaborate and describe how the CCSS fits into their role as teachers. The first candidate, Allison Wynhoff Olsen describes her initial fear of the standards and how to implement them in her classroom. Her mentor showed her how to bundle and combine aspects that met CCSS. It is important to work with the standards because “educators have agency to help all students work toward powerful literacy education” (104). Olsen introduces Simon’s article “Starting with What Is’: Exploring Response and Responsibility to Student writing through Collaborative Inquiry” to show a new way of reviewing student papers collaboratively with other teachers instead of “individually from a deficit perspective” (105). This kind of approach encourages students to more freedom to express themselves and create a “broader social change” (105). Teachers must incorporate the CCSS in their classroom; however, they must also take into consideration the needs of each student and adjust their teaching strategies to reach the common goal of promoting literacy. The second candidate, Emily Nemeth describes two students demonstrating different learning styles and how teachers needs to keep in mind the needs of each unique student when designing classroom plans following the CCSS. She stresses the importance of supporting preservice teachers with “theoretical and pedagogical framings” to accompany the CCSS they must abide by in the classroom (109). The CCSS fails to take

Critical pedagogy is a philosophy that aims to foster more than just dialogue between the educators and students. It encourages “exploration, to help students move through the process of discovery by talking with them, asking questions and generally keeping up the momentum of exploration” (Elmborg, 2002, p. 458). This then effectively resolves the issue of a stagnant pedagogy, one that does not keep up with the times and needs of the students. Additionally, critical pedagogy serves to place some, or perhaps a lot of autonomy on the students’ part, attributing the means to the realization potential to them as well as the educators. As such, the only way for the educator to come to a better understanding of their students’, as well as their own

A forth arguement, critical literacy, exists in small american accedemic communities as oppotititionall material rather than a popular and driving theory. As primarily a marxist idea, it is popular in 3rd world contries used as a means of power and controll over those regions. Seen as a threat to capitalism, it is considered danagerous and will most likely continue be banned from american classrooms for the forseeable future.

Established on these aspects of reflection I will discuss in this section the importance of critical reflection on development of my teaching. I will firstly aim to explore theories on critical reflection on teaching. Secondly I will explore critical reflection in the context of my own teaching. This includes reflecting on planning, delivering lessons, using activities and the role of assessment for learning.

This article focused on the constant debate concerning the conditions in which students develop the skill of thinking critically. Being able to use critical thinking requires knowledge of facts and concepts about the subject matter. I found this article interesting because I think it is important that students develop critical thinking skills. Most scholarly articles tend to have an abstract that summarizes the papers entirety. Due to this this article is considered scholarly.

The fourth element of my philosophy of literacy education is the importance of teaching literacy through bringing relevance, to establish a deep link between the students and the content. My student population is comprised of an array of diverse backgrounds, all coming together in my classroom. Literacy achievement of students of diverse backgrounds can be strengthened by moving from a mainstream orientation to a more diverse orientation, giving greater consideration to issues of ethnicity, primary language, and social class (Au, 1998). Themes in constructivist work encourage creating relevant learning experiences for students as a central part of literacy acquisition, including

The theoretical framework of this study was shaped in what is known as critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy considers how education can provide individuals with tools to better themselves and help create a more equal and fair society. Critical pedagogy can help students stand up and question authority.

It is clear that according to the academic literature the more you connect knowledge for a pupil the better they learn. This mode enables learners to perceive new relationships, new models and create new systems and structures in their thinking. If pupil’s capacity for critical inquiry is to be furthered, topics being studied must be located in a broader societal context, and this would be better supported by cross-curricular activities. It is unleashing the creative potential of the

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

Critical pedagogy, influenced by Paulo Freire and Michael Apple, sees students become participants in their learning, where topics are relatable and relevant to their lives. Critical literacy refers to the use of text and other communication to challenge the rules governing the societal norms of everyday life (Luke, 2012, p.5). Asking students to interrogate a text and question the use of language, allows them to form a critical observation about what the author wants the readers to know, for example, when studying Australian First Contact, allowing students to draw conclusions about the treatment of Indigenous people from a text which glosses over the details, ensures students look at the topic from multiple angles and apply their sociocultural knowledge to the discussion. The introduction of multimodal tools into literacy teaching, acknowledges that a

Literacy pedagogies have a developing and complex history in education, intertwined with social and cultural change and evolution. Each change has paved a new path for more significant approaches and strategies, which cater to diverse learners allowing them to create meaning and communicate more effectively. These literacy pedagogies brought out by the changes in education have both strengths and weaknesses. As such, educators need to explore and understand the four knowledge processes portrayed by Kalantzis, Cope, Chan and Dalley-Trim; didactic, authentic, functional, and critical literacy approach (2016), to be able to consider how they can influence teaching and learning so they are able to make informed decisions with regards to their students’ literacy learning. Teaching is becoming increasingly complex; this is particularly evident in the area of literacy. This paper will explore the four literacy pedagogies, their limitations and their strengths, and how they have impacted literacy learning within the Australian educational context.

According to this theory, critical awareness requires recognition that the social status of an individual, including educational and economic prospects and opportunities, is largely result from its race, gender, and class so the critical theorists want to raise the consciousness of these people dealing with education, knowledge, the school, and teaching and learning. Furthermore, they see the curriculum into 2 parts: the official curriculum which requires teaching subjects and specific skills, and the Hidden curriculum which imposes approved behaviors and attitudes on students through the school environment. They believe that teachers should empower themselves, because they can transform schools into democratic public spheres.

According to (Critical literacy practices, 2011) “critical reading” is a type of literacy practice that is learning practice in which students analyze and critique language and power relationships within written texts. Many college freshmen are not prepared for critical reading, yet a lot of higher education organizations and levels do not require individual critical reading courses. Even though critical reading is an often-cited neutral topic in some different colleges structured reading courses. In many different colleges, at times, there is little to no research that exists that may also describe how composition instructors teach critical reading strategies. No matter the subject or the age of the reader. An overall reading goal for critical readers includes reading an article to comprehend information based on what was stated within the text. While readers read to gain understanding from the text, the readers also use additional information at times such as factual ideas, prior knowledge, and also context clues to understand the difficult text. There are many ways to become a “critical reader” which includes different types of reading strategies.