English Teaching: Practice and Critique
Volume 10, Number 1 (May 2011): Focus: Critical literacy revisited: Writing as critique
Co-editors: Hilary Janks (University of Witswatersrand, South Africa) and Vivian Vasquez (College of Arts & Sciences, American University, Washington)
Rationale:
Freire's Cultural Action for Freedom, which explains the ideas that underpin his critical approach to education in general and literacy pedagogy in particular, was first published in English 30 years ago. Since then critical literacy, a tradition of language and literacy education that takes seriously the relationship between language, literacy and power has developed. In the Freirean tradition, becoming literate is linked to naming and renaming the world, in other words to social transformation. In the UK, the focus was more on critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis and subsequently on semiotics. Here, the focus was at first on reading texts critically in
relation to the ways in which they worked to position readers; subsequently there was a turn to the teaching of writing from a critical perspective and ultimately to multi-modal design, analysis and re-design. Now critical literacy is concerned with both the consumption and production of texts broadly defined.
Easy access to digital technologies in many parts of the world has changed the conditions of possibility of literacy events and new practices have developed. Books can be downloaded, and music and images can be re-mixed. Web 2.0 has given young people a global audience for anything they choose to upload. There are new spaces in which they can produce new identities and enter global online communities. Social networking has produced new forms of interacting, new forms of language and new kinds of texts. And because change is so rapid, it is difficult to imagine what the landscape will look like by the time the generation now in school will graduate.
However, the digital divide means that where in some homes very young children are able to manipulate touch screen smart phones and play simple interactive games on computers, others remain without food, running water and electricity. If mobility is a class marker, so is connectivity. Social difference produces differential access. According to Time, "bandwidth is the new gold" and it produces new forms of inclusion and exclusion.
These changes continue to provide challenges to English teachers at all levels of education. The editors of this edition are critical literacy educators. They believe that none of these changes minimize the need for an understanding of the social effects of textual practices. If anything, they would argue that the more complex and multimodal texts become, the more important it is for "readers" to understand the politics of language and the relationship between the textual instantiations of power. However, they know that this view is not shared and that there are literacy educators whom they respect who believe that critical literacy has passed its sell-by date. It is important to consider the arguments that support this position.
This edition includes contributions that both challenge and defend the value of a critical literacy perspective, and represent perspectives from a range of educational settings, including the US, South Africa, the UK, New Zealand and Taiwan.
relation to the ways in which they worked to position readers; subsequently there was a turn to the teaching of writing from a critical perspective and ultimately to multi-modal design, analysis and re-design. Now critical literacy is concerned with both the consumption and production of texts broadly defined.
Easy access to digital technologies in many parts of the world has changed the conditions of possibility of literacy events and new practices have developed. Books can be downloaded, and music and images can be re-mixed. Web 2.0 has given young people a global audience for anything they choose to upload. There are new spaces in which they can produce new identities and enter global online communities. Social networking has produced new forms of interacting, new forms of language and new kinds of texts. And because change is so rapid, it is difficult to imagine what the landscape will look like by the time the generation now in school will graduate.
However, the digital divide means that where in some homes very young children are able to manipulate touch screen smart phones and play simple interactive games on computers, others remain without food, running water and electricity. If mobility is a class marker, so is connectivity. Social difference produces differential access. According to Time, "bandwidth is the new gold" and it produces new forms of inclusion and exclusion.
These changes continue to provide challenges to English teachers at all levels of education. The editors of this edition are critical literacy educators. They believe that none of these changes minimize the need for an understanding of the social effects of textual practices. If anything, they would argue that the more complex and multimodal texts become, the more important it is for "readers" to understand the politics of language and the relationship between the textual instantiations of power. However, they know that this view is not shared and that there are literacy educators whom they respect who believe that critical literacy has passed its sell-by date. It is important to consider the arguments that support this position.
This edition includes contributions that both challenge and defend the value of a critical literacy perspective, and represent perspectives from a range of educational settings, including the US, South Africa, the UK, New Zealand and Taiwan.
The Editorial Board expresses its gratitude to the the guest editors of this issue and also to the following (some are members of the Review Board) who have helped with the review process: Jerome Harste (Indiana University; Peggy Albers (Georgia State University); Stephen Vassallo (American University; Elsie Cloete (University of the Witwatersrand); Tony Petrosky (University of Pittsburg); Terry Locke (University of Waikato)