Negociating Critical Literacies with Young Children

As I was reading Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children, the two most significant words I encountered were "social justice" and "equity." Although the text is primarily geared towards elementary and middle school students, as a high school teacher, I believe that critical literacy is vital for all grade levels, especially because majority of the students we teach have not been overtly exposed to it. This advisory in my reading class, I have made a concerted effort to incorporate elements of social justice and equity in my unit. My students are exploring the various facets of leadership by forming their interpretations and constructing their definitions of what a leader is. In order to give help them acquire a better understanding of leadership, we read texts documenting the achievements of world-renowned individuals like Rigoberta Menchu, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mohandas Gandhi. None of my students had ever heard of any of these individuals except Martin Luther King Jr. However, giving my students the opportunity to read about the monumental changes Rigoberta Menchu, a Nobel Laureate from Guatemala, made for her people enabled me to expose my students to various political, social, and economic inequities that exist in the text as well as in the larger society in which they live in. I was also able to intertwine critical literacy into the leadership unit I am currently teaching by having my students read about the accomplishments of Mohandas Gandhi in “Gandhi’s Forgotten Legacy,” which documents his peaceful struggle to attain Indian independence from British rule. Critical literacy is not an obscure concept, but a tool that can be effectively implemented at all grade levels to help our students achieve.