Jake Knight

EDT 246
30 November 2015
Literacy Rationale
Literacy is a word that can have multiple meanings and can
mean different things for different people. When people define literacy,
most of the time people look towards the languages spoken and books
everywhere. The thing that sets literacy apart is that it goes far beyond
a book or language. Literacy can be the television show you just
watched or even pictures and art up on a wall at an art museum. These
few examples are just a speck of what actually defines literacy. In
schools, many define a student to be illiterate if they have issues
with reading or writing in the grade level they are in. That is not correct
because a student may have some struggles with the written aspect of
literacy, but can thrive and excel in other forms of literacy. What is
upsetting is that is the only way a school can test and grade a student
on. There are students that can be literate in school but cannot be
critically literate in todays world, which is what schools should strive
for.
One may be able to read and write and yet may not be critically
literate. (Boutte, 2016, Pg. 59) To read and write in school can make
you pass as a student but to not be able to critically analyze texts to
better understand the true meaning behind it. Thinking about literacy

from a critical lens is an important step in our world. Another quote

from Educating African American Students talks about what critical
literacy is. Critical literacy is the process of reading texts in an active,
reflective manner in order to better understand power, inequality, and
injustice in human relationships and contexts. (Boutte, 2016, Pg. 59)
Analyzing texts critically can enhance your thinking lens and broaden
your knowledge about a certain text to better oneself intellectually and
morally.
All students should be taught critical literally because it will
exponentially grow their capabilities to not only read a text and
analyze it, but go beyond that and search for possible inequalities and
subtexts that have a possible bias or negative connotation. The goal
is for readers to become text critics in everyday lifeto comprehend
information sources fro ma critical stance as naturally as they
comprehend from the aesthetic and efferent stances. (Mclaughlin,
2004, Pg. 53-54) Once students understand the goal, they can apply it
in school and excel far beyond the required literate requirements in
schools.
Each student needs to be literate or learning to become literate
in schools and it is the teachers job to make them literate in their
grade level. Not only should they make them become literate, but they
need to teach critical literacy in a way that is culturally relevant as
well. Each student has a different background, culture, religion, and

other forms of identities that mold and shape their literacies. There can
be students that understand completely what the teacher is teaching
because they grew up on what they were talking about, while some
students may struggle because they did not grow up near or around
the topic that they are talking about, which puts them lower than other
students.
One example that could become an issue deals with learning
about Anne Frank. Some students may have grown up with the
background knowledge of Anne Frank and the history behind that.
There might be other students that have not grown up on that and
have no clue who that person is or even what the Holocaust is. This
can lead to issues in the classroom, but it is up to the teacher to be
culturally relevant and work with every student to teach them critically
about the history behind Anne Frank without having students fall
behind. Teachers need to realize that each student is exposed to
different literacies in their life and have different living environments. A
teacher cannot expect all students to use critical literacy if some
students know the history and some do not. In order for all to use
critical literacy effectively, the teacher needs to work with them and be
at a culturally relevant standpoint.
Looking back through all of this information and insights, I as a
pre-service teacher have really broadened my knowledge and has
shown me what really should happen in a school classroom as fall what

literacy truly means. I will be teaching either mathematics or science,

leaning more on the mathematics side. There will possibly be a
struggle fitting a culturally relevant lesson with a critical literacy aspect
inside it, but there are ways. Word problems and tests can focus on all
aspects of race, religion, cultures, and even real world problems. I can
even take world issues and create problems out of them like taking
poverty or homeless statistics and creating a lesson plan around it to
coincide with the curriculum given. Literacy is not just being able to
read and write, but to take one step further and analyze to apply it to
the world today and question why they did what they did.

Works Cited
Boutte, G. S. (2016). Educating African American Students: And How
Are the
Children? New York, NY: Routledge

Mclaughlin, M., & Devoogd, G. (2004). Critical Literacy as

Comprehension:
Expanding Reader Response. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy, 48(1), 53-54. Retrieved from
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/JAAL.48.1.5/citedby