Critical Literacy - Dr Susan Sandretto

 Today I was invited to PLD along with the English department to learn more about Critical Literacy from expert, Dr Susan Sandretto. Prior to this PD, I had never heard about the topic 'critical literacy' so I have learned a lot. I think this is a great tool to get learners (and all people!) thinking about the text(s) they are reading, viewing or watching. I would like to try to incorporate this into some of my reading groups. I worry about the ability to do this with some of my lower ability groups where we are still focusing on the basics of reading; new vocabulary, new text types etc. I worry that by adding in the 'critical literacy' aspect it will be overwhelming for their understanding and comprehension. 

This learning will also help support my PLG inquiry as our cluster-wide focus in 2019 is critical literacy. 

My PLD notes are below: 

Bh Ideas:

Teacher - hook to topic, gauging prior knowledge, pre-teaching of critical literacy (vocabulary words), planning for cultural differences/perspectives - mindful of students PK/experiences etc., scaffolding the lesson, providing support towards the learning outcome, differentiated resources/follow up tasks
Pedagogy - whole class vs. levelled reading group? - depends on topic and subject
Students - reading a text, watching a video, listening to the teacher, given a chance to discuss their ideas with a partner, sharing back to a larger group, having time to write or record their final ideas or responses

Teacher - roving, listening, checking in, asking follow up questions to small group, providing alternate ways of thinking if students are stuck in one frame of thinking 

Resources - text (article, story, blog post etc.), perhaps two of conflicting opinions on the topic, video/speech/TedTalk etc. a more visual resource to provide context or hook in students, planning sheet to organize ideas, follow up task?

What is a text? - weaving together, making meaning

• Traditional texts

• Live text (play, speech, presentation etc.)

• digital/electronics

• A way that individuals communicate

Flexible framework 

Article - guiding questions  What is the author’s purpose? Who has it been written for?  Why would people want to read it?  What do they want you to think about?  Why would they write it? What do they want you to feel?  They want you to know what?  What things do they not talk about? What would you want to know that was not in the article?  Any other details they didn’t go into?  What else did the author not tell us?  I wonder why they didn’t tell us?

Critical Thinking

• Inferring

• Justifying

• Considering

• Compare and contrast

• Commenting on

• Expressing an opinion

• Noticing

Critical Literacy

• Supporting students to become aware that texts are social constructs

• Texts are not neutral

• Authors draw upon particular discourses and assume readers will draw upon them as well

• Authors make certain choices when constructing their texts

• All texts have gaps or silences

• Texts have consequences for how we make sense of ourselves, others and the world