Critical Literacy

Cultural literacy is a response to injustice and the production of illiteracy in which students and teachers work together to create an environment which is engaging and challenging. According to Gatto, we need to, as teachers, invent and reinvent our teaching practices. This will help engage students by pulling in what interests them and really getting them to explore something new. I also think that it is important to constantly change and reinvent your teaching because new practices always come along, and it is important to stay up with technology. By doing this, students will also be more engaged in your lessons because it will be something that actually interests them. According to Kohl, we also need to break away from “deposit education” where we just give our students information to memorize for the test, but we don’t prepare them for the real world when they leave high school. We need to create critical thinkers and problem solvers, not memorizers. According to Probst, we also should allow students to have some choice in their reading matter. This will encourage them to read more widely and carefully. This will help students to become literate. 

What resonates with me about the readings was the great ideas I kept getting as I was reading! I really liked the ideas of “finding a poem” and the “topsy-turvy” activities. I think by giving students the freedom to choose what they read, within certain parameters, is a great way to help spark interest and keep students motivated and engaged in reading. As a young teacher, I need to take a step back from time to time and really look at how I am speaking to my students and how they are hearing me. I think it is a great idea to pay attention to how you are heard. I think that these last chapters really helped me to see how my teaching affects students, and what I can do to help them succeed!