Critical Literacy

Selber provides the following quotes:

  • Paole Freire and Donaldo Macedo state, “A person is literate to the extent that he or she is able to use language for social and political reconstruction” (as cited in Selber, 2004, p. 81).
  • According to Wendy Morgan, “Critical theories of literacy derive from critical social theory and its interests in matters of class, gender and ethnicity” (as cited in Selber, 2004, p. 82).
  • Peter McLaren states, “Critical literacy draws on the disciplines of Freirian/neo-Marixt, post-structuralist, social semiotic, reception theory, neopragmatic, deconstruction, critical hermeneutics, and other postmodernist perspectives” (as cited in Selber, 2004, p. 82).
  • According to Selber, Wendy Morgan explains the key principals of critical literacy as being “that knowledge and truth are determined by sociohistorical forces; that the subjectivities of the individuals are multiply shaped within the ideological practice of a culture; that the inequities constituted in cultural configurations are the result of systematic efforts; and that social inequities can be surmounted if their causes are pinpointed and understood” (p. 82).
  • Schooling is emancipatory, and Giroux states “the purpose and meaning of schooling extend beyond the function of a museum safeguarding the treasures of cultural tradition of the needs of the corporate state for more literate workers” (p. 83).

According to Selber, for Gee, “literacy is emanciptatory whe it encourages students to put multiple discourse in conversation with each other, that is, to critique one discourse with another, in order to develop critical analytical capabilities” (p. 98).

Criticisms of critical theory are that they call rely on a “rational argument to enact social change” (Selber, 2004, p. 83).

Being critically literate means one works against conventions and stories to see “design cultures, use contexts, institutional forces, and popular representations within the shape and direction of computer-based artifacts and activities” (p. 95).

References:

Selber, S. (2004). Multiliteracies for a digital age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.