Migrant Students, Today and Tomorrow: Critical Literacy and Advocacy

Estudiantes Migrantes, Hoy y Mañana: Lectura Critica y Abogacia

Dr. Karen VockeWestern Michigan University

August 14, 2014

Critical Literacy

The purpose of critical literacy is not to tell students what to think but to empower them with multiple perspectives and questioning habits of mind and encourage them to think and take action on their decisions through inquiry, dialogue, activism, and their daily decisions about how to live so that they help make a better world.

(Wolk, 2003, p. 101)

•Disrupting the Commonplace—challenging the status quo.

•Interrogating Multiple Viewpoints---looking at things from more than one perspective.

•Focusing on Sociopolitical Issues---we, as educators, cannot ignore the political aspects of

our jobs.

•Taking action and promoting social justice—This can be done in both big and small ways.

Dimensions of Critical Literacy

One way to understand teaching for social justice is to employ a teaching strategy that fosters and gives students an opportunity to experience and gain practice in . . .those attributes that help social justice to flourish. For example, to prepare for democratic living, students need opportunities to learn how to be tolerant, handle conflict, trust one another, and build community. . . . A second way to view teaching for social justice is to address specific topics by having students examine their curriculum critically and uncover its intersections with social justice concerns.

Hutchinson and Romano (1998, pp. 254–55)