Suggestions for setting up your classroom for the Critical Literacy Approach:
Critical Literacy Approach in the classroom
Discussion groups
The classroom should be set in a way that students have the freedom to speak with
each other.
Approaches supporting effective literacy instruction are also helpful:
Capacity building series--secretariat special edition #18. Grand Conversations in Primary Classroom.
Beck, Ann S. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy48.5 (Feb 2005): 392-400
http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesLIT/CoreResources/Critical_Literacy_Guide.pdf
The classroom should be set in a way that students have the freedom to speak with
each other.
- They should be placed in a Knee-to-knee/eye-to-eye, or in a circle.
- Students work in groups on a general topic and later work in pairs to consolidate
discussion. - Teacher acts as discussion facilitator keeping overall control of class and scafolding
appropriate discussion and behaviour. - Students share thinking after discussions.
- Discussions triad--students work in groups of 3 on big questions and brainstorm differences
in understanding and opinion.
- invite elaboration of an idea
- ask for clarification
- encourage new point of view
- invite new voices to enter the conversation
- refocus the conversation
- literature logs and journals
- Consensus Board
- sketch-to-stretch
- close reading of a text passage
- traffic lights
- Teacher Read-Aloud
- Shared and Guided Reading Groups
- Literacy Circles
- Instructional Conversations
- Idea Circles
- building a safe, inclusive classroom environment that promotes inquiry
- making available thought-provoking oral, print, electronic, and multi-media
- texts representing diverse perspectives
- developing understanding of students’ interests, backgrounds and values, and
- honouring the strengths and literacies they bring to school
- providing a wide range of texts for students to read/view/hear, including texts from popular culture and “non-traditional classroom texts”
- acknowledging that some issues and discussions can be sensitive and uncomfortable for some students.
Approaches supporting effective literacy instruction are also helpful:
- encouraging students to access and connect to prior experience and knowledge, and recognizing how students’ beliefs and values influence their understanding
- modeling and explicitly teaching wait time during discussions
- modeling and explicitly teaching respectful interactions and response norms
- encouraging all students to participate in discussions to avoid the dominance of a few
- modeling and providing students with opportunities to reflect on their thinking and inherent assumptions
- exploring alternative readings.
Capacity building series--secretariat special edition #18. Grand Conversations in Primary Classroom.
Beck, Ann S. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy48.5 (Feb 2005): 392-400
http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesLIT/CoreResources/Critical_Literacy_Guide.pdf