Article 6: Critical Literacy for School Improvement

October 18-24: The lead blogger is Tim, who will post his blog by Sunday midnight. Follow-up blogs are due Wednesday midnight.

4 Responses to "Article 6: Critical Literacy for School Improvement"

Timothy Corallo says:

October 17, 2018 at 10:10 pm

In this week’s article, Cooper and White (2008) discuss the process involved in implementing the initial phase of a school-wide, three-year longitudinal action research project. The project was designed to improve the critical literacy of students in an urban Canadian elementary school who were ‘at-risk’ for low literacy competency. Specifically, Cooper and White (2008) and their collaborative research team began an action research study to: help teachers and students alike develop critical thinking strategies, implement and evaluate the efficacy of specific literacy teaching strategies, and improve professional development regarding literacy teaching. The article only described the first year of the study, so no results were published. However, the study appeared to be mixed methods. Changes in standardized test scores before, during, and after implementation of critical literacy curricula were planned to be used to quantify any changes resulting from the treatment. Additionally, the researchers also planned on recording data on teacher and student perceptions regarding the processes and results of implementing a critical literacy curriculum.

This article was a preliminary look at a large-scale study. Cooper and White (2008) concentrated on describing the process of implementing the first phase of the study, which involved creating a large research team. This research team involved teachers, a school literacy coordinator, a graduate research assistant, a school district primary literacy consultant, and the co-authors (Cooper and White, 2008). After the creation of this team, the researchers identified that not only was there no common definition for critical literacy, but that there was also no specific curriculum developed targeting critical literacy. Cooper and White (2008) identified that many teachers had their own definitions and methods of teaching critical literacy. Thus, the majority of the first year of research was used collaborating among researchers and teachers to develop a common definition for critical literacy and to develop a curriculum to teach it. Further, much of the first year was used engaging in professional development activities in order to implement a school-wide critical literacy curriculum. While Cooper and White (2008) gave a definition of critical literacy as linking reading to an, “…attitude of inquiry and desire to effect positive social change” (p. 102), the authors note that work still needed to be done to clarify what critical literacy looks like and how it can be taught. Future phases of the study are reported to include implementing a large-scale critical literacy curriculum which resulted from the year of collaboration and professional development.

While I found the idea of critical literacy very interesting, I thought this article was most valuable to me because it exemplified a large-scale action research project. To be honest, reading this article stressed me out. There were so many moving parts and topics of focus that I had a hard time putting all the pieces together until I had finished the article. I kept wanting the research process that was being reported to be less messy and more succinct. However, after reading the article, I began to consider how difficult (messy) it must be to implement and describe a school wide intervention designed to improve both literacy teaching and learning. This thought process then made me think back to one our previous articles that discussed how action research can be useful in researching difficult (messy) topics that traditional research would fall short in describing. Implementing a large-scale critical literacy curriculum would require large scale professional development, changes in curriculum, and changes in student responding. In order to describe the efficacy of a programmatic change like that, both quantitative and qualitative data would be necessary. Once I arrived at this conclusion, I was able to see how this article made a valuable description of a cooperative and democratic action research process.
Molly Hulihan says:

October 24, 2018 at 5:24 pm

Tim,

I agree with you that while the research content was interesting, it was more beneficial to me to read because it laid out a large-scale action research plan. I think something that people don’t think about is not having a common definition or way to teach certain things. Since there is no common definition or curriculum for critical literacy it is an important aspect of the process to come up with something for common ground. I think that this article was helpful to me to see that there are so many working parts to any sort of research project, particularly an action research project. Reading about the action research plan and how it was laid out was very helpful to me. It showed that although it is overwhelming, once you have a plan and write it out it can be easy to follow and keep track of.

One thing that I thought was interesting was that the article pointed out that action research could be so beneficial to teachers. I never thought of it this way, but it makes sense that when the teachers initiate change they work better and harder because they don’t feel as if they are being forced to change something about their teaching or classroom.
Casey Vanderpool says:

October 24, 2018 at 7:55 pm

Tim,
Thank you for the recap of the article. You concisely related all of the information from a very detailed research report. I do agree that it is stressful to think about such a large-scale and long-term study and all of the moving parts. Because action research is about promoting social change, working together, and reflecting on practice, it is an ideal way to conduct the project this school is trying to implement.

Reading this article made me think of the study conducted by Souto-Manning in which she looped up with her first grade class in an effort to teach critical literacy and promote social change. In thinking about both of these articles, I realized that I don’t know much about critical literacy other than what I’ve read from these two articles. I certainly know what critical thinking is, but I had never heard of critical literacy and its goal to prompt discussions about social issues. One of the aspects of this article that stuck out to me was the way Cooper and White (2008) discussed text connections (self, text, world). I teach these in third grade, and I’ve always told students that they are a way for them to connect with what they’re reading and create a better understanding of the text. The part that really resonated with me was how they described it as the reader relates to the text through “reading, reflecting and relating the text to lived experiences” (p. 103). Describing text-to-world connections as a way for students to situate themselves in relation to the world and help discover their identities (Cooper & White, 2008) is a new way for me to think about explaining it to my students. Since reading these two articles on teaching critical literacy to elementary school students, I am rethinking the types of discussions I have with my students on a daily basis.
Justin Bartlett says:

October 24, 2018 at 9:35 pm

Tim, awesome job articulating this article! Because the article was somewhat of a task to read, your response was very clear and gave a great overview of what was written.

I did find reading this article helpful not only in how to do action research, but it helped me to see how implementing a schoolwide initiative really works. There are many moving parts in this particular project but when looking at the grand scheme of things, when wanting to do something that may change instruction or the everyday routine of a student, it involves a lot of people for approval. Even with my project on a small scale that it is, my principal needed a lot of information in order for me to start the data collection. Because she saw the benefits of peer mentoring in our school, this is something that she wants to implement for the whole school. So I felt this whole article on a personal level!

I would also agree that action research is meant to tackle those messy topics or issues within a school because teachers and other faculty not only need to be involved but will need to change their practices as well. It really goes to show how research is not a walk in the park and requires much consideration when trying to begin, implement, and change something.

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