ABSTRACT
In this talk, Hilary Janks demonstrates how teachers at all levels can support and do critical literacy in the classroom, and provides models for practice that can be adapted to any context. She argues that social orders are arbitrary social categories, which marginalize certain groups. These social orders are predetermined; we produce them connectively and individually by our actions and by our failures to act. A critical approach to education helps us name and interrogate our practices in order to change them. Critical literacy education focuses specifically on the role of language as a social practice, and examines the role played by children in discourse on returning and transforming these orders. In this talk, she provides thoughtful ways to incorporate critical literacy into the classroom, specifically by focusing on an example of looking at labels on water bottles, small labels that provide vast opportunities for critical literacy.
