ABSTRACT

This popular text articulates a powerful theory of critical literacy—in all its complexity. Critical literacy practices encourage students to use language to question the everyday world, interrogate the relationship between language and power, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. By providing both a model for critical literacy instruction and many examples of how critical practices can be enacted in daily school life in elementary and middle school classrooms, Creating Critical Classrooms meets a huge need for a practical, theoretically based text on this topic.

Pedagogical features in each chapter

• Teacher-researcher Vignette

• Theories that Inform Practice

• Critical Literacy Chart

• Thought Piece

• Invitations for Disruption

• Lingering Questions

New in the Second Edition

• End-of-chapter "Voices from the Field"

• More upper elementary-grade examples

• New text sets drawn from "Classroom Resources"

• Streamlined, restructured, revised, and updated throughout

• Expanded Companion Website now includes annotated Classroom Resources; Text Sets; Resources by Chapter; Invitations for Students; Literacy Strategies; Additional Resources

chapter |27 pages

Overview

Why Do We Need an Instructional Theory of Critical Literacy?

chapter |16 pages

Personal and Cultural Resources

Using Life Experiences as an Entrée into Critical Literacy

chapter |23 pages

Cultural Resources

Using Popular Culture to Promote Critical Practice

chapter |16 pages

Cultural Resources

Using Children's and Young Adult Literature to Get Started with Critical Literacy

chapter |18 pages

Critical Social Practices

Disrupting the Commonplace Through Critical Language Study

chapter |18 pages

Critical Social Practices

Interrogating Multiple Perspectives

chapter |22 pages

Critical Social Practices

Focusing on the Sociopolitical

chapter |17 pages

Critical Social Practices

Taking Action to Promote Social Justice

chapter |20 pages

Taking a Critical Stance

Outgrowing Ourselves

chapter |44 pages

Invitations for Students