ABSTRACT
This chapter examines critical literacy in teaching and teacher learning contexts. The chapter begins by defining critical literacy in these contexts, confronting the ways in which critical literacy has been often oversimplified or reduced to focus purely on traditional reading and writing practices. The chapter further explores the literature on teacher learning about and enacting critical literacy including themes of developing critical literacy dispositions through reflective practice and explicit choice-making by teachers and teacher educators to engage in the work of critical literacy. The chapter then elaborates upon themes related to teacher enactment of critical literacy practices including considerations of student identities, teacher agency, and the use of texts and tools to support critical literacy by looking at these themes in the literature and offering two lived examples from the authors’ own work with K-12 teacher candidates and educators. The chapter concludes with a call to support critical literacy in teacher education praxis and through partnerships with K-12 schools and districts for ongoing professional learning in critical literacy.
