ABSTRACT
Ira Shor is one of the major advocates for critical pedagogy within composition studies. His early work helped introduce Paulo Freire to North American writing studies. Shor’s approach in Critical Teaching and Everyday Life (1980) stresses the development of teaching practices in conjunction with political analyses of schooling. In 1987, he co-authored A Pedagogy for Liberation with Paulo Freire and published Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching. These works helped translate Freirian approaches from their original adult literacy contexts in Brazil to North American elementary, secondary, and postsecondary contexts. In these three works, Shor encourages students—and teachers—to discuss, write about, and intervene in local issues. Politics, economics, and social justice are major themes in all of his published writing.
