ABSTRACT
Deena is a secondary school librarian. She discussed a number of interesting critical literacy practices, in which she engaged directly with young people, and also which she led in collaboration with teaching colleagues from a range of subject areas in the school. This chapter explores her work on action for transformation using book covers as well as in the area of critical media literacy. Deena believed that critical literacy must be fostered from the early years of education, to give children the ability to critically navigate the various texts and media that they encounter from their earliest years. She described the juxtaposition of language and images in advertising to teach the concepts of bias and manipulation in her secondary school. The issue of how language and images might manipulate us as consumers can be explored with children and young people by looking at how media texts are constructed. The chapter also explores the issue of product placement in television programmes.
