Educators are faced with standardized testing weighing heavily as the basis of the curriculum. Several education policies have been put in place to support accountability in education but have created a decline in social studies instruction (Gaudelli & Laverty, 2018). This transcendental phenomenological qualitative study sought to bring…

This Element explores ways to promote critical literacy in teacher education. First, the authors define critical literacy in the context of teacher education through established theoretical frameworks and models of critical literacy pedagogy and share their collective findings on critical literacy research over the course of a decade. Building…

Changes in technology and reading habits over the last decade have ushered in a new informational landscape. The Internet has become the central means by which children and adults form understandings of the world. Since readers on the Internet choose from a nearly unlimited selection of websites, they play a more active role in determining which…

This book can help you incorporate critical literacy pedagogy into your high school English Language Arts (ELA) classroom, so that your students can use what they study in class to work toward making a more just and equitable world. Through the acronym CHANGE, the book explores how critical literacy pedagogy can support students as they Challenge…

The authors expand discussions about critical literacy with a focus on how quick writes can be used to facilitate critical literacy within the context of both teaching and learning. Quick writes, initiated by carefully crafted invitations, are presented as a low-risk space for students to address issues of social justice and civil rights. Writing…

Virtually all national standards now require students and teachers to understand the particulars of disciplinary literacy. But recently emerging scholarship suggests that disciplinary literacy is, by itself, an incomplete and potentially problematic approach to secondary literacy instruction. By asking students to "think like" or even…

This book discusses how to approach critical literacy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. It responds to the concerns of educators who get enthusiastic about teaching critical literacy, but become perplexed when they start reading about its theories. This causes some to avoid it altogether and leads others to argue for practicing it…

Douglas Kellner's "Re-Visioning Education: Cultural Studies, Critical Media and Digital Literacies, and Democracy" provides a comprehensive account of his critical theory of education that combines his work in philosophy of education, cultural studies, and media and digital literacies aimed at a critical theory of education and radical…

This article provides a critical literacy approach to reading picture books that represent individuals with disabilities. It details close reading with a critical literacy stance as a scaffolded method for teachers to support students' increased access to conversations about disability. A sample lesson plan and three prompting guides are provided…

Writing practitioners, researchers, and scholars are at a juncture where foundational assumptions about the teaching of writing, its place in higher education, and its ability to help foster a truly inclusive democratic society are increasingly contested. Trust in literacy has been eroded over the past decades, coming to an acute crisis in the…

Across the globe, students increasingly use literacies to cross boundaries, locally and globally, virtually and geographically, willingly and involuntarily. They cross these boundaries with versatile linguistic backgrounds that allow them to effectively navigate new school and life worlds. Many students who cross boundaries are students of color…

Appraisal Centers provide authentic experienced-based communities of practice for preservice teachers (PSTs) to show application of theory into practice at critical gateways throughout their elementary education program while fulfilling School of Education dispositions, course objectives, and state standards. A goal is to provide formative…

In this article, the author details how art teachers can reframe post-internet art as a catalyst for teaching and learning toward the future in art education curriculum development. The ideas presented here could be adapted to K-12 and university-level teaching and learning in art education, particularly coursework that focuses on introducing…

This practical book provides teachers with step-by-step guidance for developing a class culture that welcomes curiosity and ignites social action. Student-driven inquiry has a lasting impact on learning, yet questions posed from students' own contexts rarely serve to shape their understanding of the outside world. The authors show teachers how to…

In this article the authors demonstrate how pairing master and counter narrative picture books, along with critical literacy practices, can be used to enhance the social studies curriculum outlined by state standards taught in today's elementary schools. These intentional book pairings allow students to grapple with what history truly means and to…