HBO's "The Wire" (2002-2008) is often regarded as one of the best television shows ever aired. Through reiterative viewings and a critical content analysis of the show, I argue that "The Wire" should be used as an anchor text in preservice English education courses in order to foster cosmopolitan literacies in preservice…

The call for integrating media literacy into public education is not new. However, with the rise of "fake news" and sensationalism along with technology's ever-growing role in society, media literacy offers teachers and students a set of skills to analyze, critique, and respond to the information that appears before them in the digital…

One of the key tenets of critical literacy that I operate from is that it works to disrupt normalized social practices. In keeping with this tenet, I have crafted this paper in such a way that it somewhat disrupts the normalized format of academic writing by creating an audit trail comprised of artifacts that represent significant moments in my…

The authors showcase critical, participatory literacy as a motivator for English learners' literacy development. The urban middle school English learners reported in this narrative metamorphosed from reluctant to empowered writers when they inserted themselves into the local politics of school district zoning. Their investment in the zoning issue…

This paper contains an instructional unit designed to create space in the classroom for open and honest conversations about racism through enhancing the literature circle format with the incorporation of critical literacy and emotionally-responsive teaching. The unit utilizes strategies that are research-based and referenced in the paper. Detailed…

In this review, we synthesise literature that draws on 'political music' as a curricular and pedagogical tool to support students' critical literacy development. By using contextually relevant, politically oriented songs, teachers can foster critical literacy opportunities for students to cooperatively and collaboratively engage in 'reading',…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how curriculum grounded in critical literacy strategies supports critical language awareness and activism across social issues and identities. The research is grounded in theories of critical literacies, discursive practices, and situated privilege. Critical practitioner research was used to collect…

This article investigates how immigrant children's acculturation experiences are characterized through the symbolic literary feature of name in children's literature and how the language of the text functions to communicate these messages. We draw on the theoretical frameworks of Critical Literacy (CL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to…

In this study, YouTube videos concerning public education were identified and evaluated. The researcher typed the term "public education" into the YouTube search bar and then analyzed the first 60 videos provided by the site. Two coders (the researcher included) independently coded the videos as either negative, neutral, or positive in…

Purpose: This study was designed to be an agonistic encounter between two pre-service teachers from different academic disciplines and with opposing climate change beliefs. The purpose of this study was to create an opportunity for this pair of future educators to voice, acknowledge and engage their differences, rather than avoid or skirt them.…

By illustrating how eight Korean English language learners came to understand embedded assumptions from traditional fairy tales and retell the tales through a critical literacy framed English literacy workshop, this qualitative study argues that fairy tales as English reading texts can effectively cultivate English learners' critical stance and…

Teachers commonly use sites such as Pinterest, TeachersPayTeachers.com, and Instagram to support their lesson planning. Developing a critical lens toward the use of these sites in teacher education is imperative, yet little research has been published outlining how this might be done. This study investigates how 44 teacher candidates (TCs) across…

This instrumental case study examines how elementary teacher candidates (TCs) came to understand citizenship and civic engagement after participating in a news group project during the 2020 presidential election season. TCs formed a binary understanding of civic engagement as "passive" vs. "active," viewing themselves as active…

Purpose: This paper aims to present three girls' visual annotations and digital responses that restory a scene in the picturebook I'm New Here. The authors focus on how children use multimodal tools to reflect their critical knowledge of the world by illuminating how this group of girls responded to and incorporated broader social issues.…

English has emerged as an international language. The hegemonic positioning of English is problematic for previously colonized places such as the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The remote coral atoll Pacific Island nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands has a history of colonization. Critical Literacy supports reflective analysis of…