I just finished teaching a unit on literacy in my senior English class. I’m loving this class. The kids are amazing, and reading their ideas and listening to them discuss the issues around literacy today has been fascinating- and revealing. One article in particular, “Literacy and the Politics of Education,” by C. H. Knoblauch, really struck a nerve in my small-town classroom.
The article, published nearly thirty years ago, can be found here. For a quick look at the concepts, check out this handy study guide another teacher created and posted. To sum it up rather simplistically, Knoblauch outlines four basic types of literacy: functional literacy, cultural literacy, literacy for personal growth, and critical literacy. In essays and discussions, my students chose the literacies they valued the most and reflected on what their experience in high school had provided them so far. Their perspectives gave me food for thought.
First we explored functional literacy. In functional literacy, language is merely a survival tool. Those who are functionally literate can read, write, and learn the basics to get by in the world. Folks who are merely functionally literate, generally speaking, have little impact on society.
In discussion, some of my students expressed that functional literacy was “good enough” for them. They felt that, as long as they knew enough to do the job they hoped to do in the future, they were happy with that. Sometimes deeper knowledge of the world is just frustrating and troubling, after all.
We moved on to cultural literacy, which basically involves learning cultural norms and reading the canon of literature that defines and promotes a particular culture. It is easy to find fault with cultural literacy, although it does unify a society with shared cultural norms. The fact is it tends to maintain the status quo. Those who are successful in society are featured in the literature of it. (See fellow blogger Mark Garder’s recent blog on his current efforts to diversify literature.)
As for my students, there was a feeling among them that it was important to have a shared culture and history. The classics were important for the lessons they learned and the community built around shared stories. They didn’t immediately see the narrowness of it, the way it left out so much, left so many stories untold.
While discussing the third variety, literacy for personal growth, some students expressed disinterest, while others were more inspired. Literacy for personal growth encourages the pursuit of a broad range of texts. Think of it like a broad liberal arts education. You get a lot of diverse information and learn a lot about the world around you. Personal growth literacy is what drives us to look for good texts from a variety of authors, texts that represent the diversity of our students and the world beyond our classrooms.
A handful of my students were proponents of this sort of literacy. They felt that it had been limited in their high school years, and they were looking forward to college and all the opportunities they expect to have to expand their worldview. That was encouraging to hear!
However, when we got to the fourth type, critical literacy, very few students were interested in it. Critical literacy enables us to make sense of social-political systems through a wide range of texts. It involves questioning the validity and bias of what we read. It empowers us to take on active roles in society, to enact change. Knoblauch clearly favored it over the others, but my students were less intrigued.
To be fair, two students were strongly in support of critical literacy, realizing that in our world today the ability to critically evaluate text of all kinds is of the utmost importance.
I was surprised to find that the majority of my seniors do not want power in society. They do not want to question the system. They are not interested in pursuing knowledge so they can fight to right the wrongs of society.
Some of my students are happy with functional literacy, most are compliant when it comes to cultural literacy, and some are mildly inspired by the value of cultural literacy. But, the majority of them are not seeking to make sense of the sociopolitical systems in which they live.
Ours is a small school, and some of these students have spent more than three years in my classroom since seventh grade. I know them well. I taught them Lowry’s The Giver and Orwell’s Animal Farm. I taught them to read closely and look for evidence. I guided them through evaluating resources for research projects. I turned them loose with controversial topics during Socratic Seminars, and I have heard their passion and their wisdom. So how did this happen? How did they come so far in literacy to be so timid about stepping over the threshold to become critically literate citizens of the world?
I don’t know exactly, but I still believe that these young men and women will be leaders and changemakers in our world. I know that they are just hesitating at that uncomfortable spot between innocence and realization.
For myself, however, I am doubling down on the teaching of critical literacy skills. For kids in rural America, for kids from the lower social classes, from economically challenged regions, from homes that lack support and structure, these are the kids that need the knowledge and the power to make change. I’m learning from my seniors that I owe an improved path to success to my current seventh graders. The more young people who grow up critically literate in the near future, the brighter that future will be.
For further reading:
Key Aspects of Critical Literacy from NCTE
Critical Literacy from the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education
I find it so fascinating that your students expressed little interest in the idea of having power in their society! While it is great that they seemed motivated to “question the system,” I wonder if they will come to recognize that the reason they feel compelled to question it is because they are in fact outside of it, underserved by, and powerless (or less powerful by comparison) as a result.
I’m glad you’re doubling down on your efforts to foster critical literacy. The very challenges you describe some of your students facing (poverty, structural instability) can only be addressed when they see themselves having the power to do so. Keep up this important work!!
Good for you, having your students think critically about the kinds of things they are reading and why they are important.
We just talked in my class about the habits of millionaires. My students were delighted to hear that the majority of millionaires read regularly. Of course, I pointed out that millionaires don’t just read. They reflect on what they read and then apply what they have learned. It sounds like a lot of their reading might fall into the personal growth and critical thinking areas of literacy. Which might give an economic value to those types of reading!