Autumn 2004

Talking English

Critical literacy: problem or opportunity?

Critical literacy has a specific role in an area that has sparked discussion in teachers’ conferences over the past 15 years: the definition of the boundaries of English. The president of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, PAUL SOMMER, provides an overview of international contributions to the debate and recommends that English teachers take the lead in nurturing whole-school literacy.

English teaching is being shaped by a number forces. Critical literacy is encouraging a more outward looking approach. It is driving debates about literacy and raising questions about the difference between English and literacy.

English teachers are being asked to consider a wider range of texts and more complex understandings of these texts. At the same time, national testing initiatives and media reports are tending to focus on narrow views of reading and writing.

For the past fifteen years or so, English conferences have been preoccupied with definitions and redefinitions of English. Conference titles have prompted us to define, map, challenge and reclaim ‘territory’. It would be frustrating, this far down the track, to be uncertain about boundaries were it not for the fact that this seems to have become part of our core business.

These days the challenge, or the energy that drives it, is coming from critical literacy. It is tempting to sidestep a definition knowing that any attempt will be tentative and incomplete, but there are some things we can acknowledge.

Critical approaches suggest a relationship between the reader and the text that is dynamic. It starts with the awareness that communication is purposeful and anything created to be read or viewed reflects cultural values of the creator and draws on the cultural values of the reader. Seen this way, any significance or meaning is less in a text and more negotiated around it. Contexts are important. Critical literacy embraces all kinds of texts so that we can speak of school diaries, buildings and uniforms as texts alongside television programs, films, novels and poems.

In a sense this has always been part of good English teaching, and critical literacy simply attempts to be more systematic about it. But that is only part of the story. There is also a shift in understandings about texts and their purposes. This is played out at international and national levels, and through debates about formal testing of literacy skills.

At the International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE) conference in Melbourne last year we heard Hilary Janks and her South African contingent speak about critical literacy as ‘reading the world’. Through critical practices, they led a school community from alienation to self-sufficiency and confidence. They demonstrated the need to support young learners by helping them to a critical awareness of their own language while also educating them for involvement in the global community through English. For them, reclaiming their banned or discouraged first languages was the initial step. They used and produced a complex range of texts along the way.

It reflected a concern about the position of English in a global context, which became something of a conference obsession. On the one hand, English is the language of commerce and trade, and any country or individual wanting to develop globally, is hamstrung without it. It is the language of global mobility, if you like. On the other hand, it was loudly asserted that this should not be at the expense of the mother tongue and the local context.

This has overt political overtones at a time when sections of United States have sought to limit or ban bilingualism as a policy. One US court, we were told by a speaker at the conference, found that parents were negligent in their duty of care by not speaking English, predominantly, in the home.

Also at the conference, Allan Luke described critical literacy as a ‘parasite’ hitting the organism (English teaching) at its most vulnerable points. In this way he was arguing against institutionalising Critical Literacy. It was a throwaway line, more a musing than a clearly developed position, but for me it highlighted a mistrust of official statements on English and a desire to protect the energy of critical literacy. It also suggested a constructive social role, as Hilary Janks demonstrated.

Critical approaches, in English, can be seen to do a number of things. They value all texts, including popular texts; recognise the impact and use of developing communication technologies; explore sociocultural and political contexts in which texts are produced and understood; encourage variant, and equally valid, readings of texts; highlight the needs of the learner; and consider English teaching in more integrated learning environments.

Herein lies the tension. On the one hand we are encouraged to be expansive in our view of what is possible in the classroom. On the other, we seem intent on following trends in the UK and USA, which narrow and restrict the curriculum through standardised testing, approved text lists and narrow definitions of literate practice.

Literacy remains a major priority of governments, along with numeracy and ICTs, and it is easy to see why this should be. Everyone benefits from a society in which all participants are literate. The problem is in how we approach it.

Literacy is a complex notion involving understandings of how it is used and to what end. It is a range of skills and needs to include critical elements. For this reason, it is often better discussed in the plural as literacies. The idea that we can assess all this, productively, in national tests is simplistic. At best, it tests a narrow range of literacy skills. At its worst, it teaches students to get better at sitting the tests without addressing root concerns.

The subject English has a special relationship with literacy and English teachers are best placed to take leadership roles. However, we do not teach it, any more, or less, than Science, Maths, Art or Society and Environment teachers do. (I am speaking here about English in a secondary school context with its typically fragmented curriculum structures.) We are all concerned about how students access information, contextualise and demonstrate learning, and build up a vocabulary of specialised language within learning areas. The business of English is to develop confidence in understanding and creating a wide range of texts and narratives. We do this through literacy practices.

Whole-school questions arise. How do we support students who have ‘slipped through the net’ and come to secondary school without skills to participate to their fullest? How do we reinforce and celebrate literacy across the curriculum? How do we equip students for participation in a complex and ‘information-noisy’ world? How do we address critical components of curriculum statements in the middle and senior years?

A brochure from the Australian Government last year (Literacy and Numeracy: Signposts to Success), while primarily promoting testing, raises the question of what parents and caregivers can do. Often it is a willingness to value reading and learning and to take opportunities to discuss books, films, TV shows, advertising, etc with children. This, somewhat at odds with the emphasis on formal testing, recognises the importance of contextual aspects of literacy.

Seeing literacy as an opportunity rather than a problem is a constructive start. It suggests that our reach, and the context of literacy, is wider than the school and that we have a role in supporting literacy in the home environment. This also suggests that schools should be leading a coordinated approach throughout the whole school community. Literacy is not the domain of a single group and critical literacy helps to ensure that our understandings of literacy remain broad.

None of this is new. But it does seem to be more pressing at the moment. Curriculum frameworks, accountability and registration proposals, skills testing, and national initiatives make it imperative for English teachers to be clear about what they value. Practices underpinned by critical approaches recognise complexity, engagement, diversity and the importance of local conditions. Without wanting to seem melodramatic, these elements need to be claimed, reasserted and nurtured. They are so easily bureaucratised out of existence.

Paul Sommer is president of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) and English/critical literacy coordinator at Glenunga International High School in Adelaide.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au