| Critical literacy has increasingly become a topic of research in education over the past twenty years. Implemented as national curriculum in Australia in the late 1980s, this form of literacy has gained popularity in both teacher education programs and classrooms throughout the United States since the mid-1990s. This study explores the experiences of one first-year English language arts teacher who facilitated the development of critical literacy with her Advanced Placement Language and Composition students by using critical pedagogy. The project seeks to demonstrate how one practitioner defines and implements a curriculum and teaching pedagogy to cultivate critical literacy skills with students in a low performing high school. At the heart of this case study are classroom observations, teacher and student interviews, and artifacts from teacher generated lessons that represent how teachers might develop critical literacy and how students respond to this form of critical pedagogy. The aim of this project is to provide a voice for a first-year teacher devoted to empowering her students through the development of critical literacy and to demonstrate how students participated in critical analysis of social, political, and cultural structures that influence the mainstream American media outlets. The results of this study relate directly to teacher education and professional development for both in-service and pre-service teachers and also inform the field of teacher education in the areas of mentoring novice teachers, critical literacy, and English language arts methodology. This study is predicated on the assumption that all children should have access to curriculum materials and instruction that is both representative of their cultural background and engages them in acquisition of critical literacy skills and mastery of dominant discourses. |
