Review of Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children By Vivian Maria Vasquez

 Critical literacy can be fit into the regular mandate curriculum by making it go beyond the required curriculum. Critical literacy seeks to place importance not on predetermined or prepackaged curriculum but on what students are interested in.  Also, critical literacy should not be added as an “extracurricular item” but should become “central” to the curriculum.  There are a few common elements of critical literacy in a typical school day.  This includes a class meeting  and setting a meeting agenda about what will be discussed.  Reflecting is a way during these meetings to make connections and discuss various topics raised.  Read-alouds can also be used to introduce or reaffirm a topic presented.  Critical literacy starts by the student’s themselves voicing questions that they are interested in.  From these questions, an entire year’s curriculum can be created through connecting main ideas or themes that the children are interested in.  These themes are inquired about through artifacts such as plays, letters, newspapers, or books.  Critical literacy is gained by learning in the moment based on student’s interest or concerns.  However, this learning must be acted upon to give the inquiry purpose and must extend beyond merely talking about it. Critical literacy uses social critique, social analysis, and social action to understand the world and change it.

For me, I find I have participated in critical literacy without even knowing it.  This year we did book reviews, created scripts and performed for selecting our class president, and voiced our opinions on policy maker's decisions about our schools.  However, the step I didn't take that is very clear in Vasquez's book is making the connection between all this learning  and linking it by themes to make a yearlong chart of our learning.  I think this would be very powerful for students and give their learning a sense of purpose that wasn't always there this last year.  I hope to push myself to do this next year.