'A critical issue has to do with reading the political cultures, including the politicization, of students that give shape to the formation of adult literacy programs and agencies, and the ranges of potentiality in working through the dynamics of critical adaptation (accepting the broad paradigms as broadly normative, but with the potentiality of substantial change within them (e.g. Obama) and radical change as implicit in the rhetoric (I'm using this term descriptively in the classical Greek sense rather than pejoratively) of your post which reflects the language of radical pedagogy.
'While I do not advocate illiteracy I advocate for a type [of] literacy that helps people to question, to think critical y, historical y, contextual y and a literacy that promotes care and respect for other human beings as brothers and sisters. Any attempt to teach literacy as a neutral instrument is essential y advocating the status quo. If you agree with it, then you are promoting that ideology. In preliterate societies where people are living without the introduction of industrialism, religion or other Eurocentric values, we should leave them be.'
Here are some more comments from the literacy practitioners, this time on the definition of literacy. To me it is quite simple. Literacy is the ability to read and write. Here is what a group of teachers had to say. Again, I am troubled by the focus of these literacy practi tioners.
'In my paper on postpositivism, I linked Popper's concept of 'verisimilitude,' approximation to the truth (and he uses the lower case t word) to recent work on balanced reading theory. Clearly in that paper I did not provide an evidence-based research report in that the paper is intentional y theoretical in design. However, toward the end of the paper I laid out a 19-point hypothesis, which could serve as a basis for a more grounded book-length research study, linked in turn to an examination of the underlying precepts of the recent research on balanced or integrated reading theory. The 19 thesis statements are grounded in the fol owing four categories:
? Literacy facilitates knowledge acquisition in the grappling with and mastery of print-based texts.
? Literacy is enhanced to the extent to which individuals gain the capacity to read and write print-based texts.
? Growth in literacy is experienced to the extent to which readers progressively comprehend and draw meaning from texts and appropriate them into their lives.
? Literacy has a technological component in the mastery of reading, writing and the comprehension of texts and a metaphorical dimension that resides in transactions between the reader and the text in which meaning making and significance lies beyond the text into that of appropriation, however variously that may be defined.
Whether learning to read or learning to learn is or should be the central focus of adult literacy education is a matter of some dispute, which has not been resolved within the literature of the field. There is substantial middle ground within these perspectives via the medium of balanced reading theory and a context-derived educational program that focuses on employment, family education, civic literacy, and lifelong learning (Stein, 2000). Nonetheless, tensions between the operative assumptions of the New Literacy Studies and advocates of phonemic-driven approaches to reading are particularly sharp in their articulation of competing definitions of literacy. In moving toward a dialectical resolution that incorporates balanced reading theory within a context-based adult literacy framework, my working hypothesis, much clarification is required.'
Many English language teachers and literacy teachers feel that to help their learners learn to read, they need to teach them how to think and to give them strategies for reading. The assumption is that the language teacher is qualified to teach these elusive skil s. I have never found this to be the case. Most people seem to be able to think on their own.
I googled 'pre-reading tasks' and found 325, 000 pages!!! I read through a few of them. To me it seemed that pre-reading tasks were al about creating classroom activities that change reading from something inherently interesting and stimulating, into another make-work classroom task. The process of reading is divided into stages and tasks are introduced to complicate what are real y a natural task, learning, observing and thinking. Reality is simpler.
The more we read the broader our knowledge base and the better our ability to read.
Rather than teaching artificial reading strategies, I think that it is more important to find ways to stimulate the readers' curiosity and create pleasure in reading. It is more useful to let the students choose content of interest to read. If they have trouble reading, let them have sound to listen to. Read to them in class, or even better have them listen on their iPods. Spend the classroom in discussion, as a group or in focus groups. Encourage students to express their views and to critique the views of others. Reading is just one part of communicating through language.
When I googled 'higher-order thinking skil s' I got over one mil ion pages. I cannot say that I remember my teachers at school being necessarily al that logical al the time. I am not sure that an English teacher is equipped to teach an ESL student about 'higher-order thinking', whatever that is supposed to mean. I believe that if we can encourage people to read, and encourage them to listen, in order to help them read; and if we use the classroom as a place where people discuss ideas, and accept different points of view, and are forced to find justification for their own points of view, then we wil natural y stimulate higher -order thinking.
In my experience, teachers are often quite unwil ing to accept students chal enging their points of view. This is particularly the case for 'political y correct' ideological positions foisted on students in our schools and col eges.
Thinking, evaluating, analyzing, these are things we al do. The more experience we have, and the more we read, and the more we are obliged to state points of view and defend them, the better we get at critical thinking. Language is not science or math. It does not require complicated explanations or laboratory experiments. Language is best acquired naturally, through exposure and use. Language is natural, like breathing. As long as people are al owed choice, given freedom, and encouraged, most people manage quite wel . Teaching 'pre-reading skil s' and 'higher-order thinking' seems to me a little like teaching people how to walk and how to breathe.
Language learning is simple. You need to create connections in your mind. It starts with words in interesting content. These words connect to sounds, to meanings, to other words in phrases, to episodes you have enjoyed, to feelings and you have to learn these connections and make them part of you.
I feel that it is the right and privilege of readers to misinterpret, partly understand or interpret in their own way, what they read. I see any effort of the teacher to impose a certain
'correct' internalization of the text, analysis or other elements of 'critical thinking' as a possible disturbance of the pleasures of discovery through reading. The definition of what is a superficial or deeper meaning is subjective.
Teaching critical thinking seems to be a fad amongst teachers of English as a foreign language. I am not aware of a similar interest among teachers of other languages. Do people who teach Spanish, Chinese, Russian or French as a foreign language also teach 'critical thinking'?
Mitch fol ows my blog and sent me an email about a new book by Nancie Atwell cal ed The Reading Zone. I
