How might book introductions open up spaces for critical literacy? This is the research question we asked while examining the records of teaching and learning within a yearlong teacher‐research project in a second grade classroom. We designed a series of literacy units focused on themes of human rights, freedom, peace, and civil rights. Our focus in this paper is on one slice of the classroom's literacy life: book introductions. Our findings indicate that spaces for critical literacy were opened up through the teachers' careful selection of books; the teachers' use of purposeful prompts, and the teachers' willingness to let silence reign during the book introduction. We display three important findings through “telling examples” of what critical literacy book introductions sound and look like.
This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to conduct this qualitative study that took place in one suburban Midwestern U.S. kindergarten class. Discussions and students' responses to read-alouds over a seven month period of time were analyzed. The findings demonstrate that, with support, children can develop more nuanced understandings of social class within and across texts. This research holds significant implications for how young children might be guided to examine critical social issues through the literacy curriculum and how such instruction can deepen students' engagement with texts.In a kindergarten classroom, the students sit together on a large rug, gathered around the teacher, who is reading aloud a story. This particular story, Rich Cat, Poor Cat (Waber, 1963), narrates the lives of two very different cats. As the students listen to the pages of the book describe the contrasts in the lives of a "rich cat" and a "poor cat," they pause to discuss a page showing the rich cat dining at a fancy restaurant and the poor cat scavenging for food in a garbage can. Teacher: Do you think it's fair that some cats eat at restaurants and some cats eat out of the garbage? Marisa: This cat, she not really want to eat out the garbage, but she has to, or she might die. Olivia (pointing to the pages): That cat eating out of the garbage doesn't have an owner, and that cat has an owner. She's a street cat, and she's with a person. Teacher: I wonder why some cats have owners and some cats don't? Carter (also pointing): Well that cat, well, that cat is rich and that cat isn't. The cat that's rich could stop being rich, because he got enough food to eat, and the other cat could be rich too, and then they could both be friends. Teacher: So you're saying that this rich cat is rich, but the poor cat could be rich too? Carter: When that poor cat is rich and that other one is enough rich they could be friends. Teacher: Do you think that's going to happen? Ali: No, because they don't. Arun: The rich cat doesn't want the poor cat to have a lot of dollars. The rich cat isn't nice. Keisha: I think the rich cat isn't being rich as in money, I think he has a lot of good stuff happening . . . He doesn't have any money but he has good stuff. Teacher: I was thinking that about the poor cat, maybe he doesn't have money but he is rich in other ways.In this vignette, we foreshadow ways in which a group of multicultural and multilingual kindergarten students engage with literacies as they develop the language of social analysis, cultural critique, and relationships necessary for a humane world. Young children have ideas about social class, and many books used in elementary schools give students subtle hints about characters' social class even when i...
One of the tensions in conducting participatory literacy research with young children is finding the balance between protection and voice. In this paper, we describe how we sought to create participant-centred research techniques within the evolving design of a yearlong action research study with kindergarten students. Through weekly classroom read-alouds of social class-themed children's literature, the larger project explored how children connected and critically responded to issues of poverty, privilege and inequality. How did our research techniques simultaneously balance 'protecting' children as ethical guidelines ask us to do, allow us to report our findings in ways that describe the rich data we collected, and create space for children to express and develop their voices and perspectives? We identified three issues that were salient to us in our research project with kindergarten students: using participant-centred research techniques, treating assent as an ongoing process and capturing the complexity of context while protecting children's identities. We look beyond the minimal requirements of research review boards as we explore some of the ethical issues that arise for us as teachers and researchers when we conduct literacy research with young children. We conclude with a discussion about how literacy researchers are uniquely poised to contribute to the scholarship on ethics with young children.
Literacy researchers often include young children in the research process. Yet discussions about the complexities of gaining and keeping assent are often missing in research reports. In this paper, we report on our attempts to make the assent process, a typical requirement for Institutional Review Boards, an educative experience for children in a critical literacy Kindergarten classroom. We asked: When assent is treated as a text to be read, revisited, interpreted and negotiated, what meanings are made by young children? We designed research lessons and collected artefacts of students' learning, including interviews. Our analysis traced children's developing recognition and critical analysis of concepts such as voluntary participation, understanding of procedures, confidentiality, benefits and risks of the study, and the right to ask questions. We found that when assent is treated as an educative process, particularly in the context of critical literacy education, young children learn and make meaning about their rights and responsibilities as participants. We present evidence of meaning-making, transfer and voluntariness of each ethical concept. Implications for literacy research with young children are discussed.
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