Newcomers, Novices, Censors, and Seasoned Advocates Navigate Risky Texts with Critical Literacy

Wessel‐Powell, Christy; Bentley, Helen

doi:10.1080/1547688x.2021.2008567

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This research focused on the complicated terrain that exists between the topics preservice teachers report self-censoring in children’s literature and their reasons for doing so. Although prior studies have explored how preservice teachers engage with diverse representations in literature (Flores et al, 2019; Voelker, 2013; Wessel-Powell & Bentley, 2022), these questions have been recast in classrooms governed by topic-restrictive legislation. However, the findings from this study indicate that preservice teachers named many of the same challenges they had before when it comes to teaching through risky texts, suggesting that self-censorship (Vered et al, 2017) may be a likelier explanation than organizational or institutional censorship.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The question of how to describe children's literature that lends itself to discussions of social issues is contentious. One line of scholarship has termed these risky texts (Angleton, 2021;Damico, 2012;Damico & Apol, 2008;Harste, 2000;Leland & Harste, 2001;Lewison et al, 2015;Simon & Armitage-Simon, 1995;Wessel-Powell & Bentley, 2022). The term risky text reinforces that no text is ever neutral (Vasquez et al, 2019) and, as such, that any text could potentially lead to discomfort or backlash from a community it misrepresents or excludes.…”

Section: Defining Risky Children's Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It involves developing an understanding of power, justice, and awareness of gender and racial differences within the literacy education (Vasquez et al, 2019; Wolfe, 2010). Taking a critical literacy perspective involves intentionally reaching for risky children’s literature (Wessel-Powell & Bentley, 2022) and using it to help students develop the skills and knowledge needed to become informed, engaged, and active social participants. This approach involves various teaching strategies, such as analyzing current events, using literature to challenge dominant perspectives, and encouraging students to engage in critical dialogue and reflection (Flores et al, 2019).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, in analyzing preservice teachers' written course artifacts, we found that most participants mentioned topics that they believed should be discussed using children's literature. That is, the topics listed in Table 6 are those that participants said may be risky but must be included in classrooms anyway, demonstrating their emergent critical literacy (Wessel-Powell & Bentley, 2022). Again, many respondents wrote about multiple topics.…”

Section: Rq 1: When Envisioning the Use Of Children's Literature What...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Teachers’ Self-Censorship of Children’s Literature in Texas—What’s Legislation Got to Do With It?

Lammert,

C. Godfrey

2023

AERA Open

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Although children’s literature has been challenged and banned for decades, some U.S. states have recently enacted legislation limiting how teachers can address such topics as race, sex, and gender in classrooms, which may influence teachers’ selection of literature. To understand this phenomenon, this exploratory concurrent mixed-methods study involved a written children’s literature course artifact and survey responses analyzed through critical literacy and self-censorship frameworks. Findings indicate that preservice teachers reported avoiding conversations about gender and gender identity more often than those about sexual orientation or race. Further, despite legislative changes, participants mostly reported self-censoring due to lack of pedagogical knowledge, lack of policy knowledge, and fear of institutional sanctions, which are long-standing reasons for self-censorship rather than new ones. Comparatively, they self-reported little desire to promote the dominant political ideology. This research indicates that topic-restrictive legislation can influence classroom practice even when teachers do not share the ideology behind such legislation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defining Risky Children's Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rq 1: When Envisioning the Use Of Children's Literature What...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Teachers’ Self-Censorship of Children’s Literature in Texas—What’s Legislation Got to Do With It?

Lammert,

C. Godfrey

2023

AERA Open

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This research tells us that in the United States, an 80%–85% white, native-English-speaking teaching workforce represents a vast spectrum of beliefs and abilities when it comes to social justice and other critical approaches to education such as critical literacy (Taie & Goldring, 2018). Some novice teachers enter their classrooms committed to critical practice (Wessel-Powell & Bentley, 2021), while others find the work entirely overwhelming or outside the bounds of their responsibility as educators (Pollock et al, 2016). More often, however, teachers fall somewhere in the middle, recognizing the value of critical work thanks to personal experiences or program preparation (Ahmed, 2020), but still feeling unprepared or unable to actually incorporate social justice and critical literacy into practice (Ajayi, 2017).…”

Section: Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Literacy in Practice: How Educators Leverage Supports and Overcome Challenges to Enact Critical Literacy Pedagogy in Their Classrooms

Williams

2022

Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice

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This is a multiple case study exploring five high school English teachers’ perceived supports and challenges to enacting critical literacy pedagogy, and their experiences navigating the challenges. Through a structure/culture/agency framework, I sought to understand how these five teachers’ leveraging of supports and sense of agency in the face of challenges impacted the critical literacy choices they made in their classrooms. In order to understand how participants’ pedagogical challenges, supports, and agency all intersected to impact their critical literacy teaching, I used critical narrative analysis to explore the presence and/or absence of grammatical and framing agency in their narratives. The analysis found that participants mostly experienced challenges at the local (school) and institution level contexts, and navigated these challenges differently depending on the level of agency they saw themselves having in their schools.

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Unveiling the power of critical multimodal literacy: exploring cultural difference in children’s literature through ‘The Proudest Blue — a Story of Hijab and Family’

Alford,

Yousef

2023

AJLL

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At a time when difference is being actively diluted in the service of standardisation and conservative views of nationhood, stories about difference, and their semiotic and multimodal elements, provide rich grounds for critical engagement. This is especially the case with stories about highly visible cultural symbols, such as the hijab, worn in many school classrooms in countries like Australia. In this paper, we explore the use of critical analysis of multimodal elements as matters with which to think about cultural difference, through the picture book, The Proudest Blue — a story of Hijab and family by Ibtihaj Muhammad with art by Hatem Aly, 2020. This story presents to young people the notion of being strong in cultural difference via the symbol of the hijab. Our analysis draws on Cappello et al.’s 2019) Critical Multimodal Literacy approach to explore four dimensions: communicating with multimodal tools; re-storying, representing and redesigning; acknowledging and shifting power relationships and leveraging multimodal resources to critique and transform socio-political realities. We identify the range of multimodal tools the author and illustrator put to use to re-story and critique common misconceptions about the wearing of the hijab as a religious symbol. Making links between multimodal composition and critical analysis is a powerful way to affirm the significance of children’s literature that addresses difference, a term often conflated with diversity which references dominant norms. It can also inspire children to story their own matters in ways that critique notions of cultural homogeneity.

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Newcomers, Novices, Censors, and Seasoned Advocates Navigate Risky Texts with Critical Literacy

Cited by 7 publications

References 41 publications

Teachers’ Self-Censorship of Children’s Literature in Texas—What’s Legislation Got to Do With It?

Teachers’ Self-Censorship of Children’s Literature in Texas—What’s Legislation Got to Do With It?

Critical Literacy in Practice: How Educators Leverage Supports and Overcome Challenges to Enact Critical Literacy Pedagogy in Their Classrooms

Unveiling the power of critical multimodal literacy: exploring cultural difference in children’s literature through ‘The Proudest Blue — a Story of Hijab and Family’

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