RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
You Matter
| 84| Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 |
social action around social justice issues as evidenced by Cowhey
in the above discussion of her routine classroom practices.
Table 1. Taking Authentic Action: Going Beyond a Pedestrian Approach
• Framing issue along a dynamic continuum
• Investigating root causes and circumstances
• Inviting activists or community members into the school to discuss current
needs and action taking place around identified needs
• Becoming familiar with community sites by interviewing individuals
connected with community spaces (i.e. food banks, shelters, etc.)
• Co-constructing (with community members) inquiry-based action projects
with the aim of challenging stereotypes and removing stigma
• Anticipating possible consequences of action
• Engaging in reflection on what occurs and accepting responsibility for the
consequences (or lack thereof)
• Consider strategies for sustaining or revising action taken
Adapted from Cowhey (2006); Short (2011); Silvers & Shorey (2012);Winograd (2015)
Implications for Practice: Thinking
Toward the Future
It is important for students to understand more than the area
they live in; that there is a much bigger world awaiting them
that they should take the time to understand. Living in the
technologically immersed society that we live in today means that
as teachers we need to prepare our students to be global citizens
able to function and thrive in their future lives. The pedagogical
challenge we described provoked both of us to revisit critical
literacy and children’s literature scholarship as a way of preparing
ourselves to move beyond read-alouds with picture books centered
around social justice issues. In addition to revisiting children’s
literature scholarship in this focus area, the pedagogical challenge
provoked both of us to consider implications for our future
practices. In the next section, we provide recommendations for
practice in early childhood classrooms and university classrooms.
Jill: An Early Childhood Classroom
Teacher’s Perspective
After reflecting on the pedagogical challenge and revisiting
the scholarship, I (Jill) uncovered several strategies for moving
beyond a pedestrian approach to picture book read-alouds,
specifically those highlighting social justice centered issues.
Here I offer some ideas for teachers to consider implementing,
using children’s literature in early childhood classrooms.
Given the goal of engaging students in taking meaningful
action around social justice issues, I recommend the following
strategies. First, begin by reading several similarly themed
social justice picture books aloud to the students without
showing the illustrations. The intention behind this is to
allow the students to construct their own illustrations of the
story, share their own personal experiences, and provide you
with a window into their thinking on the social justice issue
being highlighted in the literature (Botelho & Rudman, 2009).
After having read the books, ask students to create their own
illustrations for each book. Following a “picture walk” sharing
session of student-created picture book illustrations, the
class can discuss each book using a critical lens and asking a
series of important questions. In Table 2, Silvers and Shorey
(2012) provide excellent questions to consider (p.15).
Table 2. Critical questions
• Whose voices are heard? Whose voices are absent?
• What does the author/illustrator want the reader to think/understand?
• What is an alternative to the author/illustrator’s message?
• How will a critical reading of this text help me change my views or actions
in relation to other people?
How does this text confirm or challenge a personal experience
you have had related to this issue? As Winogard (2015) reminds
us “when the teacher asks just the right questions to get students
to consider multiple perspectives, the bias of the author, and the
larger political context of the events, this moves the discussion
and analysis into the realm of the ‘critical’. The quality of the
teacher’s questions are crucial when doing critical literacy, as it
is in all teaching” (p. 109). After a “deep” discussion of the texts,
I recommend creating a continuum of where the texts fall in
relation to one another--similar to Short’s (2011) activity around
poverty with children in a primary level classroom. Depending
on the reading level of the students, a classroom teacher can add
other texts as well to deepen the discussion and broaden the
continuum (see Short et al, 2013). You can also invite the students
to create either a play or poem depicting the social justice issue
in an effort to access multiple modalities in the interpretive
process. For more in-depth suggestions for developing a critical
literacy curriculum with young children see Winograd, (2015).
To enrich the discussion and provide the students with an
understanding as to why social justice issues occur, it is important
to provide students with nonfiction books or other sources
to aid their understanding. Through discussion, creation, and
reflection of multiple texts and resources (print, digital, artistic)
facilitated by teachers, early childhood students can brainstorm
actions that could be taken by the class to create some level of
local change. Such activities would help students to understand
the root causes and circumstances behind social justice issues
and give them opportunities to create meaningful change—in
their own way—through authentic learning experiences that
reflect multiliteracies (Silvers & Shorey, 2012) and literacy as a
social practice (Vazquez, Egaway, Harste, & Thompson, 2004).
Sandra: A Literacy Teacher
Educator’s Perspective
The pedagogical challenge of going beyond a pedestrian
approach provoked me (Sandra), as a teacher educator, to
make changes in how I approach courses addressing content
and pedagogy in literacy development. I asked myself: How
do I model and facilitate authentic university-level classroom
activities that go beyond a pedestrian approach to social
justice-themed children’s literature? How do I integrate theory
and practice about social justice children’s literature more
strategically and explicitly? For me, the answers to these
questions are still in process. However, in what follows I share
four recommendations for literacy teacher educators.