Critical Literacy

Learning about critical literacy was one of my favorite parts of doing the education program here at RIC. I never really understood what it was when I was in high school, but I only seemed to have certain teachers that really gave me those skills that critical literacy wants us to learn: to question an unjust society and to create dialogue from between both students and their teachers in order understand this questioning. I had teachers who just stuck to the rows and desks and taught us about how Act III, scene iii, line 87 of Hamlet is important to Shakespeare's ultimate meaning. And then there were those who asked me, "well, why do you think the Disney princesses are the way that they are?" and then had me base an entire research project on exactly that question. We discussed, we questioned not only each other but why I was researching and why it mattered. That was the kind of education that I loved, and it was one I wanted to continue with my own students.

So, when thinking about how to teach critical literacy, the first thing that came to mind was, as my teachers liked to call it, "hacking ads." It's also called HackJams as described by this post on TeachingTolerance.org by Annie Hunyh.
Basically, students would search through the internet or through magazines of advertisements. That way students are picking out pieces of media that they are consuming and looking over every day of their lives. From there, they begin to look at it while asking questions like: Who is represented? Who is not? Who is this advertisement made for? etc. From there, the students then redesign the ads, adding in those oppressed voices, redesigning the ad to show the voices of the oppressed or create something that has a completely new meaning. In terms of critical literacy, this lesson is amazing in creating dialogue among the teacher and the students, pointing out the social injustices in the every day and then coming up with ways to "fix" these injustices. It gets the students thinking about the world in that they interact with every day. I found some amazing examples here.
First we start with the ad:

Controversial enough, right? A woman's body sexualized to the extreme by comparing her body to the grand opening of a clothing company. So, what can reimagine this ad to look like? Amazing artists from around the world answered that question:

Very, very different messages. From sexualized in order to appeal to the male gaze to providing strength, love, power. And I think it gives hope to students that what they see is not the world, they can redefine the standards so that it matches the beauty they wish the world would provide them. They have the power to change one ad, so who knows, maybe they'll be the ones designing them one day!