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You
are here: Sometimes, to borrow from Paulo Freire, you can read a world in a word, not only in the spirit of adventure but also in terms of critical understanding-- of how naming realities in certain ways both restricts and enables our responses to them. The word choice of tool kit, used metaphorically as a way of conceptualizing critical literacy, caught my attention the moment I saw it in an influential article by the self-named New London Group (1996). This prominent collective of educators and literacy specialists, in forming this likeness, underscored a relatively simple but often over-looked teaching point: towards critical understanding, students should not be expected to find things out for themselves. They require guidance in the form of a metalanguage, the classroom provision of text-analytic tools with which to talk about, interpret, or critique various forms of information. Here, in part, is how the NLG put it:
Any metalanguage to be used in school curriculum has to match up to some taxing criteria. It must be capable of supporting sophisticated critical analyses of language and other semiotic systems, yet at the same time not make unrealistic demands on teacher and learner knowledge, . . . A metalanguage also needs to be flexible and open ended. It should be seen as a tool kit for working on semiotic activities, not a formalism to be applied to them (p. 77; my italics)
In the NLG scheme of things, there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach, but rather guiding principles: a metalanguage should help students understand both what a text means (i.e., its content) as well as how it means (i.e., the process of its production, and the preferred reception it organizes through various compositional choices.) It should also facilitate ways of reading "between" and "behind" the lines (Cooke, 2004)-- that is, help students form connections between specific textual elements and broader social, cultural, and political contexts. And by equating literacies to semiotic activity (i.e., working with signs, broadly speaking)—and by calling language just one of many semiotic systems—the NLG rub up against the conventional grain: An effective metalanguage should apply not just to traditional modes of speech and writing, but also to meanings conveyed by way of images, spatial arrangements, the movement and adornment of the body as well as their multi modal integration. In the same way that we might analyze a sentence or paragraph of oral/written text, we might develop a "grammar" or "vocabulary" that could be similarly applied to a photograph, video, website, the design of a classroom, or piece of clothing, as examples. In short, an expanded notion of text-types and genres requires an expanded tool kit-- a pluralized conception of literacies and multiliteracies for both schooling and public life.
Still, the notion of a "tool kit" can stir up troublesome associations. On a personal level, I'm reminded of my inadequacies as a home repairperson. Most of the time, I can count on my multi-head screwdriver, hammer, and a couple pairs of pliers for the predictable task at hand, but I can also be quickly overwhelmed by unexpected happenings and forced to improvise ("Maybe a fork or spoon can get this open") or call in outside experts ("Let's invite your parents over for dinner.") This parallels the inadequacies we sometimes feel as teachers in that we can also become over-reliant on a fixed set of methods, followed by the onset of professional panic and frustration when carefully structured lesson plans seem to come apart. Clearly, methodological flexibility and open-ended ness is an appealing theoretical stance, but it is also challenging and potentially unsettling in practice, especially for new teachers.
A literacy "tool kit" can have other problematic connotations. For some, it might suggest that a way of reading, writing or speaking is "broken" and needs to be fixed, which would align with the assumption that literacy is the same for everyone, essentially a universal, cognitive activity rather than one that critical educators prefer to define as fundamentally a social practice. Calling literacy a social practice does not ignore what goes on in the mind, but instead foregrounds the point that there are no intrinsically or objectively "right" or "wrong" literacies requiring repair. Social groups, usually the most powerful, determine which and whose literacies count as basic, functional, of higher-order, or essential for a globalized, information economy. Other minority groups, however, are sometimes able to initiate change, for example, by invoking "rights" claims for more inclusive language policies in liberal-democratic societies.
A literacy "tool kit" can be a strange teaching metaphor in another key sense. For some, it might imply a direct cause-effect relationship-- the hammering of a nail or turning of a screw-- a kind of billiard ball approach to teaching where students respond directly and predictably to the "force" and efficiency of their teachers' instruction. But learning seldom imitates the laws of physics, in spite of what some policy makers might say. Critical language awareness-- indeed all knowledge-- is not so much a property of what is given in class, but rather of what is received, or created through interaction, of which many complicating variables come into play.
In working with texts, students draw on a wide range of experiences: prior language knowledge or socialization acquired from home, community and school; an often changing sense of self and collective identity as a source of meaning making; the perception and negotiation of what schools require and reward. As I often observe in my own classes, even students from similar social and cultural backgrounds demonstrate a surprising variety of critical literacy strategies. Some work well with formalistic, grammar-based tools (e.g., Janks, 1991) while others prefer visual or more experiential metaphors. Lutz's (1995) alliterative category of weasel words, for example, is a consistently popular tool for questioning the deceptive promises of many commercial advertisements.
To help illustrate the complexities that shape literacy practices, I'd like to share something that recently happened in a second year, content-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course I teach called English in Use. In the second term, the course content is focused on critical media literacy, with many of its readings and visual materials (print ads, videos, Internet resources) adapted from a course I co-developed elsewhere called Language and Public Life (for details such as course materials and assignments see Hunter & Morgan, 2001). As it is an EAP course, I organize lessons that help students manage L2 academic skills, genres, and text-types that may be unfamiliar or particularly difficult for them. But because the course is also a critical approach to EAP—through its materials and assignments-- I also try to do the reverse; that is, I try to raise students' awareness of how academic content "manages" them-- how texts are person-formative, organized in ways that influence our identities and life chances beyond the school (see Morgan & Ramanathan, in press).
Because this is a fairly abstract notion, and because the processes that shape our identities are often unconscious or go largely unexamined, I bring in a couple of videos and readings that make the person-formative aspect of texts explicit. The following excerpt comes from an article by Hilary Janks. As Janks (1991) notes, "Oppositional reading is made easier if readers are able to understand how the language of texts contributes to the construction of subject positions for them, the readers" (p.91.) The example she provides comes from You magazine, of the typical star-gazing, gossipy genre that distract us during long waits at grocery check-out counters:What makes a man sexy? Take a good look at him. He is practically bald. He's got wrinkles. He's just been named the sexiest man on Earth, and every woman reading this knows exactly why.
Sean Connery is old—and sexy. He's a cool customer and hard as nails. He's never had plastic surgery. It makes women feel good to know there's a man in control … a real man.
This one is fearless and powerful. He knows how to handle woman—and that's something every woman desires in a man.
The well-known American Magazine, People, recently voted Sean Connery the sexiest man on Earth … (pp. 191-192)I usually give my students a copy of the passage from You and write two questions on the black board, which I often have to "unpack" a bit, by asking "how does it make you feel as a woman or man when you read this?":
1) What "subject positions" or "preferred readings" are being constructed in this text?2) What linguistic resources (i.e., verb tenses, article system, voice, sequencing of information, etc.) have been used in this construction?
Students seem to enjoy the activity. Given their relative youth, those who have seen Sean Connery's more recent work find the idea of his mature "sexiness" a source of either wonder or humor. In their work in small groups and later in a whole class format, they are usually able to "distance" themselves from the text and critically analyze the gendered norms (i.e., subject positions) that the text promotes. Many of them, as well, are able to point out the key linguistic resources that have been utilized towards this positioning: present tense asserting the "reality" and naturalness of the gender claims made; the agentless passive in "just been named the sexiest man on Earth" (Who "named" him? Who are they, students ask rhetorically); the use of the definite article—"the sexiest man on Earth"—from the same passage, signifies consensus—an objective fact rather than opinion. This activity is actually a great way to review grammar forms in an ESL/EAP setting, so I usually make a list of all the lexico-grammatical items noted by the students and the ones they miss but are elaborated on page 192 in the Janks article.
That's usually how the activity goes. One day, however, a student happened to read this passage in a way that surprised me and moved me off my usual lesson plan. Mahin, which is not her real name, said something to the effect that "I know what I'm supposed to think about this [the Sean Connery passage]. I'm supposed to be like a feminist here and think that strong men are bad, but I'm not sure that I feel that way . . . " By this response, Mahin was in fact negotiating a multi-layered, inter-textual set of "preferred readings." While the authors of You wanted us to take Sean Connery's sexiness at "face value," Hilary Janks wanted us to understand this same passage in a new frame, one that encourages a critical-analytic reading. My bringing Janks' take on You's take on Sean Connery into class added one more level of meaning negotiation or intertextuality. In the situational context of a university, where grades and power relations between professors and students prevail, Mahin would wisely ask herself, "What does Brian want me to say about this text in relation to other things we've read in this course? Moreover, how should it be read against other texts and course readings on gender in this university?"
I don't mean to suggest here that Mahin's sole motivation was to impress me in order to get a better grade. As she intimated in our subsequent class discussion, a university is also a cultural context where many EAP students come in contact with new identity options regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, class, or religion that profoundly challenge who they are who they might become in the future. Although born in Iran, Mahin has spent all of her adolescence in Canada and finds the lifestyles and relative freedom of young women very appealing. She works in a fashion store, occasionally goes out at night with friends, and mentions having a boyfriend. Clearly, though, she is uncomfortable with the redefinition of gender norms she sees around her. The representation of a "strong" man, one "who knows how to handle women," is also appealing, perhaps even reassuring, yet it poses deeply-felt contradictions that she is aware of and will have to work out in the future.
Even if students reject the identity options with which they come in contact, they still must engage with them and redefine themselves in comparison-- a process that is not too different from the expectations we have for our students when we look for signs of an authentic "voice" within the structured confines of the academic essay. In doing critical literacies-- of using texts to provoke new social understandings and transform older ones-- it is important to point out that Mahin did in fact produce an "oppositional reading," in Janks' terms. It just wasn't the one I was expecting or was prepared for at the time. Looking back, I see this as further evidence of the central role of identity in all forms of meaning making. Student identities are both displayed and created through the literacy practices we encourage in our classrooms. Yet, for teachers, this process is not easy to predict or control. We can create conditions in which a critical understanding of texts, self and society is possible, but we cannot determine if or how that understanding will be realized. For this reason, the NLG's call for a flexible, open ended "tool kit" in their multiliteracies framework makes a lot sense—even in spite of my own reservations.
References
Cooke, D. (2004). What can a text mean? New Zealand Journal of Adult Learning, 32, 52-64.
Hunter, J., & Morgan, B. (2001). Language and public life: Teaching multiliteracies in ESL. In I. Leki (Ed.), Academic Writing Programs, (pp. 99-109). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Janks, H. (1991). A critical approach to the teaching of language. Educational Review, 43, 191-199.
Lutz, W. (1995). With these words I can sell you anything. In G. Goshgarian (Ed.), Exploring Language, 7th ed. (pp. 73-87). New York: Harper Collins.
Morgan, B., & Ramanathan, V. (in press). Critical Literacies and Language Education: Global and Local Perspectives. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25.
New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60-92.
Brian Morgan teaches in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at York University in Toronto, Ontario. His areas of interest include critical ESL/EAP pedagogies, language and identity, and language teacher education. His email address is bmorgan@yorku.ca .
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