Reading and Discussion #7

Three ideas from the afterword:

After reading Margaret Hagood’s afterword in “Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis,” I plan to use three ideas in my PSA.  First, I will use the fact that in 2009 students spent 10:45 hours using media but only 38 minutes in print media (Hagood, 221).  This helps support the claim in my PSA that media (as opposed to literature) is the message students are already reading.  Secondly, since my PSA is geared toward teachers, I plan to use the idea that it’s up to teachers to bring this kind of instruction to the classroom.  Pedagogues can be encouraged to create standards, administrators can be encouraged to allow the instruction, but it’s the teachers who have to figure out what to do.  Finally, my PSA will humorously depict a teacher who helps set her students free by guiding them.  This is a reflection of the idea of the changing role of the educator spoken of by Hagood in the afterword.

Summary of what I learned from Critical Pedagogy and the Teaching of Reading for Social Action by Fernando Naiditch:

This article used the philosophy of Paulo Feire to create a focus on reading that I found quite moving.  Naiditch discusses Feire’s belief that in teaching literacy students must be made subjects, not objects, of their own learning, and Naiditch cites reading as a major part of this.  If students can be taught to look for meaning and assign meaning on their own, without having to find the meanings the teacher assigns to literature, they can be empowered to learn for themselves.  Naiditch goes on to list several practical skills and strategies that teachers can use to turn the process of reading into something empowering.

References

Ávila, J. (2013). Critical digital literacies as social praxis: Intersections and challenges. New York: Peter Lang.

Naiditch, F. (n.d.). Critical questions in education. Retrieved from http://education.missouristate.edu/assets/ele/Naidtichfinal.pdf