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

ABSTRACT

From newcomers and novices, to cautious censors and seasoned advocates, pre-service teachers and in-service teachers who use critical literacy approaches to advocate for justice walk an imagined precarious line between courageously engaging in difficult, critical conversations about risky texts, navigating obstacles, and getting burned by collaborative stakeholders’ resistance. This article uses narrative inquiry methods to illustrate teachers’ approaches to critical literacy to inform teacher education and encourage others to similarly persist. Authors reconstruct stories from four teachers, Nola, Natalie, Claire, and Adeline. Each teacher introduces their students to what they consider a risky text-- and experiences worries and/or obstacles they must navigate around as a result. The classroom stories they share suggest next steps for growing as a self-reflective, anti-bias, critical educator. As teacher educators, we authors offer responses to these four teachers’ stories, not to critique their choices, but to leverage their common worries and obstacles enacting critical literacy to build our capacity to extend teachers’ critical literacy teaching. We mine their stories by asking four provocative questions: (1) What is lost? (2) Who is left out? (3) How does power work here? And, (4) What would justice-oriented teaching sound like/look like as a response? Based on responses, we provide strategies to newcomers/novices, censors, and seasoned advocates. We close with a call for brave teaching that invites so-called risky texts into classrooms to connect intentionally with students and unequivocally promotes justice.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank each of the four teachers featured in this article (all names are pseudonyms) for taking time to share their journey with critical literacy, and commend them on their brave teaching.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.