Multiliteracy
reflecting on content and identity
creating dialogue between the two
Multiliteracy, focuses on the flexibility and fluency one must have in order to understand experiences enough to integrate or relate one's life to the material. Multiliteracy can spark empathy in individuals.
Multiliteracies focus on integrating experiences from the learner's life into the curriculum (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; New London Group, 1996; Street, 1984). An example of this in my classroom is when a student interviewed her grandmother regarding cultural assimilation on the reservation she grew up on and incorporated that information in a class project. One of the first assignments I gave students was a questionnaire. This questionnaire got the students to start thinking about what factors contribute to the formation of their perspectives by directly asking them to reflect on aspects of their background and how those experiences inform their thinking. This questionnaire was my first attempt to get students to start thinking about their conditioning. (Freire, 1998) This metacognitive process enables one to be critical and empathetic. One must first understand where they are coming from before attempting to understand others.
Critical literacy involves understanding one’s point of view and intentionally critiquing one’s assumptions and what one perceives to be common knowledge. This step is an essential part of historical thinking. Freire (1998) wrote “I am not impartial or objective; not a fixed observer of facts and happening to be an adherent of the traits that falsely claim impartiality or objectivity… whoever really observes, does so from a given point of view” (p. 22). This understanding of history and reality empowers us to appreciate multiple perspectives and therefore encourages us to understand different perspectives.
Literacy centers on reading between the lines, which involves recognizing how one frames knowledge or how knowledge has been framed. That is to say, understanding that lines have been placed on the page by someone in someway for some reason. Just as my Arabic students learn to read from right to left, my history students must learn to understand the histories are arguments and like any argument, its important to hear and interpret many sides. Many educators and theorists cite critical education as a necessity for the decolonizing process. (Ndimande, 2004). Decolonizing education involves recognizing that knowledge is a social construct and that we have been conditioned as Freire argues. In Educating the Right Way, Michael Apple challenges neoconservative notions of “real knowledge” that create a fear of the “Other”. The real knowledge or knowledge worth knowing that is prioritized in our schools is “often an ethnocentric, and even racialized, understanding of the world” (p. 52). Expanding our notions of knowledge can therefore liberate and uplift marginalized people and communities.I argue that critical literacy must also be used to challenge people of privilege and of the ‘dominant’ culture. We need to assert critical literacy in privileged spaces. It is an essential step for challenging injustice in society, developing empathy and proposing inclusive solutions.
Multiliteracy intersects genre approaches, and is more capable when one approaches multiple perspectives.
The annotated bibliographies that students created at the end of the first unit provided the opportunity to explore topics of interest while attempting to analyze sources through various lenses. This assignment was designed to enable students to engage with various media outlets, from newspapers to memes.
Multiliteracies focus on integrating experiences from the learner's life into the curriculum (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; New London Group, 1996; Street, 1984). An example of this in my classroom is when a student interviewed her grandmother regarding cultural assimilation on the reservation she grew up on and incorporated that information in a class project. One of the first assignments I gave students was a questionnaire. This questionnaire got the students to start thinking about what factors contribute to the formation of their perspectives by directly asking them to reflect on aspects of their background and how those experiences inform their thinking. This questionnaire was my first attempt to get students to start thinking about their conditioning. (Freire, 1998) This metacognitive process enables one to be critical and empathetic. One must first understand where they are coming from before attempting to understand others.
Critical literacy involves understanding one’s point of view and intentionally critiquing one’s assumptions and what one perceives to be common knowledge. This step is an essential part of historical thinking. Freire (1998) wrote “I am not impartial or objective; not a fixed observer of facts and happening to be an adherent of the traits that falsely claim impartiality or objectivity… whoever really observes, does so from a given point of view” (p. 22). This understanding of history and reality empowers us to appreciate multiple perspectives and therefore encourages us to understand different perspectives.
Literacy centers on reading between the lines, which involves recognizing how one frames knowledge or how knowledge has been framed. That is to say, understanding that lines have been placed on the page by someone in someway for some reason. Just as my Arabic students learn to read from right to left, my history students must learn to understand the histories are arguments and like any argument, its important to hear and interpret many sides. Many educators and theorists cite critical education as a necessity for the decolonizing process. (Ndimande, 2004). Decolonizing education involves recognizing that knowledge is a social construct and that we have been conditioned as Freire argues. In Educating the Right Way, Michael Apple challenges neoconservative notions of “real knowledge” that create a fear of the “Other”. The real knowledge or knowledge worth knowing that is prioritized in our schools is “often an ethnocentric, and even racialized, understanding of the world” (p. 52). Expanding our notions of knowledge can therefore liberate and uplift marginalized people and communities.I argue that critical literacy must also be used to challenge people of privilege and of the ‘dominant’ culture. We need to assert critical literacy in privileged spaces. It is an essential step for challenging injustice in society, developing empathy and proposing inclusive solutions.
Multiliteracy intersects genre approaches, and is more capable when one approaches multiple perspectives.
The annotated bibliographies that students created at the end of the first unit provided the opportunity to explore topics of interest while attempting to analyze sources through various lenses. This assignment was designed to enable students to engage with various media outlets, from newspapers to memes.