Doing Critical Literacy : Texts and Activities for Students and Teachers

Compelling and highly engaging, this text shows teachers at all levels how to do critical literacy in the classroom and provides models for practice that can be adapted to any context. Integrating social theory and classroom practice, it brings critical literacy to life as a socio-cultural orientation to the teaching of literacy that takes seriously the relationship between language and power and orients readers to the social effects of texts. Students and teachers are drawn into the key questions critical readers need to pose of texts: Whose interests are served, who benefits, who is disadvantaged; who is included and who is excluded? The practical activities help readers grasp complex issues.

Extending the theoretical framework in Hilary Janks’ Literacy and Power with a rich range of completely new, up-to-date activities that translate theory into practice, Doing Critical Literacy is powerful, relevant, and useful for both pre- and in-service teacher education and for use in schools.

Hilary Janks teaches English language literacy in the School of Education at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Kerryn Dixon lectures Foundation phase students, in the School of Education at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ana Ferreira lectures in English in the School of Education at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Stella Granville has recently retired from Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was a teacher and teacher educator for many years. Her research has been in the areas of critical literacy and academic literacy.

Denise Newfield lectures in the School of Literature, Language and Media at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.