An Interview with Maureen McLaughlin About Critical Literacy

by Maureen McLaughlin

We were fortunate to have the opportunity to interview Maureen McLaughlin, noted educator and author, about her thoughts on this month's theme: active literacy and informational text.

How would you define active literacy? You often write about critical literacy. How would you differentiate them?

Those of us who believe in critical literacy take Rosenblatt's thoughts one step further and look at reading also from a critical stance, which is one of questioning who has the power. It's one in which we do not accept what's printed as truth. We look at what we see in print, whether it is hard copy or lines on a computer screen, and we question. We question whose viewpoint is being presented. We question what the author of that text wants us to think. We look at how alternative perspectives might be represented. From a critical stance, we're really, as Freire (1970) would say, "reading the world." Our goal is to understand not only the text, but everything that underpins the text, all those personal opinions and perspectives that bring the text to the forefront. It is all about power.

Power in critical literacy is usually put in a social context. People have power over others. Those with power establish the rules or set the agenda. People with power have their messages heard and are followed by the group; those without power have their messages ignored. In texts and the discussions that surround them, the author has power to name and describe the event in the story. This is when teachers can make a choice to promote critical awareness. Either they can choose to maintain the power of the author by limiting the discussion of texts to the simple summarizing of the ideas in the text, or they can encourage the students to use their power to rename or reimagine the event in different ways. Traditionally in reading, the emphasis has been on the author's power, but in critical literacy, readers who are text critics actively exert their power by questioning the author's message and its hidden implications.

Here's an example for you. When I was growing up, we had textbooks in history that contained information about Christopher Columbus. We learned that he "sailed the Ocean Blue in 1492" and that he had three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. We also learned that he was a great explorer, and we don't dispute that today. He was a great explorer. But what we didn't know when I was growing up was everything else about Columbus. Columbus now is viewed as being responsible for the destruction of the Taino people, who lived on the islands that he landed on and returned to throughout his voyages. And so it is a very different perspective we have of Columbus today— one which was not offered in my textbooks because the person or persons who had control over the content of textbooks at that time chose not to print it. The big questions critically are: Who had the power? Who chose not to share the full truth? What other perspectives may have been silenced or marginalized?

Why would you say it is so important to the education of our students to become critically aware?

When we look at reading, we hope that all students will have a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies that they can use while they are reading. Within that, we hope that they have efferent and aesthetic stances, as Rosenblatt has proposed. Beyond that, they need to have a critical perspective, because that is what makes this an active process. Otherwise, people are giving us information, and we believe it. The critical perspective comes into play when we begin to question.

Parallel to that, we also need to be able to read the information that we find on the Internet. If you are familiar with the work of Don Leu and his colleagues (in press), then you know that one of the processes that they key in on is the ability to evaluate text on the Internet, and that means reading it from a critical stance. The information that is posted on the Internet is anyone's information. For the most part, there's no editing there. That's one more reason why we need to be critically aware.

How might you apply critical literacy to informational text?

Please bear in mind that the definition of text within critical literacy is extremely broad, including not only a variety of print materials, but also photographs, television, movies, and everyday life. In looking at informational text, critical literacy (1) focuses on the issue, (2) focuses on who has the power, and then (3) promotes reflection, transformation, and action.

Let me explain what I mean by "who has the power" using an example of something as common as the evening news. The evening news is a half hour long on the major networks. That's 30 minutes, but without commercials, I believe it is 22 minutes. And so those 22 minutes contain information that people at the major networks have chosen to convey to the people that evening. Then, after they make those choices, they decide how much time they will allot to each piece. In making those two decisions, they determine what news will be shared and whose perspective(s) is going to be shared. If you look at the evening news, who has the power? The people who choose what stories will air, determine whose perspective(s) will be represented, and decide how much time is going to be given to a topic have the power. The people who determine what's in our students' textbooks have power. Again, it is all about questioning why something is being represented, why something is not being represented, why only a particular perspective is being represented.

So when educators are teaching their students to become critically literate and applying critical literacy skills to informational text, it all comes back to questioning— to looking at a problem and examining its complexity about who has the power, why that person has the power, what other perspectives need to be represented here, and what action can be taken. It takes time to learn to become critical. It is something that teachers must learn first, so they will be able to teach their students. Once students develop critical awareness, their thinking becomes greatly enriched.

What are some of the key questions to consider when applying a critical literacy reading to a text?

I've already mentioned some of these. Students (and teachers) need to learn to ask themselves:

• Whose viewpoint is expressed?
• What does the author want us to think?
• Whose voices are missing?
• Whose voices are silenced?
• Whose voices are discounted?
• What might some alternative perspectives be?
• What action can you take based on your critical reading of this text?

These questions, of course, apply to printed text— whether in a book, a newspaper or magazine article, an advertisement, poems, song lyrics. A different set of questions can be applied to visual media such as television, video, or photographs. In those cases, we would need to consider:

• Who or what appears in the video or photo?
• Why are they there?
• Who or what is missing from the picture?
• Who is silenced or discounted?
• What does the image depict?
• What does the image maker (videographer, photographer) want you to think?
• What might an alternative image show?
• What action can you take based on what you have viewed?

If we take a critical stance, is there any way in which this impacts directly on a student's reading comprehension?

Without a doubt, it helps students to comprehend at a deeper level.

What might you say to teachers as they consider using critical literacy to address hot topics such as discrimination, war, or perhaps genetic engineering or cloning, since teachers are also subject to what is going on in their district and in their community? And yet it's also important that students are exposed to these topics.

I appreciate the fact that teachers are in a bit of a dilemma in some cases within the districts in which they teach in terms of helping students develop critical stances. But I think the districts themselves would agree that critical literacy is very important, because we're looking at text from different perspectives. Critical literacy is addressed in the different states' standards. In some states, it is stated directly as a standard; in other states, it is addressed indirectly in standards that specify the importance of teaching our students to become analytical readers, good thinkers, and thoughtful questioners.

What are some tips you can give to teachers who are using controversial or difficult text? How should teachers approach this?

Critical literacy is applicable to all texts. We don't want to associate critical literacy only with difficult or controversial text or text that is not widely accepted.

Let's talk a little bit about critical literacy and action. I'm going to share one of the techniques that is described (in much more detail) in an IRA article that I wrote with Glenn DeVoogd, "Critical Literacy as Comprehension: Expanding Reader Response" (2004a). The technique is called juxtapositioning, and you can use it with text, photos, videos, lyrics, and so on. The idea is to juxtapose several books that provide different perspectives, or perhaps juxtapose photos with other photos or even song lyrics with other song lyrics.

The example we use in our article centers on a study of World War II. The teacher might read excerpts from The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw, and so that would represent the perspective of the Allied soldiers. Or perhaps the teacher might read a transcript of a radio broadcast by Edward R. Murrow when he went on a bombing raid with the RAF or when he entered Buchenwald, giving students a feeling of what it was like to learn about the war if you were on the home front. In addition to that, the students might read theme-based books that provide other perspectives. In the article that Glenn and I wrote, we provide an annotated bibliography of a dozen books related to World War II. Among them are Remember Pearl Harbor: American and Japanese Survivors Tell Their Stories (by Allen), Night (by Wiesel), A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero of the Holocaust (by Gold), The Other Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis (by Friedman), and Summer of My German Soldier (by Greene). The books on the list offer different perspectives on World War II that would help students develop a critical stance as they read informational text because they are very focused on how many different perspectives there are in terms of that particular conflict. Providing opportunities for students to exchange information— in small groups and in whole-class discussions— about what they read allows them to view the war from numerous perspectives.

There are other techniques a teacher might use in such situations. Many of them are detailed in the IRA article (2004a) and the book Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students' Reading Comprehension (2004b) that Glenn and I have authored. Still, the most important thing to remember is that once the students develop a critical stance, it will become a natural part of their reading. They won't need techniques to help them to be critical.

I can offer an example as simple as a favorite book from childhood, Jack and the Beanstalk. When I first read the book, I thought that Jack was a good child. He planted the seeds, climbed the stalk, and brought riches back to his family. When one of the teachers who contributed to our critical literacy book read the book with her second grade class, very different interpretations emerged. The critically aware second graders questioned what right Jack had to go into the castle and steal the golden eggs. They definitely did not think of Jack as a good person.

How can we get students to use active literacy strategies on their own? Where does that transition come in where the students are embracing this way of looking at different types of text?

Teachers need to teach their students how to become critical after the teachers themselves learn how to become critically literate. Once students have learned about critical literacy and the teachers have introduced a variety of approaches to help them become active in critical literacy, they generally start being critical on their own. They engage in reflection, transformation, and action.

Using techniques such as juxtapositioning helps the students to learn to take an active role. For instance, in the World War II example, the students would become more confident about their critical stances as they gained insight into learning about the different perspectives represented in the readings they have done.

I should also mention that we start teaching critical literacy as early as kindergarten. So it's a matter of the students who are able to be taught about critical literacy at an early age having it from that point. But no matter what the age is at which critical literacy is first taught, it makes students and us better people not only because are we are questioning, but also because we are taking action when we encounter injustice.

References

Freiere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Leu, D. J., Coiro, J., Castek, J., Hartman, D. K., Henry, L. A., & Reinking, D. (in press). Research on instruction and assessment in the new literacies of online reading comprehension. In C. C. Block, S. Parris, & P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices. New York: Guilford Press.

McLaughlin, M., & DeVoogd, G. (2004a). Critical literacy as comprehension: Expanding reader response. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48, 448-461.

McLaughlin, M., & DeVoogd, G. (2004b). Critical literacy: Enhancing students' reading comprehension. New York: Scholastic.

Rosenblatt, L. M. (2004). The transactional theory of reading and writing. In R. B. Ruddell & N. J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 1363-1398). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Maureen McLaughlin is a professor of education at East Stroudsburg State University of Pennsylvania. Before earning her doctorate at Boston University, Maureen was a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and department chair in a public school system. She has authored numerous publications, including Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3-8 with Mary Beth Allen (International Reading Association, 2002), Guided Comprehension in the Primary Grades (International Reading Association, 2003), Critical Literacy with Glenn L. DeVoogd (Scholastic, 2004), Research-Based Reading Lessons for K-3 with Leslie Fisher (Scholastic, 2005), and Research-Based Reading Lessons 4-6, with Amy Homeyer and Jennifer Sassaman (Scholastic, 2006). Maureen is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association. A frequent speaker at state, national, and international conferences, Maureen is a consultant to school districts and universities nationwide.

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