New Series Proposal

Here is what I hope to start at IAP. . .

Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres

Kincheloe (2005) offers a foundational argument about the role of critical pedagogy in our classrooms:

[P]roponents of critical pedagogy understand that every dimension of schooling and every form of educational practice are politically contested spaces. Shaped by history and challenged by a wide range of interest groups, educational practice is a fuzzy concept as it takes place in numerous settings, is shaped by a plethora of often-invisible forces, and can operate even in the name of democracy and justice to be totalitarian and oppressive. (p. 2)

This series will explore major authors and genres through a critical literacy lens that seeks to offer students opportunities as readers and writers to embrace and act upon their own empowerment. Further, the volumes in this series are guided by Freire (2005) as well:

One of the violences perpetuated by illiteracy is the suffocation of the consciousness and the expressiveness of men and women who are forbidden from reading and writing, thus limiting their capacity to write about their reading of the world so they can rethink about their original reading of it. (p. 2)

Proposed volumes will focus on the following:

Authors:

Sandra Cisneros (Gerlach)

Louise Erdrich (Hammond)

Rachel Carson (Stein)

Alice Walker

Genres:

Graphic novels and comics (Thomas)

Nonfiction

Poetry

Novels