What's Hot!
A way in to teaching critical literacy in the middle years
Author: Christine Ludwig and Suzette Holm
Format: 128 pp book
ISBN: 1863667237 SCIS No: 1224059
Publisher: Curriculum Corporation 2005
Audience: Teacher resource
Price: $39.95
Audience year level
What's Hot! A way in to teaching critical literacies in the middle years is a teacher resource that places its emphasis on planning responsive and effective programs for students in the middle years of schooling. It responds to issues of change that most affect young adolescents - moving to new environments, expanding their social horizons, and facing increased expectations and responsibilities. It does this by drawing on the four roles of the literacy learner:
- Code breaker - Students analyse 'Home and Away' to reveal how visual resources (eg appearance, shot types and framing) and spoken resources (eg dialogue, voice tone, facial expressions) construct characters in a particular way.
- Text participant - Students learn how views of 'What's hot, what's cool and what's not' as portrayed in teen magazines vary among peers and community members. They share their ideas as well as interviewing and inviting other students and older community members to do so.
- Text user - Students learn that fantasy texts are constructed to appeal to an audience by using a number of elements including a quest. They learn that newspaper reports have a distinctive structure to achieve particular purposes and to influence particular audiences.
- Text analyst - Students analyse a range of texts about food. They discuss the likely purposes - who is being invited to read the text, who is being left out, how readers and viewers are being positioned, and the effect of dominant discourse on readers and viewers.
Practising critical literacies calls for an awareness that learning about texts and texts themselves are not natural or neutral. The units in this book give students the power to shape their sense of self and how they relate to the wider community, and they can confirm or challenge what they are used to in all aspects of their lives.
What's Hot! uses different topics to frame the critical literacy learning activities within the book. The topics covered are identity, food, news, fantasy and soap operas. The book provides ideas for discussion, teacher questions and reading and writing experiences that all serve to engage children in the practice of critically analysing texts. A variety of text samples and suggestions are provided though it is suggested that the teacher choose texts appropriate to the class and the suggested activities. Tables, charts, diagrams and pictures are used for easy retrieval of some of the main critical issues and knowledge within the literacy activities outlined. The four roles/practices of the reader are attached to the different activities ensuring students are not only provided with the opportunity to engage with the text analyst role but the other important roles of the reader as well.
