by Paul Frye - Braemar College, Woodend, Victoria

What is Critical Literacy?

Critical literacy is based on the assumption that literacy is socially constructed and that dominant institutions (including schools) have constructed versions of literacy which have disguised the ideological nature of texts and the power relations inherent in many of our literacy practices. For example, in the past schools have constructed a literary canon containing ideologies of interest to privileged social groups; they have placed emphasis on spelling and traditional grammar without questioning when and where 'correct' grammar and spelling is appropriate and who makes these decisions; they have portrayed a notion of reading which has involved students showing 'understandings' of texts, even though such 'understandings' have rarely gone beyond basic comprehension or unquestioning agreement with dominant readings; and they have helped to produce a notion of authorship which has focussed on the individual rather than representing writing as a social practice. Although some of these issues are now being addressed, it would still seem that our educational institutions continue to present versions of literacy which fail to address many of these questions.

Like the broader notion of literacy, critical literacy is not monolithic and has developed from different strands of thinking, including critical pedagogy and critical linguistics. However, all critical literacies involve challenging traditional notions of literacy and developing an awareness of the ideological nature of texts and their ability to position readers. They also focus on developing an understanding of how language relates to its social context and attempt to open up alternative reading and writing positions for students.

Of particular relevance to critical literacy for a number of reasons is genre. Critical literacies acknowledge the fact that people are positioned by genres and that students need to be able to critique genres and the discourses from which they are constructed. The ability to draw on a range of genres rather than trying to compose 'original' works from 'within' is also another important aspect critical literacies address in the sphere of writing. Critical literacies acknowledge that we draw on generic conventions when we write. Therefore if we are not to disadvantage our students, we need to teach them that writing is not an act of creation, but instead involves fulfilling generic expectations (Gilbert,1990).

However, some educationalists (eg. Kamler, unpublished paper: 1-5; and Ivanic,1994) have warned that teaching students to imitate particular genres is not a critical literacy in itself, because such imitation does not focus on issues such as raising students' awareness of how their writing positions them or reproduces gender stereotypes. Therefore critical literacies do not merely focus on imitating genres; instead they aim to teach students to critique genres and to raise students' awareness that genres are not 'culturally neutral structures', but are 'deliberate cultural and historical constructions' (van Harskamp-Smith and van Harskamp-Smith, 1994). Literacies which take these factors into account will present reading as an activity which allows students to unravel the ideological nature of texts and to perhaps challenge the discourses contained within those texts. Often this type of critique of discourses can be achieved within the classroom by the use of multiple texts so that:

counter-discourses and counter ideologies are presented textually rather than needing to be located simply in the folk realities of students' and teachers' commonsense. (Freebody, Luke and Gilbert, 1991)

Gee (cited in van Harskamp-Smith and van Harskamp-Smith, 1994) explains that literacy can be 'liberating' if it is used to critique other literacies and how they position us, and the use of multiple texts in the unit of work I will later describe is an example of how I tried to construct a more 'liberating' version of literacy for the students of 10W.

The relevance of the genre of the lesson is also important to critical literacies. Kress (1985: 25-26) points out that the genre of the lesson is a particularly significant example of a genre where students are placed in a position of inferior power to their teacher. In fact, Kress (1985: 26) suggests that the lesson is more about maintaining control and power than it is about content. Advocates of critical literacies ( eg. Tucker, 1995: 24-25; and Kempe, 1993: 320) have acknowledged the undesirability of such a situation and have called for new types of classroom interaction which will challenge the genre of the traditional lesson and empower students in a number of ways, including opening up genuine dialogue between students and teachers.

This brief overview highlights the fact that there are many versions of critical literacies and that such literacies concern themselves with various aspects of language learning. The short unit of work I am about to describe tried to address some of the concerns raised by advocates of critical literacies. Some discussion of how these critical literacies could be developed further will be addressed after describing the actual unit of work.

10W - The need for critical literacies

Although the following unit of work was taught to two Year 10 groups, it was developed to address some concerns I had with 10W, which was a streamed group of students (i.e. they were supposedly academically 'less able' than some of their peers). Early in the year when I provided the students of 10W with surveys questioning them about their attitudes towards English, many of them expressed negative opinions of themselves as readers and writers. The students' low self-esteem manifested itself in class discussions, which were generally dominated by four of the boys in the class and, unfortunately, myself. Moreover, these discussions almost always followed an IRE pattern (Cazden, 1988) , with me controlling the agenda by initiating discussion with questions, followed by responses from a small number of students, which would in turn be followed by my evaluations of the students' responses. It soon became a concern to me that this type of discussion was preventing many students from contributing, and the role of those students who were contributing was confined to answering my questions. Very rarely did any of the students initiate discussion by asking their own questions, nor did they actually address each other in these early discussions.

It was also a concern to me that many of these students had developed a narrow definition of writing due to an overemphasis on narrative writing throughout their schooling. When these students were asked to describe themselves as writers at the beginning of the year, many of their responses highlighted this narrow definition of writing and its impact on their perceptions of themselves as writers. The following responses were typical of quite a few of the students' responses: 'I am not a very good story writer and I really don't like writing them' and 'I am not a very good story writer. My stories always end up in a big jumble.'

The unit of work I am about to describe was designed to begin addressing these problems. The students were required to watch two episodes of Frontline ('Working Class Man' and 'Heroes and Villains') and then to consider some of the criticisms Frontline makes of current affairs journalism before deciding whether these criticisms can be justified.

There were several opportunities for students to participate in small group discussion of issues related to this task, and we also watched an episode of A Current Affair in class to help us decide whether any of Frontline's criticisms of current affairs journalism could be justified. The students were provided with handout sheets to fill out while they were watching Frontline and A Current Affair, and the notes they made on these sheets provided the basis for productive class and small group discussion. The culmination of these activities was the completion of a writing folio piece in which the students had to: (a) explain the criticisms Frontline makes of current affairs journalism; (b) explain how these criticisms were made (this required the students to show an understanding of how satire 'works') and (c) discuss whether these criticisms can be justified. Perhaps similar understandings could have also been achieved by asking the students to complete a 'creative' piece of writing (eg. a conversation between Mike Moore and Rob Sitch).

Objectives of the Unit of Work

One of the aims of this unit of work was to help broaden the students' perception of literacy. This was a particularly important issue for 10W considering that many of these students had defined themselves as failures based on a very narrow definition of literacy. This unit of work not only tried to develop the students' writing repertoire by requiring them to write an analytical piece of writing (as opposed to narrative, which was the only style so many students were used to), but it also aimed to help the students to develop the ability to critique a genre (i.e. current affairs TV) by equipping them with 'interruptive practices' (Brodkey, 1989) which would allow them to use another discourse to analyse a genre.

This aim of developing the ability to critique a genre was aided by my use of multiple texts in contrasting Frontline, an 'overtly ideological text' (Freebody, Luke and Gilbert, 1991) which challenged many students' previous attitudes towards current affairs journalism, with examples of real current affairs TV. This allowed the students to use Frontline as a 'meta-discourse' (van Harskamp-Smith and van Harskamp-Smith, 1994) with which to critique a familiar genre, and it also enabled me to teach the students that some of the genres which they are familiar with (in this case current affairs TV) are not ideologically neutral.

I also aimed to broaden the students' notions of literacy by using episodes of A Current Affair and Frontline as examples of how we read texts, thus emphasising that literacy does not only involve reading fiction, although there are similarities between reading fiction and other types of texts. This built upon work we had undertaken a few weeks earlier involving 'reading' magazine advertisments, paintings and a nineteenth century epitaph from Reading Stories (Mellor, O'Neill and Patterson, 1986).

Another important objective I was trying to achieve was to provide the students with alternative ways of discussing texts in the classroom. This was particularly important with 10W given their reluctance to discuss issues in class. Throughout the unit of work, I strove to provide co-operative learning activities which placed the students in positions where their ideas were valued, and I also attempted to change the way that I intervened in class discussion to redress some of the uneven power relations within the classroom (details of this will be discussed as I outline the three activities).

Viewing and Discussing Frontline

Before watching Frontline I attempted to foreground some important information which I thought the students might need to make sense of the text. Whilst teaching a similar unit of work last year some students became confused because they did not understand that Frontline was not an actual current affairs TV program, but a show which satirises current affairs TV. To overcome some of these problems this year the students were asked to form groups and discuss the following questions:

• What should be the role of news and current affairs TV?
• On what basis should stories be selected for current affairs TV?
• How should stories be reported to the public?
• Are there any guidelines that current affairs TV shows should abide by when reporting stories to the public?
• Do you think that current affairs TV shows do a good job of selecting stories and reporting to the public?

These questions focussed on many of the issues Frontline would deal with. After the students discussed these questions and reported back to the class, I explained to them that they would be watching a show which would discuss these issues by taking a satirical look at current affairs journalism. Our discussion of satire was brief, and perhaps should have been developed further. This could have been done by referring to popular satires like The Simpsons and Full Frontal. Providing the students with this background information will make their 'reading' of Frontline easier. More detailed discussion of satire before watching Frontline could focus on why satire exaggerates faults in its subject and how our reading of a satire might be influenced if we are unfamiliar with what satires are trying to do, or if we are unfamiliar with the actual subject which is being satirised. Discussion of this kind could also complement discussion of critical language awareness by focussing on how the background knowledge we bring to a text helps us to fill in the 'gaps' which the text invites us to fill.

While the students were watching the two episodes of Frontline they were asked to take notes based on the first handout they were provided with. This handout consisted of a short explanation of what Frontline is about and a table which the students were to fill in while watching the two episodes. The table required the students to note the various criticisms of the media made by Frontline, and to also describe how these criticisms were highlighted. The completed table would provide the students with useful information for their writing folio piece later in the unit. There was also space on the back of the handout sheet for the students to respond to the following questions:

• Consider how Frontline tries to position us as an audience (i.e. what type of attitudes towards current affairs TV is it asking us to accept?)
• What are some of the silences Frontline claims to be exposing in current affairs TV (i.e. what type of things does Frontline tell us about current affairs TV which current affairs TV shows wouldn't tell us about themselves or wouldn't want us to consider?)
• Do you think that Frontline would be likely to influence the way people 'read' current affairs TV? Would it be likely to influence all people in the same way? Why or why not?

The students had been introduced to the terms 'positioning', 'gaps', 'silences' and 'multiple readings' through Patterson, Mellor and O'Neill's Reading Fictions. Not only did these terms provide the students with useful language with which to critique Frontline and current affairs journalism, but they also showed the students that these concepts could be used to critique all texts.

After watching the two episodes of Frontline and taking notes on the episodes, we discussed how Frontline positions us to be critical of current affairs journalism and how it exposes silences in the current affairs genre. Discussion focussed on how the episodes of Frontline foregrounded the ideas that current affairs TV shows might primarily be concerned with ratings rather than public interest and honesty; that the personalities of current affairs hosts might be deliberately constructed to appeal to their target audience; and that stories might be selected or reported from a particular angle to promote controversy or to appeal to existing prejudices within the target audience. Throughout this discussion, and when I introduced the actual writing folio piece at the end of the discussion, I was extremely careful to emphasise the point that these criticisms were not necessarily 'correct' and refused to acknowledge how I felt about the criticisms. In doing this I was trying to challenge 'the populist role model of the know-it-all teacher' (Tucker, 1995: 24) and emphasising to the students that they have a right to voice an opinion (Freire, 1994: 257).

Using Multiple Texts

Although the students were asked to pay close attention to current affairs journalism and to watch Media Watch (another text which could provide the students with an alternative discourse to analyse current affairs journalism with), I also decided to show an episode of A Current Affair in class. The episode of A Current Affair was chosen at random and after I initially watched it I produced another handout, which provided the students with the opportunity to take notes on each segment and on the overall style of the host's presentation (as this was an aspect of current affairs TV which one of the episodes of Frontline was critical of). The episode of A Current Affair consisted of four segments: a story of a developer's plan to destroy a large area of rainforest in Queensland (this story encouraged outrage towards the developer and his planned development); a report on a group of builders who were being sued by home owners many years after their homes had been built (this report concentrated on the alleged injustice being done towards the builders and the effect that the home owners' legal action would have on them); and two light-hearted stories, one on a media personality named Dr. Karl, and the other on a group of residents' complaints about noisy frogs. The handout included guide questions (see examples below) to be answered by the students in their notes on each segment.

Here are the questions the students were provided with for the first two reports we viewed together in class (similar questions were provided for the other segments and Ray Martin's style of presentation. It would not be difficult to develop similar questions for other current affairs segments you might select to use in class):

Rainforest Story

How would you describe the tone of this report? Light-hearted, critical, angry, condemnatory?

Has a particular angle been taken in the way that this story has been reported? Consider the type of pictures we are presented with, the use of music in the report and the language used by the presenter and those being interviewed.

Can you think of different ways the story might have been presented?

Do you think that this story was designed to appeal to a particular audience?

Building Story

Has this story been reported from an objective point of view or are our sympathies directed towards one particular party in the debate?

• What do you think the home owners would have said if they were given a chance?
• Why do you think the producers of A Current Affair chose to pursue this story?
• What do you think was the aim of the report?

These questions positioned the students to be critical viewers by considering how each story was constructed, how it positioned its audience and what choices were made in the selection and omission of information. Although I was aware that these questions might have encouraged the students to agree with some of Frontline's criticisms (this was not necessarily my objective), I felt it necessary to provide the students with an alternative way of looking at current affairs journalism before they could provide an informed response to the essay topic.

After viewing the episode of A Current Affair the students were placed in groups of 3-4 and each group was assigned a particular segment of the show to discuss (with one group focussing on the host's style of presentation). The students were told to compare notes on their assigned segment and then to report back to the rest of the class. When the students reported back I informed them that they would be responsible for conducting the discussion while I tried to minimise my involvement. When I did become involved in discussion I saw my role as a facilitator for further discussion.

For example, when the group reporting on Ray Martin's style of presentation was particularly critical of his 'artificial personality' when using terms like 'bloke' and 'Aussie', I informed them of an article in the previous week's Sunday Age in which Martin defended such allegations by claiming that these words were a part of his every day vocabulary. During the few times that I did become involved in the discussion it was generally in the form of a question designed to engender further discussion, rather than to validate a particular point of view. This discussion was particularly effective, with students offering thoughtful comments, and it seemed to be particularly beneficial to allow the students time to discuss these issues in small groups where they could explore issues tentatively without their teacher's presence.

Writing and Discussing the Essay

One of the objectives of this assignment was to broaden the students' writing repertoire by introducing them to a new genre of writing and providing them with new discourse positions from which they could write. This means that I needed to provide explicit instructions about how to complete an analytical piece of writing. Although I was aware that such explicitness was maintaining some of the distancing between the students and myself which I had tried to overcome in other areas of the unit of work, I felt this was necessary to help the students master the new genre and discourses they were being asked to deal with in this writing folio piece.

These explicit instructions included the actual wording of the essay question, which spelt out precisely what the students needed to do, and the students were also provided with assessment criteria which were explained to the class in detail. These criteria were designed to overcome the disadvantage many students face when they have to guess (often unsuccessfully) what the teacher wants in a piece of writing (Gilbert, 1990). Discussion of work in progress was also constantly encouraged, with many students submitting drafts and requesting my assistance in setting out plans.

The students' final pieces of writing showed that many of them had achieved the objectives I described at the start of the unit. Despite the students' poor perceptions of themselves as writers, most of them produced good pieces of writing which revealed detailed thoughts on the issues raised in Frontline and considered in class. The following pieces of work, for example, highlight that these students have begun to develop an understanding of how satire can be used to critique a subject through deliberate exaggeration:

Frontline, a show on the ABC, takes a humorous look at how a current affairs show is put together except that it is overly exaggerated, but is it? Mike More is the witless host of Frontline, he is not very bright but he is constantly trying to prove everyone wrong. At first glance you would think Mike More to be a typical host but if you watch a little more I believe that you would think that he looks a little like Ray Martin. This idea then makes you think, 'Well if Mike More is so fake then maybe so is Ray,' and this is what the producers of Frontline want you to think. They want us to believe that the host's personality is fake and completely different on screen than off. They also put forward the idea that they only choose stories that are going to give the show good ratings.

All through the show the producers of Frontline were constantly worrying about their ratings. In the doctor episode none of them had actually read his book yet they made him out to be a racist because that's what everyone wanted to hear. Mike More is also shown to be stupid in the way that he reads what he has to say off the camera and he is always manipulated by the producer. Now I'm not saying that this is what every current affairs show is like or that every host is as fake as Mike More, but it really just makes you think whether or not the people running current affairs shows are just in it for the money (by Jessica).

Fake winks, unhumorous wise cracks made by Mike, and very dopey stereotypes are made of the presenters and co-hosts. This makes the Frontline crew look like a bunch of unorganised idiots trying to run a program. This is of course the impression of the show they want you to get since this is how they are trying to stereotype every current affair program's team (by Nathan).

Other examples of work demonstrated an understanding of how we are positioned by some current affairs reports and how careful choices are made when producing and selecting information for current affairs TV. The following piece demonstrates such an understanding while also accounting for the economic forces which might shape the decisions made by current affairs producers:

The most interesting thing Frontline touched on was which stories were picked to be run, and the process of picking these stories. They brought this across in a story that had to do with a touchy area, racism. A scientist touched on this and the show saw this as a perfect opportunity to tell the public what they wanted to hear and get a few shows out of it. What they told the public wasn't the truth. So the scientist tried to correct the public's opinions, but the show didn't see this benefiting them so they cut it out.

If a show is telling the public what they want to hear, no matter what the circumstances are, the public want to watch a show that tells them what they want to hear. So people start watching the show, which gets ratings ... [and] the higher you are on the ratings the more people watch your show. Advertisers realise this and will pay more money for a show that has a million viewers than a show that has thousand. [The] bottom line is the shows are willing to do anything which makes them money. And to do this, if lying and skipping small truths helps them to gain public awareness, then so be it they say (by Ben W.)

Students also demonstrated in their work that they had used their viewing of Frontline to change the way that they 'read' current affairs TV. The following pieces are particularly good examples of how these students have used the critical discourse Frontline provided them with to view current affairs journalism in a different light:

Before I watched Frontline I didn't think twice about the host's personality. I just thought it was natural the things that they did, but now after watching Frontline you start to notice these little tricks... While watching a couple of A Current Affair shows you start to notice little things about the show that Frontline takes off. For instance, after a report Mike More says something like, 'Mmm, a chilling report there Martin Destarsio,' and Ray Martin also says something like this, 'Mmm, you can say that again,' or 'Mmm, what a character.' Also once on Frontline Emma, a co-worker, came into a closing shot because they thought that it would look good for Mike to be talking with someone who works with him, and on A Current Affair once in the closing shot a black person that looked like a Jamaican came in and gave Ray Martin a high five, now how often does that happen in real life? (by Jessica).

In one of Frontline's stories they criticise the way in which current affair's programs purposely concentrate on arguing with the person they are interviewing and concentrating on the bad points. One of the guests on Frontline was an author and they argued with him about his book being racist and they did this without having thoroughly read the book and without any evidence.

When we were watching A Current Affair in class there was a program about a man who had bought some land and had decided to clear it. Throughout this story they only concentrated on the bad points and didn't really show both sides of the story or do any surveys on what other people who lived around the area thought. Instead the only people they talked to were those who were against the land being cleared and therefore we were forced to only look at the negative side (by Amanda).

The confidence to resist the 'rules of appropriacy' is an important goal of critical language awareness according to Ivanic (1990), and such a confidence was displayed by some of the students in their essays when they expressed concerns about the appropriacy or relevance of the content of some current affairs segments. This was evident in Jessica's essay when she explained that she no longer considers that all aspects of current affairs TV are 'natural', but now considers 'the way they choose stories and whether or not they are relevant to us.' This sentiment is also echoed in the following piece:

The next two stories we watched on A Current Affair were the Dr Karl story and the frog story and I don't think that either of these stories were relevant to the public at all. I think that the Dr Karl story was entertaining but I think that there could have been more important issues reported in the first place (by Ben J.)

Taking Critical Literacy Further

This unit of work only represents the beginning of developing critical literacies with 10W. All of the work in this unit focussed on the critique of text, which is an important step in teaching students to be producers of texts themselves; but there was no time allowed for the important process of reconstructing texts. Critical literacies, unlike some genre approaches to teaching, should make students aware of the conventions of genres, but also give them the opportunity to challenge or change those genres, if necessary, rather than reproducing them (Ivanic,1990).

The students of 10W could have been asked to challenge the genre of current affairs TV by producing their own media texts addressing some of the issues they discussed in their essays (e.g. the media not always serving the public interest and not always providing an accurate source of information in relation to current events). Another important step for us was to continue our exploration of how we are positioned by other types of texts. Already we had applied some of the principles of critical language awareness to various media texts and a nineteenth century epitaph; these principles could now be used to analyse other types of texts.

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Paul Frye has been teaching at Braemar College, Woodend, for the past three years. This year he is teaching Years 8,10 and 12 English, and Year 9 History. Prior to starting at Braemar College he spent one year at King Khalid Islamic College, Coburg, which was his first full-time teaching position. He is currently undertaking a Masters in Education (Language and Literacy) through Deakin University.

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References

A Current Affair (1996) Channel Nine, 18 April 1996.

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van Harskamp-Smith, S. and van Harskamp-Smith, K. (1994) 'Torres Strait Islanders speak: Building a model of critical literacy'. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 17, no.2: 101-108.