starting this "blog thing" with no idea of what i'm supposed to be writing. i am to focus on critical literacy. and i need to relate it to my current profession is a high school math teacher. so here i go...
i purposefully teach critical literacy skills within my algebra ii / trigonometry lessons. i teach my students to challenge what they read and see. i have a huge sign up on my wall that says, DOES IT MAKE SENSE? and as i teach, i constantly ask my students to discern when things make sense or not. does this answer make sense? why or why not? does the process make sense or does it need to be changed? in my experience my students tend to accept what they both read and see without challenging, thinking, criticizing. it's so easy to accept what one learns, reads, or hears as true especially when an authority like a teacher is the one giving the knowledge. it's easy to accept, so it's difficult to criticize or fight, because the latter involves thinking and analyzing. i hope to instill the urgency to criticize in my students so that they use their own experiences and knowledge to criticize me, the teacher, and also everything around them whether it be numbers, words, or the combination.
Since i am taking this critical literacy class this semester, i am going to focus on this issue...perhaps have my students analyze their textbook and the real world examples given. are those examples influencing them in a certain way? why are those examples used? is there some bias involved? hopefully my students take critical literacy skills learned in my class and apply it to other disciplines...
