Program Design
Fact vs. Opinion / Point of View
p. 180
Critical Response
Curriculum expectations for the later primary years also require students
to understand the concept of point of view, realizing that there
are varying points of view from which a text might be told.
Teachers can help students develop this concept in a variety of ways.
(See pp. 101–102 for some examples.)
Another aspect of critical reading, also a curriculum expectation for late
primary, is the developing awareness of instances of bias, prejudice, or
stereotyping found in some texts. As the suggestions and examples on
pages 72–73, 84–85, 100–101 indicate, students in the primary grades
can be helped to develop a sensitivity to such language and situations.
Learning to question the validity of texts by using their own knowledge
base as a reference is also a critical reading skill students in the primary
grades can develop. Teachers can help students learn to do this by
modelling during read aloud and shared reading.
pp. 230-231
Critical literacy is all about examining and learning to examine these
constructs. Knowledge, truth, education, and language can never be
neutral or context free—they are constructed by individuals who have a
history and a point of view. Such constructs often serve to maintain the
established status quo, and historically, school has taught us to accept
expert authority without question. Critical literacy involves questioning
these taken for granted assumptions. It involves helping learners come to
see that they construct and are constructed by texts; that they learn how
they are supposed to think, act, and be from the many texts that surround
and bombard them.
If one of the goals of the curriculum is to give children the tools they need
to become thinking, caring citizens, they have to be taught to deconstruct
the texts that permeate their lives—to ask themselves questions, such as the
following:
• Who constructed the text? (age/gender/race/nationality)
• For whom is the text constructed?
• What does the text tell us that we already know?
• What does the text tell us that we don’t already know?
• What is the topic and how is it presented?
• How else might it have been presented?
• What has been included and what has been omitted?
• What does it teach me about others and their place in the world?
Critical Response
Curriculum expectations for the later primary years also require students
to understand the concept of point of view, realizing that there
are varying points of view from which a text might be told.
Teachers can help students develop this concept in a variety of ways.
(See pp. 101–102 for some examples.)
Another aspect of critical reading, also a curriculum expectation for late
primary, is the developing awareness of instances of bias, prejudice, or
stereotyping found in some texts. As the suggestions and examples on
pages 72–73, 84–85, 100–101 indicate, students in the primary grades
can be helped to develop a sensitivity to such language and situations.
Learning to question the validity of texts by using their own knowledge
base as a reference is also a critical reading skill students in the primary
grades can develop. Teachers can help students learn to do this by
modelling during read aloud and shared reading.
pp. 230-231
Critical literacy is all about examining and learning to examine these
constructs. Knowledge, truth, education, and language can never be
neutral or context free—they are constructed by individuals who have a
history and a point of view. Such constructs often serve to maintain the
established status quo, and historically, school has taught us to accept
expert authority without question. Critical literacy involves questioning
these taken for granted assumptions. It involves helping learners come to
see that they construct and are constructed by texts; that they learn how
they are supposed to think, act, and be from the many texts that surround
and bombard them.
If one of the goals of the curriculum is to give children the tools they need
to become thinking, caring citizens, they have to be taught to deconstruct
the texts that permeate their lives—to ask themselves questions, such as the
following:
• Who constructed the text? (age/gender/race/nationality)
• For whom is the text constructed?
• What does the text tell us that we already know?
• What does the text tell us that we don’t already know?
• What is the topic and how is it presented?
• How else might it have been presented?
• What has been included and what has been omitted?
• What does it teach me about others and their place in the world?