AN INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL LITERACY IN A GROUP OF FOURTH GRADERS THROUGH CRITICAL LITERACY QUESTIONS (CLQ) AND MULTIMODAL TEXTS
English
Main author information
Event
GKA EDU 2022: 12th International Conference on Education and Learning
06/30/2022
Keywords
literacy
critical literacy
multimodality
multimodal texts
fourth grade
primary.
This study was carried out in a group of fourth-graders in a private school in Medellín, Colombia. I designed and used a set of critical literacy questions (CLQ) based on the four dimensions of critical literacy proposed by Lewison et al. (2014). Participants read and analyzed multimodal texts about food and their influence in their context and lives. The study involved class discussions using CLQ to analyze the selected multimodal texts followed by students’ design of multimodal texts responding to these questions. As a qualitative study, data collection included class discussions, observations, students’ artifacts, and interviews. The findings of this study confirm the limited amount of multimodal and critical literacy practices in this group of fourth-graders, the potential for its development at an elementary level by the use of CLQ, the ability of elementary students to question texts and messages, and their motivation towards social action and involvement. The study concluded that multimodal texts and critical literacy questions work satisfactorily, proving an effective strategy to develop a student’s critical literacy perspective by promoting social awareness, disruption of their commonplace, interrogation of texts, and motivation for the transformation of their context.