background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The first thing that came to mind when I heard about critical literacy pedagogy as an English major, was when our teacher asked us to write a critical analysis of stories. To look into it in different lenses because different lenses means to also have different points of view and meaning therefore, in that way, our teacher actually enabled us to see deeply what the story wants to convey. Now, these lenses are not limited to be used in just stories but also in real life.

In literary criticism class, our teacher asked us to have a documentary on our chosen real life scenario or context with our chosen lens. I remembered that we picked a post-colonialist lens in analyzing the impact of colonialism to the cultural identity of the Philippines which really goes hand in hand and is suitable for it. In doing the task, we as students had so many realizations that the impact of colonialism goes beyond just what we see but even our own mentality is often overlooked but it actually has been affected by various foreign colonies. We started to question that maybe the culture that we think we had preserved was not actually ours but something that has already been tampered and molded into something that we can accept. As learners it made us question reality and look for meaning and answers from our current practices, religion, in our language, and even in our art like in books where I once remembered our teacher say that history is written by victors those are chosen meaning history may not be something authentic but partially lacking of information in those silenced voices. This activity might be essential in honing our critical thinking skills as it enables us to build our own argument that is founded by theory which sometimes makes it too theoretical that some students might divert their focus on something that is not central to it. It also helps connect literature to real life world problems and provides awareness thus, I think the only thing that is a weakness of this activity is that it might require more background knowledge and understanding of the lenses or theory to better implement it.

In exploring one of the examples of critical literacy pedagogy, I observed that while functional literacy pedagogy focuses on practical skills which is something we need in our daily lives like reading, writing, etc. Critical literacy pedagogy on the other hand, sees the influences, or factors, on how something is affected and it makes us think deeply. Both actually go hand in hand since we need practical skills to actually access critical literacy pedagogy. Thus, an effective literacy program can integrate both by strengthening foundational skills while fostering critical awareness.

Sacco, N. (2016, February 15). Bad historical thinking: “History is written by the victors”. Exploring the past. https://pastexplore.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/bad-historical-thinking-history-is-written-by-the-victors/

Functional Literacy. (n.d.). Scribd. Functional Literacy. https://www.scribd.com/doc/38158217/Functional-Literacy

n.d (2023). EHASS202341010 [PDF]. NOYAM. https://www.noyam.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/EHASS202341010.pdf

Christiansen, S. (2021). Postcolonial theory. EBSCO Research Starters. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/political-science/postcolonial-theory

To Read a Word is to See The World