Researching Critical Literacy – Article 4

In the article, Researching Critical Literacy: A Critical Study of Analysis of Classroom Discourse, the authors Katie van Sluys and Amy Seely Flint look at critical literacy that addresses personal, social, and sociopolitical aspects of literacy in the classroom. The article uses critical literacies, classroom discourse, and how literacy practices are and can be studied and applied.  The focus of this article is on a conversation between two students in one classroom in January 2003.  The two girls, Shelly and Maria participate in an “invitation” that was created by the teachers after a conversation that had taken place where one student commented, “Deborah’s hair is beautiful now, “ referring to a biracial students’ decision to straighten her hair.

After this conversation was brought up the students had a conversation about fairness, images of Whiteness, and what they, as young people, got to decide about their hair. It seems as though an “invitation” was created by the teacher, which is a folder about the topic with books, photographs, student produced drawling’s, and written artifacts children can use to explore the topic and generate questions. Shelly is a native English-speaking, Caucasian sixth grader and Maria was a native Spanish-speaking, Mexican immigrant who joined the classroom community at the same time as shelly. A few other students participated in the hair invitation, including Amy, an African American sixth grader, Nokomo, a fourth grade Mongolian immigrant, and Fernanda, a sixth grade Mexican immigrant.

The girls had many different discussions about the topic of hair and what it meant to them in many different ways. Most of the girls were able to relate in some way to their own experiences with their hair and hair within their family. The girls dew on various experiences to respond to each other and to understand the books and pictures that were included in the hair invitation. The girls were able to recall people in their loves who had hair similar to or different than what was reported in the texts. The girls used their memories to offer pieces to the discussion. It was easy to see the girls relating hair to culture and how things change over time. The girls talked through understandings of how hairstyles may be indicative of different cultural experiences by talking about how different cultures use braids or beads and how there are different hair types.

When looking at the analyses from the three lenses mentioned in the beginning of the article we can see that they were both big picture ideas and each highlighted the girls attempts to both understand and critique the ways that style can be imposed on non-European contexts. The over arching idea in all of the conversation is the girls questioning how hair is a representation of cultural identity.