From Disrupting the Commonplace to Taking Action in Literacy Education

This paper presents how critical literacy can be incorporated into a traditional literacy/language arts methods course in a teacher education program. It documents specific steps of curricular planning, beginning with disrupting pre-service teachers’ common belief about literacy education and ending with helping them put theory into practice (i.e., taking action). This paper argues that it is imperative to introduce pre-service teachers to critical literacy. A critical approach to literacy education is shown to make the learning of literacy meaningful, practical, and empowering by situating literacy learners’ concerns and interests within social contexts they can relate to