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Production 5: Critical Academic Literacies & Popular Culture

Morell in his article “Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education” quote Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo; “Critical literacy is a reading and re-writing of the world” (240). Critical Literacies is a practice that contemplates the world and with diverse perspectives, engages it for the improvement of society and the diverse communities within it. Critical literacy aims to help individuals question power structures and dominant norms that exist. It encourages critically literate people to stand up to these norms, create new and more just ones, and to help liberate communities that have been misrepresented or oppressed.

Academic literacy is defined by Morell as “…those forms of engaging, producing, and talking about texts that have currency in primary, secondary, and postsecondary education” (240). Morell states that although many recognize that all individuals, in numerous ways, exercise literacy, there exists a disparity of literacy between rich and poor (240). Therefore, academic literacy aims to help individuals in need and marginalized communities make sense of and have success in the western school institutions, be it elementary, high school or college and university (240).

Pop culture, as defined by Morell is “…an expression of universal human values”’ such as ideas, music, film, visual art, the mass media and diverse ways of living that can be used to support critical engagement and literacy in students by connecting to youth culture and student’s current lives. This makes learning more relatable and interesting for students and connects class content to the real world (235, 240). Morell continues to describe that pop culture literacy can be geared towards social justice (235). By first connecting to themes, ideas, art in student’s current lives, critical literacies can then be harnessed by encouraging students to critique the texts that surround them in popular media and produce new, more honest and democratic ones.

Within the article Promoting Academic Literacy with Urban Youth through Engaging Hip-hop Culture, Morell and Duncan-Andrade demonstrate how Hip-Hop music was used in a poetry unit to connect to student’s current lives and interests. The relatability and interest that Hip Hop music ignited in students then helped teachers encourage students to critique the messages and dominants structures in popular texts that surround them. It also helped students identify the value and “social critique” often inherent in Hip Hop music and other forms of pop culture that they themselves can create (90). "Teaching Hip-hop as a music and culture of resistance can facilitate the development of critical consciousness in urban youth” (89). Similarly, I can use critical literacies within my own teaching by connecting to student interests and to popular and youth culture. Within my dance teachable, I can first facilitate a discussion with students that can situate hip-hop, and more specifically hip-hop dance socially and historically and then have students in small groups analyze hip-hop song lyrics in order to uncover possible social critiques about dominant norms, misrepresentation, violence etc. This can also help students recognize the artistic and literally value within this genre of music/culture. Students in these small groups, can then express these hip-hop songs and lyrics of resistance through movement, by creating choreography and using the Elements of dance.

Morell. E. (2007). Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education: Toward a Pedagogy of Access and Dissent.

Morrell, E., & Duncan-Andrade, J. (2002). Toward a critical classroom discourse: Promoting academic literacy through engaging hip-hop culture with urban youth. English Journal, 91(6), 88-94.

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