A short vacation was very refreshing but now I am back at work on my PURE project. I have now moved into the phase of synthesizing the readings I’ve done over the last month or so into a literature review document. There are no real surprises with what I have deemed relevant and chosen to include in my literature review based on my readings which I have touched on with this blog. My literature review has three main sections: (a) What critical literacy is, (b) What critical science literacy is, and (c) Using inquiry-based learning to develop critical science literacy competencies. An area of interest from my previous blog which I chose not to include in this literature review was that of the impact of emotions on our ability to be critically literate. I decided not to further pursue this topic for this project because I felt that rather than provide solutions for teachers to help students become more critically science literate, this topic presents more problems with no simple solutions. Instead, I am choosing to focus on the three aforementioned sections for the literature review and for the lesson planning of the workshops because within these sections I am able to define critical science literacy. I can then give suggestions to help develop critical science literacy competencies without over complicating the research by trying to include too wide a variety of topics.
I am now taking a step back from solely focusing on the writing of the literature review to focus for the next few weeks on the planning of the workshop series I will deliver to pre-service teachers in Winter 2023. I am looking forward to being able to begin applying what I have been learning while going through the literature in a more practical sense. The tentative plan for my workshop series is to focus on one of Lewison et al.’s (2015) four dimensions of critical social practice each week over the course of the four weeks the workshop series will span. Inquiry is a key theme in developing critical literacy competencies throughout Lewison et al.’s book. Therefore, in each workshop session, we will discuss how inquiry-based learning can be used to explore each dimension of critical social practice. I will also invite participants to share as many ideas as they can, as this will demonstrate collaborative inquiry in action. I anticipate that pre-service teachers will see the value of inquiry in their learning during the workshops and that they will be eager to create inquiry opportunities for their future students.
Reference:
Lewison, M., Leland, C., & Harste, J. C. (2015). Creating critical classrooms: Reading and writing with an edge. Routledge.
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