Enacting Critical Literacy With and for Students: The Intellectual Resources of English/Language Arts Teachers in an Era of Standardization

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Culturally Responsive Practice Within a Context of Standardization

Abstract

This paper considers how a group of teachers drew upon their intellectual resources to enact critical literacy in an era of standardization. The author use ethnographic methods and concepts from teacher inquiry and critical literacy to analyze the work of a voluntary study group of language arts teachers in a large urban school district. The author found that the teachers drew upon intellectual resources including the space of the group itself, their autobiographies, outside readings, and local knowledge in order to make sense of the micropolitical climates of their schools and create opportunities for their students. This paper contributes to growing bodies of research on teacher agency in the face of standardization and critical literacy with and for adolescents.

Author

• Kathleen Riley, West Chester University of Pennsylvania