Decolonizing Literacies in the Era of "Post-Truth": Moving Between Writing the Word and Reading the World

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Abstract

This study provides an interpretive analysis of the mediation of literacy and the formation of a critical social consciousness within a youth participatory action research course. The context is a 6-week writing and research course that serves Chicanx youth from a major urban center in Southern California. The focus is on the mediation of a critical social consciousness and how this is accomplished using close-text analysis (Vossoughi, 2014). Specifically, I look at the development of writing genres (defining, counter-storytelling) as vehicle for reading the word and the world (Freire & Macedo, 2005) and also for the development of courage, hope and dreaming – all critical elements of emacipatory struggle (Freire, 2007). In sum, I argue for the study of literacy learning within decolonizing pedagogical spaces; and the need for ethnographic investigations in which researchers are also participant-educators.
The study identifies key strategies that help facilitate a critical reading of text and students’ social worlds: meta-reflection upon themselves as students and writers; concept formation; and meta-analysis of language in texts and conceptual nudging. Challenging traditional and monological approaches to consciousness, these three major strategies are framed as practices toward epistemic openness (Jackson & Vossoughi, 2018). The study concludes with students’ reflections on literacy and learning within this course. The themes that emerge through student interviews include: proximity to texts; spaces for openness; the need for guided practice; and action research as rehumanizing praxis.

Author

• Miguel Zavala, Chapman University