Literacy in Three Dimensions: Making Sense(-Maker) of Alternative Facts

• In Event: Literature and History as Pathways for Wrestling With Complexities

Abstract

“What does it mean to be human in the twenty first century?” (Baker-Bell, Butler, & Johnson, 2017, p. 123). This is the question that we think educational researchers need to ask of themselves. We know that literacy can be used to do harm—to deny access, to sort, to delegitimize. The question researchers of critical literacy must grapple with is how to make visible the ways in which young people practice literacies that help them understand what it means to be human, the insights required, and resources by which to grapple with the complexities of being.

Recent social and political events have raised the temperature on our desire to better address negative impacts on the lives of our neighbors, friends, and family members. We have seen the dawning of what has been represented as a new day: the day of “alternative facts.” Our argument here is that alternative facts are nothing new. The fact is that those among us whose truths have been erased, dismissed, re-storied, and co-opted are not in shock and awe over the idea of alternative facts. Those who have lived with these alternative facts as an everyday affront to the truth they breathe are not stunned by the acceptance of alternative facts. Let’s face it: Many minoritized parents have long felt the need for a “homeschool curriculum” outside of school for their children to correct the miseducation they have received in schools that have been created in and through White supremacy (Watkins, 2001).

Our paper argues that one of the first steps in practicing critical literacy, is to problematize the way things are and to seek more emancipatory possibilities. To get there, students need to feel comfortable with critical ways of reading that help them to examine texts (print and media), readers, and contexts in these ways: (a) how texts position readers, (b) how readers position texts, and (c) how texts and readers are positioned within social, political, cultural, and spatial contexts (Lewis, Pyscher, & Stutelberg, 2014).

We offer exemplars from the data of student reasoning as they grapple with literature reflecting authors’ understanding of what it means to wrestle with ‘alternative facts.’ Data come from implementations of Sense-Making in the Disciplines, a digital authoring tool developed by our project. We present findings illustrating reasoning along three dimensions of reasoning with and through texts. The first addresses texts as mediational means (Who does this text address and what ideologies are inscribed?). The second addresses the ideological formations and identity affiliations of the reader. The third addresses the sociocultural placement of texts and their consumption in particular social, cultural, and spatial contexts. We illuminate the connection between 'alternative facts' and student reasoning when empowered by the SenseMaker tool. The significance lies in how such practices contribute to the recognition of the text as tool that supports students in learning to grapple with the complexities of our efforts as humans to make sense of the world, its truths and its artifacts, together.

Author

• Yolanda J. Majors, Hurston Institute for Learning & Development
  Presenting Author