Although integrating women's history and including women's perspectives work well together, there is one major fault with these practices. Because women’s voices and power have been greatly limited throughout history, historical representations of their perspectives are limited. Critical literacy offers a path that acknowledges this fault. Critical Literacy can be used in tandem with Integrating Women's History and Seeking Multiple Perspectives. It can also be used when necessary materials to study women's perspectives and contributions are limited.
Critical literacy is a three part process that helps students analyze historical texts for connections and disconnections to their own lives. Teachers should provide modeling and scaffolding as students become familiar with this process.
The Process:
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Deconstruction: Students read varied historical texts and ask some of the following questions:
What is the perspective in this story and how does it relate to my perspective?
Are any perspectives (including my own) marginalized or devalued in this text?
How is power used in this text, i.e. are stereotypes used or challenged?
How might the author's perspective have influenced how he or she depicted historical figures and events?
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Reconstruction: During reconstruction, teachers should provide students with opportunities to discuss and/or write. Through discussion and writing , students are encouraged to recreate and reimagine historical texts from the perspective of marginalized groups. This part of the process is designed to help students understand the power relations depicted in texts.
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Social Action: During this step of the process, the teacher encourages students to take action in regards to inequities they have noticed. This is a great chance to connect students with their community. Students ca work to help share marginalized perspectives.
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Practicing Critical Literacy
Critical literacy is an instructional approach that encourages teaching students to “read texts in an active, reflective manner in order to better understand power, inequality, and injustice in human relationships” (Coffey, n.d.) Students are not only encouraged to evaluate what voices are being heard but also to challenge the power relationships they notice.
Example of Critical Literacy in the Social Studies Classroom:
Deconstruction: Students read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and a textbook chapter about the Founding Fathers. They analyze how these texts show or do not show the perspectives and contributions of men and women.
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Reconstruction: Students discuss how these texts depict the power dynamic between men and women during the Revolutinary War period. They consider how women could have been included in these texts and what women may have been able to contribute to the perspectives of these texts. Each student writes a short letter from the viewpoint of a fictional woman during this time period.
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Social action: Students create a class blog that discusses how women's perspectives were absent from important documents that helped to found our country. They use their blog to solicit old documents that help to share the perspective of women during this time period.They share this blog with their families and community to spread their message.