Megan Zara, M. Ed.
Prior to my learning in my graduate program, I would not have been able to explain the importance of the social aspect of literacy. Now, I understand that critical literacy plays a role in the social dimension of literacy learning and development and that we can optimize the integration of foundational knowledge, by giving students the opportunity to talk and discuss their reading and writing. As a culminating paper at the end of my diversity class, I wrote a critical analysis of a Ted Talk titled The Danger of a Single Story. In my analysis, I discuss the implications of a false understanding of a group of people based on a single source of information. I focused on the example that Chimamanda Adichie uses regarding the movie American Psycho.
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Adichie uses the idea that, “all young Americans must be serial killers, because Christian Bale portrays one in the movie,” as satire, to make the point that one single story can’t possibly represent a group of people. While this is a radical example, the implications of this idea are critical to our classroom environments.
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READ 5513 Multiliteracies Paper Excerpt
As a literacy leader, I know that, in order to create an effective and inclusive social literacy environment and help students develop awareness, understanding, and respect for differences, I have to carefully choose texts that do not tell that single story of a group of people. While in the diversity class, I discovered that considering myself “color-blind” was not conducive to an inclusive social literacy environment. Essentially, by claiming to be “color-blind” I was not being sensitive to the differences that make my students who they are. The question that I had for myself was, “how can I be culturally responsive if I refused to see the differences among my students?” My new knowledge from this reflection is that, when we work to include everyone, we are communicating that differences are not valued, that everyone is the same. I know that a key to literacy development is incorporating students’ cultural backgrounds. As a literacy leader, I now view all social aspects of literacy from the perspective of culturally responsive teaching.