Critical literacy, which is derived from critical pedagogy and critical thinking, is crucial for teachers and students to acquire throughout their education. According to critical literacy approach, students are not only expected to read and write different texts but are also required to challenge, synthesize, analyze, and go beyond these forms of skills analytically and critically. With regard to reviewing various literature, this approach is not implemented effectively in the Middle East education systems due to some main obstacles. This paper is aimed at reviewing different literature and case studies in order to grasp these pivotal constraints that students and teachers encounter while learning and teaching in Middle-Eastern educational settings. The main purpose of this article is to review critically the domination of education by politics and religion, the lack of communicative language teaching approach, and the exclusion of teachers from making decisions as to the major impediments of enacting critical literacy in the Middle-east contexts.

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The recent literature of writing studies suggests that there is a possibility of different perception between instructor and university students on what causes students’ writing reluctance which leads to ineffective writing teaching activities initiated by the instructor. Such ineffective teaching has, then, become the main cause of students’ disengagement in writing classes at university. This paper is aimed at exploring the perception from students’ side as the targeted individuals within the teaching process itself. In order to describe such perception, a critical literary review of previous studies from the relevant area is employed. It is argued that students’ perception on instructor-initiated writing activities are influenced by pedagogical consequences, learner’s linguistic competence, and their original perceptions of the English writing skill. This investigation has found that it is very crucial for instructors to design activities that engage students in three dimensions: cognitive, behavioural, and emotional. The study also finds that instructors' selection of teaching strategies influences students' motivation extrinsically in the form of reinforcement, or in contrast, degradation of their motivation. Finally, this study confirms it is possible for students to respond pedagogical activities differently from the expectation of the instructors.