What Do We Mean by Literacy Now?

‘Every day he has a dream to tell’: classroom literacy curriculum in a full-day kindergarten

“…Given the student demographic we ended up working with, we also learned how this knowledge related to the case of CLD children in particular. The purposes of the study, especially in light of the high proportion of CLD children in today's classrooms, are most needed in times such as these that are characterized by massive changes in ECEC and educators are trying to discern how children might exercise their rights to voice by being curricular informants (Harste, 2003); this includes understanding the constraints to voice.…”

“…The goal was to discern what the curricular network allowed and/or constrained for children in terms of their literacy and identity options, that is the ways they had available to make and express meaning and the possibilities they had for forming a sense of self (Cummins, 2001). We identified this as a needed goal from the ECEC curriculum literature that forwards the importance of children being curricular informants (Harste, 2003). Children having a say in what happens in the programmes, where they have no choice but to be, is their right.…”

Questions of Matter

“…To understand how language works on humans through the written word, Freire argued, people would come to conscientization, or a deep understanding of the world. A number of critical literacy and critical pedagogy scholars (Edelsky, 2006;Giroux & McLaren, 1991;Harste, 2003;Janks, 2013;Shannon, 1993) have taken up Freire's concepts in classroom research, educational reform, and transformation. Collectively, they argue that teachers must prepare students not only to read and write but also to enact social practices that engage them in critically examining their world and its assumptions about learning, to interrogate the relationship between language and power, and to engage in social action to promote social justice and action (Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2008).…”

“How Do You Draw Freedom?”

“…The power of sharing ideas shouldn't surprise us; we have all witnessed the positive effects of collaborative thinking in our own learning. Jerry Harste () talks about this in terms of “what social practices we institute around our discussions of books.” He urges us to “think of it as opening up spaces in the curriculum for starting some much‐needed new conversations” (p. 9).

Probably the one thing we can be sure of is that we are handing tomorrow's adults problems of some magnitude—poverty, homelessness, pollution, over‐utilization of our natural resources…the list goes on. There are no magic answers to these problems, nor is it likely that such problems will be solved simply or single‐handedly (pp.

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