The Case for Critical Literacy
284 pages, 6 x 9
8
Paperback
Release Date:15 Aug 2024
ISBN:9781646426263
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Aug 2024
ISBN:9781646426256
The Case for Critical Literacy
A History of Reading in Writing Studies
Utah State University Press
The Case for Critical Literacy explores the history of reading within writing studies and lays the foundation for understanding the impact of this critical, yet often untaught, skill. Every measure of students’ reading comprehension, whether digital or analog, demonstrates that between 50 and 80 percent of students are unable to capture the substance of a full discussion or evaluate material for authority, accuracy, currency, relevancy, appropriateness, and bias.
This book examines how college-level instruction reached this point and provides pedagogical strategies that writing instructors and teachers can use to address the problem. Alice Horning makes the case for the importance of critical reading in the teaching of writing with intentionality and imagination, while sharing glimpses of her own personal history with reading and writing. Horning provides the context for understanding what college faculty face in their classrooms and offers a history of critical literacy that explains why, to date, it has mostly neglected or ignored the diverse statuses of students’ reading challenges.
The Case for Critical Literacy explores actionable options to better meet students’ literacy needs. College and university faculty, especially writing instructors, will benefit from an understanding of what has happened in the field and what needs to change.
This book examines how college-level instruction reached this point and provides pedagogical strategies that writing instructors and teachers can use to address the problem. Alice Horning makes the case for the importance of critical reading in the teaching of writing with intentionality and imagination, while sharing glimpses of her own personal history with reading and writing. Horning provides the context for understanding what college faculty face in their classrooms and offers a history of critical literacy that explains why, to date, it has mostly neglected or ignored the diverse statuses of students’ reading challenges.
The Case for Critical Literacy explores actionable options to better meet students’ literacy needs. College and university faculty, especially writing instructors, will benefit from an understanding of what has happened in the field and what needs to change.
‘A powerful call for needed change. Evidence-based resources make the case that we should all attend to reading as part of writing and learning at all levels of education, now more than ever. Horning outlines not only the neglect of critical literacy and its implications but also steps we can take moving forward.’
—Laura Aull, University of Michigan
Alice S. Horning is professor emerita of writing and rhetoric and of linguistics at Oakland University and the editor of the Studies in Composition and Rhetoric book series. Her books include Teaching Critical Reading and Writing in the Era of Fake News with Ellen C. Carillo, Literacy Heroines: Women and the Written Word, Literacy Then and Now, and Talking Back: Senior Scholars and Their Colleagues Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies with Norbert Elliot.
