Chapter 3: Reading the Community Critically in the Digital Age: A Multiliteracies Approach

Why read the community critically in the digital age? Why use a multiliteracies approach? Since literacy is used as a tool in society to make sense of the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987), in this chapter we share the experience of using three frameworks: critical literacy, communitybased pedagogies and multiliteracies to engage online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in multimodal literacy practices, with the aim of increasing their awareness and leading to the transformation of themselves and their community.

Why read the community? From an asset-based perspective, communities offer resources for language learning and literacy (Sharkey & Clavijo, 2012). Why read the community critically? Drawing on Butler (2002) we understand critique as the virtue of “a critical interrogation of the present and ourselves” (p. 50). Reading the community critically means questioning reality, raising awareness, transforming self and rewriting the world. It entails drafting an understanding of the power relations that subjugate our students and communities, and using language and literacy tools to initiate very specific transformations in the intricate fabric of power (Foucault, 1984).