1: Navigating the Literacy Landscape

The way literacy is defined is important to one’s understanding of critical literacy. Literacy is a social practice, the definition of which is constantly evolving (Edelsky, Altwerger, & Flores, 1991; Edelsky, 2006; Gee, 2003, Harste, 2003; Knobel, 1999; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; New London Group, 2000; Wells, 1996). Therefore, before launching into a critical analysis of how literacy is conceptualized in the texts of Atwell, Calkins, and Rief it is appropriate to first consider how critical literacy has been, and continues to be, informed by traditional and contemporary definitions of literacy. As our perceptions and understandings of literacy continue to deepen and broaden, definitions of literacy become more complex. Traditionally, dominant discourses on literacy instruction have viewed literacy as “a neutral entity” or as a skill set (Morrell, 2008, p. 4). Conventional discourses regarding literacy do not recognize that literacies are “multiple,” “situated,” “ideological,” and “tied to power relations in society” (p. 4). While a rudimentary definition of literacy may be the ability able to read and write, Wells (1996) points out that educational theorists and researchers have come to understand literacy involves interactions among multiple linguistic and cognitive factors and that literacy and literacy development are greatly influenced by sociocultural contexts. Gee (2003) states that one can read and write in many different ways. Therefore, “even though reading and writing seem so central to what literacy means traditionally, reading and writing are not such general and obvious matters as they might at first seem” (Gee, 2003, p. 14).