Critical Approaches to Media in Urban English Language Arts Teacher Development

Abstract

Why is it essential that English teachers acknowledge youth literacy practices in out-of-school contexts? How will an engagement of youth as media producers lead to academic literacy development? And why should the popular cultural practices of young people be incorporated into secondary English classrooms? This article asks these questions and more as it considers the applications of a critical pedagogy of urban English education that acknowledges and honors nonschool literacy practices and promotes literacy as a tool for academic development, cultural production, and social change. The article begins by articulating a critical new literacy studies approach to English education that fosters increased engagement and achievement for historically underserved youth. It then discusses several projects from English methods courses including a microethnography of literacy project and a multimedia theme-based unit, as examples of ways to link theory to practice in English education. The article next offers several activity systems that have proven powerful spaces for teacher learning to push us toward a more critical model of urban literacy teacher development. These include a community asset mapping activity, a neighborhood exploration project, and two programs that engage practicing teachers as critical social scientists. The article concludes with a charge to English educators to develop methods courses that embrace critical approaches to new media literacies while also honoring our commitments to help preservice teachers enact classroom curricula and pedagogies that simultaneously empower students culturally and adhere to state and national literacy standards.