Is It a Matter of Choosing either Literary Education or English Education? - ‘Reading’, ‘Critical Literacy’ and Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Abstract

This paper aims to examine that literature-based instruction is necessary for integrated language arts. It’s not a matter of choosing either literary education or english education. For this, we have to focus on reading, critical literacy, and literature-based instruction. What is the nature of reading? What are its social functions and effects? How is it learned? Reading is actually done in the public and private spaces of everyday community, occupational and academic institutions. The readings include a stance toward socially responsible literacy. Reading literature requires students to respond to book emotionally as well as cognitively. Students respond affectively to the literary text as a whole. These feelings are unique and tied to each reader’s life experiences. Emphasizing personal involvement in literature develops in students an imagination, a sense of wonder, and an active participation through the literary experience. The students valued literature as a means of enlarging their knowledge of the world, because through literature they acquired not so much additional informations as additional experiences. Literature provides a living through, not simply knowledge about. Critical literacy involves understanding the ways in which language and literacy are used to accomplish social ends. It also requires understand literacy as a tool for social action and understanding the ways in which that tool works, and it involves consciously reexamining comfortable cultural practices and values. We can empower students to read and write for social practice with the intended ends of changing the world. Teaching students to look critically at texts and the world around them can be fostered through reading and writing. Teaching and learning critical literacy takes shape by asking questions, seeking answers through the critical reading. So Reading is redefined at the outset as ‘a critical social practice.’