Critical literacy has gathered momentum in recent years to help prepare children for life in a
Knowledge Society – what literacy scholar and educator Allan Luke refers to as a “a new basic” for navigating a text- and media-saturated world. Its proponents, once a small circle of social
theorists, now represent a worldwide network of researchers, policymakers and teachers who
embrace the notion that students need both basic literacy and critical literacy to come to terms
with the many forms and types of text that surround them, to ask questions, to examine
viewpoints (their own and others), to take a stand and to clarify the issues and relationships
that are important to them and their future.
Critical literacy has a rich base in western thought and social activism and yet it does not
represent one school of thought. It is as much an approach to teaching literacy as it is a set
of skills, dispositions and strategies that enable us – and our students – “to challenge text
and life as we know it” (McLaughlin & DeVoogd, 2004), to become critical consumers and
users of information.