Critical Literacy

The Author: Cynthia A. McDaniel is Assistant Professor of English at Southwestern College, Chula Vista, California. She earned an Ed.D. in literacy and an M.A. in English. Dr. McDaniel is the author of published articles in the fields of reading, literature, and education.

"In our test-centric culture, reading is reduced to what can be captured on bubble sheets. Readers' thoughtful construction of meaning, based as it must be on a critical foundation, is not easily revealed on high-stakes tests. One day we might find we have a body politic with good high-stakes reading scores, who believe whatever they read. But with writers like Cynthia A. McDaniel relentlessly reminding us that the main thing, as Einstein said, is to focus on the main thing, and clarifying in a scholarly manner that reading's main thing is the critical eye and mind, perhaps we won't just give it away." (Leif Fearn, Professor, School of Teacher Education, San Diego State University)
"'Critical Literacy: A Way of Thinking, a Way of Life' is a long overdue study on the ways that future teachers conceptualize literature for themselves and the effect that has on the way they will teach their students when they get into the classroom. This is an important research contribution to our knowledge base on teachers' thinking. Despite university literature classes that emphasize a critical and sociocultural stance toward literature, future teachers in this study remained mired in 'normal' cultural models. That future teachers verbalized a questioning stance toward literature is important, but much more needs to be known about how we may effectively question and transform accepted cultural stereotypes. This book asks teachers and teacher educators to think more deeply about the role of literature in effecting social transformations." (Dana L. Grisham, Professor, California State University, East Bay)