Critical Literacy and Our Students’ Lives

The US West Outstanding Teacher of the Western United States for 1990 discusses here how winning the award only led her to recognize the ways she needed to improve instruction in her classroom of students who were seen as “disadvantaged” because they were remedial readers, mostly impoverished, and largely African American. By focusing on the passions and skills her students already had, the author was able to create a sancocho (thick stew)-style curriculum with a basic process that helps students see their experiences in the context of the larger world.