Critical Literacy Education with Problem Posing Approach

An Alternative for Critical Learning Practice in Elementary School

Ani Hendriani, Teguh Ibrahim and Pupun Nuryani

Faculty of Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia

anihendriani@upi.edu

Keywords: Agency, Critical Literacy, Multiliteracies Pedagogy, Primary School, Problem Posing, Social Change.

Abstract: The background of this research is the fact that it is hard to find critical literacy based texts in 2013 curriculum

textbooks. Critical literacy based text is a text that contains representation of power, injustice, exploitation,

ethnical issues, gender issues, powerlessness, and social marginalization. The aim that critical literacy based

texts are presented is to evoke students’ critical awareness on social reality in which they should already aware

of as a problem that should be challenged and changed with transformative powered social act. The method

of this research is classroom action research model by Kemmis and Taggart. The study was conducted in two

cycles consisting of two actions. The participants of this research are 4th grade students of SDN Sarijadi 07

consisting of 30 students. Research showed that (1) the critical literacy education process consists of three

stages which are: problematization (pre-reading), cultural discussion (reading), social action (after reading);

(2) critical literacy-based learning can develop students' ability to write argumentative essays that serve as

criticisms or solutions to overcome social inequality. (3) The average value of critical literacy in the first cycle

resulted in 65.22 and increased significantly to 78.36 in the second cycle. This study has the significance of

enriching the science of multiliteracies pedagogy especially critical literacy-based learning in primary

schools.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the early years of elementary school, language

learning within the framework of critical literacy is

important for students’ learning development.

Critical literacy-based language learning explores the

relationship between language and strength and

focuses on the need to create speakers, readers, and

critical writers who can deconstruct the surrounding

texts and interpret them, both as a product and a

process of specific social practice. In this context,

literacy is recognized as an ideologically defined

process of seeking meaning (Ioannidou, 2015).

Moreover, Lee (2017) claims that critical literacy

is a good analytical procedure that can broaden

students' understanding and perspective on power and

social inequality issues. Critical literature encourages

the reader to examine the point of view from which

the text is constructed, and to think of other

perspectives that may be included in a text, helping

the reader to diversify their understanding, beliefs and

perspectives of a text and its social context.

Several studies have concluded the importance of

critical literacy learning for improving the quality of

human resources that capable to bring changes in

various dimensions of life. Ajayi concluded in his

research that: Critical literacy acknowledges the

possibility for female students to integrate their self-

identity in creating socially and culturally relevant

texts with their lives (Ajayi, 2015, 2012; Rogers,

Mosley and Kramer, 2009).

A research done by Morrel (2009) concluded that

‘Critical literacy researchers are also able to do far

more with the analysis of students’ cultural and

textual production. When student work products are

analysed from a critical perspective, we are able to

look at these not just as evidence of the development

of academic skills; but also we can examine the

substance of this work to understand how students are

learning to think differently about the world and their

place in it’’. Morrel found that the application of

critical literacy-based education could change the

way students perceived their reality, and they would

be able to act as autonomous subjects with critical

literacy projects aimed at social action.

Hendriani, A., Ibrahim, T. and Nuryani, P.

Critical Literacy Education with Problem Posing Approach - An Alternative for Critical Learning Practice in Elementary School.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 1, pages 523-529

ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8

523

Referring to previous researches, the researcher

found a gap that not many research on the application

of language learning methods based on critical

literacy conducted in elementary schools has been

found, especially in Indonesia. Based on these facts,

the researcher attempted to design a critical literacy

education framework with problem posing approach.

This research aimed to provide alternative

educational practices that have the potential to

develop critical literacy skills of primary school

students, especially in Indonesia. To simplify,

problem posing can be interpreted as a learning

approach that turn humanitarian problems into

reflective materials that should be critically

addressed. Problem posing education has the

normative task of generating critical awareness, so

learners have an eye analysis or direct observation in

naming and disentangling social problems in human

relations, finding the cause, reflectively acting on the

issue, and transforming it towards better and more

humane directions (Freire, 2008).

Through critical literacy education and problem

posing approach, students are presented with

problematic thematic texts that have the potential to

generate critical awareness of the uneven social-

cultural reality. In the observation of the researcher,

the 2013 curriculum textbooks still do not contain

contents that represent power, injustice, social

marginalization, oppression, exploitation and gender

or racial issues. The texts in the 2013 curriculum

textbooks tend to cover the system that is currently

imprisoning Indonesia from criticism of inequality.

2 THEORETICAL REVIEW

2.1 The Historical and Theoretical

Foundation of Critical Literacy

Education

Historically and theoretically, critical literacy

education and problem posing approach were

initiated by Paulo Freire's thought. He is a figure of

education from Brazil. The concept of Freire's critical

literacy education aims to awaken the critical

consciousness of the oppressed to the reality of

oppression that has shackled them as human beings.

“The development of critical awareness keeps people

questioning the nature of their historical and social

situation, reading their world for the purpose of acting

as autonomous subjects capable of bringing change to

a more democratic and humane society” (Kesuma and

Ibrahim, 2016).

Therefore the concept of critical literacy

education aims in the ability of learners to read all

forms of social and cultural reality that surrounds

them. The concept of Freire's critical literacy

education is not to only read the word, but also to read

the world, linking the text with the context of human

life. Paulo Freire's "Read the Word and the World"

concept is the cornerstone of critical literacy-based

language learning, as it is stated by Freire and

Macedo (2005):

“The act of learning to read and write has to

start from a very comprehensive understanding

of the act of reading the world, something which

human beings do before reading the words. Even

historically, human beings first changed the

world, secondly proclaimed the world and then

wrote the words. These are moments of history.

Human beings did not start naming A! F! N!

They started by freeing the hand, grasping the

world.”

Referring to Freire's opinion, the author draw the

conclusion that critical literacy education is more

oriented towards the oppressed awareness program of

their humanity that capable of grasping the world.

The process of evoking using the praxical approach is

through a critical reflection of their social and

historical situation, reading the 'world' of theirs,

which then provokes the birth of an action capable of

bringing social changes.

3 RESEARCH METHODS

3.1 Research Method

This research used CAT (Classroom Action

Research) model by Kemmis and Taggart (2000).

This model consists of four stages: planning,

execution, observation, and reflection. These four

stages flow like a continuous cycle to overcome

various problems in the classroom. This goes in

accordance with the function and purpose of the CAT,

according to McNiff (2013): ‘CAT is a reflective

cyclical research conducted by the teachers

themselves, in which results may be utilized as a

curriculum development tool, school development,

development of teaching skills, etc.’.

3.2 Subject and Site of Research

This research was conducted on the fourth grade

students at SDN Sarijadi 07 with 30 students consists

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

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of 15 male students and 15 female students. The

researcher was interested in this school, because the

researcher was conducting FEP (Field Experience

Program) students' coaching at the school, so the

researcher was given the opportunity by the school to

conduct the research. The researcher was also

interested in SDN Sarijadi 07 because that the literacy

learning was still focused on reading, writing, math

and science. Critical literacy-based learning is still

rare at the time the school is being observed. This

condition would affect the students' inability to

realize the dichotomy between the text and the

context, as well as the social gaps that exist in the

surrounding environment, as well as the lack of

student autonomy for social action.

3.3 Data Collecting and Analysis

The process of collecting data was done by

implementing critical literacy-based problem-posing

education in several action cycles. From several

cycles that have been implemented then obtained

some data which are:

1. Descriptions of critical literacy-based learning

steps in primary school using problem posing

education model.

2. Essential findings of increasing critical literacy

skills on elementary school students.

3. And critical literacy work of students in the form

of an argumentative essays.

To collect the data, the researcher used several

instruments such as the observation format and the

student's critical literacy skill assessment format.

These three data will be described in the results and

discussion sections.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Steps of Critical Literacy

Education with Problem Posing

Approach

Critical Literacy Education Design with Problem

Posing Approach is a modification of the Literacy

Education stage of Paulo Freire in (Kesuma and

Ibrahim 2016) and the Critical Schemata Method of

Indonesian Multiliteration Expert, Yunus Abidin

(2012). The stages are as follows:

4.1.1 Problematization Stage (Pre-Reading)

This stage consists of two steps: codification and

decodification. This stage is the stage of literacy

education in concrete context and theoretical contexts

(through figure s, folklore, etc). The codification

stage (naming) is the process by which the educator

gives names of illustrations (figure s, folklore, etc.) of

the problematic themes to be built based on the reality

experienced by the learners. Codification is an object

of knowledge that bridges educators and students in

uncovering the veil of life.

While the decodification (disentangling) of the

codification allows the teachers and the students to

analyse their lives, in lengthy discussions they took

out all the acuity of their visions in which they are

involved with the world (objective reality). Teachers

and students position themselves as subjects that

reject the mute culture. (Kesuma and Ibrahim, 2015).

In this study, the problematization stage is carried

out by presenting a problematic story that represents

issues of power, injustice, exploitation, social

marginalization, and gender or race disparities. The

theme raised in cycle 1 is a cheating merchant and in

cycle 2 is a greedy village chief. In this stage the

teacher tells the story with the help of representative

image, after which the students and teachers build a

dialogue by brainstorming about the characters, the

story line, and student experiences related to the

story. The teacher help the students to name (codify)

and unravel (decodify) the social imbalances that

exist in the story and its relevance to the problems

they experience in daily life. At this stage the

researcher gives the Pre-reading Process Worksheet

that serves to dig the students' schemata on the story

presented. The Pre-reading Process Worksheet can be

seen in Figure 1 below:

Critical Literacy Education with Problem Posing Approach - An Alternative for Critical Learning Practice in Elementary School

525

Figure 1: The Pre-reading Process Worksheet.

4.1.2 Cultural Discussion Stage (Reading)

This stage is an advanced stage in units of small

working groups that seek to uncover the context of

the text under a discussion using key words (Kesuma

and Ibrahim, 2016). This stage is where students read

the word and read the world. Looking for linkages

between text and context.

At this stage the teacher conditions the students

into groups, the students read the stories previously

read by the teacher, then they discuss with the group

to name the facts and opinions in the text, which they

then design in the form of concept maps of facts and

opinions (Abidin , 2012). The making of facts and

opinions concept map serves to build children's

schemata, make them more critical, and help children

in designing factual arguments. In addition to

designing a concept map of facts and opinions,

students are also assigned to look for lame social

events, this stage is also aided by keywords; for

example the word "cunning", students should look for

social events associated with the word.

Figure 2: Step aims to develop students' critical reading

skills.

This step aims to develop students' critical reading

skills. Through information-seeking activities of

facts, opinions and social inequality events in the text

is believed to help children hone their analytic skills

on the social reality that occurs in the text. In this

regard, critical literacy demonstrates the involvement

of dynamic participation with information around us

that requires the need for critical thinking (Pestacore,

2007). Moreover, critical literacy can also be defined

as knowledge to approach information critically and

methodically by assessing existing knowledge

(Hammond and Macken-Horarik, 1999). Critical

literacy is also an advanced form of understanding

that involves critical evaluation to understand

information from texts. This description is further

suggested by Hammond and Macken-Horarik (1999)

who argued that the foundations of critical literacy

revolve around reading and writing skills with more

critical observaton in various dimensions of life.

Furthermore, according to Rosenblatt (2004) the

critical reading process allows the reader not only to

play the role of a codebreaker, in the sense of writer

and reader, but also to act as a critic of the text.

Furthermore Anstey and Bull (2006) emphasized the

risk that would be faced by students if they are not

taught how to read critically because "they may be

marginalized, discriminated against, or unable to act

actively in the relations of life, in short, students will

not be able to control the future of their social life".

Referring to the opinions of these experts it can be

concluded that critical literacy skills involve reading

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

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activities of the text by involving the analytic and

critical thinking skills in finding symptomatic social

imbalances, then students proceed to take proactive

action to change it with several alternative solutions.

4.1.3 Social Action Stage (After Reading)

This stage is the real stage of "praxis" in which the

actions of each person or group become a direct part

of reality. This step aims to realize the actions that

have been reflected earlier in the stage of codification,

decodification and cultural discussion. (Kesuma and

Ibrahim, 2016). Cultural action begins by

investigating the facts, opinions, and social

phenomena present in the text and then performing

critical reflection and self-assessment. After that the

students take a real action role as an agent, in which

critical writing is one good example.

In this regard Koh stated that: critical literacy is

about how to position the author as an agent with the

concern of using language to describe reality. This

action is certainly beyond the nominal value of texts

and more to question the representation of reality in a

text. (Koh, 2002). Furthermore, Fairclough (1992)

recommends that students should be given the

opportunity to practice writing in different positions

and be guided to realize the social impact of the

choice of language they address to others. They

should also be responsible for the risks they take

when they are opposing a social inequality.

Responding to this, at this stage, the researcher

assigned students to write an argumentation that

represents the role of an agent to oppose all forms of

social deviation. Basically, argumentative essay is

written by the author to convince readers. Finoza

stated (in Dalman, 2014) "Argumentative writing is

an essay that aims to convince the reader to accept or

take a certain doctrine, attitude and behavior, while

the main requirement to write an argument is that the

writer must be skilled in reasoning and developing a

logical idea".

Writing an argumentative essay as a social action

is considered suitable for elementary school students.

Because it is considered impossible to take further

social action. The argumentation written by students

is good enough and critical, contains facts and

opinions, reflective, promotes change, and opposes

all forms of social imbalance for the sake of a better

life. In the following, the researcher provides an

example of an argumentation written by a student.

Figure 3: Students' protests.

The argumentative writing on figure 3 is about the

students' protests, criticisms and solutions to the

fraudulent phenomenon of street vendors who mixed

the food they sell with potentially harmful substances

that may poison the students. In figure 3, the student

is able to think critically by realizing the problems

and negative effects of cheating, the student is also

able to act as an agent by creating a poison detector,

and the student is able to express the normative reason

as the background of the creation. The translation is

as follows:

I created this poison detector to help those who has

been poisoned. So that people who do this (food

poisoning) would be deterrent. I hate greedy and

dishonest merchants. Do not be a greedy merchant

because it is not good for those who buy. You will

regret, you will lose”.

Referring the quotations from the student

argumentation, it can be understood that through the

critical literacy education students can act as an agent

that provides criticism and solutions to social

inequality that occurs in their surroundings. In line

with the opinion of Cooper (2008) who argued that

"Critical Literacy is the capacity to read words and

the world, linking self-efficacy development, a

curious attitude, and a desire to have an influence in

Critical Literacy Education with Problem Posing Approach - An Alternative for Critical Learning Practice in Elementary School

527

positive social change". Referring to Cooper's

opinion, the emphasis on critical literacy education is

certainly the existence of utopian awareness, namely

the desire for a positive change. As it is supported by

Simon (1992) in his statement:

Critical literacy has to take seriously the ways in

which meaning systems are implicated in

reproducing domination and it has to provide

access to dominant languages, literacies and

genres while simultaneously using diversity as a

productive resource for redesigning social futures

and for changing the horizon of possibility

(Simon, 1992).

Referring to Simon's opinion, it is understandable

that critical literacy education gives us hope for a

better future. Especially in improving the dominating

system that limits the space to emancipate the

humanly life. Critical literacy education raises the

social awareness of learners to act as an agent that

capable to bring positive changes to the social realm.

4.2 Students' Literacy Critical Skills

Improvement Results

In addition to reporting qualitative data artifacts in the

form of descriptions of learning steps and students'

argumentations, in this article, the researcher also

reports the improvement of students' critical literacy

skills in each cycle. The acquisition of students'

critical literacy skills can be seen in the figure 4.

Figure 4: The Capability of Critical Literacy Average Score

Per Cycle.

Based on the figure above, it can be concluded

that the average score of writing an argumentative

essay in regards of students' critical literacy has

increased. In cycle 1 the average score is 65.22, and

in cycle 2 the average score of students' critical

literacy has increased to 78.36. The average value

achieved indicates that the students' critical literacy

has improved very well. This is not apart from the

efforts of the researcher to reflect and improve the

learning process in each cycle.

The increase of each indicator of students' critical

literacy when writing an argument can be seen in

figure 5.

Figure 5. The Score of Each Indicator on Argumentation

Writing Abilities in Critical Literacy Learning.

Information:

A: Authenticity and Logical Value of Opinions

B: The Comprehensiveness of Facts

C: Content

D: Language Preferences and Grammar

Based on the figure above, it can be concluded

that the critical literacy skill indicator of students in

writing an argumentation has a significant increase

from cycle 1 to cycle 2. At first, the students felt

difficulty in developing and making an

argumentation, in this case the researcher continued

to provide guidance so that students were able to

make an argumentation that matches the intended

purpose. Referring to the statistical data that the

researcher presented above, it can be concluded that

the critical literacy education using the problem

posing approach can significantly increase critical

literacy skills.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This research is a classroom action research that tried

to carry critical literacy education by using problem

posing approach. The learning phase consists of: 1)

Problematization (Pre-Reading), 2) Cultural

Discussion (Reading), 3) Social Action (After-

Reading). This study concludes that critical literacy

education is a necessity that can be applied at the

primary school level. Through the application of

critical literacy education, students are able to name

and disentangle the social problems that exist in the

Cycle 1 Cycle 2

65,22

78,36

students'

average

scores in

critical

literacy

learning

Cycle

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

528

text, students are able to problematize to fight against

unfair social systems, students are also able to act as

an agent that proposes a variety of solutions to change

the social system full of domination, injustice,

oppression, cheating, and various representations of

social problems that occur in their living

environment. The application of critical literacy

education can also improve students' skills in writing

critical literacy based argumentative essays. The

average value of cycle 1 reached 65.22 and increased

significantly in cycle 2 to 78.36. This proves the

effectiveness of critical literacy education by using

problem facing approach. Critical literacy education

is a necessity that can be applied in elementary

schools to prepare the golden generation in facing the

21st century's challenges.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Authors thank to every parties, especially to

researchers which focus on reviewing critical literacy,

multiliteracies pedagogy and Paulo Freire’s

Philosophy. Their ideas inspire the authors to finalize

this paper. Authors also thank to “The First

International Conference on Educational Sciences”

(ICES) committees which have facilitated authors to

publish this paper. Hopefully it could provide benefits

for the readers and academic society.

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