Critical Literacy

I believe that critical literacy enables students to be able to critically analyze text and understand them completely.  Text are not always straightforward and I think that critical literacy provides students with the skills to take underlying information from the text.  By actively reading and reflecting, students are able to understand better. If students are able to participate in critical literacy, the skills they will develop will help them to be able to take more from text, therefore expanding their knowledge.
I read the article by Behrman as well as the article  by Monahan that pertains specifically to science.  Both of these articles gave me great ideas on how to incorporate critical literacy into my discipline, as well as its importance.  Starting with the Monahan article, I would love to do a project like the students in her classroom.  Students were divided into groups and were asked to construct arguments in which they utilized voice.  I think an activity like this would be very beneficial to students in science because it allows them to bring their own ideas into science.  In one of my classes in college our professor assigned us a similar project.  We were given an article to read and using what we have learned in class we were asked to analyze the article.  Our teacher wanted us to use our own voice and argue reasoning behind the article.  It was difficult at first, but after some practice it became a lot easier and enjoyable.  I would love to do something similar to this for my students. I think too often science is looked at as just boring memorization which is not at all the case!  I think activities such as this help students to realize the science is a way of thinking.
In the Behrman article, six critical literacy approaches are discussed: reading supplementary texts, reading multiple texts, reading from a resistant perspective, producing counter-text, using student-choice research projects, and taking social action.  I hope in my future classroom I can finds to incorporate all of these approaches.  After reading, one idea I had mirrored the example given in the reading.  In the example, students read two versions of a fairy tale and then compared and contrasted them.  They then wrote the fairy tale from a different perspective.  I would love to find a way to do this with different theories or different views of popular research topics.