Out of the Box: Critical Literacy in a First Grade Classroom by Christine H Leland, Jerome C Harste, & Karen Smith

This article approaches a concept called critical literacy through the analysis of a first grade teacher's use of books on social issues in her first grade classroom. Kim Huber had been a first grade teacher for sometime when a graduate class persuaded her to venture away from happy books and turn instead to books that dealt with important and difficult social issues such as homelessness and racism. The idea presented Kim with an entirely new learning experience that enabled her to really get to know her students on a different level.
The article highlights the effects of introducing critical literacy to a classroom. For instance, Kim was nervous to read books like The Lady in the Box to her first graders. She was not fully convinced that it would do anything for them. However, when she participated in a program that introduced books like The Lady in the Box and other books on social issues to her children she was pleasently surprised with what she found.
She first started to notice a heightened awareness of social issues like homelessness. When Kim read The Lady in the Box to her students their school was hosting a food drive with a contest among classrooms of who could bring in the most cans. Before reading the story the children had stopped bringing in cans with the class total being under 100; after the book was shared, the students brought that total to over 200. "What was even more impressive to me was the change in the children's attitudes. Instead of looking to win they were now focused on helping others." (Leland, 260)
Kim noticed more development in this classroom more than she ever had in previous classes. She noticed changes in their writing, artwork, peer relationships, and the overall classroom atmosphere. She had never seen something take such an effect on her students and it all started with introducing them to social issues.
The article is a great example of why social issues are so important to classroom curriculum. Books on the topic such as The Lady in the Box enhance the learning process as we saw with Kim's class. They encourage students to go beyond just reading and figure out what's between the lines of text. The article does a wonderful job expressing the importance of the introduction of social issues early in the academic process. If students are introduced to these kinds of issues they develop a sense of compassion for the characters in the books that can travel to similar individuals in reality.
"These children do not all have tidy happy endings in their lives. Using critical texts opens their eyes and my own to world issues. This helps create understanding and provides connections for kids whose lives do not fit what they think is normal-such as the family of four with both parents and a dog in the backyard."(Leland, 267)
The experience illustrated in this article seems like a wonderful and rewarding one to try. The article itself can serve as a learning experience to teachers anywhere who are looking to enhance the critical literacy skills that they possess as well as those that their students do.
Leland , Christine H, and Jerome C Harste and Karen Smith. "Out of the Box: Critical Literacy in a First Grade Classroom." Language Arts 82(2005): 257-268.