A Critical Tool Kit In Action

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Morgan and Ramanathan (2005) presented four points that constituted an "abbreviated sense of a critical literacy 'tool-kit' in action" (p. 156). A teacher can teach Maus using this critical tool kit in the classroom. The first point is the "use of narratives/autobiographies to link personal experiences with sociohistorical and institutional power relations" (p. 156). One question that a teacher can ask while teaching Maus is: Do some o! the experiences of Vladek Spiegelman resonate with ELL students' senses of themselves? If so, how and in what ways? Because his story is told in a dialogic form with his son, students can understand history's impact on a Vibram Five Fingers personal level. The story of Vladek's struggle to carry on despite the devastating historical forces tha1 have destroyed an entire way of life can be a powerful model of discourse for immigrant students who ma} have experienced similar traumas. This text can act a: a springboard to examining how racism is institutionalized in North America and Europe, which student cannot fail to notice and by which they might ...
... be possibly affected in their daily existence. Students cat begin their own written autobiographies that contextualize their life stories in the societies and institution in which they were raised. Using Maus as a possible model, they can narrate their stories in a dialogue with a friend, family member, classmate, or teacher Their own stories can use their first language-just a Vladek Spiegelman switches among the several Languages at his disposal--to help re-create the world they left behind in all its specificity. Having a power full example before them of an ordinary person who lives to tell the tale will affirm students' finding their own voices to tell their life stories that need to be toL and heard in the classroom and beyond.

The second point is that by juxtaposing texts "ii ways that question and subvert received disciplinary knowledge" (Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005, p. 157' teachers can problematize issues and discourses that may not always be fore grounded in the classroom Because racism and, in this instance, the perpetual insistent denial of the Holocaust (witness the 2006 conference in Iran; Fathi, 2006), are ongoing cancers in our societies, teacher talk can mediate students' receptions and reactions toward racial profiling and stereo typing that proliferate in schools everywhere. Teacher talk also facilitates discussions that "talk through" the text of Maus so that Vibram Fivefingers Shoes students can feel free to display their own capability in producing multiple interpretations. Multiple readings will enable students to challenge the information they will inevitably encounter n other media. Instead of reading (or attempting to read) official presentations of history with passive acceptance or indifference, students' intellects and imaginations are challenged and activated by contact with multimodal texts that present alternative representations of history.