Mod 11 Discussion: Teaching Critical Literacy

I use the Alternative text approach when I am teaching the Memoir Finding Manana. The book itself alternates between chapters from the author’s perspective and chapters from the perspective of other people that shaped the events that shaped the author’s story. I have the students chose one of the chapters and rewrite in diary form that chapter from a different perspective: if the chapter was originally written from the author’s perspective, they need to write it from the viewpoint of one of the other members of the author’s family; if the chapter reflected the viewpoint of another person, they must write from the author’s view. The whole goal of this exercise is to get the students to understand how perspective shapes events. And sometimes they cannot translate all of the events into a different perspective, which gives them an appreciation for the limitations of a single perspective.