MY CRITICAL LITERACY COURSE RECAP 📖

What do you think Critical literacy is?

Critical literacy is about seeing things from a different perspective.. inferring and reading between the lines to fish out the subliminal messages behind a text, film, advertisement, or music, and interpret that for yourself. It's about really looking deeper into a text to search for hidden information, basically.

What did you learn during Critical Literacy?

I learnt some questions I can ask myself while reading, listening to music, etc, to help myself understand the true meanings and possibly try to understand the author's perspective. I also learnt what Critical Literacy is as a whole: I haven't properly studied it, although I have subconsciously taken time to search for subliminal messages in song lyrics and Disney films after learning about the dark meanings behind certain songs (whoops, my inner conspiracy theorist is coming out). 

What did you find challenging about critical literacy?

There were some texts, ads, and songs that I thought, no way, there is no meaning behind this whatsoever, it's just jumbled-up-garbage. That was really during the introduction to it. So, at the start, it was pretty difficult to actually find the hidden information (whether it was collaboratively or independently) but as the crash course progressed I found it to become easier and easier which is (hopefully) a good thing. I still find some things difficult to interpret however, such as the more simple texts. For example, the story "butterflies" I posted earlier was pretty difficult for me to interpret. 

How will you use Critical Literacy skills in real life?

I will continue using Critical Literacy skills when I'm listening to music, watching films, and reading books. One thing I particularly want to do is watch a Disney film, listen to 'Hotel California' by Guns 'n' Roses (there's a heck ton of secret, hidden messages in this song that I want to interpret for myself) and re-read 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' with a different perspective that this course helped me to find. 

What are you looking forward to in English this year?

I'm looking forward to starting the new Novel Study: I definitely enjoying studying 'Wonder', and after this course, I think I'll have even more questions I can ask about the text. I'm also looking forward to continuing critical literacy if we do a film study. Oh, and I'm looking forward to reading another Shakespeare play/book to expand my knowledge. Basically, I'm looking forward to everything!