Blog Post 7~ Ernest Morrell’s “Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education: Toward a Pedagogy of Access and Dissent”

Blog Post 7 ~ Ernest Morrell’s “Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education: Toward a Pedagogy of Access and Dissent”

Ernest Morrell’s article offers educators a refreshing view geared towards incorporating and balancing popular and classical literary works to create an environment that’s both fun and engaging for student’s, as well as being culturally relevant for them.

I found Morrell’s research and information to be in-depth, supported, and well thought out. At times in the article’s beginning, I felt overwhelmed with vocabulary that I needed to reference a dictionary to understand; however, I muddled through it and soon found golden nuggets of advice, which will be valuable for a future educator’s classroom. I enjoyed the examples and classroom applications he cited in his work.

I specifically enjoyed Morell’s section on using courtroom trials as a means to teach students how to make supported arguments (2007, p. 10). I found the detailed description of how he went about using this concept fascinating. Morrell’s states teachers assign each student a role and they participate (i.e. a witness’ or lawyers); however, all students make “casebooks” from which they will build their personal rhetorical essays (2007, p. 10-13). Morell states that “In making this argument she [the student] has thoroughly investigated the text and written eloquently about the most serious and debatable issues in the text” (2007, p.13). Furthermore, “The argument is clear, concise, thorough, passionate, and well written. It demonstrates how seriously the students took their roles as litigants and how the schema of the court trial allowed them to develop sophisticated arguments around a canonical literary text,” according to Morell’s article (2007, p. 13).

I feel as educators, we can never have enough tools in our metaphorical toolboxes. I always try to remember the fact that what might reach one student, or class of students, may not reach another. Moreover, my ultimate goal as an educator is seeing the lightbulb go off in every student’s eyes so that I know I am reaching my students and they are getting it. With that in mind, I am gathering as many tools and resources as possible because I will not know until I get there just which classes are waiting for this strategy.  

 There is also some great information on teachers as researchers in this article. Morell offers advice on ways educators can utilize their classroom research projects to make political and social change by involving students, communities, administration, and themselves in meaningfully accepted research projects such as academic, literary, community, political, economic, or even social… the possibilities are endless. (Morrell, 2007, pp. 13-20).  

Reference:

Morrell, E. (2007). Critical literacy and popular culture in urban education: Toward a pedagogy of access and dissent. In C. Clark & M. Blackburn (Eds.), Working with/in the local: New directions in literacy research for political action (pp. 235-254). New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Retrieved from: https://centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/xchange/critical-uses-of-media-and-technology/xpress/critical-literacy-and-popular-culture-in-urban-education-toward-a-pedagogy-of-access-and-dissent.

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