Opening Spaces for Critical Literacy: Introducing Books to Young Readers.

<div class="line" id="line-59"> <span style='color: rgb(28, 29, 30); font-family: "Open Sans", icomoon, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;'> How might book introductions open up spaces for critical literacy? This is the research question we asked while examining the records of teaching and learning within a yearlong teacher&hyphen;research project in a second grade classroom. We designed a series of literacy units focused on themes of human rights, freedom, peace, and civil rights. Our focus in this paper is on one slice of the classroom's literacy life: book introductions. Our findings indicate that spaces for critical literacy were opened up through the teachers' careful selection of books; the teachers' use of purposeful prompts, and the teachers' willingness to let silence reign during the book introduction. We display three important findings through &ldquo;telling examples&rdquo; of what critical literacy book introductions sound and look like. </span></div>