Critical discourse analysis of Ontario’s Programmatic literacy curriculum documents.

Research Questions My research investigates Ontario’s programmatic literacy to respond to the following research questions: · How are literacy (subject matter), literacy learners (students), literacy instructors (teachers), and conditions of and for literacy learning (milieus) configured and positioned in the programmatic literacy curricula of Ontario? · How do the above configurations address the increased levels of migration, diversity, and rapid technological change that characterize the current era? · What implications do these findings have on literacy education in the 21st Century? How literacy is defined is an important question to investigate, as literacy directly influences who can and cannot actively and meaningfully participate in society; literacy, then, plays a fundamental role in ensuring an inclusive society (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009b). Responses to these questions can contribute to the literature of how equitable literacy curricular are created. Coburn (2003) argues that to contribute to education that adapts to shifting student demographics, changes are needed in how educators think about “how students learn, subject matter knowledge, expectations for students, and what constitutes effective instruction); norms of social interaction (e.g. patterns of teacher and student talk such as accountable talk and ways in which students and teachers treat one another); and in the underlying pedagogical principles embedded in curriculum (e.g., evidence informed approaches to effective instruction grounded in a sound theory of learning)” (Gallagher, M, et al., 2016, p. 483). I have undertaken this project to examine how literacy is constructed in programmatic literacy curriculum and supporting documents in Ontario so that I may understand the ideologies that shape literacy education, specifically subject matter, student roles, teacher roles, and conditions of and for learning in Ontario, Canada. Upon taking on this project, I searched for a theory of literacy that was inclusive and allowed the advantages of literacy such as self-advocacy, self-expression, social interaction, and meaningful learning, to be shared with students of all backgrounds, to allow more open access to the benefits and power that literacy provides. The pedagogy of Multiliteracies (NLG, 1996) is a theory that has the potential to achieve these goals. The New London Group (NLG, 1996) proposed a pedagogy of literacy that focuses on empowering students to self-advocate and develop creative ways of communicating. Creativity is an important part of literacy, as creativity allows for a diversity of thought, practice, and outcomes, thereby tearing down barriers and expanding definitions of literacy. An overview of the theory of multiliteracies pedagogy will be discussed later in this chapter.