Reading bumper stickers critcally: a teaching and research project with Grade 12 students at Randfontein secondary school

[摘要] ABSTRACTThis study mainly sets to explore how English second language students grade 12learners at Randfontein Secondary School develop critical literacy awareness (CLA)by reading 'bumper’ stickers found in mini-bus taxis commonly known as taxis.Data used in this project was mainly collected through interviews with researchparticipants namely; students, taxi drivers, bumper sticker manufacturers and taxicommuters. The teacher/researcher required students to collect literary texts from theirenvironment for use in their critical literacy class.This research project mainly employs Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis modelas an analytical model, which holds that CDA should include the socio-culturalcontexts in which texts are produced and read. Data was analysed by all the studentsin class, especially the six students who were selected for the focus group. Theresearcher (myself) analysed the students’ reading of texts so as to establish the extentto which they were developing critical literacy awareness.The research found that my students resisted bumper stickers as a discourse thatdiffered from their own ideological positions. Data in this study reveals that thestudents approached the bumper stickers from a position of estrangement because theywere reading from an urban social context that differs from the taxi drivers’ ruralsocial context. This study showed that getting students to be researcher themselvescan be a very fruitful and developmental learning experience.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand