Critical literacy as policy and advocacy: Lessons from Colombia

This article, the first column for this issue's Policy and Advocacy department, features a discussion about a recent experience in a graduate program in Medellín, Colombia introducing students to critical literacy. Graduate students used ideas from critical literacy to engage in an in-depth analysis of textbooks they had used in their practice. Their reflexivity showed that they raised questions about teachers' attachment to textbooks, the meaning of critical consciousness, issues of ideology in those textbooks, and a renewed sense of agency and advocacy. The article also poses challenges for critical literacy in second language education.