What is Critical Literacy?

We are what we say and do. The way we speak and are spoken to help shape us into the people we become. Through words and other actions, we build ourselves in a world that is building us. That world addresses us to produce the different identities we carry forward in life: men are addressed differently than are women, people of color differently than whites, elite students differently than those from working families. Yet, though language is fateful in teaching us what kind of people to become and what kind of society to make, discourse is not destiny. We can redefine ourselves and remake society, if we choose, through alternative rhetoric and dissident projects. This is where critical literacy begins, for questioning power relations, discourses, and identities in a world not yet finished, just, or humane

Dialogic & Critical Pedagogies: An Interview with Ira Shor

In 2016, the Main Editors of Dialogic Pedagogy Journal issued a call for papers and contributions to a wide range of dialogic pedagogy scholars and practitioners. One of the scholars who responded to our call is famous American educator Ira Shor, a professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Shor has been influenced by Paulo Freire with whom he published, among other books, “A Pedagogy for Liberation” (1986), the very first “talking book” Freire did with a collaborator. His work in education is about empowering and liberating practice, which is why it has become a central feature of critical pedagogy.Shor’s work has touched on themes that resonate with Dialogic Pedagogy (DP). He emphasises the importance of students becoming empowered by ensuring that their experiences are brought to bear. We were excited when Shor responded to our call for papers with an interesting proposal: an interview that could be published in DPJ, and we enthusiastically accepted his offer. The DPJ Main Editors contacted the DPJ community members and asked them to submit questions for Ira. The result is an exciting in-depth interview with him that revolved around six topics: (1) Social Justice; (2) Dialogism; (3) Democratic Higher Education; (4) Critical Literacy versus Traditional Literacy; (5) Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy; and (6) Language and Thought. Following the interview, we reflect on complimentary themes and tensions that emerge between Shor’s approach to critical pedagogy and DP

Dialogic & Critical Pedagogies: An Interview with Ira Shor

In 2016, the Main Editors of Dialogic Pedagogy Journal issued a call for papers and contributions to a wide range of dialogic pedagogy scholars and practitioners. One of the scholars who responded to our call is famous American educator Ira Shor, a professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Shor has been influenced by Paulo Freire with whom he published, among other books, “A Pedagogy for Liberation” (1986), the very first “talking book” Freire did with a collaborator. His work in education is about empowering and liberating practice, which is why it has become a central feature of critical pedagogy. Shor’s work has touched on themes that resonate with Dialogic Pedagogy (DP). He emphasises the importance of students becoming empowered by ensuring that their experiences are brought to bear. We were excited when Shor responded to our call for papers with an interesting proposal: an interview that could be published in DPJ, and we enthusiastically accepted his offer. The DPJ Main Editors contacted the DPJ community members and asked them to submit questions for Ira. The result is an exciting in-depth interview with him that revolved around six topics: (1) Social Justice; (2) Dialogism; (3) Democratic Higher Education; (4) Critical Literacy versus Traditional Literacy; (5) Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy; and (6) Language and Thought. Following the interview, we reflect on complimentary themes and tensions that emerge between Shor’s approach to critical pedagogy and DP

Identification of Trypanosoma brucei RMI1/BLAP75 Homologue and Its Roles in Antigenic Variation

At any time, each cell of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei expresses a single species of its major antigenic protein, the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG), from a repertoire of >2,000 VSG genes and pseudogenes. The potential to express different VSGs by transcription and recombination allows the parasite to escape the antibody-mediated host immune response, a mechanism known as antigenic variation. The active VSG is transcribed from a sub-telomeric polycistronic unit called the expression site (ES), whose promoter is 40–60 kb upstream of the VSG. While the mechanisms that initiate recombination remain unclear, the resolution phase of these reactions results in the recombinational replacement of the expressed VSG with a donor from one of three distinct chromosomal locations; sub-telomeric loci on the 11 essential chromosomes, on minichromosomes, or at telomere-distal loci. Depending on the type of recombinational replacement (single or double crossover, duplicative gene conversion, etc), several DNA-repair pathways have been thought to play a role. Here we show that VSG recombination relies on at least two distinct DNA-repair pathways, one of which requires RMI1-TOPO3α to suppress recombination and one that is dependent on RAD51 and RMI1. These genetic interactions suggest that both RAD51-dependent and RAD51-independent recombination pathways operate in antigenic switching and that trypanosomes differentially utilize recombination factors for VSG switching, depending on currently unknown parameters within the ES

Genome-wide mapping of sister chromatid exchange events in single yeast cells using Strand-seq

Homologous recombination involving sister chromatids is the most accurate, and thus most frequently used, form of recombination-mediated DNA repair. Despite its importance, sister chromatid recombination is not easily studied because it does not result in a change in DNA sequence, making recombination between sister chromatids difficult to detect. We have previously developed a novel DNA template strand sequencing technique, called Strand-seq, that can be used to map sister chromatid exchange (SCE) events genome-wide in single cells. An increase in the rate of SCE is an indicator of elevated recombination activity and of genome instability, which is a hallmark of cancer. In this study, we have adapted Strand-seq to detect SCE in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We provide the first quantifiable evidence that most spontaneous SCE events in wild-type cells are not due to the repair of DNA double-strand breaks

O legado de Paulo Freire nos Estados Unidos da América: entrevista com Ira Shor

Ira Shor is one of the first academics to translate conceptually the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire to a North American context. However, as will be made clear in the interview, the context in which Shor first developed his critical pedagogy was, and remains, very different then Freire’s context in Brazil. Instead of educating illiterate rural folk in Brazil, Shor has worked primarily with students in New York City’s public university system--the City University of New York (CUNY)--who come from some of the poorest neighborhoods of the city. Frequently, these students are immigrants or children of immigrants for whom English is not their first language. And the English that they do speak is formed by the local dialects and idioms found throughout the five boroughs of New York City. In high school, these students have become accustomed to an authoritative education. While other students in the city, who live in more affluent neighborhoods, with better public schools or whose parents can afford to pay for private schools, often have a generally pleasant experience with teachers who show interest in their development, the students whom Shor generally teachers at the College of Staten Island have had an educational experience full of rules, imperatives, orders, and threats of sanction placed upon them by authoritative education. Insead of being a role model, or even a friend,  the teachers of these students more often than not play the role of educational cop: they are in the classroom to catch their linguistic errors “in the act”  and punish them with a complex system of grading that is difficult to comprehend. Because of this pedagogical tendency, lots of students, by the time they arrive at CUNY already incorporated a defense strategy against the authoritarian classroom: it’s better if the teacher doesn’t know my name. That way I can pass the class and “survive.

La igualdad es excelencia: Hacia la transformación de la formación docente y el proceso de aprendizaje

Fil: Shor, Ira. College of Staten Island. University of New York; Estados Unidos

Occupy in One Classroom

2011 was an historic year of global protests. Here in New York, the Capitol of Capital, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) sustained a rebel encampment for 59 days at now-famous Zuccotti Park in the financial district. Hundreds of other occupations erupted around the United States and abroad. Occupy activists declared “Another world is possible!” and set out to build it in a small concrete park