Critical Literacy in Everyday Life

From the perspective of students as the reader, the following image, taken from a familiar poster located in the 'white tiger enclosure' at the Singapore Zoo, will be examined in terms of Freebody and Luke's (1990) four-part model for "Reading as Critical Social Practice".

Coding Competence
This "fact poster" or "informational poster" uses the combination of colours, text (different fonts/sizes), realistic image, schematic diagram and icons to deliver its purpose. To be able to crack the poster and read the content effectively, students must be able to recognise that the poster adopts both the top-to-bottom reading directionality (i.e. reading the heading first to know the content below) as well as left-to-right directionality (i.e. reading the legend to understand what the different colour represents). Simultaneously, they must also be able to understand how framing differentiates the heading from the content as well as distinguishes where the different examples of wild tigers can be found today. In addition, to read this poster effectively, besides understanding the legend in the bottom left foreground, students should also be able to recognise the function of the icon. Lastly, to crack this image, they must also recognise that the 8 orange vector lines that points out of the map towards the realistic (naturalistic) images or icons depicts the text "There were once 8 kinds of tiger in the world. Only 5 remain today."

Semantic Competence
To make meaning of the poster, students have to know the exact location of the different countries in the world since the large green mass in the poster represents part of the world map. Having "limited background knowledge" (Luke, 1995) hampers their comprehension of the poster as they may not be able to articulate where the wild tigers can exactly be found despite the text "where do tigers live today?" in the heading. In light of our role as teachers, this sophisticated call for intertextuality seeks us to explicitly teach students the conventions of a world map which in turn makes new demands on them.

Additionally, to make meaning of the green and orange land mass in the poster, students will need to bring in their prior knowledge of maps, in which the common use of legend, in the case of this poster, is to illustrate what the colours represent. Besides that, to comprehend the use of a mixture of realistic images and icons to denote the different kinds of tiger in the world, teachers will have to explicitly introduce the notion that realistic (naturalistic) images or icons used to depict the text represent the tigers that are still in existence and extinct ones respectively.

Drawing from their everyday experiences of reading newspapers, magazines and even textbooks which are strategically included with images, students understand that it is indeed a common practice that images are captioned in the mentioned genres and discourses because of the limitation that each mode offers – text relay more information about the images while images help text participants visualise the subject matter discussed in text. Hence, living in such cultural configuration, students are thus accustomed to how the poster include caption or in this case the specific name of the species shown in the realistic images and icons.

Pragmatic Competence
This poster, situated in the white tiger enclosure, serves the purpose of provisioning information with regard to the location of the different kinds of wild tigers today. However, as text user, students will have to dwell deeper and understand that the Singapore Zoo is all about conserving animals and saving them from extinction. Hence, when students use the text, they do not just read the information given and remember them for personal purpose or school, they also have to uncover, from the design of the poster, how the Zoo's mission to save wild tigers from extinction is highlighted for the purpose of embracing humanity.

Critical Competence
Based on the above examined competences, it is noted and henceforth assumed that the ideal image reader constructed by the poster would be of someone who has a certain degree of map knowledge and very much interested in knowing more about the white tigers placed in the enclosure. Clearly, the most salient subject in the poster is the tigers – they being the only naturalistic image in the poster. So, the construction of the ideal reader as the former is demonstrated through how the image maker (i.e. the Singapore Zoo) silenced the country labels in the world map. The latter is depicted by the use of possible question asked by image readers (i.e. "Where do wild tigers live today?") as a heading.

The use of multimodal approach when designing the poster as opposed to purely using text or images is brilliant because it helps to deliver the Zoo's intended message better. Besides being able to illustrate its informational value, the poster's multimodalness (i.e. in terms of the sense of authenticity and realism in which the natural images of the wild tigers offer) also evoke a sense of interconnectedness between animals and image readers as human beings – responsible and empathetic members of the community who can make a difference to the lives of these animals some day.

Narrowing the profile of the image readers down to the local Secondary 2 students, it is very likely that most of them will be able to assume the stance of an ideal image reader for the case of this poster because they would have gone through a lesson on reading maps. However, in our culture, most students, without the explicit instruction from their teachers may not be able to decipher the latter purpose (i.e. evoke a sense of interconnectedness between animals and image readers) of the poster instead. To a certain extent, this may be attributed to the situation in which most of our local students have yet to embrace the spirit or probably the habit of thinking critically despite the emphasis on such traits during their lessons in school. Slowly but surely, we hope that our students will have the critical eye in them to be able to uncover such notions that exist underlying the surface meaning of the designed poster.

A Lesson on Critical Reading
Based on the profile of the targeted learners – Secondary 2 Singaporean students, I would approach the lesson by showing the students different parts of the poster independently in which the heading, text, legend, image, icon, and map exist are different entities. Here, students may be grouped in threes to discuss and predict from just the heading, what the content should entail.

By revealing the entities one by one, students will then elaborate or modify their predictions. They will then infer from their predictions the purpose, audience and context. At the end of the prediction exercise, teacher will then show students the actual poster and get them to compare and contrast the similarities and differences that exist between the actual and predicted text in terms of their purpose, audience and context and deliberate why so.

Carrying out this activity gives students the opportunity to critically read, consider and make wise decisions based on semantic predictions and inferences. Showing contents of the poster as separate entities as well as when it is actually integrated allow students to discover the affordances of reading text and image independently and interdependently. Some questions that may be asked during the activity would be:

• Who do you think are the audience of the text presented? Why so? (with reference to just the heading)
  
• Which genres would you find the different parts of the content in? (Demonstrate how "intertextual resources" (Luke, 1995) contribute to their understanding of the poster)
  
• What is the purpose of the actual poster? (Establish the focus of discussion)
  
• Why are there similarities/differences between your prediction and the actual poster? (Stimulate discussion and critical understanding)
  
• How do the different parts of the content contribute to the purpose of the poster? Why so? (Lead to uncovering underlying purpose of designing the poster)

Reference
Luke, A. (1995). When Basic Skills and Information Processing Just Aren't Enough: Rethinking Reading in New Times. Teachers College Record. (97)(1). Columbia University: Teachers College.