Young Adult Literature and critical literacy - politische Bildung im fremdsprachlichen Literaturunterricht

This paper explores the role that Young Adult Literature can play for developing foreign language learnersֹ’ critical literacy in secondary schools. Drawing on Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy and approaches in literature and language pedagogy, critical literacy is understood as learners’ competence to critically reflect and question established beliefs, texts, representations and power relationships with the aim of participating in social transformation. The paper argues that critical literacy can be seen as a central goal of literature classes and illustrates how it can be transferred into classroom practice. Several texts are presented to show how learners may be encouraged to critically reflect social, political and environmental issues of global importance, such as climate change, racism, or social justice, thus developing skills they need to become critical agents of change.