The critical pedagogical lens makes space for students of a non-dominant culture to connect and make meaning. "Critical pedagogies are needed to challenge the assumptions, practices, and outcomes taken for granted in dominant culture" (Gruenewald, 2003, p. 3). The critical lens is essential to defining the role of literacy in the elementary classroom and beyond. Critical literacy encompasses both personal growth and language competencies as well as "changes in consciousness about the relation between the individual and society" (Mendoza, 2018, para. 2). Critical pedagogy, like place-based pedagogy, draws on the knowledge that students already hold in order to negotiate with the world and their own identities
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(Mendoza, 2018, para. 8). Critical literacy, even at an elementary level, asks questions such as "who is telling the story?" and "who’s voice is missing from the story?" to deconstruct dominant storylines and generate "alternative stories about our places" (Somerville, 2007, p. 154). Critical literacy also recognizes the colonial project concerning literacy: "literacy pedagogy, in other words, has been a carefully restricted project- restricted to mono-lingual, mono-cultural, and rule-governed forms of language" (Somerville, 2007, p. 156). Critical literacy allows for the exploration of multiple literacy modalities, such as learning from place and oral storytelling and validates these literacies as valued and significant to a more holistic way of knowing.