Authentic Literacy Pedagogy Analysis

In the 1970s, two approaches were developed to deal with the deficiencies in the authentic literacy pedagogy: functional pedagogy and critical literacies pedagogy (Locke, 2010). These pedagogies developed out of a belief that literacy pedagogy could bring about change to social inequalities. Part of this stemmed from seeking equity for marginalised groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and migrant children (Green, Hodgen, Luke, 1997). Though they have similar intentions, the way they attempt to achieve social justice through literacy are as different as didactic pedagogy from authentic pedagogy.

The functional approach has had an increasingly strong influence on Australian literacy pedagogy over the last couple of decades (White,

Like authentic pedagogy, this is a top-down whole text approach. The focus is on breaking down the genres of school success to examine macrostructures and microstructures (Kalantzis et al., 2016). White et al. (2016) describe the functional approach as a means to give students with disadvantaged virtual schoolbags the explicit skills to be academically successful. This is based on helping students reach the zone of proximal development (de Silva Joyce & Fleez, 2016; Kalantzis et al., 2016). For example, in the year 1 to 4 English curriculum descriptions, students are to use other texts as models for their own (ACARA, n.d.). This example corresponds quite closely to the aforementioned scaffolding in the functional model. In addition, the year six creating literature string asks for students to create texts by a similar breakdown and analysis as the functional model (ACARA, n.d.). Therefore, there is sufficient evidence in the curriculum documents to show the relevance and influence of this

It shares a lot of the same ideals as authentic pedagogy, such as implicit motivation, student activity and experience, but differs in its emphasis on difference in culture and language (Kalantzis et al., 2016). This latter part is in direct opposition to functional literacies because it values texts and mediums that are not traditionally valued by academia. The curriculum allows for aspects of critical literacies pedagogies as seen in the year 6 description with the inclusion of multimodal texts. While this is open to interpretation, it could be extended to texts that are valued by students in popular culture. Through pedagogy, it provides agency and opportunity for authentic change of self or community (Kalantzis et al., 2016). Therefore, this approach is overtly about social