Critical literacy, school improvement, and the four resources model

My comments today cover three topics. First, I want to introduce and review the four resources model, describing its origins and premises. Second, I want to describe a project my colleagues at Queensland University of Technology and I have undertaken at a low SES Indigenous and migrant/refugee school for the last four years - using the four resources, models of critical literacy and multiliteracies - to try to mobilize school reform and improved conventional achievement (e.g., Luke, Dooley & Woods, 2011). The third topic is the use of these approaches in school reform in Ontario, Queensland and other systems that have sought alternatives to mandated scripted instructional materials used in the aftermath of the American No Child Left Behind federal mandates (Luke & Woods, 2010). Specifically, Ontario and Queensland have used the four resources model as an organizing principle for whole school literacy plans (Luke, 2005). So my comments today will introduce the model, apply it at the level of individual school mobilisation, and then move to issues of policy implementation in literacy reform and school improvement at the state system level.