A Plea for Identity and Criticality: Reframing Literacy Learning Standards Through a Four-Layered Equity Model

Currently, learning standards that govern schools are skills and knowledge centered, but when revisiting historical roots of literacy learning in communities of color, literacy was much more expansive and advanced to also include goals of identity meaning making and criticality. In this essay, the author argues for a reframed set of learning standards in literacy education—one that is grounded in the historical excellence of literacy development. The four‐layered HILL framework offered in the essay embodies a teaching and learning model that is in concert for advancing students’ identity, skill development, intellectualism and criticality. This model becomes essential for youth in classrooms, especially youth of color who have been traditionally marginalized in learning standards, policies, and school practices. Further, the framework incorporates multiple theoretical orientations to pedagogy including cognitive, sociocultural, critical and sociohistorical theories.