earticle

영어

As a powerful educational tool in language and culture education, picturebooks invite readers to share similarities and differences among cultures and people, gain diverse perspectives and worldviews, and build critical awareness how they view societies and interpret the world. Focusing on the act of critical literacy, this paper explores critical reading of a U.S.-published picturebook Where on Earth is My Bagel? (2001). Images of Korea and the U.S., through critical content analysis undergirded by the postcolonial theory of othering, are examined to unpack visual representations of the two cultures and to explore how they can impact readers. The findings and discussions of this critical content analysis shed light on the awareness of the danger of a single story, illuminating the significance of critically reading the word and the world. The paper offers implications for educators to consider how to support students in critically engaging with texts and also suggests that educators have a responsibility to provide the potentials of critical literacy in educational settings.