In this essay, we reinterpret critical literacy through our engagement with structured word inquiry (SWI). By reflecting upon our experiences within a literacy practicum for educators earning their reading specialist certification, we demonstrate how SWI can provide students and educators with opportunities to transcend the limitations of a scope and sequence curriculum as they engage in collaborative inquiry and scientific investigation into language. Ultimately, we develop a critical SWI framework that can move students beyond basic literacy to critical literacy in two keys ways: (1) by disrupting the traditional student-educator power dynamics, thereby encouraging students to claim a central role in leading literacy instruction, and (2) by offering a lens through which students can interrogate aspects of the English language that have become invisible or unquestioned through dominant literacy instruction. Our aim is to offer a theoretical framework that can guide educators in their own design and revision of literacy curricula and instruction while developing their knowledge about written English.