Teaching and learning new literacies

BEd (Lang Ed) Year 4

Session 2: New literacies concepts

Conceptions of literacy

Autonomous model (Street 1995)

• Literacy as a uniform set of linguistic skills grounded in psycholinguistic, cognitive theories which focus on the ability to decode, encode, comprehend and produce texts in the written language

Ideological model

• Literacy as a social practice, shaped by social interaction and enacted between people in particular social, cultural, political and historical contexts (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; Gee, 2008; Heath 1983; Street, 1995)

Literacy as a social practice

How is literacy a social practice in these events?

• birthday• shopping in Park n Shop• tutorial school lesson or a private music lesson

Consider these in terms of: social contexts, social goals, social relationships,

cultural beliefs, social institutions and social change

“Capital D” Discourses

• Literacy is embedded in Discourses, socially recognised ways of using language, thinking and acting in the world (Gee, 2008)

• Literacy vs Literacies• Social identities mother, parent, wife, teacher educator, employer,

manager, English teacher, teaching consultant, HKU PhD student, shopper, customer, patient, friend, sister, aunt, musician, cook, neighbor, New Yorker, American, Chinese, ABC, HK resident, …

Multiliteracies (New London Group 2000)

• The rapid transformation of work and everyday life as a result of globalization, ‘fast capitalism’ and technology (Gee, Hull, & Lankshear, 1996)

• Multiplicity of communication channels and media as a result of new technology

• Increasing cultural and linguistic diversity as a result of globalisation and new technologies

• The need to rethink and re-envision literacy education for the 21st century.

Participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006)

• Affiliations: memberships in online communities centred around various media

• Expressions: producing new creative forms

• Collaborative problem-solving: working together in teams to develop new knowledge and complete tasks

• Circulations: shaping the flow of information and media

10:47

http://funkatron.com/bert/bert.htmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/1594600.stmhttp://www.snopes2.com/rumors/bert.htm

Web 2.0 mindsetafter Lankshear and Knobel, 2006:38 and 60

Mindset 1 Mindset 2PublishingCentralized expertiseIndividual intelligenceIndividual authorshipOwnershipValue from scarcity Stability and fixity

ParticipationDistributed expertiseCollective intelligenceCollaborationSharingValue from dispersionInnovation, creative rule-breaking

Multimodality

spatial

gestural auditory

visual

linguistic

MODES

Semiotic resources: meaning making resources

Mindset 1 or 2?1. Reading a famous novel online2. Contributing to urbandictionary.com3. Playing a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game

(MMORPG), like Kingdomofloathing.com4. Downloading and reading scanned articles from moodle assigned

by your tutor 5. Blogging about a hobby or interest you have and reading others’

blogs6. Watching a reality TV show like Survivor and voting a participant off

the sho7. Scanning a handwritten and self-illustrated story and posting it

online8. Organising your birthday party via Facebook9. Contributing a book review to Amazon.com10.Setting this task for your F1 students: Write me an email of 250

words telling me what you think about school uniforms.

New literacies and English language learners

• English is implicated in new and emerging “technoscapes”, “mediascapes” (Appadurai, 1996) that characterise “transcultural global flows” (Pennycook, 2007)

• Youth’s out-of-school text experiences and literacy practices are saturated with popular cultural, digital and media texts (Evans, 2005; Dyson, 2003, and others)

Why new literacies in education? The “digital divide” between home & school

Why new literacies in education?

We want English language learners to…• interpret, use, and create texts• in multimodal representational forms• for a range of purposes in socially and

culturally diverse contexts• in informed and socially responsible ways

(Anstey and Bull 2006)

Are you a fan?

What’s your favourite…• TV show?• Movie?• Novel?• Cartoon?• Character?What fan practices do you engage in?

Star Wars?

Obi-Wan has been sent on a mission to apprehend a dangerous man from his past, leaving Anakin behind at the temple. When Anakin suspects that things are not right and goes in search of his Master, things take a turn for the worst. Imprisoned and tortured, the question arises: to what lengths will Anakin go to save his Master's life? And will Obi-Wan's life come at the cost of Anakin's soul?

Chapter 1: It had been six years since the Naboo incident. That’s what

people were calling it now, an incident. It wasn’t referred to as a war; most wouldn’t even admit that it was a battle.

It was just an incident.Perhaps that is what bothered Obi-Wan Kenobi the most,

hearing that dreadful thing referred to only as an incident, not even important enough to be determined a conflict.

In the years that had followed, a pattern had developed for Jedi Master Kenobi. During the day he trained his Padawan, another one of the results of that fateful day, and during the night he dreamt of the past. Not even in his sleep could the Jedi Master escape the terrors of Naboo that plagued his mind. He dreamt of other things too; people long past dead, most of whom would gladly die again to exact their revenge on the young man.

Fan fiction

• ‘in-canon writing’ • ‘alternative universe stories’• ‘cross-overs’ • ‘relationshipper narratives’• ‘self-insert’• fan manga & fan anime - remixing

words & graphics

Affinity spaces (Gee, 2005)

• “Specially designed spaces (physical & virtual) constructed to resource people who are tied together…by a shared interest or endeavour”

• Online communities• Age, gender, race, socioeconomic status are

invisible• Informal learning

Activity

Explore and write fan fiction

• Session 2http://bedyear4newliteracies.wikispaces.com/

• Username: literacies• Password: 0810project

Homework

Reading• Chapter 1 “Sampling the New in New Literacies”• Chapter 6 “Digital design: English language

learners and reader reviews in online fiction.” In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.) (2007). A New Literacies Sampler, New

York: Peter Lang.

Read each others’ fan fiction stories and comment/reply to comments, contribute to discussion board

ReferencesAnstey, M., & Bull, G. (2006). Teaching and learning multiliteracies: Changing

times, changing literacies. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Barton, D., Hamilton, M., & Ivanic, R. (Eds.). (2000). Situated literacies:

Reading and writing in context. London: Routledge.Gee, J. P. (2008). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (Third

ed.). New York: Routledge.Gee, J. (2005). Semiotic social spaces and affinity spaces Beyond communities

of practice: Language, power and social context (pp. 214-232).Gee, J. P., Hull, G., & Lankshear, C. (1996). The new work order. St. Leonards,

NSW: Allen and Unwin.Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media

education for the 21st century. Chicago: The John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2006). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press.

New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. New York: Routledge.

Street, B. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography and education. Harlow: Longman.