Instructional Response to New Literacies

Literacy is a social practice-- we should teach it as one!

As a society, we have focused on linguistic elements of literacy for a long period of time probably because linguistic evolution was occurring so rapidly as a response to rapidly increasing populations that were interacting at unprecedented levels. Lewis and Fabos suggest that we are moving to a design orientation to literacies now, and perhaps this is a response to the evolution of design potential afforded by multimodal technological tools across populations? Such thinking follows Lankshear & Knobel’s (2003) suggestion that new literacies result in new production practices relating to producing, consuming, and representing knowledge. Too often we focus on the technological tool and not the practice that that tool develops. This could be a symptom of rapidly evolving technology and the inevitable uncertainty that arises with it; however, we need a framework for understanding technology in instruction. Essential questions like why do some types of text engage you need to be examined for students for students to be effectively employ their repertoire of skills.

This movement to a meta discussion about literacy instruction is also important for the likely evolution of literacy in our students’ worlds. The amount of time students are actually engaged with in-school literacy activities will certainly become less and less. The evident discrepancy between current in and out of school literacies will only increase if we do not move literacy instruction to a “meta” level as Lewis and Fabos suggest. Their practical suggestions for moving instruction provide realistic questions that should be posed to anyone trying to teach students about voice, style, narrative tension, flow, etc.