j.

juxtaposition:

A Linksys Router and a rotary dial telephone are juxtaposed 

at the Wild Boar Coffee in Fort Collins, CO.

Just possessing and teaching the technical ability to use tools in the twenty-first century, such as word processors, photo or video editing programs, slideshow applications, the Internet, and social networking sites do not necessarily meet the literacy needs of the twenty-first century learner. Aristotle says in his Treatise on Rhetoric, “the written style ought to be easily read and understood” (221). This is a maxim that held true for writing in Greek on papyrus paper and arguably holds true for housing information and meaning in digital, binary code on Internet websites. All the essentials of Aristotle, and the descriptive developments of composition since the time of the influential Greek philosopher, still apply when entering the digital arena. Furthermore, juxtaposing these time tested, essential, principles of rhetoric and composition remains a critical task for English and language arts teachers in twenty-first century classrooms.

New literacies researcher and assistant professor of English at Central Michigan University, Troy Hicks, emphasizes the importance of understanding and teaching author’s craft in a digital age in his book The Digital Writing Workshop (2009). Hicks echoes Aristotle’s maxim relating to the necessity of teaching the essentials of writing craft. However, Hicks goes further to realize:

Writing multimedia texts both honors our traditional understanding of what good writing is while at the same time offers us new definitions of what makes...a compelling lead, effective characterizations, and successful use of repetition for rhetorical effect. The elements of author’s craft in new media writing can be seen as a combination of how filmmakers, photographers, radio producers, musicians, website designers, and, of course, writers think about getting their points across in a chosen medium (54-55).

Critics of new literacies and teaching in digital mediums may contend that teaching students how to compose a digital story, for instance, simply makes students better filmmakers and neglects fundamental and essential writing skills. The question might be asked, "How does a new literacies English and language arts class teaching digital storytelling differ from a technology class or a filmmaking class?" The answer, in a word, is juxtaposition. In other words, the difference lies in juxtaposing English content with digital technology. 

Twenty-first century English teachers and students are faced with a task of deliberation and juxtaposition, or the task of deliberately juxtaposing a digital text with standardized English curricula. Henry David Thoreau talks at length of how readers and writers must practice deliberation in reading, writing, and in their lives. Thoreau says in his chapter titled “Reading” in Walden that, “Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written” (82). The same principle of reading deliberately and reservedly applies to digital texts today, including podcasts, digital stories, visual portraits, quests on the Web, dictionary websites, et cetera. Jonathan Levin, an Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Fordham University and writer of an introduction to Walden, works to define deliberation for the reader of Thoreau’s seminal text:

Deliberation, it turns out, is also a kind of measuring, being rooted in an etymology that traces back to the Latin de libra, the scale best known today from the astrological sign Libra. Thoreau, as attentive to the roots of words as he was to the roots of plants, would surely have known this when he claimed to want to live his life deliberately. As a professional surveyor, he knew the value of weights and measures and the knowledge they impart, of the close inspection and careful demarcation of the physical conditions of things; as a writer, he searched constantly for ways to connect material and mechanical processes to the deeper psychological and moral purposes of a life lived deliberately (xxxii - xxxiii).

The word “connect” and how Levin describes Thoreau’s search for connecting “mechanical processes to the deeper psychological and moral purposes of a life lived deliberately” helps in understanding not only the word “deliberation,” but also the necessity of juxtaposition of teaching, learning, reading, and writing in a digital age. To juxtapose, or to perform the action of placing an object near or next to another object, involves comparison, contrast, and synthesis. The very act of a living, breathing human being using an inanimate computing machine to type an essay on juxtaposition, itself, is a form of juxtaposition. Thoreau’s well-cited adage to live life deliberately perhaps goes beyond a simple explanation of why he went to embark on a writing experiment in the woods. 

Teachers in the twenty-first century might do well to apply Thoreau’s thinking to their pedagogy and enter the classroom with the same kind of relentless deliberation or, perhaps better, with the same kind of relentless liberation (Dan Beachy-Quick helped me think about this dictionary as “deliberation” minus the first syllable). Budding student writers, however, need to be taught how to deliberately juxtapose when writing. According to Hicks, teachers can teach students to deliberately juxtapose by starting with a mini-lesson on author’s craft and essentials of writing, then by teaching students how to apply author’s craft skills to new mediums. Mediums might include recording aural orations or podcasts, sequencing a series of digital photographs in a photo essay, or making a short digital film. Juxtaposition is the key to how the essential skills for literacy and writing, which are as old as Thoreau and Aristotle, can be fitted into the twenty-first century keyhole and turned to unlock new and exciting forms of literacy in the twenty-first century. 

A New Literacies Dictionary: Primer for the Twenty-first Century Learner

Adam Mackie 

2010