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literacy:

"Literate readers and writers must be willing to pick up any stick they can find to interpret any message communicated and write in any stretch of sand without a thought of the inevitable tidal surges of change to come."

~Adam Mackie~

The "sociocultural perspective on literacy" addressed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel (2007) provides insight into what is meant by “new literacies” and literacy of the twenty-first century. Lankshear and Knobel define and defend the “sociocultural perspective on literacy" and say that such a perspective “means that reading and writing can only be understood in the contexts of social, cultural, political, economic, historical practices to which they are integral, of which they are part" (1). Like it or not, students and educators alike are integral in the “relationship revolution” (12) noted by Micahel Schrage in 2001 and discussed by Lankshear and Knobel. The fact that Lankshear and Knobel defend Schrage's modification of the term “informational revolution” to “relationship revolution” may help to better understand "the second mindset" of literacy as relational, sociocultural, and how the reading of “books” has changed in the twenty-first century. Privileging one mindset over another, such as a first more “essentialist” or traditional mindset mentioned by Lankshear and Knobel, or a second more “reconstructionist” mindset, may leave educators at risk of creating a false binary in their thinking.

David E. Kirkland (2009), a new literacies theorist, considers classroom spaces and implies that twenty-first century literacy allows for a more hybridized understanding of the “in-school” and “out-of-school” space in an article titled “Researching and Teaching English in a Digital Dimension.” Lines are becoming redefined and a greater number have begun to occupy an overlapping space within the John Venn diagram of "in-school" and "out-of-school," which Kirkland uses to describe this relationship. However, more Venn diagrams can be drawn within the overlapping space, ad infinitum, to the point where even “the second mindset” discussed by Lankshear and Knobel can create an equal or greater amount of hegemony imposed on "people who grew up under the hegemony of the book..." (14).

The book remains present, as present as a fossil record can be, and an effort to make books (textbooks) available online simply widens the availability of a fossil record to a larger audience. Imagine I take a digital photograph of an arrowhead I uncover from the earth, scan it, and upload the image to the Internet. The content of the arrowhead does not change. Does it? However, the information becomes more widely accessible and how individuals relate and respond to the information can take on new forms. A collective group of people from all over the world can now view the arrowhead and provide comments on the different aspects of its surface. Similarly, a group of students could participate in posting comments in online communities about a countless variety of other texts.

Therefore, questioning our meaning of the word “book” might be a worthwhile pursuit. I was once told I may be the only book another ever reads of a given text. Whether I read a text online, like I did the Kirkland article, or out of a book, such as Knobel and Lankshear's A New Literacies Sampler (2007), I should be able to decode, comprehend, and critically analyze the information in both contexts to consider myself literate, right? However, the process in which I go about reading the material does differ due to the recursive nature of hyperlinks and a large number of students are teaching themselves to read digitally in this fashion well before entering into secondary "in-school" settings.

For teachers to effectively teach online literacy, inside and outside their classrooms, they must themselves be “literate” in reading digital content. Educators that embrace "the relationship revolution" and make pedagogical shifts to teach using digital technology may be called to reflectively invest themselves in the pedagogical process in many new, unforeseeable, and time consuming ways.

I will admit that I have cringed at the thought of removing glue-bound books entirely from the classroom and have a prejudiced resistance to the "control and intellectual expertise" of those capable of using digital technology more effectively than myself. However, as free thinkers, we must be willing to read and write in the sociocultural medium of the day and continue to aim at best serving the needs of all twenty-first century learners.

Below are two videos that supply statistical information about how twenty-first century students read. These videos are being shown in twenty-first century classrooms by practicing new literacies educators across the United States and help further define the term new literacies (Click on images below to view videos on YouTube).

Disclaimer: "Up next " videos are generated by YouTube and are not necessarily connected with

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

page (or click here) if any unexpected videos begin to play.

Disclaimer: "Up next " videos are generated by YouTube and are not necessarily connected with

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

page (or click here) if any unexpected videos begin to play.

Disclaimer: "Up next " videos are generated by YouTube and are not necessarily connected with

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

page (or click here) if any unexpected videos begin to play.