n.

new literacies:

New literacies researcher William Kist has worked as a middle and high school English teacher, teaches adolescent literacy, works as a consultant and trainer for school districts nationwide, and works in film and music (http://www.ncte.org/consultants/kist).

Kist gives readers a look at schools and at teachers in the United States and in Canada that are using new literacies on a daily basis in their classrooms in New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media (Click on the “L” entry for more definition regarding the “sociocultural perspective on literacy”). Kist explains that teaching new literacies will require more than asking students to do a PowerPoint presentation. Students must use multimodal texts as primary tools for classroom production to engage in new literacies. Kist gives lesson plans in this text, shows how some students put together projects (such as an annual film festival at a school in California), and stresses how reading and writing go far beyond the written page. The following BookNotes may prove useful for generating discussion surrounding new literacies:

BookNotes

BookNotes were a method Dr. Cindy O'Donnell-Allen, Associate Professor of English at Colorado State University, used in both her E632 - Professional Concerns: Teaching & Learning in a Digital Age and E402 - Teaching Composition classes. O'Donnell-Allen assigned "jigsaw" groups where several different groups were given a different book to read over the course of approximately a month. Groups would have a conference and be required to supply BookNotes as individuals and complete a group form documenting the conference.

Book cover courtesy of Google Images

by William Kist

BookNotes I (Chapters 1 & 2)

David Bloome quotes the poet Charles Olson in the "Foreword" of William Kist’s New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media and comments on a metaphor of SPACE applied to America, the Plains, and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Bloome seemingly extends the metaphor to “our daily lives, in our interactions with each other, and in our classrooms” (ix). Olson’s notion of SPACE, however, can be read to have included Bloome’s extension and perhaps a quote further down in Olson’s Call Me Ishmael will help subtilize the context. Olson said, “Some men ride on such space, others have to fasten themselves like a tent stake to survive” (Olson 12).

In considering Bloome’s notion of space, especially in connection to Kist’s text and his research in “new literacies,” educators might consider if they are “riding” the space of multiple literacies or if they “have to fasten themselves like a tent stake to survive” with the twenty-first century changes in educational theory and pedagogy.

The first chapter of Kist’s book takes a personal experience of the author, with Woody Allen’s film Manhattan, and relates a perception to a paradigmatic shift in literacy. Kist admits that his interest in new literacies was spawned by his “own wonderment at these highly individualized unique statements made by artists via media that are non-print and nonverbal in nature” (1), such as Allen in Manhattan. Kist outlines in the remainder of chapter one the framework in the chapters to come, involving his research and investigation of classrooms that use “new literacy” (which he uses David Reinking’s definition to help define) on a daily basis. Kist paraphrases Reinking and says, “...the act of print reading is changing in these new times” (5). If this is so, and I think we all can agree it is, one “talk question” or question for discussion might be a question Kist poses: “...should some kind of official curriculum objective be the ulterior motive behind bringing new literacies into the school” (9)?

In Chapter 2, Kist jumps into his research. Kist recounts a case study he conducted of a program called Arts Seminar. The no longer existing program was at a high school in Parma, Ohio in 1998-1999. Kist observed how three teachers involved in the Arts Seminar program used new literacies on a regular basis without any formal new literacies study. The chapter gave lesson plans and showed how the teachers required the art students to rely on multiple modes of text, “project-based classroom work,” and “student-led research” (26 - 27). Kist interviewed the three teachers and many of the students to get a sense of the work they were doing, such as building abstract monuments in dedication of famous people like Dr. Seuss. Kist effectively gave multiple perspectives and provided the view of students concerned about “not learning as much content in the project-driven course” (29). Therefore, a second discussion or talk question might be: How do educators balance content retention with the ability to use new literacies and engage in meaningful “project-driven courses?”

BookNotes II (Chapters 3 & 4)

Kist mentions two of his influences, Paulo Freire and Naomi Klein in his chapter titled “Designing Space in a Rural Classroom” from New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media. Being familiar with Freire, I did not go running to the library shelves for Pedagogy of the Oppressed. However, I did go running for Klein’s No Logo. Walking out of the library with a solid black book with the red letters, “NO,” and the black letters, inside a white box, “LOGO,” I opened up it to about the fifth page. On a page to itself there was a standalone quote written July 16, 1998 by the Indonesian writer Y.B. Mangunwijaya: “You might not see things yet on the surface, but underground, it’s already on fire.”

I was moved by the quote because it seems to be precisely what Kist talks about in a book that documents schools around the United States where teachers are using new literacies. New literacies may not be on the surface of all educational systems, but underground (so to speak) in many schools new literacies are on fire! In a school in Canada, Kist reports how a teacher in a small rural village of approximately 1,300 people has integrated new literacies into his curriculum. The word integrate raises questions about how the “information revolution” or “relationship revolution,” seems to be experiencing similar resistance on some levels as racial desegregation experienced in the past. Nevertheless, there are two questions (and of course many more) I think are worth discussing in ongoing dialogues. One question has to do with SPACE and the other has to do with socioeconomic EQUITY.

How do we talk about the notion of space in new literacies and in our current and future classrooms?

How do we as new literacies educators deal with tensions created by “top down” curriculum and administrations that have formed resistance to new literacies?

In chapter four, titled “A Dot-Com with Salsa,” Kist shows us a progressive school in San Fernando, California. Much larger than the school in Canada, the California school possesses the capability of a professional multimedia studio. Many of Marco Torres’ words, a teacher of the San Fernando Educational Technology Team, were strikingly profound. At one point Torres said, “Technology is not just a tool, it is part of our lives” (62).

What does Torres mean when he says, “Technology is not just a tool, it is part of our lives?” What does this mean for new literacies educators?

BookNotes III (Chapters 5 & 6)

In Chapter 5, Kist observes a new literacies librarian, Sandy Bernahl, at Peacock Middle School in Itasca, Illinois. Bernahl comments on the leadership and responsibility of “old-fashioned” school librarians. Two questions for talk and discussion I considered were:

What are and will be the leadership roles and responsibilities of all new literacies teachers, librarian, and/or administrators?

How will new literacies teachers work with libraries centers in schools?

In Chapter 6, I began thinking deeply about “reading” and found it extremely encouraging that an English educator, Lee Rother, was teaching “reading” beyond the medium of printed text. The students in his class learned to read Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho frame by frame and “read” the film closely. Also, Rother provided a lesson for his students where they analyzed the Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with more contemporary versions. However, Rother instructed his students to read other written versions of Snow White from varying cultures. Therefore, Rother did not abandon print completely. A question that arose while reading this chapter was:

Why is it important to understand multiple literacies as “reading,” not viewing, watching, listening, speaking, or visual representation?