Week 2 - Blog Posting #3.1 - Media Literacy

"In the 20th century, literacy meant the ability to read, write and present cogent arguments on paper. In the 21st century, literacy is going to extend well beyond that and into what could be termed, a language of screens." (Barish, 2002)

As an English teacher I feel it is my duty and obligation to help students become aware of their own literacy. I actually start the year with a short inquiry project where they analyze all the ways they are literate and then compare their language practice with those of their parents. It reinforces the traditional notion that literacy is reading, writing, speaking and listening, but it begins to create the awareness for them that there is more to being literate than just those traditional skills.

It is interesting to note that as early as 1998 the The Workforce Investment Act, "defines literacy as 'an individual's ability to read, write, speak in English, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual and in society.' This is a broader view of literacy than just an individual's ability to read, the more traditional concept of literacy. As information and technology have become increasingly shaped our society [sic], the skills we need to function successfully have gone beyond reading, and literacy has come to include the skills listed in the current definition" (National Institute for Literacy, 2009).

It is apparent that we (teachers) will need to do more than we ever have to help students develop the literacy skills necessary to be successful in the world that they live in now and one which will most likely be radically different in the future. The medium by which we define literacy is no longer simply a written text on paper. Media literacy no longer just what is delivered to us, but is now what we connect with, who we communicate with, what we create and who we collaborate with. There are challenges to do this though, starting with our paradigmatic framework by which we define literacy, particularly media literacy.

Anna van Someron (2009), from MIT, in her presentation on New Media Literacies, says that we must be preparing students to learn in a participatory culture. Traditional media literacy consisted of analyzing mass media from a consumer perspective, was critical in nature and was rarely if ever integrated into the curriculum. Digital literacy is about tools and techniques. Similar to the list Dr. Sielgel cited from Jerkins (2008), Someron lists them as social skills and cultural competencies: play, simulation, performance, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation, and visualization. She also describes an integrated approach to media pedagogy which includes exercises to develop technical skills and cultural competencies; the concept of using exemplars to critically analyze media texts; the mode of expressions to create new media content; and, the role of ethics which helps focus on critically reflecting on the consequences of choices.

I think my next direction for my own learning and consequently applying to my teaching practice will be to better understand the concept of appropriation. I think the middle grade learner is in a prime state for modeling and creating based on inspiration from others.

Stay tuned . . .



Barish, S. Edwards, R. Anderson, S. Fron, J. (2002) Innovative Pedagogies for 21st Century Multimedia Education: An Introduction to the USC Annenberg Center for Communication Multimedia Literacy Program. Vol. IV, pp.617, Sixth International Conference on Information Visualisation.

National Institute for Literacy. (2009). Retrieved September 12, 2009 from http://novel.nifl.gov/nifl/faqs.html

Van Sommeran, A. (2009). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, keynote speech delivered at the Waag Society's Creative Learning Studio, Amsterdam.