George and Shoos claim that, in the postmodern age, critical literacy “is the ability to take on [the] responsibility for ideas and for action both as a producer of texts and as a reader” (125). From a reader point of view, critical literacy means “discerning relationship(s) of texts to one another and to their multiple contexts. It demands that readers pose questions about origin, voice, and, ultimately, reception: that they ask not only where texts are generated from, but also more precisely who is speaking, and for and to whom” (124). They also emphasize that the writer is responsible for the ways in which ideas are linked. Writers must take responsibility “for the ideas they put before us. Representation is never innocent. It has real effects and repercussions” (125).
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Most of this chapter is Amato’s family history. He discusses literacy education, jobs, crimes, housing, and income/debt. His main argument is about the necessity of a critical literacy that understands the social situation in which one finds oneself. He also underscores the importance of understanding the history of writing.
His father “knew how to read, and he knew how to write – he possessed those skills. But he had a helluva time with understanding his own social predicament. Like so many first generation Americans of his era, he could simply not grasp what had happened ‘to’ him, he could not…theorize his own subject position, his place within the social fabric…The point in that my father had never developed the tools – the critical – tools to think about his social circumstances in social terms…When I think of literacy, my father comes immediately to mind: excellent speaking skills, sold writing skills, and yet a curious lapse in seeing himself in any but an individualistic context. So like I say, after things fell apart, it could only be his fault” (380). “The real value of writing may reside less in understanding how-to-succeed in business thinking…than in understanding why-we-do-what-we-do thinking. And acting accordingly…And to think of writing both as a technology and as a subject to historical contingencies is to consider the various materials of writing – the alphabet, paper, ink, software, hardware, hands – in terms of their participation in material practices [and how] the modes of production, consumptions and distribution have altered both the products and processes of writing is significant ways” (381). Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola critique our use of the word “literacy” to non-print literacies. They argue that we carry with the term literacy two bits of baggage: (1) We carry with “literacy” an autonomous view of literacy, believing that literacy is divorced from context and ideology. At the same time, we carry with it the literacy myth, that process and civilization comes with literacy education. These two things together allow us to blame those who are poor because we can suggest that they are either too stupid or too lazy to learn these acontextual skills in order to better their lives. (2) We carry with “literacy” the valorization of the object of the book. “To the book…[we] attribute our sense of self, our memories, our possibilities, the specific linear forms of analysis we use, our attitude towards knowledge, our belief in the authority of certain kinds of knowledge, our sense of the world…If the first bundle that comes with ‘literacy’ is the promise of social, political, and economic improvement, it is because the second bumble is the book, which covers who we are and what we might be and the institutions in which we act” (359).
The authors state that we may put other words – computer, visual, digital – in front of literacy because it automatically elevates the adjective. They argue that we need to either change how we see literacy and/or change the term we use to separate ourselves from the baggage of literacy. First, we could change literacy to mean “the ability to move in the new-technology spaces of information, the ability to make the instantaneous connections between informational objects that allow us to see them all at once” (363). If we can see them all at once, we break down linearity and hierarchies. It also helps us change how we see subjectivities. In the old version of literacy, “we rely on our ability to construct ourselves at some nexus between past and future, to have faith in the present as the point where past and future meet like (exactly like) a reader progressing through a linear text, uniting what has gone before with what is now and what will come” (364). On the other hand, in seeing literacy as space (as opposed to time), “it is impossible to believe in the unity of signle, stable subject…[I]n understanding the implications of a postmodern world-view, we open ourselves to the possibility of remaking cultural meaning and identities” (365). There is also more agency: “There is the possibility of seeing sources as not just moving through information, but of us moving through it and manking and changing conscious constructions of it as we go” (366). They name a few other names for this perspective, including Stuart Hall’s articulation, which allows for connections among disparate parts and for rearticulation. Selber argues that students need to know more than the mechanics of using digital technology; instead, students need to be multiliterate. These literacies are: functional literacy, critical literacy, and rhetorical literacy. He claims that, “Students who are not adequately exposed to all three literacies categories will find it difficult to participate fully and meaningfully in technological activities” (24).
Function literacy “understanding what computers are generally good at” (46), which also means understanding the computers limitations and where human intervention is needed. Functional literacy also includes knowing what do to when the technology malfunctions or the user is met with unfamiliar technological circumstances and situations. Functionally literate students have the following qualities: “uses computers effectively in achieving educational goals”; “understands the social conventions that help determine computer use”; “ makes use of the specialized discourses associated with computers”; “manages his or her online world”; and “resolves technological impasses confidently and strategically” (45). Critical Literacy “a critical approach to literacy first recognizes and then challenges the values of the status quo,” which “might lead to the production of positive social change” (81). A critically literate students “scrutinizes the dominant perspectives that shape the computer design cultures and their artifacts” [design cultures are “the practices and perspectives of the people who are responsible for designing and maintaining a computing infrastructure. These people include those who design hardware devices, local and wide-area networks, software programs, desktop configurations, physical spaces, policies and procedures, pedagogical activities, and more” (106)]; “sees use contexts as an inseparable aspect of computers that helps to contextualize and constitute them”; “understands the institutional forces that shape computer use”; and “scrutinizes representations of computers in the public imagination” (96). Critical literacy is important because “culture, politics, economics, and social institutions have all become inexorably intertwined with technology, producing an overdetermined milieu win which its directions, uses, and representations can potentially be shaped by a wide range of factors” (99). Rhetorical Literacy Rhetorical literacy “insists upon praxis – the thoughtful integration of functional and critical abilities in the design and evaluation of computer interfaces” (145). The rhetorically literate student “understands that persuasion permeates interface design contexts in both implicit and explicit ways and that is always involves larger structures and forces; understands that design problems are ill-defined problems whose solutions are representational arguments that have been arrived at through various deliberative activities [through choices that honor one or another value above others (152)]; articulates his or her interface design knowledge at a conscious level and subjects their actions and practices to critical assessment; sees interface design as a form of social versus technical action” (147) Selber frequently decries the myth that computers are neutral and that computers can, alone, change (read: improve) education and society; he emphases that computers are not neutral as there are social expectations, practices, and exploitations of technology use. More, computers do not act independently, so their use is affected by the user, by the designer and by those who implement/require their use. Also, computers are only one part of educational change; this idea is a systematic perspective. Selber explains that “a systematic perspective reminds teachers that any change initiative requires an attention to many different aspects of an educational system, not just one (if important) piece of it. Moreover, a systemic perspective stresses that there is no final end point at which change is fully and finally realized. Rather, because change is a function of numerous interrelated forces – some stable, some not – it is fragile and requires ongoing consideration and commitment” (184). He includes the following in his systematic perspective heuristic: technical (material and infrastructural, pedagogical, circular, departmental, and institutional (professional development for faculty and training for graduate students). Key Terms
Williams uses this book to “explore how the discourses and rhetorical forms of popular culture are significant in a culture of multiliteracies in shaping students’ perceptions of reading and writing and their conceptions of audience, authorship, text, and identity” (3).
For Williams, “literacy is connected to the way humans communicate ideas, concepts, and emotions to one another. Humans are meaning-making creatures and we have learned to do so by creating representations of our ideas that can be interpreted by others when we are not present. I see it as important, then, to keep literacy connected to the communication of ideas through representations, whether of words, images, graphics, and so on. In this way, literacy can apply to writing print on a pages, arranging images and words on a webpage, or arranging images and words on film or video” (18). So, “literacy increasingly means the ability to choose between print, image, video, sound, and all the potential combinations they could create to make a particular point with a specific audience” (19). Audience “First, the ability of individuals to share knowledge and ideas about popular culture with others online [and theory called “collective intelligence”]…has created new opportunities for people to interpret and analyze popular culture” (31). “Online technologies make at least part of that assumed audience present and available for conversation…[T]his changes both the experience of watching the show and the act of making meaning for the show afterwards. ‘Knowing that one is watching a show with identifiable others and will discuss its details with them will undoubtedly affect the viewing experience, both in an anticipatory manner while watching the show, and subsequently if one is influenced by online discussion’” (37). Ownership/ Authority “The second focus…is how interactive audiences for contemporary popular culture are shifting student concepts of credibility and authority in terms of texts and the producers of texts. Authority and credibility are increasingly not created only by the producers of popular culture, but by the responses of audience members” (31). “[B]y writing about the text and reading and responding to the ideas of others, take ownership for the meaning of the texts” (40). Identity “The intertextual nature of popular culture texts creates opportunities for multiple readings of social networking webpages in ways that destabilize the identity students believe they have created. These multiple readings creates ambivalence for students who realize that their practices in composing pages online may be in conflict with how they read other pages, and how their own pages are read…Even when writers do not to reveal explicitly personal information, the audience then reads the text to a default identity according to the cultural context” (92). Composing Writing for young composers now means readings “with the possibility of appropriation and remix always nearby… [Composing is] closer to bricolage and collage than to traditional linear constructions of texts. As Lankshear and Knobel (2007) point out, ‘Almost anything available online becomes a resource for diverse kinds of meaning making’” (8). Students understand the meaning of the original text, which plays into their choices about how to re-use and adapt that text, a process that Williams refers to as textual poaching. “The mosaics that students compose, then, are both patterned by the social and discursive forces of popular culture and yet made into the coherent designs by the students who ‘fragment texts and reassemble the broken shards according to their own blueprints, salvaging bits and pieces of the found material in making sense of their own social experience” (81). He also emphasizes that technology has always affected genre. Teaching Williams concludes his book by stating that, because students "will try to integrate their various approaches to literacy" into our classroom assignments and activities, "it seems both impractical and unethical...to ignore students' participatory culture literacy practices or to ban them from the classroom" (194). Instead, "we must find ways of engaging students' knowledge while not engendering resentment and resistance" (195). He suggests that (1) "we find out what students know, listen to them, learning from them, and connect our language with their knowledge." This is done by "hav[ing] an extend and respectful dialogue with them about what practices they enter in online, what they think about the work they do, what they find valuable, and what more they would like to learn" (195); (2) "we should think about how the self-motivated, self-directed learning that students accomplish online takes place" and adapt these wats into our classrooms (196); (3) "We can then work collaboratively with them to bring our knowledge of rhetoric and literacy to help them achieve their goals, and to understand how the same rhetorical conceits and knowledge are the foundation for other reading and writing endeavors they encounter in school and in their daily lives" (198). Key Terms
“the way popular culture intersects with these daily literacy practices is essential in our consideration of making meaning in an age of multiliteracies” (2)
Williams uses this book to “explore how the discourses and rhetorical forms of popular culture are significant in a culture of multiliteracies in shaping students’ perceptions of reading and writing and their conceptions of audience, authorship, text, and identity” (3). “Such abilities have changed both the reading and composing practices of young people. Not only do they read popular culture texts with the possibility of appropriation and remix always nearby, but the composing using practices closer to bricolage and collage than to traditional linear constructions of texts. As Lankshear and Knobel (2007) point out, ‘Almost anything available online becomes a resource for diverse kinds of meaning making’” (8). Literacy “Approaching literacy as situated by historical and cultural forces makes clear that our conceptions of and attitudes toward how we read and write have a direct influence on our ideas of what constitutes popular culture, as well as what constitutes concepts of traditional print literacy such as literary and academic texts” (17). “For me, literacy is connected to the way humans communicate ideas, concepts, and emotions to one another. Humans are meaning-making creatures and we have learned to do so by creating representations of our ideas that can be interpreted by others when we are not present. I see it as important, then, to keep literacy connected to the communication of ideas through representations, whether of words, images, graphics, and so on. In this way, literacy can apply to writing print on a pages, arranging images and words on a webpage, or arranging images and words on film or video” (18). So, “literacy increasingly means the ability to choose between print, image, video, sound, and all the potential combinations they could create to make a particular point with a specific audience” (19). Audience In chapter 1, Williams “explore[s] how this shift in the definition of audience to a more interactive model affects the intersection of popular culture and literacy practices by focusing on three specific phenomena. First, the ability of individuals to share knowledge and ideas about popular culture with others online theory…’collective intelligence’ has created new opportunities for people to interpret and analyze popular culture…The second focus…is how interactive audiences for contemporary popular culture are shifting student concepts of credibility and authority in terms of texts and the producers of texts. Authority and credibility are increasingly not created only by the producers of popular culture, but by the responses of audience members…[The third focus is] how popular culture and identity shape the choices of audience members before they enter affinity spaces” (31). “Online technologies make at least part of that assumed audience present and available for conversation…[T]his changes both the experience of watching the show and the act of making meaning for the show afterwards. ‘Knowing that one is watching a show with identifiable others and will discuss its details with them will undoubtedly affect the viewing experience, both in an anticipatory manner while watching the show, and subsequently if one is influenced by online discussion’” (37). Ownership/ Authority “What is significant in terms of literacy practices is the way in which individuals, by writing about the text and reading and responding to the ideas of others, take ownership for the meaning of the texts” (40). Identity “Other scholars have similarly illustrated how other elements of identity such as gender, race, and sexual orientation also shape and are reproduced through popular culture Consequently, identity concerns influence who chooses to enter an affinity space as an initial move before contact is made with others in that space” (59). “The intertextual nature of popular culture texts creates opportunities for multiple readings of social networking webpages in ways that destabilize the identity students believe they have created. These multiple readings creates ambivalence for students who realize that their practices in composing pages online may be in conflict with how they read other pages, and how their own pages are read…Even when writers htey not to reveal explicitly personal information, the audience then reads the text to a default identity according to the cultural context” (92). “Unlike some forms of cultural expression, however, popular culture engages in and celebrates the routine appropriation and reuse of material. Because popular culture texts are usually not considered to be the high art creations of individual genius, it has long been culturally acceptable to use them and re-use them in playful ways” (66). “Rather than experiencing texts as autonomous written products, in participatory popular culture texts are flexible and impermanent collages that are only one link in a larger network” (64). Students understand the meaning of the original text, which plays into their choices about how to re-use and adapt that text, a process that Williams refers to as textual poaching. “The mosaics that students compose, then, are both patterned by the social and discursive forces of popular culture and yet made into the coherent designs by the students who ‘fragment texts and reassemble the broken shards according to their own blueprints, salvaging bits and pieces of the found material in making sense of their own social experience” (81). Key Terms
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