Tuesday, February 27, 2007

New literacies sampler

From Dr Joolz' blog I learnt of a new book that can be downloaded complete:
Knobel, M and Lankshear, C. (Eds) (2007) A new literacies sampler. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. http://www.soe.jcu.edu.au/sampler/

I'll select a quote from right at the end from a chapter by Cynthia Lewis (n.b. I'm not pretending to have read everything before that yet!) "As these chapters so clearly depict, young people will continue to engage in a range of new literacies during their out-of-school hours [texting, my-space-ing etc.]. The question is whether we want to make school literacy more engaging for students and more meaningful to their present and future lives in a digitally mediated world. If so, then we need to understand the shifts in practices and epistemologies that have taken place and consider how these shifts should inform our teaching of reading and writing. This volume leads the way in helping us better understand these shifts in practice and the fears that attend them. Like the beginnings of writing research in the second half of the 20th century, this project is about the making of a discipline. As such it will involve re-envisioning what will count as literacy in our digitally mediated times and how our new conceptions should shape the teaching and learning of literacy in schools." (p236)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Decorated chocolate boxes in shop window, Geneva, Switzerland, February 2007 - all those little Panda eyes!.

No comments: