ERIC Number: EJ951268
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 20
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0077-5762
EISSN: N/A
Moving On/Keeping Pace: Youth's Literate Identities and Multimodal Digital Texts
Alvermann, Donna E.
Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, v110 n1 p109-128 2011
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto"--a statement Dorothy made to her dog, Toto, in "The Wizard of Oz"--sums up reasonably well the point the author wants to make in this article. That is, as literacy educators no longer constrained (or protected) by older, more familiar 20th-century print-centric modes of communicating, educators may at times feel challenged to keep pace with students' preferences for producing and learning with multimodal texts that combine moving and still images, sounds, performances, icons, symbols, and the like. Indeed, a small but growing body of research suggests that young people's ways of telling, listening, viewing, and thinking in digital environments may factor into their self-identifying as literate beings. Although this research on young people's online literate identities has implications for classroom practice, the literature remains largely untapped by teachers, school library media specialists, and literacy teacher educators. Why is this so? Just as importantly, what does this literature have to offer? To address these two questions, the author engaged in an interpretive analysis. The author concludes that while one does not need to visit the land of Oz these days to detect a change in conditions, acknowledging this change is important in terms of what it means for educators, for the textual choices they make when designing instruction, and for the literate identities students may construct online. (Contains 3 notes.)
Descriptors: School Libraries, Media Specialists, Teacher Educators, Literacy Education, Identification, Teaching Methods, Instructional Design, Electronic Learning, Multimedia Instruction, Adolescents, Virtual Classrooms, Information Technology, Middle Schools, High Schools, Computer Mediated Communication
Teachers College, Columbia University. 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://nsse-chicago.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Grade 6; Grade 7; Grade 8; High Schools; Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A