ERIC Number: EJ1001168
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Jul
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-8274
EISSN: N/A
Adventures with Text and beyond: "Like Reading" and Literacy Challenges in a Digital Age
Garcia, Antero
English Journal, v101 n6 p93-96 Jul 2012
Last year, the author and his ninth-grade students explored ways to use mobile media devices such as iPods and cell phones to help guide literacy practices in their English classroom. Their school, South Central High School (SCHS; a pseudonym), is a public high school located in urban Los Angeles. As part of their seven-week exploration, the author had selected Cory Doctorow's 2008 young adult novel "Little Brother" as a text they would read as a class. The novel has a flexible Creative Commons license, so in addition to providing his students with paper copies of the novel, he also gave them PDFs and an audiobook on their iPods. Though several students elected to read paper copies at home, many students chose to engage with the text through the digital versions in class. Throughout the class, the biggest challenge with using these digital devices for "English stuff," as his students called it, was not the fears of distraction that are often pointed to as reasons for not incorporating mobile media devices in schools. Instead, the biggest challenge was identifying and understanding the changing context of reading, writing, and producing as a result of advances in technology. In this article, the author shares an example of engagement in the class that best highlights the challenges that educators face in teaching with the tools of a wireless, digital generation.
Descriptors: Internet, Novels, Handheld Devices, Technological Advancement, Grade 9, Literacy, Reader Text Relationship, English Instruction, High School Students, Technology Uses in Education, Educational Technology, Reading Instruction, Media Literacy
National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Grade 9; High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A