Modes, Texts, and Affordance

I enjoyed reading both selections from “The Inner World of the Immigrant Child,” and “Literacy Moves On,” and feel that they are an appropriate compliment for each other, the former an experiential explanation of the latter. As there are a number of great discussions already underway concerning first article, I will devote this post primarily to the more analytical of the two texts.

Author Janet Evans presents a very interesting case surrounding the issue of multimodal literacy education and invites the reader to consider both the reality and the implications of students growing up in a technologically revolutionized age. She describes how user demands irreversibly enmeshed with technology changes, that is users (increasingly children) use technology to the point where user demands cause technology advances – and that it is the expectation that change will occur to meet those desires. One of the questions Evans brings out from her exploration of the public ire is to ask whether or not students are being prepared for the technology that is going to receive them after their schooling. I wonder how much of that should be the schools role? Should we be considering it to be increasingly a part of the core content in our classrooms (i.e., iMovie, Powerpoint, Ipads, etc.)?

I will say that I found the discussion on two points in Evans writing quite fascinating, though they were only brief (though important) markers throughout our readings. First is the essential question, “What is a text.” I find this point particularly interesting as it reminds me of one of the core questions in the field of linguistics, namely, “What is a word.” I linguistics, there are some who look to morphology (the study of parts of words) to say that a “word” can be something as plane as “plan,” as small as “-er” (plan-er) and as broad as including multiple “words” as one “word,” as it were. It seems here that the term “text” is asking for revision in response to a new age, a new generation of students and a new ideology about literacy, moving from mere text to a broader, more fluid definition:

“A text is now seen as a unit of communication that may take the form of something written down but also a chunk of discourse, for example speech, a conversation, a radio program a TV advert, text messaging, a photo in a newspaper, and so on.”

If this is how we define a text, and I do think this is an accurate description, how does this effect our instruction? Undoubtedly it is our role as teachers to move our students to a point to where they can clearly communicate their ideas in words alone – an important skill, especially in the context of certain professions (consider succinct business emails). But, if this has truly become only one aspect of literacy, how do we discover what our students already know about these different modes and how do we utilize that knowledge to help the explore them further while still teaching them the “hard word” of writing text only projects. Are there any who believe that this is outside of the realm of teacher responsibility – that is to say, it should not be incorporated into the standards?

Which brings me to my second point, perhaps one that will be explored in greater depth next semester (perhaps challenged outright): If we have redefined “text,” then a definition of “reading” needs to be rediscovered as well. Do we need to teach reading strategies for different modes? Or do we expect that students, having gained the basic power of reading books (however basic that is) to discover this on their own? In trying to think back on my own schooling, I do remember learning how to read a map (though I’m still not great at it), how to type, how to search for things on the web (and how to discern between what I found), and I even learned how to play video games from my friends. But, perhaps I’m old-school in that way.

Finally, what would be gained if we used many modes in teaching literacy in our classrooms? What would be lost? In the same way that we are asked by Evans to consider what is afforded by different texts, what does diversified “textual” instruction afford the students, and what might it take from them?