EDLA 627: CONTEMPORARY LITERACIES: ISSUES AND PRACTICES Module 1 Topic 1 An Introduction to Literacy in the 21st Century Professor Kristina Love

Introduction to the lecturer Kristina Love – Professor of Language and Literacy – Educational Linguist – Secondary English teacher And you? – Introduce yourselves on the LEO Web site

Preliminary details Structure of course: 4 modules each divided into a number of topics One online lecture to introduce each module The set text : Kalantzis & Cope “Literacies” – freely available on line and downloadable Weekly Readings essential to keep pace with the unit requirements

So what are contemporary literacies? Pause the video and take a moment to jot down what you understand by these. Then consider the materials on the next 3 slides, all used in home or school environments. Does this change your view of what counts as literacy now?

In the early years

In School Science Parkinson, J., & Adendorff, R. (2005). Science books for children as a preparation for textbook literacy. Discourse Studies, 7(2),

In School History Derewianka, B. & Coffin, C. (2008)Time Visuals in History Textbooks: Some Pedagogic Issues. In Unsworth, L. (Ed.) Multimodal Semiotics: Functional Analyses in Contexts of Education. London/New York: Continuum.

Literacy in a historical context 3 Global Shifts (Kalantzis & Cope, Chpt 1) – First Languages (orality as multimodal) – Writing as a codified system (sped up with the invention of the printing press in 15thC) – Electronic Technologies (a return to the aural and oral)

The changing purposes of Literacy Kalantzis & Cope, Chpt 2 – For reading the bible – For compliance in the workforce – For critical empowerment in complex meaning making environments More of this in Module 2

Literacies in the 21 st Century A highly political issue in the educational sphere Varying locus of attention, eg – Test results which focus on a small range of atomistic skills (eg decoding, comprehension or sentence level correctness) – Growth in use of a range of verbal resources (at word, sentence and text level) and multimodal resources – Performance in context that captures growth across integrated skills Varying definitions (see Freebody, next slide)

A definition for us: Literacy … refers to how people use and produce symbolic materials fluently and effectively. It is also about how they put available technologies of production and dissemination to the practical ends of communicating productively, responsively and responsibly. (Peter Freebody, “Literacy Education in School : Research perspectives from the past, for the future" Australian Education Review ACER: Chpt 1 p.8)

Theoretical anchors: language as a social phenomenon Language as a social semiotic – Semiotics: the study of signs (graphemes, images, clothes) – Conventions: vary with context and culture Discourse – The way we talk or write in a particular area of experience (eg the Discourses of Politics and Religion) Genre – The way we structure texts for particular purposes in particular cultural contexts (eg the structure of argument privileged in Australia, compared with China)

English – National Curriculum

Language Students develop their knowledge about the English language and how it works. They learn how language enables people to interact effectively, to build and maintain relationships, and to express and exchange knowledge, attitudes, feelings and opinions. They learn about patterns of English usage and grammar at the levels of the word, the sentence and the extended text, and they learn the connections between these levels. They learn about spelling and the purposes of punctuation. Students understand that developing an explicit body of knowledge of how language works in these ways helps them communicate effectively through coherent, well-structured sentences and texts.

Literature Students learn to interpret, appreciate, evaluate and create literary texts such as narrative, poetry, prose, plays, film and multimodal texts, in spoken, print and digital/online contexts.

Literacy Students apply their English skills and knowledge to listen to, view, read, speak, write and create a growing repertoire of texts … They learn about the different ways in which knowledge and opinion are represented and developed in texts, and about how more or less abstraction and complexity can be shown through language and through combinations of language and visual representations.

In the remainder of Module 1 A closer look at the literacies of the 21 st century and the associated pedagogies View the compilation of 8 video clips for Topic 1 on LEO and use these to shape your response to the first Forum posting Read Kalantzis & Cope, Chapters 3-7

Assessment Tasks Compilation of formative assessment tasks from Module 2 (Due 7 Sept) Analysis of image-text relations (Due 5 Oct) Informed design of a web resource to support a unit of work (Due 2 Nov)