The scrumpled geography of literacies for learning

This paper draws upon the experience of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education research project in the UK. The project explored the literacy demands of a number of curriculum areas and the literacy practices of students in their everyday lives, in order to identify those ‘border literacies’ which may act as resources for learning and attainment within their college courses. Drawing on Literacy Studies and aspects of actor-network theory, this article outlines the conceptual innovations that we found necessary arising from our data analysis, extending existing work on situating practice and boundary crossing to posit a conceptual landscape that we term the scrumpled geography of literacies for learning. This landscape is one in which purification, naturalization and translation are key concepts, where literacy practices are enacted as network effects of a folding of a range of micro-practices into conglomerations.     

Academic literacies: the word is not enough

For Academic Literacies, the world is textually mediated; written texts and what informs them reveal elements such as subject-discipline practices. Furthermore, multi-modalities, for example, visual representation, inform written text, and multiple methods of inquiry, including interviews, shed light on written text production. In this article we argue that the word is not enough, and non-textual elements must also be considered. From multiple-discipline focused research, we present data from interviews and focus groups with Design and Nursing lecturers that explored student success holistically, not solely through, or for, written text production. We highlight non-textual elements key to both student success, and written text production, such as ‘empathy’, the ‘visual’, the ‘non-verbal’, and also the inability of text to reveal certain key features. We argue that rather than solely prioritise text, Academic Literacies approaches can more effectively help students succeed by holistically considering non-textual elements.     

“How people read and write and they don't even notice”: everyday lives and literacies on a Midlands council estate

This article presents data from a British Academy‐funded study of the everyday literacy practices of three families living on a predominantly white working‐class council housing estate on the edge of a Midlands city. The study explored, as one participant succinctly put it, “how people read and write and they don't even notice”. This alludes to the ways in which everyday practices may not be recognised as part of a dominant model of literacy. The study considered too the ways in which these literacy practices are part of a wider policy context that also fails to notice the impact of austerity politics on everyday lives. An emphasis on quantitative measures of disadvantage and public discourse which vilifies those facing economic challenge can overshadow the resilience and resourcefulness of individuals and families in making meaning from their experiences. Drawing together consideration of everyday lives and the everyday literacies which are part of them, this article explores the impact of the current policy context on access to both economic and cultural resources, showing how literacy, as part of this context, should be recognised as a powerful means not only of constricting lives but also of constructing them.     

Children as citizens: literacies for social participation

The last decade has seen, in the policy arena, a broad global push for children to be treated as active participants in society rather than as the passive recipients of adult decisions and interventions. The topic of literacy learning and teaching has, however, been absent from much of the policy and literature on children's social participation. This paper is an exploratory foray into possible connections between literacy and citizenship from the perspective of young children and those responsible for their education. Drawing from both sociocultural and semiotic perspectives on literacy, this analysis crosses between institutional texts, ethnographic accounts and children's own representations of their places in the world. A hierarchical model of literacy development, which emphasises the teaching of basic decoding skills in the early years, is associated with a view of young children as future citizens rather than as active social participants. Recognising children's agency, and supporting their meaningful participation, requires literacies of social participation.     

Failing with grace: kids,Improv and embodied literacies

In this article, we explore the idea that comedy, with its often unorthodox ways of looking at, experiencing, and responding to the world, offers untold possibility for classroom literacy instruction. The article focuses on the potential of Improv comedy as socio‐materialist literacy in the classroom. It provides an account of Improv as a form of embodied literacy that operates as an assemblage created collectively between many people, practices, and material objects. We present findings from interviews with professional comedians regarding the possibilities of comedy for language and literacy instruction with elementary school children. The article then examines a moment from the subsequent classroom phase of the study to look at ways Improv can help students create stories and ways that laughter can be used to create a cohesive assemblage based around students' spontaneous creation of texts. The aim of the article is to provide educators with a practical means to apply socio‐materialist literacy in their classrooms through Improv, which will, in turn, allow students to create collectively generated texts and assemblages.     

Affinity spaces,literacies and classrooms: tensions and opportunities

Building communicative competence in textual and multimodal literacies has become a linchpin of learning, of engagement with the world, and of participation in online and blended spaces. Young creators now compose online and with digital tools, often in what we call “user‐generated content affinity spaces” – interest‐based spaces that focus on creating and sharing self‐made content. Such spaces focus on processes of developing users' creations and sharing the products with an audience. These spaces have been inspirations for teachers to reinvigorate classroom practices and expose students to learning opportunities for creation and critique. But questions remain about models of participation in such spaces, especially those that idealise youth who are the most highly engaged while ignoring those whose participation is less visible. Here, we share three experiences of bringing user‐generated content affinity spaces into more formal learning environments and reflect on the tensions emerging from these efforts. We end by outlining steps to develop theory and interventions to navigate tensions and propel the field forward.     

Texts and literacies of the Shi Jinrui

In post‐industrial societies saturated with the multimodal texts of consumer culture—film, computer games, interactive toys, SMS, email, the internet, television, DVDs—young people are developing literacy skills and knowledge in and for a world significantly changed from that of their parents and educators. Given this context, this paper seeks to demonstrate the necessity of rethinking and extending traditional notions of text and literacy, and consider the social and cultural implications of such a shift.     

Discipline-specific feedback literacies: A framework for curriculum design

Higher Education - Feedback literacy is an important graduate attribute that supports students’ future work capacities. This study aimed to develop a framework through which...     

The context of their lives

Abstract

This paper explores the Ecology of Human Development Model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) as applied to the lives of students enrolled in the Early Childhood Education program at James Madison University (Virginia). This model provided insights into who our students are, their experiences, beliefs and values and how they define themselves; secondly, the process of reflection provided an opportunity for students to examine their lives as part of a larger social context; and thirdly, by valuing the process, it is hoped that students would recognize the importance of coming to know the children they teach. It is imperative that students are well prepared for teaching an increasingly diverse population (NCATE Standard I.E.2). Our belief is that in order for prospective teachers to appreciate diversity in classrooms, they need first to examine the context of their own lives. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.     

Spirituality in the academy: Reintegrating our lives and the lives of our students

American educational institutions were founded on the development of the spirit as well as the intellect, a concept that was ended by the Enlightenment. Now, research conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reveals that most students want their college or university to help them develop spiritually. Are their institutions ready?     

Civic media literacies: re-Imagining engagement for civic intentionality*

This paper explores the structural constraints of contemporary approaches to media literacy in the face of increased partisanship, tribalism, and distrust. In the midst of a renewed call for media literacy initiatives that respond to the increasing levels of distrust in both legacy and grassroots media, this paper argues that media literacy interventions must be re-imagined as intentionally civic. A new set of emerging norms of digital culture further put into question the relevance of long-standing approaches to media literacy pedagogy and practice. This essay puts forward a new set of constructs that position media literacy initiatives to ‘produce and reproduce the sense of being in the world with others toward common good’ (Gordon, E., and P. Mihailidis. 2016. “Introduction.” In Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, edited by E. Gordon and P. Mihailidis. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2). These constructs – agency, caring, critical consciousness, persistence, and emancipation – reframe media literacy as relevant to the social, political, and technological realities of contemporary life.     

Supporting academic literacies: university teachers in collaboration for change

This article deals with an action research project, where a group of university teachers from different disciplines reflected on and gradually extended their knowledge about how to support students’ academic literacy development. The project was conducted within a ‘research circle’ [Bergman, L. 2014. “The Research Circle as a Resource in Challenging Academics’ Perceptions of How to Support Students’ Literacy Development in Higher Education.” Canadian Journal of Action Research 15 (2): 3–20], in which the teachers engaged in a continuous dialogue where experience-based and research-based knowledge could meet. The two-year long process was divided into three phases: exchange of experiences and knowledge, small-scale empirical investigations in the participants own teaching, and presentations of the outcome of the research circle work. The main focus in this article is the second phase. The choice of small-scale-investigations, and how they were discussed and developed in the collaborative work, will be foregrounded as well as the changes that occurred in the participants’ teaching practices and how the participants value the outcome of the research circle work.     

Unexamined lives: The case for philosophy in schools

Abstract

This paper assumes the significance of Rousseau's Emile for the practice of radical education in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. It is argued that the educational philosophy espoused in Emile is far more conservative than that actually attributed to his inspiration by some radical educators.