"New Literacies"

What was this chapter about/what does it tell us about teaching students?


In this chapter, Cynthia Lewis discusses how writing in this new digital era requires thinking on practicing tools. New literacies aren't "new" unless they involve both new technologies and "ethos stuff." As she writes, "Big L literacies are connected with identities, patterns, and ways of being in the world rather than solely with the acts of reading and writing. The three dimensions of practice I’ll discuss—agency, performativity, and circulation—are salient across the forms and cases of new literacies discussed in this volume" (p. 230). In particular, circulation is what I want to focus on. Memes can circulate, change, and reproduce as something new. We must have a deep understanding of why they change and how they are interconnected to pop culture. Lewis discusses how she was fearful of this book- fearful of the literacies that are talked about in this book. She states that maybe we should not be incorporating these new literacies into the classroom. Then again, the world is changing and technology is a large part of it. Should we be using these new literacies in the classroom to prepare students for the future and workplace? She concludes with, "The question is whether we want to make school literacy more engaging for students and more meaningful to their present and future lives in a digitally mediated world" (p. 236). This tells us that as teachers, we need to be making decisions on where we want our lessons to go and how we want our students to learn.
 


Does this apply to all content areas?


Yes! This applies to teachers everywhere in every classroom!