New Literacy Classroom
The Article “Beginning to create
the new literacy classroom: What does the new literacy look like? Written by William kist is about the importance of
defining new characteristics of literacy, taking in consideration the existing
of today’s literacy structure of the classroom. The author mentions about the
importance of communicating through writing and at the same time with different
types of mediums such as film making as a new creation of communication in a
new literacy classroom. The author mentions that as a literacy scholar and
teacher, he has explored the meaning of what is literacy in the past and in the
future?
“in order to be
read, a poem, an equation, a painting, a dance, a novel, or a contract each
requires a distinctive form of literacy, when of conveying meaning through and
recovering meaning from the form of representation in which it appears.”
Also, the author mentions five
characteristics of pedagogical new literacy for teachers that are interested in
creating a new literacy classroom. The first one is, A rationale for creating a
new literacy classroom, which means that in today’s society children have
multiple ways of learning about the world and expressing themselves specially
with the immense growth of technology. These has altered the way students
communicate regarding subjects such as mathematics, graphics, music, art, drama,
cinema and many others. It is important that teachers are aware that student
need to use new literacy techniques both in print and nonpoint texts. The second, talks about ongoing, continuous usage of multiple forms of
representation: using alternative forms of communication such as media,
shooting films, sculpture making, drawing, dancing and video. These will help
student to create new literacy work in multiple media ways therefore student will
be evaluated in many different fields. Third, explicit discussions of symbol usage, past and present: new
literacy classrooms will develop students’ “critical literacy” the idea is to
teach student new explicit symbol usage from past and present in order to for
them to become critical readers and writers in order for them to understand the
complexity of texts and to use this information as a new form of communication.
Four, Students engaged in ongoing meta
dialogues in an atmosphere of cognitive pluralism: student will be taught
many different types of styles, genres, dialects and voices necessary in a new
literacy classroom in order to learn complex forms of representation available
in the classrooms. Final, A balance of
individual and collaborative activity,
it is important to maintain a valance in collaboration and individuality
among student, for example, students would be allowed to have some individual
choices, in order to let think about how to solve problems and projects. Social
interactions will be important because the interactions will help them to develop
as creator and thinkers when interacting with teachers, students, mentors and
parents. Collaboration and individual work would be an important factor in a
new literacy classroom.
In my
opinion this is important information for literacy teachers that want to create
a new literacy classrooms that would benefit the students and society over all. I
think the author give wonderful suggestions about this new model of teaching
students new literacy technics with the hope that one day these new principles
and practices will help the new generations to communicate and learn in
all kinds of forms.
Hello Laura,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post discussing Beginning to create the new literacy classroom: What does the new literacy look like? by William Kist. I feel that he raised very important and insightful points in his article. It is so important to communicate through writing and have our students do the same, but it is also especially important to incorporate other mediums of texts as well. Films are a perfect example of this. Not only are the students having to understand what the author is trying to communicate through these, but also the students are being exposed to many ways to be creative when they are communicating. In this technology age, when people post videos and pictures constantly, it will show students that this creative aspect of communication is very important to utilize.
The characteristics of pedagogical new literacy are very important for us to keep in mind when we step foot into our classrooms. All of our students will have a vast amount of ways they learn about the world around them and we need to take this into consideration when planning lessons to incorporate a vast range of texts for our students to work with. We also need to teach our students about symbol usage. In mathematics, I cannot stress this enough. Math is said to be another language with all the symbols that are used throughout concepts. We need to expose our students to these and illustrate that this is also a form of communication as well.
I liked how there was a discussion that we need a balance of individual and collaborative activities. Social interactions and collaborative learning are very important for students especially in mathematics to help build a discourse community. In saying this, there must also be a balance between this and individual tasks to help build the students' knowledge.
I think being able to incorporate different mediums in the classroom is crucial because it gives us as teachers the opportunity to show these mediums to our students. It allows us to take some time to demonstrate how to become literate with different mediums because it is important to show students different mediums and techniques to critically analyze and understand those mediums. The characteristics of pedagogical new literacy are important for us to use as a guide for our own classrooms. I think using these characteristics as steps in actually forming a new literacy classroom are helpful and necessary. According to "Beginning to Create", "A classroom that teaches for a new literacy would be one that honors all forms of representation" (Kist, 2000). I think being able to show students how to understand and use different mediums will help them in the future. Being able to express understanding through different forms is the future because rather than forcing students to understand and demonstrate their understanding using one form of medium is an unfair constraint. Students need to be able to use different forms of mediums if we want to create the new literacy classroom. I enjoyed your post, it helped me understand the article further.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteFirst, thank you for your post, Laura. Your insight about teaching students to "communicate and learn in all kinds of forms," is an apt one, which speaks to a gap in cultural diversity that exists in many schools. Lankshear and Knobel discuss how in some contexts, students are able to meet literacy benchmarks in their early education, but never learn to apply literacy "scholastically," or how to use it as a resource when learning more complex/difficult concepts. I think teaching students to decode and learn from a wide variety of mediums may help counteract that deficiency.
DeleteI agree with Bess in her assessment that the classroom that fosters "all forms of representation" is ideal, but I also believe that such a classroom presumes a certain abundance of resources. First, it would require an immense amount of teacher investment. Whole schools would have to buy into the concept in order for it to be possible; a single teacher could not possibly design such a curriculum without having an array of other teachers - who bear unique disciplinary masteries - to turn to for help in formulating and/or grading assignments fulfilled in diverse mediums. To me, it seems that schools would also have to rely on fundraising or third-party services to provide technology and teaching resources to accommodate such learning. That is a hard thing to sell an administrator, as it cannot be guaranteed from year to year.
The only solid conclusion I am able to draw, here, is that teachers need to be awarded more credit and better compensation if that is the sort of classroom they are striving to create. It is a herculean task that few would be able to appreciate (especially standardized-test-focused parents and administrators). We lack sufficient incentives to encourage more teachers to attempt it.
Hello Laura!
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you brouht the attention of how important it is to look at all the mediums that students could impicate in the classroom. This is what i feel is key to create a new classroom. Experssion in a single form may not be possible for all students because that is not the way all students are able show their own understanding. Which is also how i can see digital literacies fitting into the new classroom. This offers a new outlet on how one can express themselves. Using music, videos, imaging and so on students can show their understanding in a way they might not have been able to before. That being said, the way our world is changing and the various new resources we have i think it is very important that we do change the literary classroom to one that fits the things studenst are capable of today.
Hello Laura,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your summary of the article "Beginning to Create the New Literacy Classroom". For today's classroom, using different texts to teach literacy in different disciplines is necessary and helpful since each kind of text has its own advantages. I agree that different ways to create a new literacy classroom can help students express themselves. When I recall all of my classes in China, I was kind of trained to be a listener when attending the literacy classes. That "Time is money" was a common phrase for my teacher, so we just listened what the teacher said and quickly took notes to catch up the academic progress. Such basic communication text has been lost during my childhood, but I know its significance because it can reflect to students' critical thinking. That's why I feel surprised that American students are confident about their response in class when I came to US. What I have learned so far is a need to change China's literacy classroom.
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post. You are definitely right that as teachers we need to show students how to express themselves through multiple literary means including digital ones. I have 2 very positive experiences with using digital means to express ideas in school. First, in high school geometry my teacher had groups of students create "commercials" for how geometry can be used in the real world. Our class watched each video and I remember this being a very positive experience for me. In addition, in graduate school, I had to create a digital short video using the "animoto" website. I chose to do mine on the periodic table and how it breaks down. This was very beneficial to me and I plan on using this in my future class.
One this that I think is equally important to showing students how to use digital means to express ideas is to make sure students know what effective ways of portraying information are vs ineffective ways. There is a lot of good technology and information available out there but there is also bad information. Teachers need to teach students how to effectively determine good information from bad information.
Hello Laura,
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading your post based on the article “Beginning to create the new literacy classroom: What does the new literacy look like? Written by William Kist. I really enjoyed reading this text this week and I like the way you wrote about each of the five characteristics. I do believe that it is important for student to be able to understand how to communicate and write using different mediums and I believe your post really captures that idea. I agree with your statement that this would "benefit students and society all over" because this is an important concept that should be implemented in classrooms everywhere.