http://yourlordship.tumblr.com/post/78239880594/there-is-a-general-principle-of-internet

Thought this was interesting, so I figured I’d share :)

Our book club group’s choice was “Reading in a Participatory Culture”, and from our discussion about the first half of the book this week it’s clear that the authors are trying to “remix” the way that kids learn literacy in school. Four of the eight chapters we talked about really highlight the way that teachers are trying to change the curriculum, from rewriting Moby Dick as a modern play (with the cocaine industry in place of the whaling industry) to discussing how the meaning of classic literature has changed from generation to generation. What really struck me was that the teachers taught with creative writing, having their students write fan fiction, and that they also organized field trips to whale ports and got the students talking with professionals in the field. It made the students actively engaged in what they were studying, and it gave them a chance to use their mind for imagination and logic, and not just memorizing vocabulary for a test. I also liked how there were little lessons and games for challenging students to learn as much as they could from the book (such as a game that involves stumping your teacher, the “professional”, in their knowledge of the book) and that students were encouraged to collaborate, and that it wasn’t discouraged and thought of as cheating. Most of all, I enjoyed the idea of this participatory culture that included all kinds of ethnicities and street cultures as well, and the observation made in a few chapters that even though the meaning and use of literacy has changed here and there, the main focus has always been the same, and added to as the generations evolved.

Our group broke the reading up in sections, so we each only read a few chapters, and most of our discussion was review of what we had all read and learned. We also talked about how we wished that schools had taught us this way when we were in high school, and remembered the few teachers that had implemented things like Socratic Circles and fun literacy games. Mostly, because we all want to teach in the future, between chapter reviews we spoke of what we might want to do as teachers, the logistics of setting up field trips, and ideas for how to make literacy in the classroom more of a choice than a forced-upon option. Like our book suggested, we agreed that having students read books for reasons they want to read them, and not for reasons we read them ourselves, would be wisest and get students the most pumped up. Our book’s purpose, we think, is to help future teachers like us really situate our classrooms in the 21st century so we can help prepare our students for the world and not just for class essays. It’s also to bring out more viewpoints on the books, so that we teachers can learn from our students just as they learn from us. All in all, it’s a global expansion of knowledge. Bringing in comics, videos and games, creative writing and reading (as in performing songs or raps), Prezis, class skits and theater, and modern day themes to the “classics” that most school curriculums make students read is a way of remixing them so that the learning generations can relate their literacies to the here and now.

To me, internet-based literacies and text-based literacies have always been categorized the same way in terms of sponsorship. I found my favorite books through friends, family, and libraries in the same way that I found my favorite sites through friends, family, and by browsing what little I could access through school networks. In middle school I had to read the newspaper for social studies, and in high school we had to look through online news articles every week and analyze what was happening in the world. Even as the curriculum switched from text-based to internet-based, our modes of learning are generally the same. We learn how to read by picking up a book or e-reader or some interactive JumpStart program, and we learn how to write by practicing spelling out our names in kindergarten and playing typing games in first grade. In elementary school I passed notes in class, and now I text to send the message.

The only ways these sponsorships differ is through their availability, the generation we grew up in, and how comfortable we are switching between casual and formal writing. For text-based literacy, even the poor can find a book in a public library or a magazine to leaf through in an office. Because public education is free K-12, students can access whatever they want or need to read, and are showed the classics in literature at the very least. Whether or not kids read these books is a matter of passion and curiosity, but it is always available to us. Internet-based literature is different. Not everyone has smart phones, iPads, or computers, and even if they do they might be limited to wifi only in Hot Spots like Starbucks or school. Some families can’t afford internet at home, or are too out of area for the networks to find them. If you can’t accustom yourself to how a computer works, it’s hard to use one for research and essay writing at school. And since schools limit the free range of where their students can visit on the web, finding sites they might enjoy like Facebook becomes tedious and hard to keep in touch with.

Generational gaps are another problem in differing text- and internet-based sponsorships. Students my age and my sister’s age were the last to really grow up without being practically born with an iPad in hand. The kids born in the 21st century can work smart phones better than I can, and everything is Apps and YouTube and FaceTime for them. I learned cursive in the third grade. I remember when YouTube had image-only fanmade music videos- not like how people now can illegally download videos and upload them in their own, new creations. My first cell phone was the Ladybug in 7th grade, that phone that only let you call home and 9-1-1, and I only got that because I was walking home from school every day. Now, I’m not saying that it isn’t easy to adapt to the new modes of literacy and social activity, if you’re willing to learn. I picked up texting and Facebook and blog sites like Tumblr just fine, and even though I don’t use Twitter I know how it works. I prefer physical copies of books to e-novels, but I can read online if it means saving a few bucks when I’m short on cash. My laptop is a touchscreen, and boy does it make video games easier when I can tap objects instead of trying to aim with a mouse. Webcomics, social justice issues, gifs, photoshop- all of this has been made available to me and everyone else for us to learn and grow as a techno-literate society. My grandfather loves the internet. He was made for the 21st century because he embraces the ability to find new ways of exploring media. My grandmother only has a smartphone because my uncle is paying for it. She’ll use an e-reader for long trips, but she would rather write letters than e-mail, and don’t even try to get her on Skype. When our great-aunt died, she texted me “going to the funeral, lol”. She meant lots of love. She didn’t know what lol stood for. I still don’t think she does.

Casual and formal writing is last on the list, but it’s probably the biggest issue with switching from text- to internet-based literacy. With text, it’s mostly school stuff, or handwritten letters, or creatively writing in a notebook. We’re very formal when we write with our hands, the one exception being shorthand. When we read physical texts, it’s published articles or books or syllabi, all things that are formal. The one exception here is text messages. Internet literature, though? The thing that sponsors online reading is Facebook posts, Tumblr bloggings, tweets, instant messaging through Skype, very short excerpts of giant news pieces. The new video is Vine, 6 short seconds that count as entertainment in our society. If a video is over 30 seconds long a lot of people will lose interest. Everything we enjoy online is short, sweet, and to the point. Instant gratification. We’re extremely casual because of this. It’s like talking to a friend. You use text speak, btw or lmao, and shorten word phrases from got to to gotta. Even in an academic setting, I will try to formally e-mail my teachers and they’ll shoot me back the response “c u there”. I’m not kidding- its horrifying out relaxed we are on the web. But at the same time, it’s normal. We accept it as a society. It’s a separate part of our language, something we use every day. People can share links at the click of a button, retweet a celebrity’s message, and nothing is private. We’re less formal because we’re talking amongst a crowd, not standing in front of one. There is no leader on the internet. No one is in charge; moderators don’t do much past occasionally banning a person from forums and sites, and even then all you need is a new e-mail address and you can make a new account. Unlike with our formal, physical form of writing, writing on the web is free reign to do whatever you want. As far as literacy goes, this is both good and bad. Formal pieces have evidence to back up their theses; casual pieces do not. If you don’t fact-check, you’re likely to become someone’s gullible fool, “trolled” online. Internet literacy sponsors are not teachers, they are peers.

Alright, so the big question is, who sponsors my literacy? What did I do growing up to decide I wanted to teach English? Pre-K, I was already into Dr. Suess and a little-known show called “Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories”, and I had an active imagination that gave me the thirst to explore other worlds. The same way Steve and Blue would hop inside of a book, so would I. By third grade, I was a huge reader of Nancy Drew mysteries and R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series. My biggest sponsor for these books was the fact that my parents had two giant bookshelves full of children’s books my mom had gotten in England, and then over the years it was also filled with her romance and mystery novels, and my dad’s sports books and horror novels. Because I wasn’t at the level of reading Dean Koontz or Stephen King yet, I found a used bookstore by my sister’s gymnastics club and began immersing myself in the horror fiction of R.L. Stine. 4th and 5th grade I was still reading him, although I’d gone up a level to his Fear Street series, and I was also reading Harry Potter thanks to the first movie coming out. I saw it and immediately had to read about this boy with the lightning scar. All throughout elementary school I was also an avid fan of Pokemon, and used the school library to read the short books they had on Pikachu’s adventures that were based off of the cartoon. I even learned how to read the Japanese comics, manga, in 4th grade, because I was a fan of Card Captor Sakura and had found the book at Borders. Having so much access to books and media both at home and at school is what got me reading. It wasn’t until my 7th grade year that I really started writing, though. That year our English teacher assigned us to create books like Beowolf, picture books with a fantastical story. When I was told that mine was the best written in class, I felt pride. All of that reading had paid off to make me adept for writing. I decided I wanted to continue pursuing writing, and because I’ve always been into the anime community I found fan fiction sites that got me started. It helped that my best friend also loved reading and writing, so we would write short stories together and swap books. Most of my sponsorships have stayed the same, between good teachers and fellow literature addicted friends and family members. In high school, I also began role-playing on Gaia Online, and then in college I found the art of causal blogging through Tumblr. Because it was more social and I could learn about things that school and my inner circle didn’t teach me, I found these sites both informative and enjoyable. The sponsorship of my internet literacy is being able to expand my social links and participate in modes of literature that were otherwise unavailable to me.

If you’ll notice, the reason my featured picture is the host of The Talking Dead is because he also hosts a gameshow called @Midnight, where comedians perform for points by using Twitter. If our literacy has evolved so much that we now have television shows based off of social media, then this sure is a time to be alive.

For my literacy narrative, I called my mom up and got some answers from her. She’s a middle school teacher, so I asked her a question related to her teaching experiences with literacy. Below is the question and her answer:

5. As a teacher, what value do you hold literacy up to?

Mom: I think that literacy is the foundation of everything. That and math. Those two subjects are absolutely necessary to achieve in life. You can use math to solve problems, and as far as literacy goes you can find information about anything if you know how to read. You have to know how to research to problem solve, and you can’t communicate your ideas without literature. Especially in today’s world, where everything is more online than orally communicated.

“In spite of their apparent commonsense grounding, functional literacy approaches are neither as straightforward nor as unproblematic as they first appear.”- Sylvia Scribner, Literacy as Adaption, “Literacy in Three Metaphors”
and
“A contrary view, popularized by McLuhan (1962, 1964) is that new technologies and communication media are likely to reduce literacy requirements for all. A responding argument is that some of these technologies are, in effect, new systems of literacy.”- Sylvia Scribner, Literacy as Adaption, “Literacy in Three Metaphors”

With all of the heated discussion we had in class tonight, I think these quotes wrap all of our ideas up in a simple, effective way. When we were in elementary school, we were taught prescriptive grammar (“i” before “e” except after “c”) and how to write in cursive. We’re the last generation to have been born before e-books– at least, before they were popular– and to grow up with the STAR testing system. (Now, they’re introducing the Common Core system.) Just as what our grandparents were taught was replaced by the time our parents went to school, now our parents can hardly keep up with the way we learn, and we can hardly grasp the fact that there are two year olds with iPads and six year olds with Android smart phones. Borders Bookstores have been closed because of Kindle and online sources of reading. The Introduction to Grammar course I’m taking is telling me that everything I learned K-12 is WRONG, and that grammar in the educational system is slowly leaning towards descriptive grammar. I hardly ever use cursive– which my third grade teacher warned us all would be important to use throughout life– and curse the school system for only giving us a brief introduction to typing in one semester of all the years I spent there. My old high school is switching from hardcover textbooks to laptop notebooks that will hold a variety of text e-books in their systems. Essay formats have shifted from MLA to APA to “whatever we’re most comfortable with”, and when all you’re taught is how to memorize and study for a standardized test, it becomes hard to adjust to a classroom setting where you have to have an actual, well-formed opinion.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that, yeah, functional literacy is ever-changing and therefore ever-confusing. That, and that while digital literacy has, to some, seemingly destroyed oral communication, in reality we’ve expanded our views more than ever before. Which makes the thought of functional literacy even more confusing and problematic and constantly shifting. It isn’t a straight line. It isn’t even a nicely curved spiral. In the 21st century, literacy is a scribble. It’s everywhere, it doesn’t seem to hold any definitive form, but like a three year old’s drawing of a cat we try t define it and make sense of it, when really all we can ever do is study it and throw in a few knotted lines of our own. Scribner says literacy is adaptation, and it’s true. We’re constantly adapting to it just as it adapts to us and our social, cultural, and technological changes.

I feel like I’ve just made a post about as scattered as the Metaphor piece itself, so let me throw in this lovely Ted Talk for you, which will explain my thoughts in another person’s words via YouTube. Viva Literacy in the digital age.