Literacy in the 21st Century
When people are asked what it means to be literate they typically give answers along the lines of “a person is literate if they know how to read” and this definition would be correct. However, I would like to challenge this definition by saying, “read what?”. The truth is that there are multiple definitions of reading. For instance, you can read a book but you can also read a picture. Both of these things are trying to bring some information to your attention. Even though you do not read a picture in the same way that you would read a book, there is still a message that the “reader” of the picture must understand in order to understand that picture. Reading can also be applied to videos, diaries, newspaper headlines, charts, and math equations. Though these all require different skills, I would argue that in order to understand any of these things you must be literate. This definition also encompasses technology, something that any student in the 21st century would be familiar with. Being “computer literate” or “technology literate” is also included in our expansive and quickly changing definition of literacy and it is something that we all need to be aware of in our teaching careers.
The first thing that we need to be aware of is that our view of literacy is outdated. To a student sitting in a classroom, reading a textbook could be one of the most boring things that they could possibly be doing. Essentially, we are doing exactly the same thing we have been doing for years and it is no longer working (RSA Animate, 2010). The video relates this poor instruction to ADHD as he says that we are giving kids drugs to make them focus on something that they are not engaged in and definitely not interested in (RSA Animate, 2010). Chris Dede in his essay agrees with this point saying that the world has changed drastically between the 20th and the 21st century and education needs to change with it (Dede, 2009). The world we live in now is quite different from the world 50 years ago but education hasn’t changed since then. We are no longer preparing students for factory jobs that need minimal education, we are preparing students to enter into a new age where jobs require critical thinking and complex communication skills (Dede, 2009). Students are not learning the skills that they need for this new world and that is partly because of our outdated view of literacy and our outdated education system.
Something obviously needs to change in our education system and that starts with our view of literacy. Students should become familiar with multimodal texts that are not just available in the classroom, but must be searched for even outside the classroom. Alvermann and Wilson give us an example of the use of multimodal texts outside of the classroom, not through a video or a picture, but through nature (Alvermann et. al 2011). In order to study erosion, students were taken outside around the school where students looked for evidence of erosion and evidence that there were efforts made to stop the erosion (Alvernann et. al, 2011). The students did not read this information out of a textbook and were not simply given the answers. They were required to think critically and look at the evidence around them and were more able to understand erosion that way. Multimodal texts is an excellent way for students to understand more of the content as well as be more engaged in the content. Something else that teachers need to be familiar with is the multiple forms of literacy. I have mentioned a few but there are many other forms that I haven’t addressed, such as digital literacy, and media literacy discussed by Barbara Jones and Suzanne Flannigan. Digital literacy is described as the ability to perform tasks in digital environments while media literacy is described as being able to apply critical thinking and viewing skills to what the media presents to us (Jones & Flannigan, 2006). Media literacy is especially important in a social studies current events class as students should be able to determine credible sources as well as biases and perspectives in the media. Students are exposed to technology everyday and they need to be taught technology literacy rather than simply memorize and spit back information (Digital Media, 2018).
Our view of literacy is certainly outdated and education is never going to change without this view of literacy changing. Our students live in a digital and technological world where they need to learn skills on those platforms in order to be successful. Literacy is not simply learning how to read a book but so much more than that and our system is not preparing students to be literate in the 21st century. In short, literacy in the 21st century means not only being able to read and write, but to think critically and analyze all types of sources, whether that source is a creek outside of your classroom, social media, or even a textbook. As future teachers, we need to make sure that our students understand this fact and we ourselves need to work to change education from rote memorization, repetition, and boring reading to critical thinking and analyzation in the multiple forms of text that are available to students in the 21st century.
Alvermann, Donna E. auction for nd Wilson, Amy Alexandra (2011) ‘Comprehension Strategy for Multimodal Texts in Science’ Theory Into Practice, 50: 2, 116–124.
Dede, C. (july, 2009). Comparing Frameworks for “21st century skills”. Retrieved from http:// sttechnology.pbworks.com/f/Dede_(2010)_Comparing Frameworks for 21st Century Skills.pdf
Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century (INTRO). (2018, September 19). Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/107628541
Jones, B. R., & Flannigan, S. L. (2006). Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century. Educause Quarterly. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/pdf/Connecting the Digital Dots.pdf.
T. (2010, October 14). RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms. Retrieved from
