What Does Literacy Mean in the 21st Century?
Before this class started, I had heard of literacy before, but I never thought much of it. If I’m being completely honest, I had to look up a basic definition of literacy before I even could complete the Flipgrid assignment. So it’s pretty safe to say that by the second week of class, my entire knowledge and understanding of literacy became very confusing and was completely flipped upside-down. Literacy went from just reading and writing to “a text can be pretty much anything and everything you want it to be as long as it means something” in just two classes. Needless to say, literacy has a lot more to it than I could ever imagine; it’s super broad and its definition can even change by the century.
Throughout several readings and videos, I have found that the definition of literacy can vary from person to person. One individual might not believe that a literary text can be a picture or symbol while another person can argue that literally anything can be a literary text as long as it conveys information. What I like most about the video above is how Lisa Guernsey breaks down literacy into four broad categories: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Overall, these four literary tools are used in everyday communication between students, teachers, parents, children, employees, bosses…the list could literally go on forever.
What makes literacy even more complex is that the infographic above shows the top ten (there could be hundreds more for all we know) common types of literacy that can be applied to each of the four broad categories mentioned by Guernsey in the video above. That’s a lot of literacy! Another interesting fact about this distinct subject is that a person could be more developed in one form of literacy than another person. Although some literacies are more foundational than others (for example, reading and writing are parts of the building block of literacy and communication while gaming is not as heavily recognized), that doesn’t mean that a person is considered illiterate in a particular topic. For example, a grandparent might not be able to use his or her grandchild’s gaming device, but the child might not be able to use his or her grandparent’s ancient cell phone. However, neither party is considered illiterate.
Although there are a ton of different ways to utilize the many forms of literacy, I’m mostly interested (and anxious) in how I will be using these different types of texts and literacies in my own classroom. Since I am an English Education major, I thought my use of literacy would be simple and traditional: have my students read books and write papers. After all, that’s how I planned to run my classroom at first because that’s all I have ever been taught and all I have ever known. My original plan involving technology in the classroom was to minimize internet usage so my students would not get distracted during the little class time that we would have. However, I’ve grown to see the other forms of texts through research that could make my discipline a lot more interesting and diverse for my students than the traditional classroom. One quote in particular helped change my mind:
“Three ways in which the Internet can provide curricular benefits (1) designing Internet-based activities to help meet the diverse needs of students by engaging them through personal interests, (2) customizing teaching-learning cycles in ways that motivate students, and (3) fostering self-directed learning.” (Rowsell & Burke, 2009)
What I think makes this century so different from the others is the heavy use of technology inside and outside of the classrooms. Nowadays, nearly everyone (young and sometimes old) has a smart phone in their back pocket. Students now are using Chromebooks by the time they’re in the third grade, and some of them know how to use this technology better than their teachers (personally, I already feel behind because I’ve never used a Chromebook in my life, yet I’ve completed two practicums at middle schools that both used Chromebooks daily). Classrooms are now digital, assignments are now completed, turned in, and graded online, and students are able to cooperate with one another with the use of a tablet and the internet. My biggest concern as a future teacher is that I will not be able to keep up with the ever-changing technology, and that I will not be able to successfully utilize the resources I have available in my classroom. However, as a future teacher, I will have to be able to adapt in order to keep my classroom up-to-date.
So to answer the burning question of what it means to be literate in the 21st century: I believe that it is the ability to communicate, understand, develop, accommodate, and adapt using the many different types of literacies which are now mostly technology-based. I believe that the growth of 21st century literacy is heavily dependent on how teachers adjust to the new technologies and utilize them in their classrooms to teach their students.
(2016, June 23). Retrieved September 19, 2018, from https://youtu.be/byzoDZAdzmU
The Top 10 Literacies in Education Today [Photograph found in Advancing K12]. (n.d.). In N. Pietila (Author). Retrieved September 18, 2018, from https://www.skyward.com/discover/blog/skyward-blogs/skyward-executive-blog/march-2017/the-top-10-literacies-in-education-today#graphic
Rowsell, J., & Burke, A. (n.d.). Reading by Design: Two Case Studies of Digital Reading Practices.
