Multiliteracy

From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative

The 1996 New London Group coined the term "multiliteracy" to recognize that transformations in society and text necessitate new literacy needs encompassing linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and multimodal communication (Cope and Kalantzis 7).^[1] The 1996 New London Group notes that as society has become increasingly globalized, communication has changed. New forms of text have arisen from the "multiplicity" of communications channels now available. By contrast, "'mere literacy' remains centered on language only, and usually on a singular national form of language at that, which is conceived as a stable system based on rules such as mastering sound-letter correspondence" ^[2].

In Multiliteracies for a Digital Age, Stuart Selber offers a definition of multiliteracy that focuses on functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies (25).^[3] Although separately defined, these literacies work in conjunction with one another. Functional literacies are "those online activities considered to be customary in English courses at the post-secondary level, particularly in the areas of writing and communication"(44), while "functional computer literacy includes the skills associated with writing and communication processes as teachers have come to understand them in the digital age" (44). Selber's idea of critical literacy addresses "work against the grain of conventional preoccupations and narratives, and popular representations within the shape and direction of computer-based artifacts and activities" (95). Selber defines rhetorical literacy as being that which supports the recognition of "the persuasive dimensions of human-computer interfaces and the deliberative and reflective aspects of interface design, all of which is not a purely technical endeavor but a form of social action" (140).

[edit] References

1. ↑ Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
2. ↑ The New London Group. "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures." Harvard Educational Review 66.1 (1996). http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm
3. ↑ Selber, Stuart A. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois U P, 2004. Print.