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Updating Roles
Every Teacher Becomes a Contemporary Literacy Teacher
Illustration by Silvia Tolisano
Language capacity is the root of all learning experiences. Whether it is listening to directions, reading a passage, writing a response, or discussing a point of view, the individual studentâs ability to perform and grow in a classroom rests squarely on his or her corresponding language capacity. However, the 21st century has expanded the notion of language capacity, requiring the focused attention of educators. Now the very concept of âclassroomâ has evolved dramatically, and with that shift there is an increased necessity for rich language capacity. Reaching into a pocket and pulling up a smart device is akin to reaching for a classroom. Whether a student is texting a friend, sharing music on Cimbal, transmitting a moment via Instagram, checking background on Wikipedia, or Skyping with a friend in Japan, learning has shifted. An entering kindergarten child is most likely to be highly familiar and agile in touch and effect interactions on an iPad, savvy with a smart board, and creating video interactions on the app Get-Puppet. What are the implications for these shifts on scaffolding literacy?
New Pedagogy: The Relationship Between Past and Present Literacies
In order to get a handle on how life has changed in education settings and what those changes mean to literacy, let us examine the fundamental shift in pedagogy because of the startling shift in access to information, media, and social communication. I and my colleague Marie Alcock and focus the critical discussion about the shift in roles and relationships between teacher and learners into three pedagogical camps (2017, p. 11). Each of these pedagogies directly responds to three ongoing questions regarding curriculum, instruction, and assessment that educators need to address in order to be responsive to our learners: What do we cut? What do we keep? What do we create? In addition to describing the three pedagogies, there are comments regarding the inference for our focus on literacy.
- Antiquated pedagogy (What do we cut?): There is no direct relationship between teacher and learner, but rather the emphasis here is on the dispensing of knowledge to the student who is a receptacle. The word âcoverageâ comes to mind when we consider that content is to be presented and that it is the childâs problem to memorize and make sense out of it. Therefore, literacy is equated with the ability of students to listen and to read without a great deal of concern for their response in any depth. This antiquated notion also tends to minimize the necessity for teacher intervention into the development of a literate learner. The notion behind this stance is basically âa child either reads or does not, there is not much a teacher can do about it, thus, let us sort those who cannot read into more menial types of work.â Through most of human history that approach has ruled the lives of human beings, given that the concept of universal education only began as a viable approach in the latter part of the 19th century.
- Classical pedagogy (What do we keep?): Classical traditions are timeless, thus always timely. When we think of great classic works of literature, art, architecture, or science, a culture acknowledges the critical role that meaningful thought and engagement play from any period of history. With classical pedagogy there is a powerful and clear relationship between teacher and learner regarding the best way to pose content, provoke questioning, organize learning groups, and observe student needs. In terms of literacy, the critical role of an interactive teacher posing the right questions, calling attention to tips to assist the emerging reader, modeling good listening, providing sentence starters to pose questions, encouraging risk taking in writing that first original sentence, and applauding progress is essential and will always be essential as timeless teaching pedagogy. Classical literacy is predicated on the cultivation of the basic four capacities: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These capacities are timeless, timely, and necessary. Throughout the book there will be suggested strategies to support four capacities and their inherent connections. The contention here is that the new literacies sit on the shoulders of these classical approaches. If a child cannot read, he or she cannot read a computer screen.
- Contemporary pedagogy (What do we create?) With learning 24/7 as a possibility and the extraordinary immediacy of net-based tools, we have new kinds of learners. Our children and youth are self-navigators who can reach out and âbrowseâ sources freely and with ease. However, this does not mean they are literate in their searching. Accessing is not the same as diving deep and making strategic selections of quality information and resources. As teachers in our 21st-century times, we need to cultivate new approaches that support learners in engaging in the new literacies: digital, media, and global in conjunction with the classical. To clarify what these literacies look like in classroom life and what their connection is to the classical literacies, I have developed a definition of each grounded in what they look like in educative practice based. To be clear, each of the literacies is distinctive from the others, though there are points of overlapping. I will share my working definitions of these key literacies below.
Digital literacy is âthe proficiency to effectively employ web-based applications, internet-based tools, and repository sites to further meaningful research and development.â It is predicated on the development of four capabilities (Jacobs, 2014, p. 7):
- Accessing capability, which is the ability of the learner to enter the portal into web-based learning and applications. There are currently three points of access: key-boarding, voice, and touch and effect. It is important to note the similarity between phonemic awareness in classical literacy and accessing capability, because neither skill set guarantees literacy. Simply because I can decode a word does not make me a knowledge, insightful, or meaning-making reader. Similarly, simply accessing the internet does not guarantee that I have any sophistication. This latter point leads us to the next capability.
- Selection capability is about strategic and informed choice regarding the location of the appropriate digital tool, application or website resource to match the demands of a problem or issue. Given the ease and immediacy of digital tools, it is tempting to take the first tool or the first website that appears. In the classical world of print, this is akin to simply taking the first book that appears in a library.
- Curation capability is a skill set focused on the critical need to organize source material and to display that information effectively in a virtual format. Just as a museum curator organizes the display and sequence of paintings, the web-based curator shows an intelligent sense of what resources are of value by creating a clearinghouse of sources. The skill of âtaggingâ key sites and applications is central to creating a website reference tool.
- Creation capability points to solution and product building using digital tools, such as creating an application, software platform, or model employing virtual tools.
Media Literacy is the response to and creation of media forms of communication. Going beyond the classical formats for communication of written, print, and oral traditions, educators are adding the newer forms of the last century and our current one. Whether film, video, radio, or audio cast, the necessity for healthy criticism of what we take in is central to becoming a literate and sophisticated recipient of information and imaginative experience. Likewise, the ability to create works of media necessitates specific skills for meaningful and technically proficient outcomes. I choose to organize this literacy around two capabilities: receptive and generative (Jacobs, 2014, p. 8):
- Receptive media capability points to a critical review of both information and narrative media formats. Students can validate informational source material. One of the most important skills here is the ability of students to avoid taking the first site that comes up when using a browser to search for information on the internet. They literally can identify the perspective or angle that is taken, such as what the cameraman holds that determines what the viewer sees in a news report. Information is gathered from television and film on an unprecedented level because of access to media via a computer, tablet, or smart phone. If the media is narrative as in film, the goal is to cultivate media critics who value the story telling, direction, acting performances, craft, and technical expertise that are requisite in great film and the consummate talent of great film-makers. Just as students study literary authors, so should our students be studying auteurs.
- Generative media capability is the ability to express personal messages or stories through media formats. The world of âfilmmakingâ has been democratized through the 21st century with the ease of access to media-making tools, whether it is a video cast or audio cast. Any laptop is akin to a production studio. There is a tremendous range of choices available to learners with the technical ability and motivation to create media, yet simply using a digital camera on a smart phone does not assure quality. The teaching profession needs to improve professional development skills to help educators become more generative in developing media in order to support our learners.
Global Literacy is focused on expanding both the perspective of learners to relate to people and places throughout the world and the technical skills to locate them. Clearly this literacy goes beyond the traditional notion that âthis is social studies,â but rather that is an interdisciplinary reality. Building upon the fundamental geography skill sets that are now possible using digital applications ranging from Google Earth to GPS tools, students can directly connect with real people in real places in real time using Skype or Google Hangout. The basis for global literacy, that is, making meaning about the world are four global competencies found in the Global Competency Matrix developed over several years by a working task force supported by CCSSO and the Asia Society (Jackson and Boix-Mansilla, 2011). It was my good fortune to work on this task force, and I believe that these four fundamental competencies that emerged are imminently practical and curriculum friendly. They are:
- Investigate the World;
- Recognize Perspectives;
- Communicate Ideas;
- Take Action
What is more, I would encourage teachers to include the following: âthe prefix, GEO, becomes a curriculum turn-key here when attached to the full array of subjects in the curriculum: GEO-literature; GEO-politics; GEO-economics; GEO-arts. Thus, the globally literate student is led to study contemporary issues that are by their very nature interdisciplinary with sustainability issues at the forefrontâ (Jacobs, 2014, p. 9).
In keeping with our discussion about linking classical literacy to the new literacies, global literacy or global competence directly provides opportunities for necessary communication. The ability to listen thoughtfully and to speak and to communicate with others is central to becoming a global citizen, if not a student of the world.
Examining the emergence of new pedagogy linked to new literacies raises this critical question: What is the role for the contemporary teacher in supporting modern literate learners?
The Classical and Contemporary Literacies in Every Classroom
Both the classical reading, writing, speaking, and listening strategies and the contemporary new literacies cut across disciplines. In the world of formal education, these strategies are requisite at every level for Johnny, Maria, Abdul, and Rachel. The need to read, write, speak, and listen effectively is fundamental to every subject, in every grade, and in every class these learners will ever attend. What is more, these very foundational literacies are requisite for moving into the new literacies.
The fulfillment of this need is complicated by standards, whether they are Common Core, content specific, as in Next Generation Science Standards, or specifically developed at the state level. This complication exists because standards that are written are tied to grade level standardization. Thus, there is an âas ifâ presumption. I have often thought that the adverb independently should be added to the end of every benchmark and standard, because ultimately Johnny is on his own. Rigid instructional adherence to standards is implemented if all children are fluent in standard English. It should be no surprise when test scores plummet in a school. Every standardized test, whether it is state or national, is first and foremost a reading test. If Johnny canât read the math problems, then he cannot complete them accurately. Explanations of mathematical procedures and principles are written in sentences and with polysyllabic words. If he cannot comprehend basic prompts like âselectâ or âsummarizeâ or âdetermine,â then he will fail on the test item. Johnnyâs difficulties with comprehension arise not only from his unfamiliarity with simple fundamental words; they are compounded by the fact that explanations of mathematical procedures and principles are written with precise terminology. The preeminence of high-stakes testing adds even more pressure to the lives of our children and to our teachers. The so-called move to âtechnology-basedâ testing in general is simply moving the paper version of multiple choice to an electronic format. Students still need to read these tests without anyoneâs help.
Elementary school teachers launch children into a world of words by devoting hours of instruction to increasing their language skills. Knowing there is a narrow window of opportunity to get our youngest learners off and running, these teachers feel enormous pressure. Secondary school teachers rely heavily on their studentsâ ability to bring home reading material at night, whether on a website or in textbook, and to carry out homework. Middle and high school teachers often deal with over a hundred students in a day, and they base their assignments on the assumption that the students can read and react to the text. Teachers are very dependent on each other to build and sustain these fundamental tools. Academic literacy in our public and private schools is a Kâ12 problem. It is critical to revisit the role of the teacher and the way teachers communicate with each other about their learners. To be crystal clear, standards may come and go, but there will always be an unrelenting need to develop a learnerâs language capacity in order to function in the world and have a meaningful life.
Every Teacher Is a Communications Coach
If you are an eighth grade math teacher, then you are a speech teacher. If Johnny cannot describe in conversation with you what confuses him in computing an algebraic equation, then he will be a frustrated learner. He needs practice with oral explanations in math, or he will become a child left behind. He needs practice in listening to you and knowing how to ask a clarifying question. He may be using conversational language rather than academic language, referring to the denominator as the âbottom thingâ and the numerator as the âtop thingâ; he may refer to mathematical operations using imprecise language, muddling mathematical thinking in his own mind. He is only thirteen and self-conscious. How can you help him speak and listen thoughtfully?
If you are a third grade teacher presenting your social studies unit on Japan, then you are clearly a writing teacher. Maria needs your help. She is trying to convey her point of view about how the fact that Japan is an island affects people there. Her writing seems clichéd. You know it, and so does she. How can you coach her to choose very specific words that will make her writing come alive? How can you help her write and reread her work? She needs an academic inventory of words that will help her think in the language of social studies.
If you are a high school physics teacher and you rely heavily on student lab reports, you must teach your students how to employ an empirical style of writing. Abdul might say âthisâ when he needs to say âthat.â Now the majority of your 120 students write labs as if they are doing you a favor. The labs look copiedânot the thorough response you had hoped for. Rather than getting angry with your students, perhaps you need to help them with notetaking. Do ...
