A pedagogy for multiliteracies: is there a package deal?
It has been interesting to read the way literacy definitions have changed over the years from the prescribed 3R skill set, to the notion of ‘environmental mastery’, to the idea of a person who is a ‘representation designer’ (a maker of meaning).
UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report 2006 devoted a chapter to ’Understandings of Literacy’. From this I learned the origin of the 3R skill set. I also learned that by the 1990s, this definition had lost relevance because of the cultural diversity of learners of Western curricula who make meaning in modes other than the 3Rs (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009, p. 166). Also, there was a need for a broader level of information mastery relevant to the information age, including internet literacy (UNESCO, 2006, p. 148).
UNESCO’s report described ‘a rich literate environment’; one that has “an abundance of written documents (e.g. books, magazines and newspapers), visual materials (e.g. signs, posters and handbills), or communication and electronic media (e.g. radios, televisions, computers and mobile phones)” (2006, p. 159). Literacy education should, therefore, focus on developing individuals to be masters of this multimodal, multi-channel communication environment.
Some researchers agree with this definition to the extent that they believe in a ‘literate person’ who ‘designs meaning appropriate for any given setting’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009, p. 175; Kress, 2005). Meaning-making modes include any of written, oral, visual, audio, tactile, gestural or spatial, or even ‘representation to self’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; New London Group, 1996). It’s a great goal for educators to develop ‘meaning-making designers’ with the competence and flexibility to communicate effectively in a range of settings in civilian and working life using a range of modalities. New London Group (1996) definitely conceived literacy education as having that outcome. However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all. No package deal. Schools have different resources so there will always be variability in what ‘representation design’ can be, based on teaching pedagogies, devices and applications available in any given school. Not all students can be expected to be ‘dynamic representation designers’ given variable budgets (Leander & Boldt, 2012). In addition, some students may even struggle with distraction in dynamic online environments (Bennett, 2015).
For students who do develop literacy across many modalities and media, there may be a ‘wake up’ if they come to their future workplace to find they can’t apply these literacies. It sounds contra to the notion of 21st century workplaces and working in an information age, but I personally experience limitations in getting access to cloud tools (e.g. IHMC concept maps) in Australian organisations in 2015. The standard toolkit at the office is limited. Cloud tools threaten the ‘safe communication and computing environment’ of an organisation. One has to lobby to get them. Licenses for design software require business cases. Of course, I speak as someone working in small to medium sized enterprises, in one country. Things might be different in multinational enterprises, or in other countries. I just hope that students are not led to assume that multiliteracies at school or home automatically transfer to the world of work. Those that innovate and become entrepreneurs, will find the communication of their working life more dynamic.
Bottom line, I think that international organisations like UNESCO and academic researchers like New London Group (1996) and Cope and Kalantzis (2009) attempt to coin a global definition of literacy, and establish an education goal around this, when there isn’t really a universal literacy or multiliteracy. Each school, career and workplace has its own literacy context.
References
Bennett, J. (2015). Student distraction and teaching. Available at http://jjfb-bennett.blogspot.com.au/.
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New Literacies, New Learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal 4(3), 164-195. doi: 10.1080/15544800903076044
Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition 22(1), 5-22. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004
Leander, K., & Boldt, G. (2012). Rereading “A pedagogy of multiliteracies”: Bodies,
texts, and emergence. Journal of Literacy Research 45(1), 22–46. doi: 10.1177/1086296X12468587
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66, 60–92.
UNESCO. (2006). Chapter 6: Understandings of literacy. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006.
I think you have made a really great point about the disparity between theory and practice. All of the theory focuses on ideal situations, when in actual fact some schools don’t have the resources to offer a fully multi-modal experience. As well, as you pointed out, not all workplaces have these resources either. I think really we need to focus on helping students to develop skills to adapt to a variety of situations, going to a completely new system may not be the answer.
Catherine
I agree that it is very hard to define what it is to be multi-literate in today’s society. The word literacy has been associated with so many educational terms and that finding a way to teach and assess such a broad scope of abilities is overwhelming.
I also agree that many businesses and schools have very limited access to the perceived requirements needed to maintain or develop multi-literacy skills. In the Maritime Provinces there are still many communities with very limited internet access (in fact some with no cellphones!) and yet these are also the communities that might benefit the most from having access to online curriculums and connections with the global community.
In response to your comment that each school/workplace has its own literacy context, I agree. My hope for the future would be that communities in remote areas, would be able to connect with others to share cultural and linguistic values and develop and create programs of their own. This is happening via social media (most students have Facebook), but I am not sure that those involved with educational reform fully grasp the potential that the “world wide web” can provide for students who are not interested in learning the imposed 3R value system that the western world has imposed on them. As Bolter (2011) comments, the teacher needs to be “the facilitator” who provides real life problems that are meaningful to the students, which in many cases may not be part of the 3R curriculum. Hopefully, these remote communities with limited access will be able to be part of the educational reform.
Sorry, I forgot to copy the reference for my reply!
J. D. Bolter (2011) Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print (2nd Ed) Routledge, New York.