Multiliteracies in ELA Classrooms

In his article “Curriculum for the Future” Gunther Kress outlines the reality of current curricular needs. He does this by  labelling the curricular needs of the past as a program for ‘stability’, while labelling today’s curricular needs as program for ‘instability’. At first, I was curious what this was all going to allude to. When I thought of past stability I though of the industrial revolution and the shaping of good citizenry. But what about today’s curricular needs of instability? It’s hard to imagine what today’s generation is going through in regards to job niching, myself entering into a well-established and age-old profession. However, Kress educates us preservice teachers on what to teach so that our students will be successful in creating careers for themselves in “tomorrow’s instability”. To summarize the past-present situation, Kress notes:

“Economies founded on services and information do not (necessarily) need
the knowledge of the subjects of the older curriculum. Instead of attitudes and dispositions to ®xed knowledge, both the economy of services and the
economy of information demand the ability to design: to design objects
(whether as texts or as commodity of any kind) and to design processes (whether
in entertainment, in business or in education). The ability to design, an aptitude
in using the resources available for making (whether the making of representations for communication or the making of objects for consumption) differs
fundamentally from the aptitudes and dispositions previously needed, prized
and rewarded.

The ability to design, it seems, is taking over the past need for the ability to recite canonical texts. As a final thought in this course, this is indeed very wise advice. Knowing this, I feel more comfortable assigning creative projects with various media instead of fussing over Shakespeare and Steinbeck. But what of these texts? Is there no longer value in teaching text-based literary analysis? And what about regular literacy? Surely, students still need to be able to articulate themselves with correct syntax and signifiers of the English language—spell check cannot write for you. I guess that this will all be  fine balancing act in our practice as teacher. Thinking back to our “Curriculum & Knowledge” course, teachers are indeed the ones who decide what is important for the current generation to know.  Perhaps it all goes back to the purpose of schooling and who will be in “charge”, as concluded by Kress:

“I have assumed the continued existence of the school, even if in greatly changed form, but the school will only
retain its place if it, or those who are responsible for it, face the question of the ®t between curriculum and the new shapes of work and leisure around the
school and if the question of wider purposes for each subject in the curriculum
can be satisfactorily answered.”

I guess the answers will come soon, in tomorrow’s instability.

Kress, Gunther. “A curriculum for the future.” Cambridge journal of education30.1 (2000): 133-145.