Multiple+Literacies

According to [|Lankshear and Knobel], "because there are multiple ways of being in the world, then we can say that there are multiple literacies" (p. 233). This relates to my classroom by the fact that I teach a culturally diverse group of students and their experiences in life can be shared and presented through many types of literacies. Literacy with the 'big L' is communicating and making meaning in the world by who we are and what we relate to. Students can present themselves to the world using 'little l' literacies such as writing, viewing, remixing, sound and video while making connections with different ideas that are not necessarily traditional Literature. Students are experiencing more literacies in their life than I ever did. They use paper, pencil, word processors, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, spreadsheets, multitudes of software and many others. Given the increasingly rapid pace of change in the technologies of literacy, it is likely that students who begin school this year will experience even more profound changes during their own literacy journeys. These new literacies allow us to use the Internet and to identify important questions, locate information, critically evaluate the usefulness of that information, synthesize information to answer those questions, and then communicate the answers to others.