Teens and writing

Another interesting report from the Pew Internet / American Life project has was published last week.
Lenhart, A. et al (2008) Writing, Technology and Teens. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/
r/247/report_display.asp There were 700 telephone interviews (using quite a robust sampling methodology, explained in the report) and eight focus groups, all with teens in the USA.
The summary is "Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them." That sounds a bit bland, but there is a lot more detail than that in the actual report! The nature and quality of learners' writing is generally a concern in the UK, too, in my experience.
Photo by Sheila Webber: fritillaries, Eltham Palace gardens, April 2008.

Critical Literacy

I am embarrassed to say that I have not been properly aware of the activities of the Critical Literacies Project based at my own university.

There is interesting material on the site (http://www.ukla.org/projects/
critical_literacy.php ), including a chapter which outlines and reflects on the nature of critical literacy. The focus on Friere's work reminded me of Susie Andretta's information literacy work inspired by Friere's "pedagogy of the question." My eye was caught by the "Key tenets of critical literacy": interesting also to debate whether these are tenets for IL. Certainly they touch chords with me, although the dominant mode of addressing IL does not emphasise this side of things so explicitly: to quote the first few tenets (and think about substituting "information literacy" for "critical literacy")

"Literacy is not a neutral technology, it is always ideologically situated. It is shaped by power and, in turns, shapes subjects and discourses (Freebody and Luke, 1990).
"2. Learners are differently positioned in relation to access to dominant literacy discourses through aspects such as ‘race’, class, culture, gender, language, sexual orientation, and physical abilities (Meacham, 2003; Vicars, 2003).
"3. Critical literacy practices can foster political awareness and social change (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Luke & Freebody, 1990)." (quoted from: Larson, J. and Marsh, J. (2005) "Critical Literacy." In: Making Literacy Real: Theories and Practices for Learning and Teaching. London: Sage.

As with digital literacy, there is an overlap in the concept/subject, but it is clear that they are not the same thing.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn, Sheffield, October 2007.

Health Communication Research

There is a new blog focused around Health Communication Research, including health literacy ("the ability of individuals to obtain, process, and then act on health information"), from Michael Mackert at the University of Texas at Austin. The website is at http://blog.healthcommunicationresearch.com/ Seeing as "health information" is a subset of "information" I think I would see health literacy as part of information literacy (does anyone disagree).

This is an example of crossover serendipity, in that I came across the blog because Mackert runs a fan website for the "Wheel of Time" (WOT) series (a series I feel vaguely embarrassed about following, but there now, I've come out).

Photo by Sheila Webber: Tay Bridge, Dundee, photoshopped (I think I altered "curves"), June 2007.

Transliteracies

Alerted by a post to the lis-infoliteracy discussion lits about a talk How Can We Improve Online Reading? by Professor Alan Liu, Dept of English, University of California (working with the Transliteracies Project) at 2pm 4 July 2007, De Montfort University, Leicester (free, email Sue Thomas sue.thomas@dmu.ac.uk) , I was led to the DMU Transliteracy blog "Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks." http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/part/

Whilst on the subject of literacies, Dr Joolz has moved her Digital Literacies blog back to blogger: http://digital-literacies.blogspot.com/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Pink rose posed (but it did come off a climber just behind, almost in my garden), June 2007.