Imagine a frustrated parent with a more
frustrated child who whines, “I don’t want to write a stupid paragraph with all
those vocabulary words! I want to watch
my music videos” while secretly texting friends. Many of us, adults and children, are stuck in a
forced-choice dichotomy in terms of literacy attitudes and practices. Either I do what I “want-to” (yippee!)
or what I “have-to” (groan). Even
the Common Core Standards risk this problem as in the continuation of the
artificially-hard separation of fiction vs. non-fiction when real-world
discourse has narrative and description across text types.
If we cling, consciously or less so, to the old
separation of style and content, we limit the capacity for the integration
offered in new media. For example,
composing in digital media allows the verve of visual images and musical
soundtrack to propel idea generation and stronger voice, but not so much if we
insist that the script (the content) gets written before the digital media
program (treated as style) gets opened.
Teachers who incorporate digital media witness much more commitment to
revision, but this happens best when persons move fluidly across the visual,
vocal, text-on, and other tracks.
Persons composing in Web 2.0 also get excited as they connect with real
audience and while they are reaching personal insight, but not when same-old
pedagogy of read-the-teacher’s-mind and write-for-the-teacher gets imported
into the new technologies.
As we move toward big
picture literacy,[i] therefore,
the chances for success are enhanced as we dissolve the false dichotomy of
want-to vs. have-to. Confronting
the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st
Century (Henry Jenkins & MacArthur Foundation) emphasizes the need
for increased play in our work and for creativity in our problem solving. In order to embrace the new technology
and to shift into the participatory culture of Web 2.0, teachers simply have to
give
up the dominant model of knowledge and authority. Because the media changes so rapidly, no one commands the
knowledge; in contrast, it’s collaboratively constructed, de-constructed, and
re-constructed with multiple perspectives. The one-right-answer increasingly is illusion, and teachers
who fear losing control in a participatory culture where no one commands
stored-up, pre-digested, knowledge are simply lost.
If not one-right answer, we can still insist on better
responses. Some opinions,
processes, and productions can be conceived and judged better than others when
we advance
in intellectual and ethical development. To make these judgments of quality, we need “big picture”
standards that allow for the artistic, the creative, and the cooperative. This progression in consciousness and
in civilization also advances
peace and justice.
For educators to enter and to negotiate big
picture literacy successfully, we’ll need to act with passion for our
profession, commitment to a renewed understanding of our discipline, and engagement
toward collaborating with all participants. Metaphorically, we need the firebird. In the story of Ivan and the Maiden
Tsar,[ii]
the firebird doesn’t appear until Ivan has managed to pass the false-dichotomy
test twice. Still, the burning
opportunity might be missed if the stage had not been set by the early advent
of the beloved and by the bold break with the dominant culture. Ivan had to do away with the tutor and
instantly leave home even though the destination was completely unmapped.
For our journey into tech integration to be
successful, we need to contain both intrinsic (want-to) and extrinsic (have-to)
motivations. Like Ivan on the
firebird, we’ll need a scary spirit of collaboration, flying across to a
changed paradigm of literacy where composing in all media, including digital,
engages the joy of personal creativity along with the satisfaction of
meaningful social relationships.
The requirement of leadership, mentor text, and
authority does not disappear, but it must transform. This blend of want-to and have-to also pushes for a more
sophisticated management of frustration, a more complex view of
disfluencies, and more inclusion of artistic standards. These challenges are marked for
exploration in subsequent blogs.
[i] Supt.
Wilcox’s Theory of Action: “Big picture literacy is a critical twenty-first
century skill. Reading, writing, speaking, thinking, viewing, understanding and
fluency with technology are literacy skills.” Washington Co. Academy, Aug 2012,
slide 10.
[ii] Sources and
interpretations on this story include:
Alexander Afanas'ev (Collected by). Norman Guterman, Trans., Russian Fairy Tales. NY: Pantheon Books,
1945. "The Maiden Tsar," pp. 229-234.
Bly, R., & Woodman, M. The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine & Feminine. NY: Henry
Holt, 1998.
Meade, M. Men and the
Water of Life. “The Firebird,”
p., 209-. NY: HarperCollins, 1993.
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