My background is a traditional literacy as I started with my research papers with arguments and making a point; and the following years with writing an essay or a term paper and other academic formal papers each week; and finally I have learned the truth that I did not love this activity, but it has taught me how to think in an organized manner. But reading taught me how to be a better writer and the amazing part is that technology contributed a major part to hone my reading and writing skills.
I have learned to rely on the Internet for my researches and I knew that I could write creatively, or express my own opinion, in a manner more persuasive than working on it using the traditional literacy methods. Using the computer before was introduced to me as a tool for learning by educational games and computer programs, but as times passed the use of the computer for learning became the available tool for me that have cultivated my love for reading and writing. Blogging is writing which is a fun and great way to encourage creativity without any binding rules for a contemporary student like me that is full of emotions, arguments and ideas that I cannot express in formal academic writing. Integrating new literacy particularly technologically into the classroom is a smart move to implement a positive interaction with much gusto. At first, I thought that this major development would lead to my education’s trend towards reading and writing even less, but the new approach to literacy keeps me happy and comfortable, and even make me do logical and cohesive writing. Blogging is a useful tool for my inability to think critically and write persuasively. I do believe though that there is value in the traditional as well as the new literacy...
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...al literacy might change the way we write and who we interact with. 21st century literacy involves not only reading and writing competency, but also involves technological ability to effectively engage in a technologically advanced world. I have learned to analyze text easily as well as analyzing multimedia such as images, sound and video, and understand how the appearance of print affects my understanding of ideas. My writing has become more concise on the Internet as I have the choice of my writing style such as a blog and regularly communicate with my peers. As I see the different effects of social media on all sectors of society, I also see a more disciplined future social media age and literacy activities by more students being aware of critical thinking in the decisions that they make in blogging or performing other forms of online written communication.
Writing is a form of communication that has changed over the years, whether that is the way it is used or the meaning it has for some people. In the generation that I grew up in, writing has been around in many different ways, such as texting or instant messaging friends. I remember using Facebook at an early age and communicating with my friends and family through a different form of writing. Compared to my elders, the way they were taught and the way they used their writing has changed immensely. Since I grew up in a newer generation than them, my writing experience has been partially different in a good way. My literacy narrative will reflect that difference.
Technology is not killing our ability to write, but it is reviving it and pushing our literacy to new directions. Andrea Lunsford, from Stanford University, conducted an experiment to scrutinize college students way of writing. Her results were alarming, "I think we are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." Lunsford discovered that only 38% of students writing occurred within the classroom, the rest was written in their own free time. Most of our socializing now takes place online and always involves text or writing. Before the Internet, most of our communication was verbal. The only time Americans wrote was for a school assignment and if their job required writing. Otherwise most people didn't write another paragraph once they left
In conclusion, we see that the nature of printed literature has changed nowadays as well as the way of thinking. We are on the road of losing our concentration, awareness and serious thinking abilities. We are faced with such negative effects as cyber bullying and Internet manipulations. I think it is not the direction we should move on.
All throughout history, individualism has been key to the advancement of humanity including - most importantly the spreading of freedom. The world we live in has been changed greatly through the individual's critical understanding of literacy. The vigilant and knowledgeable use of the written word is what carries one's claims to the world. "Emancipatory literacy is a necessary foundation for cultural action and freedom, a central aspect of what it means to be a self & socially composed agent. X" This type of literature is used to empower the people who use it. It involves engaging in acts of writing and reading that are used to liberate humanity. How can anything be changed without the use of this emancipatory literacy? "We must write as if our lives depended on it. X" Literacy gives a voice to our ideas, and creates a space for us in the world to work toward change and to reflect on that change so that it is not forgotten.
While preparing for one of his college lectures, Dennis Baron, a professor and linguistics at the University of Illinois, began playing with the idea of how writing has changed the world we lived in and materials and tools we use in everyday life. This lecture slowly transitioned into “Should Everybody Write?” An article that has made many wonder if technology has made writing too easy for anyone to use or strengthens a writer's ability to learn and communicate their ideas. Baron uses rhetorical strategies in his article to portray to his audience his positive tone, the contrast and comparison of context and his logical purpose.
... to the shift in contemporary communication and learning contexts. Walsh presents data taken from 16 teachers across 9 primary school classrooms on developing new ways of incorporating technology for literacy learning with evidence presenting that teachers can combine both print-based and digital communications technology across numerous curriculum areas to inform and support literacy development. This article is useful for my topic as it examines and explains the need and relevance to combining print and digital text into literacy learning and how this can improve children’s engagement and literary understandings. This article is implemented within my research paper as it provides meaning as to why educators need to rethink their pedagogies to inform the literacy that is needed in contemporary times for reading, writing, viewing and responding to multimodal texts.
I used to have to take these tests about all the books I would read in school and I would always ace them all. I knew that reading was something I liked because I was always very intrigued by it. Also in middle school I found my true writing voice. I remember taking a creative writing class in six grade and I was always the student who wrote more than what was expected for my writing assignments. I would write stories about things such as my friends and the experiences that I had in school. Sometimes I would even write my own plays and in my plays the characters would be people in family and people from school. I would always try to make the plot super interesting in my plays. One time I wrote a play about my brothers and me traveling to space and finding aliens. Overall, I really fell in love with literacy throughout my middle school years because I was able to read books more at an advance level and I also was able to write more intense stories. Literacy has been a positive influence in my life all throughout my school
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
...ating technology provides students with opportunities to succeed in reading and writing. As an educator, and possibly a future literacy educator it is vital to teach students that learning is not something that only happens in school. Learning will happen every day for as long as one lives. Learning happens at school, at home, at a sporting event, at the mall, or on the computer. Learning happens everywhere. It is also important to teach students reading is everywhere and it will follow them the rest of their life. As educators, we need to help students enjoy reading and develop a love for it that will last forever. It is our role to therefore provide the best instruction possible and use assessment that allows children to succeed. Most importantly, as life long learners ourselves, we need to strive to make sure that our students become and stay life long learners.
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
It also includes writing skills, and being able to put your thoughts down on paper. In order to look at the differences in literacy, it would be easy to compare generations before technology, to generations with it. To begin, past generations, such as children and teenagers in the 60’s, did not have the platforms that children in the 2010’s do now for writing. Their platforms included journal writing, book writing and homework assignments. They did not have the equipment that today’s generation has to publish their work in a non-formal manner and get critique the way that the present generation has. While Millennials do the same types of works the 60’s generation did, journal writing, homework assignments, etc., they are also broadening their horizons and sharing their work with more people. A very common form of this is in fan-fictions. This is a platform for aspiring writers, or even people whose writing have been just a hobby, to practice putting their thoughts down and get criticism from others. In these “fanfics”, young writers take celebrities or characters that they have fallen in love with, and characterize them so others can fall in love with them in the same way. They invent plots for these characters, and act out imaginative scenes that they can only wish would happen. With this platform, they
Being literate defines who I am, and forms an integral part of my life. From the practical to the creative, it aids, and enables me to perform in the tasks that modern society dictates. I shall explore the many aspects of my life that are affected by literacy. Through this, understanding in greater depth what it means for me, to be literate.
In the words of Graham C. L. Davey, Ph.D. “Social media such as Facebook have become surrogates for seeking connectedness and as a consequence our connections grow broader but shallower.” Many of us admittedly use our phones to interact outside of our circle as it allows us to reach and connect to places far beyond our area but this also mean that we may gain new friends but because of lack of emotional gauges and social marks; we are unable to establish meaningful and long-lasting relationships with others. In addition lack of such skills is also thought to be detrimental to the verbal literacy of those affected as it is hypothesized that words are being replaced into the so called text lingo and is alarmingly being used as in sentences when
Penelope Trunk said, “the type of writing that students do--via IM, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth-- is actually great for building communication skills” (Trunk 2). The reason behind communication skills being built through social media is our generation is practicing with our reading, and writing constantly while on social media. “The fact that students today almost always write for an audience gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing” (Thompson 2). Our generation has a diverse audience of people that “likes” what we post, making it tempting to come up with a status or post that is well written and appeals to the audience. No matter if it’s an debate, opinion, or planning something with a friend, social media has made us adapt to writing for an audience of different people that we want to impress. It has also helped the generation with code switching, because based on the intended audience we have adapted to making changes in the way we communicate to appeal to a person or group of people. Verbally, our generation takes the skills learned from social media and speak the way they type on social media, appealing to whoever is listening to
Reading – we do it every day. In almost every aspect of our lives and often take it for granted. Reading is essential for human communication and increasing knowledge. However, because reading is so important even a small change can have a significantly large impact on our modern society. We are currently in a midst of a cultural revolution. In which the printed word is being transformed by the digital.