Literacy for the 21st Century: The Hope and the Promise
Literacy for the 21st Century: The Hope and the Promise
A CML Reflection Resource
Since the beginning of recorded history, the concept of "literacy" meant having the skill to interpret "squiggles" on a piece of paper as letters which, when put together, formed words that conveyed meaning. Teaching the young to put the words together to understand (and, in turn, express) ever more complex ideas became the goal of education as it evolved over the centuries.
Today information about the world around us comes to us not only by words printed on a piece of paper but more and more through the powerful images and sounds of our multi-media culture. Although mediated messages seem to be self-evident, in truth, they use a complex audio/visual "language" which has its own rules (grammar) and which can be used to express many-layered concepts and ideas about the world. Not everything may be obvious at first; and images go by so fast! If our children are to be able to navigate their lives through this multi-media culture, they need to be fluent in "reading" and "writing" the language of images and sounds just as we also teach them to "read" and "write" the language of printed communications.
In the last 40 years, the field of media literacy education has emerged to organize and promote the importance of teaching this expanded notion of "literacy." At its core are the basic higher-order critical thinking skills of any well-educated person - knowing how to identify key concepts, how to make connections between multiple ideas, how to ask pertinent questions, formulate a response, identify fallacies and so on.
It also expands the concept of "text" to include not just written texts but any message form — verbal, aural or visual - (or all three together!) - that is used to pass ideas between human beings.
And full understanding of such a "text" involves not just "deconstruction" (analysis) activities but also "construction" (production) activities using a range of
A CML Reflection Resource
Since the beginning of recorded history, the concept of "literacy" meant having the skill to interpret "squiggles" on a piece of paper as letters which, when put together, formed words that conveyed meaning. Teaching the young to put the words together to understand (and, in turn, express) ever more complex ideas became the goal of education as it evolved over the centuries.
Today information about the world around us comes to us not only by words printed on a piece of paper but more and more through the powerful images and sounds of our multi-media culture. Although mediated messages seem to be self-evident, in truth, they use a complex audio/visual "language" which has its own rules (grammar) and which can be used to express many-layered concepts and ideas about the world. Not everything may be obvious at first; and images go by so fast! If our children are to be able to navigate their lives through this multi-media culture, they need to be fluent in "reading" and "writing" the language of images and sounds just as we also teach them to "read" and "write" the language of printed communications.
In the last 40 years, the field of media literacy education has emerged to organize and promote the importance of teaching this expanded notion of "literacy." At its core are the basic higher-order critical thinking skills of any well-educated person - knowing how to identify key concepts, how to make connections between multiple ideas, how to ask pertinent questions, formulate a response, identify fallacies and so on.
It also expands the concept of "text" to include not just written texts but any message form — verbal, aural or visual - (or all three together!) - that is used to pass ideas between human beings.
And full understanding of such a "text" involves not just "deconstruction" (analysis) activities but also "construction" (production) activities using a range of