"Flipping the Script"

Our New Literacies chapters in Alvermann et. al. (2006) got me thinking back to Myers (1996)and that painfully slow transition we're still trying to make between decoding/analytic literacy to transactional/critical literacy. Wilder and Dressman (Chapter 11) illustrate the important point that merely adding technology to classrooms doesn't (and hasn't) led us to major reform in teaching and learning. Instead of a revolution, we've just assimilated digital technologies into the "existing logic and design of educational programs" (p. 210). We (teachers) unwittingly continue to reproduce cultural and social inequities. Stevens (Chapter 15) points out how policy makers, too, are working from an outdated model of what it means to be literate:

"...policies that are drawing on traditionally school-sanctioned literacies and their accompanying measure may in fact be preparing students better for the 1950s (days of blackboards and chalk talk) than for the life pathways they are likely to encounter in a digitally mediated word (citing Gee, 2002) (p. 302).

So how do we interrupt the cycle of reproduction? What production might we do that will allow us to capitalize on the promise of New Literacies?

Angie's blog highlighted the powerful possibilities for policy that empowers educators at the local level to conduct inquiry based on local issues. I love this idea, too. Meaningful change won't happen via any "reforms that essentially by-pass the potential for teachers to become powerful contributors to positive change rather than ignored, regimented, or vilified as the source and essence of the problem" (p. 258). Nor (I'd add) will reforms be successful that by-pass students potential to become powerful contribuotors.

What does it look like in classrooms where empowered teachers have made the shift to transactional/critical literacy via technology? This morning, I explored a project online called Just Think, a non-profit group that supports media-literacy education based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. This project frames literacy education within the context of students' need to critically evaluate the deluge of media in their lives. I got completely absorbed by the student-produced videos on a range of topics for critical conversation and production, including:

* "Flipping the Script" by exploring media around hip hop culture and music (this is a nice tie to our Tatum book, lots of resources here)

* finding Hidden Heroes in your own community (including comparing the characters you see on TV to those in your own life) (see Hunters Point Heroes)

* examining media messages related to body image, violence, nutrition, etc. (see Get Naked)

* deconstructing media messages surrounding race and violence

I was fascinated by the videos students produced in order to tell their own stories in ways that reflect critical understanding of who they are and what they hope to stand up for in this multimedia world. Not that you'd want to buy this curriculum in a package, but it's an inspiring model that invites students to write their own text through video production. Note that the production element of this requires a certain level of teacher knowledge about video production, placing this is a sort of "media literacy" category. This implies that teachers of literacy, if they are going to break away from the decoding/analytic model, need to have a must stronger grasp of how to use new technologies AND how these technologies might be used to purposefully interrupt traditional school-based literacy norms. Not just assimilating, but staging a revolution. I'm all for Flipping the Script.