I keep getting all the readings mixed up so forgive me if this and Fosen's readings cross over. I always intend to blog sooner, but I get overwhelmed with my notes that by the time it comes to blogging, I have no idea what to say and I feel like the blogs I give need to be "correct" but I have no idea what "correct" is because I need to discuss the readings before I can write about them, if that makes any sense at all? I feel like reading and blogging then discussing feels completely backwards to me because I have all these thoughts, but putting them in a blog that is posted for all the class to see makes me feel dumb because I know I probably didn't read the readings right or got a whole different idea from them. Anyway, my current distaste for blogging is purely my own insecurities. I am not sure how last semester I felt I had a really great grasp, but this semester, I feel like I am just not getting the material...I feel like I am purely regurgitating information but not actually utilizing it, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, aside from my random side note, this last weeks readings. The London Group was a dense one for me last semester and I feel like trying to sum it up briefly will not do it justice, but I feel like I have to because it hits education right on the nose. The 10 authors are trying to solve an almost unsolvable problem, but they do really have something with their concept of Multiculturalism where they are trying to optimize education with an understanding of the complex realities of schools and education as a whole. Here at Chico State we talk a lot about multiliteracy which is, “...the multiplicity of communications channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity” (63).In other words, how can we do all the things? And that is where there are so many issues. How DO we do all the things using all the things for all the people. It is a heavy concept knowing what it is we are trying to achieve and yet knowing all the things we need to achieve it. All things are possible, right?
“A pedagogy of multiliteracies...focuses on the modes of representation much broader than language alone” (64). This is actually covered in the reading we are doing for Fosen's class, "Made Not Only in Words" and "The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric". The idea that literacy is more than just words on a page. It is a film, it is a photo, it is a thing that is not just a thing, but a form of literacy, so why do some insist that only pen on paper is considered literacy? Any how can we fix that? Good luck with that answer!
Which then brings us to New Literacy Studies “...the concept of a “continuum” is inadequate because spoken and written activities and products do not in fact line up along a continuum but differ from one another in a complex, multidimensional way both within speech communities and across them” (431).
Take a breath and reread that. I had to. But then when you get it, you nod and go, well, "duh!" But yet, at the same time we end up falling back on what we know, are comfortable with and what we were taught. Or then again, we want to break free of that "continuum" and see the reality of literacy, like in the readings I did in Fosen's class. (Again, all of this has become a big blur, so I hope I am getting it all right). Which, brings us to this, “Literacy can no longer be addressed as a neutral technology (autonomous model)... but is already a social and ideological practice involving fundamental aspects of epistemology, power, and politics: the acquisition of literacy involves challenges to dominant discourse, shifts in what constitutes the agenda of proper literacy, and struggles for power and position” (435).
Which we can go back to our last weeks reading and before hand about the "power" of literacy, etc. The idea that literacy has power, but how are we finding ways to use it. Like in Jim Ridolfo's documentary about free trade. Was his statement via still camera not more impacting than had he written an article? Multiliteracies create a big impact overall for literacy in general. As we have seen in our readings, given the opportunity to use the tools, we should. Literacy is more than just pen and paper...it is all the things
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