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Online Reading Comprehension: Digital or New Literacy(ies)?

LABELING AND DEFINING LITERACY IN 2019
Like so much in the world of education, there are many terms for overlapping concepts. Digital literacy vs. digital literacies vs. new literacies vs. online reading comprehension vs. digital inquiry is just such a situation. To my mind, all speak to the skills, dispositions, and behaviors needed for full engagement in the 21st century. So why all the labels?

On the one hand, many terms for the same concept has a balkanizing effect: efforts become fragmented and progress might stall in the face of ongoing parallel initiatives. I see this also as I get exposed to new networks of people working within parallel and sometimes intersecting professional communities. The connected learning network vs. the digital pedagogy network vs. the media literacy network vs. the digital literacy network vs. even to a smaller but certain degree the OER network and the digital humanities network. There are certainly differences in goals, styles, and membership, but ultimately these networks operate under several shared overarching themes and have complementary visions for what is necessary for full participation in today’s ecosystem. If we are all working towards a similar goal, then a strengths-in-numbers approach to uniting these communities would certainly seem to be beneficial.

And when you’re working in K-12 education, with educators who suffer through one new! innovative! initiative after another, that lack of a coherent vocabulary can really cause fatigue. And cynicism. If one person one year is shouting about new literacies and the next year we’re talking all about online reading comprehension, it can feel like different initiatives, and thus unfocused vacillating.

But of course we know it’s not, that all these terms get us to a similar place. So let’s unite behind one! But which?

Actually, I wonder if there’s some benefit to maintaining these separate labels, because they provide multiple entry points to an ultimately wider range of people. Are you a reading specialist? Then you might be interested in talking about online reading comprehension. Or maybe you are excited about problem or project based learning? Then digital inquiry is a good fit for you! Or maybe you like to prepare young people for *the future.* Then let’s talk new literacies. Or if you’re a “techie” then digital literacy might be your cup of tea. These are simplified examples, but my point is: perhaps the benefit of these multiple labels is that one is bound to resonate with someone. And if our goal is the same, then what does it matter what path we take to get there?

As for my preference: I am team “digital literacy.” I have long been inspired by an empowering definition of literacy, one that Paulo Freire calls us to when he writes of “reading the world.” As Snow et al articulate (2002), the end point, “proficient adult reading...represents a prerequisite to many forms of employment, to informed participation in the democratic process, to optimal participation in the education of one’s children, and to gaining access to cultural capital” (p. 9). Literacy is power and is a gateway to the world. And while I understand why plural “literacies” perhaps more accurately captures the multidimensionality and multipurpose nature of literacy itself, I find “literacy” itself to be expansive enough.

And as for why “digital” and not “new,” I’m not so sure. Perhaps it’s because attending the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy felt like a “finding my people” moment, and so my entry point was through “the digital.” But perhaps I attended in the first place because I was drawn to that word digital, because I do believe literacy in a digital era to be inherently different. The non-linear nature of digital “texts” (Coiro, 2003) and the “self-directed text construction (Coiro & Dobler, 2007) that occurs as readers navigate their own paths through an infinite informational space to construct their own versions of the online texts they read” (Castek et al, p.325) is exciting -- and incredibly demanding. A digital ecosystem is just different, and I feel the need to center that difference when I think about literacy today.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING 
I come to this work first from a devotion -- an obsession, even -- with pop culture. I was that person growing up who would engage in a serious conversation about the historical and cultural implications of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. In fact, the very first lesson plan I put together during my student teaching experience engaged 12th graders who had been reading the Canterbury Tales in comparing the themes and message of the Wife of Bath’s Tale with Beyonce’s Upgrade U music video. I have always understood contemporary media artifacts -- and the time and skill it takes to unpack them -- to be as worthy of consideration and critique as anything found in “the canon.” Because popular culture is closest to us. And, to my mind, what’s the point of gaining critical thinking skills if we are unpracticed in applying those skills to our everyday, lived life?

So I absolutely believe that digital reading and literacy strategies, practices, and mindsets are just as important for today’s students as offline reading and literacy strategies, practices, and mindsets. I hesitate to say more important though, because we don’t know. I also think, if part of our goal is to attract newcomers to this field, then we should avoid making bold claims of what is more or less important for young people to be learning. I think this has been a problem of the edtech community for years: bold claims of transforming education and eliminating achievement gaps. This has clearly not been true, and sets expectations both too high and on the wrong thing.

Duke and Pearson (2002) make clear how important it is to model different comprehension strategies, and the Internet Reciprocal Teaching model outlined by Castek et al illustrate how this modeling can look in the Internet-connected classroom. I walk away from the first six weeks of the course more clear than ever that we must s l o w down in our classrooms. We can’t assume that students will know how to juggle so many information sources and types of media. We have to be explicit in articulating how we ourselves make sense of this ecosystem we all operate within, and help students develop purposeful, self-reflective digital literacy practices. The need for purpose and self-reflection may not be “new” in the digital world, but it certainly is important, in new and exciting -- and challenging -- ways.


SOURCES
Castek, J., Coiro, J., Henry, L. A., Leu, D. J., & Hartman, D. K. (2015). Research on instruction and assessment in the new literacies of online research and comprehension. Comprehension Instruction: Research-Based Best Practices, Third Edition. The Guilford Press.

Coiro, J. (2003). Reading comprehension on the Internet: Expanding our understanding of reading comprehension to encompass new literacies. The Reading Teacher, 56(5), 458-464.

Duke, N. K. & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction, Third Edition. International Reading Association. 

Snow, C. (2002). Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension. RAND Reading Study Group, Office of Education Research and Improvement.


Written as part of URI's EDC 532 Seminar in Digital Literacy

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