English 110, Technology and 21st Century Literacy

Reading Guide for "A New Communication Order" by Ilana Snyder.

This article is long and academic, but it addresses exactly what I am asking you to do this unit: "research literacy practices in the network society." I hope that this guide to reading the essay will help you find and make sense of the relevant information, and I further hope that by teaching the essay to each other, you will really make sense of the material.

For this essay, I am going to make two groups responsible for the same parts of the essay. The first two groups listed below will be responsible for answering the questions concerning pages 117-122, and then presenting their answers to the other half of the class. The second set of groups listed will be responsible for answering the second set of questions, and then presenting their answers to the other half of the class. You are welcome to post your answers to the class blog, but because we will not be in a computer classroom on Monday, you will be orally presenting your answers.

Page 117 - 122

(Paul, Derrik, Teresa, Chad, David) + (Matt, Garrett, Brent, John)

In the introduction, describe how Synder is using other people's ideas, and how she positioning herself in relation to other people's ideas.

What is Snyder's thesis? Identify one or two sentences that you think might be her thesis statement.

How does she define the New Communication Order? What are the features of the NCO?

Tip: logocentric (page 119) literally means "word-centered" and also implies an emphasis on "reason" or "rational thinking."

What does Snyder mean by "multimodality"? How would you compare "multimodality" to Melvin Levinson's vision of "new literacy"?

Snyder says "The implications [of multimodality] for language education is that teachers should be attending to the whole spectrum of communication practices and communicative competence no longer ignoring the skills involved in relating them to each other" (122). As students, how do you think multimodality should be taught, if at all?

Page 122-128

(Nate, Lydia, Anna, Cliff) + (Cullen, Derek, Drew, Mark)

What does Snyder mean when she says literacy is "an ideological practice" and not neutral, technical skills?

"plethora" on page 123 means "many, many, many".

Snyder is summarizing the research (pages 122-24) that has been done on literacy since the mid 1980s. Don't become overwhelmed by all the sources she refers toÑ just list the trends in research she is identifying.

How is "literacy" defined in the "Digital Rhetorics Project"?

Explain the three dimension to literacy discussed on page 125 by applying these categories to weblogging. For example, does weblogging present operational or cultural barriers for students? Or is operational literacy with weblogging easy to achieve, but critical literacy with weblogging difficult to achieve?

The "site studies" section describes how these researchers studied technology being used by students. Make three suggestions about how everyone in the class might conduct "self-studies" as they work on their stretch assignments.