"Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading?"

After reading Motoko Rich's article, I have several conflicting opinions; bear with me.

First of all, I'd like to answer the questions:

1. What counts as literacy?
1. I believe that any information that can be read should be considered literacy.
2. I also believe that literacy could be defined as being competent and confident in a particular discipline (i.e. computer literate).
2. How does literacy change in response to the new media landscape?
1. I think that literacy is and should be constantly changing.  As an educator, I believe that anyone or anything that stays stagnant or unmoving becomes obsolete.    The article by Rich proves that point.  Literacy today is not what it was twenty years ago, 6 months ago, or yesterday.  It's ever-changing, and because of that fact, the level of our students' literacy is also changing.
3. What value should we ascribe to the new forms of communication that continue to emerge and evolve online?
1. I think that we should ascribe high value to the new forms of communication that are emerging online; these are the resources that our students are reading.  As Rich says in his article, "it is unrealistic to expect all children to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'...for fun."  Instead, kids today are reading the material that they see on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and fanfiction,net.  I'm not saying that the material that is found on these sites is as credible or as well-written as some of the timeless classics that great novelists have created, but if this is what our kids are reading, we need to find an effective way to use it.

It's mentioned in the article that some teenagers are spending an average of six hours a day in front of a computer.  This further proves that this new technology is only gaining credibility in the eyes of our students. I like the idea that, on a computer, students are constantly engaged with text. We just need to make that text something worthwhile.  I disagree that working online doesn't provide intellectual or personal development; this M.Ed. program is proof that the previous statement is false.  It all depends on what the kids are doing online.

I really like this quote from the article: "Reading opens doors to places you'll never get to visit in your lifetime" (Rich 2008).

My approach to literacy

"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9). 

• Please discuss what you do with various texts, how you make sense of them and how you use them to further your own learning.

First of all, it all depends on what kind of text I am reading.  Like Courtney said, I have different methods for different types of text.  For example, if I'm reading a text book for class and responding, I'll take notes in my notebook with either a bulleted list or an outline.

If I'm responding to blog post from one of my classmates, I use a much shorter process: I simply read the post and internalize their main points.  Once I have done that I can usually form an opinion about what he or she has said in the post. 

If I'm reading a novel that I'm going to have my juniors pick apart, I will read and highlight thought provoking sections.  I am notorious for filling the margins of my texts with discussion questions and connections to other mediums of media (I'm a hardcore relational educator). 

If I can, I always try to connect with whatever text I read personally.  It has a much longer lasting effect on me that way and is easier to retain.  

As for the quote by Gillen and Barton, I think it's important to note that everyone experiences text differently (Louise Rosenblatt would concur).  It only seems fair that everyone would respond differently as well.