Clash!: superheroic yet sensible strategies for teaching the new literacies despite the status quo

313 Pages·2011·152.719 MB·Language literacy and learning

by  Vavra, Sandra;Spencer, Sharon L

CLASH!
Superheroic Yet Sensible Strategies
for Teaching the New Literacies
Despite the Status Quo
A volume in
Literacy, Language, and Learning
Series Editor:
Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt, Le Moyne College
Literacy, Language, and Learning
Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt, Editor
Reconceptualizing Literacy in the New Age of
Multiculturalism and Pluralism (2001)
edited by Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt and Peter B. Mosenthal
Reading and Writing Ourselves into Being (2004)
edited by Claire White Putala
Preparing Educators to Communicate and
Connect With Families and Communities (2006)
edited by Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt
ABC’s of Cultural Understanding and Communication:
National and International Adaptations (2006)
edited by Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt and Claudia Finkbeiner
Research and Reflection (2006)
edited by Andrea Izzo
African-American Middle-Income Parents: How Are They Involved in
Their Children's Literacy Development? (2007)
by Ethel Swindell Robinson
Closing the Gap: English Educators Address the Tensions Between Teacher
Preparation and Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools (2007)
edited by Karen Keaton Jackson and Sandra Vavra
Inspiring Student Writers: Strategies and Examples for Teachers (2009)
edited by Tom Scheft
Multicultural Families, Home Literacies, and
Mainstream Schooling (2009)
edited by Guofang Li
The Perfect Norm: How to Teach Differentially, Assess Effectively, and Manage a
Classroom Ethically in Ways That Are (2009)
edited by Sharon L. Spencer and Sandra A. Vavra
CLASH! Superheroic Yet Sensible Strategies for Teaching the New Literacies
Despite the Status Quo (2011)
edited by Sandra A. Vavra and Sharon L. Spencer
CLASH!
Superheroic Yet Sensible Strategies
for Teaching the New Literacies
Despite the Status Quo
edited by
Sandra A. Vavra and Sharon L. Spencer
North Carolina Central University
Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Charlotte, North Carolina (cid:129) www.infoagepub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clash! Superheroic yet sensible strategies for teaching the new literacies
despite the status quo / [edited by] Sandra Vavra, Sharon L. Spencer.
p. cm. -- (Literacy, language, and learning)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-61735-518-9 (hc) -- ISBN 978-1-61735-517-2 (pbk.) --
ISBN 978-1-61735-519-6 (ebook)
1. Educational technology--Study and teaching (Secondary) 2. Educational
technology--Study and teaching (Higher) 3. Education--Effect of
technological innovations on. I. Vavra, Sandra. II. Spencer, Sharon L. III.
Title: Superheroic yet sensible strategies for teaching the new literacies
despite the status quo.
LB1028.3.C6 2011
371.33--dc23
2011025345
Graphic Illustrations by Jess Vavra
Copyright © 2011 IAP–Information Age Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or by
photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from
the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To Bill, whose guidance taught me how to bloom wherever I’m planted.
—Sandy
To Spencer and Emma, my teens, who brought me kicking and screaming into the
21st century. And to Charlie, my husband, who resists new media at all costs, but
can build an electric guitar or an amp with great ease.
—Sharon

CONTENTS
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
PART I: BATMAN BEGINS, SIMPLY
1. The Cold, Hard Cash of Truth About Literacy in
the Twenty-First Century
Sandra A. Vavra and Sharon L. Spencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. “And Now … A Word From Our Students”:
Creating Better Writers and Thinkers by
Having Students Study, Write and Film TV Commercials
Tom Scheft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3. Superheroic Resourcefulness: Expanding Literacy and
Engagement Through YouTube
Sarah Wynn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
PART II: THE FORCE IS
WITH RELUCTANT NEW MEDIA ADOPTERS
4. Popular Culture as a Sponsor of Literacy:
Confronting the CLASH! BOOM! POW!
in the Basic Writing Classroom
Tabetha Adkins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5. Making Messes and Meaning With Wikis and Blogs
Collie Fulford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6. “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?” Teaching
“Writerly” Confidence, Media Literacy, and Historical,
Civic, and Cultural Awareness With This I Believe
Rachelle S. Gold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
vii
viii CONTENTS
PART III: BRINGING AN X-MENTALITY TO
THE EVERYDAY CLASSROOM
7. Teaching Poetry in a Freestyle World:
A Pedagogy for the Unimpressed
Lisa A. Carl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8. Capitalizing on Digital Literacy: Visual Rhetoric,
the Graphic Novel, and Academic Identity
Sara Littlejohn and Hephzibah Roskelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9. Unraveling the Riddler: New Media, Technology, and
Literacies in Exploring Heroes and Superheroes
Sarah M. Henchey and Sharon L. Spencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10. Changing the World, One Zip Code at a Time
Stefanie Ann Frigo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11. New Media as Instructional Supports in
Inclusive Classrooms
Doris K. Tyler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
PART IV: FROM INDIANA JONES TO BUZZ LIGHTYEAR:
MOVING LITERACY FROM THE TEMPLE OF MEMORY TO
INFINITY AND BEYOND
12. Taking Risks and (Re)defining Expertise:
Facilitating the Move From Consumption to
Production in the Use of Digital Media
Colleen Reilly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
13. Composing Digitally and Learning Languages:
Using Linguistic Models of Competency to
Teach Multimedia Assignments
Mark Pepper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
14. Remembering: The Past and the Future
George Pullman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
15. Grappling with the Infonauts: Archival Literacy and
the Fight for Memory
Tom Sura . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
PREFACE
FOREWORD
Chris M. Anson
In the early 1990s, artificial intelligence wizard Seymour Papert (as cited
in Negroponte, pp. 219-220) asked us to consider what would happen if
we could time-warp a couple of mid-nineteenth century professionals—a
surgeon and a teacher—into present-day working environments. Beamed
into a modern operating theater, the surgeon would be completely bewil-
dered, surrounded by highly sophisticated technology and unable to do
anything. The teacher, on the other hand, glancing around at a contem-
porary classroom, would feel quite at home. Today, “smart rooms,” digital
labs, and online spaces are replacing lecture halls and conventional class-
rooms, but at a snail’s pace. At most colleges and universities, and in most
high schools, the old-fashioned classroom is still the norm, desks neatly
lined up facing the front, where a lectern and a chalkboard or whiteboard
still symbolize the dominant teaching mode: an expert who “tells knowl-
edge” to rows of passive learners.
The anachronism of this delivery system, manifested in the inherited
spaces for education, becomes clearer in light of the revolution in how
students learn outside the classroom. Information comes to them in the
form of cable documentaries and news shows, Tweets and cell phone-
mediated apps, Internet-enabled game consoles, GPS systems, and a daz-
zling array of material delivered on computer tablets, laptops, and desk-
tops, including still images, text, real and animated video, voice, music,
and digital sound. Good old print literacy is still out there, of course, in
ix