WHY HAVEN’T THESE ARTICLES BEEN MADE INTO A VIDEO GAME? Maybe then I would enjoy reading them!

Prensky, P. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

Prensky, P. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part II. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Digital literacies: Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(7), 535-537.

O'Brien, D., & Scharber, C. (2008). Digital literacies go to school: Potholes and possibilities. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 66-68.

Gough, P. B. (1995). The new literacy: caveat emptor. Journal of research in Reading, 18(2), 79-86.

"Did you see the way she was looking at me?"

"She's a Nazi, George, a Nazi!"

"I know, I know. Kind of a cute Nazi, though."

- George and Jerry, in "The Limo"

George may have thought the neo-Nazi was cute but Jerry was right, she was still a Nazi.

I think I agree with Gough from last week’s reading more now after reading about digital literacy. Gough seems to have the same sentiments towards literacy that Jerry does towards George’s attraction to the Nazi. Gough would argue that digital, visual, interpretive dance, it doesn’t matter, kids need to be able to read and write, PERIOD! Similarly Jerry doesn’t care how good looking the woman is, she is still a Nazi, PERIOD!

After reading the two articles on digital literacy (Digital literacies and Digital literacies go to school) followed by the Prensky articles I realized that there may be a fundamental error with the objectives that seems to be emphasized in all this literacy teaching stuff.

The problem is that as we attempt to teach kids to read all the different types of “texts” that are out there we are diminishing their ability to adapt and learn on their own. No one ever taught me how to read a webpage, a newspaper, a calendar, a cookbook. I was taught how to read books. I’m pretty sure I figured out the rest on my own. This is important in my opinion because we need to make the children of tomorrow more self-reliant and less dependent on others to get what they need (This is not a welfare government politics argument by the way).

There are more “texts” out there than a teacher could ever hope to expose their students to in a lifetime. Rather by focusing on making sure children are experts at the basics, reading and writing, they can and will figure out how to read all the other “texts” out there.

I mean if we as teachers give everything to the student we will never get them to figure out anything for themselves. It would also be a crime for their parents to sit down and teach them how to read a website or a newspaper or the town hall minutes.

I do see the need to use authentic texts in the classroom as were described in the articles and I do this is a good idea. But it also seems like a no brainer to me. Authenticity makes for meaningful learning.

Now it’s time for me to destroy the Prensky articles.

Prensky, I think you may have a good point, but for the class of 2013 you have no relevancy, even for someone like me who was supposed to be in the class of 2009!

I hate to break it to ya’ dude but the majority of people taking classes in the COE at UGA are digital natives.

That’s a big LOL ROFL!!!!! ;-P

Maybe this article is better for the teachers of the baby boomer generation who are about to retire. It would be relevant if the natives were not the students but the teachers and the immigrants were low SES students who have no access to technology.

Once again I revert back to Gough’s thoughts on literacy (notice the lowercase L), those being that the most important and ultimately the most crucial, fundamental backbone of all these articles and this class and this whole content area in itself is reading and writing. So I say that instead of adapting lesson into video games so students will actually pay attention to them, get the students to relearn how to enjoy a regular book or print article. I mean we have learned that brains can adapt right? So can’t they adapt back from their digital world to the print one?

If ferrets can do it so can kids!

 Check out my other blog at:
http://pihathepolymath.blogspot.com/



My name is Saul Tigh. I'm an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be.

Gough, P. B. (1995). The new literacy: caveat emptor. Journal of research in Reading, 18(2), 79-86.

"You know, sometimes I think you got ice water in those veins and other times I think you're just a naive little schoolteacher. I've sent men on suicide missions in two different wars now and let me tell you something. It don't make a gods damn bit of difference whether they're riding in a Viper or walking out onto a parade ground. In the end, they're just as dead. So take your piety and your moralizing and your high minded principles and stick 'em someplace safe until you're off this rock and sitting in your nice comfy chair on Colonial One again." -Colonel Saul Tigh

This quote seems to fit right in with Gough's reading (well that's kind of a stretch, it actually is just a quote that exemplifies my feelings towards literacy research). He seems to do two things, the first of which I really appreciate, the second I just don't agree with. First he attempts to define literacy, which I like because none of the other scholars have tried to do. They either do not define literacy because they are afraid of pinning it down and therefore causing it to be a narrow field of study, or they do not define it because they simply do not have a good definition of what literacy is. There are other reason they may choose not to define it (maybe they assume it is something every preservice teacher should already understand and therefore they simply need to prove why it is so important to their audience) but the reason is not too important because they still do not offer a definition. Secondly Gough tries to define literacy by arguing what it is not. He argues that it is not social or political and even relative.

Why can't anyone just tell me what literacy is?

My first idea is that the whole mystery behind the definition of literacy is a big plot by the literacy academic community. Maybe they just want the preservice teacher to discover what literacy means to them in a kind of a-ha moment where you discover the definition and realize you just exemplified reader response at the same time. Yeah the higher ups in the literacy world would make you learn twice you to learn twice, the ultimate gotcha!

I don't think that I have formed a definition of literacy but I do think that I understand it better after these readings. I am going to compare what literacy is to a common saying. The saying is: There is a difference between hearing and listening. Reading is just hearing, but literacy is listening.

For me you have to be able to hear in order to listen, but you don't always have to listen while you are hearing. Reading is equated with hearing (Reading can also be viewing) and listening is equated with literacy. Sometimes you just want to watch TV or read a book without going deep into its meaning. Other times you either want to (or are required to) look beyond the surface of a book or movie and therefore need to utilizee literacy skills.

Therefore literacy involves looking beyond the words on the page and questioning the material and looking to understand it for more than just the words on the page (or lyrics or visual images).

In the end though  a theoretical definition of literacy is actually unimportant to me. Why? Well because it is irrelevant what it is because no matter what the definition is I think there is an overwhelming opinion that literacy is a good thing when you simply equate it to a person being able to hear and listen. Gough states that politicians no matter which side of the isle they stand on want children to be literate (Gough, 1995). And India sure seems to be making improvements to their poverty problems through literacy programs. So I think this is a pretty astute assumption

Honestly I think that since a great majority of people would agree that literacy is a good thing then the academic scholars can stop telling me how important it is and just teach me how to implement it.
 Colonel Tigh would probably agree with me, mainly because he is a hard ass who would probably just throw everyone out the airlock.

First Post Ever!!!!!!!!

To read or not to read, that is the question!

So I'm reading all the assigned readings for this week and all these thoughts about reading and content area literacy are flying through my head. So this post is going to be a reflection on some of the most important ideas that stuck with me after reading the readings for this week.

Warning: There were enough ideas flying through my mind while reading these articles that may cause the following reflections to appear as ramblings, streams of conciousness, or even incoherent blabberings. Please try to see through the chaos.

The first thing that hit me was that I was reading about some researchers who discovered that preservice teachers did not really enjoy blogging or feel as though they gained anything from it when it was implemented as an instructional strategy in their 'literacy class.' Honestly this was probably not the best thing for me to read because it got very close to making my mind completely shut down causing me to go into "go to school and not get anything out of it" mode. Once I averted that conundrum I moved into uber critical mode. This is where I criticize everything that is being written and come down hard on it with an iron fist (or "mindfist" since I am writing). So basically what I got from the first reading about college students blogging for class was this: A bunch of researchers really like the idea of using blogs in preservice teaching classes, but the response to blogging by the preservice teachers was very negative, yet none the less, the researchers did not want to give up on their idea so regardless of the results of their study they still want to push blogging. Personally I think that is pretty dumb. (I can say that because this is a blog right?)

The question that kept popping up in my head as I read these different articles was What do we want our students to get out of all this literacy when it is all said and done? Honestly this is the big question. We can take this one step further and ask ourselves as educators what do we want our students to be when we they finally break free from compulsory eduction? Well, I don't think blogger has enough space to delve into that second questionm, so I'll just try to answer the first one. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is exactly that the esteemed authors of the various articles we had to read for this week really want students to be able to do when they graduate (grade level that is). From the literature/english teacher perspective it would seem that they would want the student to be able to read at grade level and be able to critically evaluate a reading. To this I say so what! I am not saying that that we sholdn't be fostering critical thinking and appropriate reading levels, but lets be real here for a second. No one is going to be able to get by in life with a resume that says: reads on grade level and can critically analyze the classics. A more appropriate goal is for students to be able to survive when they graduate. Critically thinking, analyzing texts, and reading comprehension are parts of surviving in today's society but they are not the only tools one needs to make it.

Why do I break it all down to surviving? Well at the heart of all humans is a will to survive, and that is really all we are doing in this life. The society, culture, and all the other fluff that fills our days is nothing more that time fillers because we as humans have become so good at surviving.

It seems as though I have strayed away from the topic, and you ask how can he bring it back? Well here I go: literacy is a survival tool in today's society (at least our nice American one).

I don't know all the answers to life, but I do know that if you are illeterate in the society that I live in you will have no chance of survival. The reason for this is because of the internet. The World Wide Web changed humanity (first world at least) and made it necessary to be literate. Everything peice of information a person could ever want (or need) is on the internet. But if you are illiterate you cannot reap the benefits of all the internet than you are really missing out. Because of my literacy I have been able to self diagnose running injuries through reading medical journals on the internet and learn how to fix my toilet. Although these are two of the minor accomplishements I have made via the internet and my literacy I think they demonstrate the vastness that is the internet. And don't try to act like the internet isn't everything, because I have and it doesn't work.

Ok so now I'm going to tie all my ramblings together. Blogging = not a big deal, literacy = pretty important, survival = everything, survival in our society = literacy (among other things).

Why did I go about writing my first blog this way? Well maily to do two things: the first to show that a blog is an informal way of exchanging opinions and thoughts, or at least that is what I got from the readings. Secondly, it is to show that I feel that although literacy is important I do not think that it is the most important thing in education now. But who knows, maybe my opinion will change by the end of the semester.