A changed direction of thought

As a stubborn schoolgirl, graduating in 2012, my thoughts on literacy were always quite basic. My personal opinion of literacy was simply how we read and write, a vital and fundamental tool to learn to prepare for your adult life and the big wide world. However, on embarking on my journey to studying literacy at University, I have already been opened up to a wider, more open minded way of thinking and defining literacy within the classroom context and everyday life in the 21st century.

It has come to my attention after experiencing the first lecture, that literacy is a much broader concept than I had originally thought. It is not only a single body of knowledge, but rather a varied set of social practices, advanced by the growing digital media of 2013. However, much to my surprise it’s clear that literacy can be seen all around us in everyday life, through multimedia, visual, auditory, oral, linguistic, spacial, gestural and tactile means, (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012).

(http://faculty.uoit.ca/hughes/Contexts/MultipleLiteracies.html)

So, as I sit here posting about my changed opinion of literacy, I become suddenly aware of all the different literacies I am experiencing presently. In the everyday life of Claudia Vince, there is a constant multitasking of work and life, whilst at the same time, almost always keeping in touch with people via text and Facebook and checking or posting in other social networking sights such as Instagram and Tumblr. Despite the fact that being born a female, it is almost destined that I succeed in the art of multitasking, it astounds me to realize that I am unconsciously using many different forms of literacy within my day to day activities.

"We read the world through images, symbols, colours, signs, body language and in the gaps and margins as well as through printed text." (Hughes, 2007)

The question is however, what does it truly mean to use these literacies in 2013?
Well readers, say goodbye to the old fashioned classroom practices of just plain reading and writing, this technologically advanced era is filled with the use of multimedia literacices. So that leaves us with a perplexing question, is being ‘illiterate’ a thing of the past? 

References: 

Hughes, J. (2007). Multiple literacies. Retrieved from Teaching language and literacy, K-6: Retrieved from: http://faculty.uoit.ca/hughes/Contexts/MultipleLiteracies.html

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. Melbourne: 

Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1: Literacies on a human 

scale pp.21-40.

Mutlimodal literacies [image] Retrieved from: http://faculty.uoit.ca/hughes/Contexts/MultipleLiteracies.html