EDUC 6809 - Weekly Reading #5

This week my class read:

Reading by design: Two case studies of digital reading practices.

I choose several quotes that I thought intertwined together to tell a larger story - that of Peter's brilliance!

"What Peter loves most.... are the layers in the plot." 

"Peter proceeds to discuss the nuances of each character at length"
"When Peter reads..., it is the mystical and otherworldly quality that speaks to him."
"He demonstrated a deep understanding of characterization and sense of story"
(Rowsell & Burke, 2009)

I purposely left out any reference to what Peter was referring to..... Re-reading this, I could insert any number of literature masterpieces highly valued in language arts classes.  If Peter was talking about Shakespeare, he would be considered a star student. Being flexible with the texts used to teach certain concepts could help student's understanding.

I try to do this with my adult students whenever possible and I think this helps my students "get it". For example, I use commercials and popular country songs to teach my students figurative language. The Geico "Happy as" (I know it's Happier Than - but I just change it for them :) and Allstate Mayhem commercials are a great way to teach the difference between a metaphor and a simile (it really makes them go "ohhh....").  As far as the songs go - be careful about that one! My students love to point out the figurative language in those but its usually not appropriate! I then go into a Poetry unit and we see if we can identify the figurative language and meaning within a written text. I think starting students in a mode they are interested/familiar with helps them understand the concept so then they can apply it to an academic based reading.

1. What did you learn about how reading of digital texts differs from the reading of print texts?

 Reading digital text requires juggling multiple modes of information which can include design elements, symbol representations, spatial relationships, audio, video and still images (photographs, graphs, drawing etc.) and text to understand meaning. This is what is referred to as multimodal and the author of this paper has a great description:

 "by multimodal, we mean the use of different modes of communication to create an effect, the point being that each mode offers certain potential meanings that another might not offer."

Reading of print text relies on only one mode (written text) to understand meaning.

2. Do agree the the reading of digital texts are complex?

 Yes. There is a lot of complexity involved in decoding meaning from multiple modes. The ability to design the way the modes interact with each other is a powerful way to explain subtle complexities. Here's an example of a digital text that is pretty complex:

3. Do you think that reading digital texts has value for reading in school?

 Yes - absolutely! Digital texts by design are more capable of conveying complexities and subtleties in thought. I think they belong in schools and should be used to help students decode meaning from text.

4. How might a teacher connect Peter's online reading skills with academic reading? How might this improve Peter's academic reading?

A teacher could introduce characterization by allowing Peter to create character studies of Naruto. That teacher could have him re-write a scene from an academic-reading (like Shakespeare) using the Naruto characters in place of the similar character archetypes in the other reading.

References:

Rowsell, J., & Burke, A. (2009). Reading by design: Two case studies of digital reading practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 53(2), 106-118. doi: 10.1598