Intersection #2

Reinking

Colwell

Dear Doug and Paul,

An issue that pertains to the question posed and that both chapters address, although ours less directly, is the issue of technological determinism. Specifically, are the available technological affordances of reading and writing the driving force that shape a literate culture? Or, are those affordances only the raw material molded by more fundamental socio-cultural forces?

Like most such dichotomies (nature/nurture; person making/being made by history), we believe it is a false one.  More often these two influences interact reciprocally.  Yet, and here we agree with what we think Doug and Paul are saying, literacy under almost any set of circumstances is most fundamentally a socio-cultural construction.  Reading and writing and communication, in general, whatever the technologies available, are always aligned with how they serve basic human needs within a particular social context.  We can think of no better example than their description of Seth using new digital tools to study the Christian bible.

That point may be less obvious in our chapter in which we have foregrounded technological developments using a futurist trope, although the socio-cultural dimensions are still present (e.g., commercial interests, socially constructed conventions of academic status).  Clearly, though, technological developments do play a role, sometimes a dominant role, driving broad socio-cultural change.  Both chapters, in their own way, mention the usual historical precedents.

Nonetheless, we think a significant point that both chapters make is that there is something unprecedented about being at the current crossroads.  The technological and the socio-cultural aspects of literacy are feeding off each other in a fusion of energy creating a present that is perceived as only the future erasing the past.  Our intent was to highlight that condition by leapfrogging into an imagined future.

However, there is another unprecedented dimension of being at the current crossroads in literacy.  Never before have historically significant developments in the technology of reading and writing (e.g., the alphabet, paper, the printing press) provided such diverse opportunities to instantiate communication and literacy.  Those earlier technological developments created a bounded field that shaped the literate socio-cultural landscape as much by their constraints as by opening new possibilities.  The crossroads at which we find ourselves is one of unbounded possibility. Digital technologies allow us to create almost any form of textual information and any imagined condition of literacy.  What will we do with that freedom? In our chapter, we try to suggest that democratic values must be at the center of a response.

Best,

Jamie and David

Hartman

Morsink

Dear David and Jamie,

We greatly enjoyed reading your chapter and its clever conceit of looking back on the present from the perspective of the 22nd century. At the same time, we were struck by the fact that, in sketching what it will be like to read–or to “wreadact,” to borrow the term you coined–in the future, you seem to envision a world (a) in which everyone has universal and instant access to information on any and every imaginable topic (or topos, as you explain in your 2nd footnote), and (b) in which everyone is able to transact skillfully with texts to “protect the democratic ideals on which our society rests” (p.3) and for other laudable goals. In other words, you seem to predict a future whose reading culture is characterized by a high level of equity, homogeneity, and consensus. (If this is not what you meant to imply, we expect you will tell us so in your response to this email!)

As you know from reading our chapter, we have a rather different view of what’s happening today and of where the future is likely to take us. Our view is that, for better and for worse, readers have always found themselves crisscrossing a landscape of forking paths, transacting with diverse texts, for diverse purposes, drawing on diverse language skills and funds of knowledge, with diverse mindsets, making use of diverse reading technologies, and so on. As a result, reading has in fact always taken a great many different forms. And now, with the Internet, we have new kinds of texts, and new apps and tools for navigating and experiencing texts fueling an explosive proliferation of new forms.

In light of this massive proliferation of crossroads for readers to navigate, we envision a future in which readers of all ages acquire more and more specialized or “niche” reading skillsets and reading styles, each fitted to a particular reading platform, reading purpose, affinity group, and so on. And again, our view is that this kind of specialization is nothing new. What is new is the massive proliferation of skillsets and styles, and the fact that more and more readers, from a young age, are aware of knowing and using a growing repertoire of skillsets and styles–and aware of the need to acquire new ones.

With regard to whether this massive proliferation will result in a benign diversity or instead some kind of “balkanization” of the reading landscape, we find ourselves leaning more toward the latter scenario. The proliferation of specialized tools and apps for annotating texts, searching them, summarizing them, interacting with others during reading, crowdsourcing insights, efficiently accessing relevant background knowledge, and much, much more has opened up new rift lines among readers. The reality we see emerging (very simply put) is one in which some readers develop a great many “high value” reading skillsets and styles at a young age, while others do not. No homogeneity, no consensus, and many lines of separation and exclusion.

For example, some twelve-year-olds we know are adept at navigating complex interactive infographics, reading and writing the code to create a webpage or to program a toy robot, or searching efficiently for relevant and useful information on a topic of interest, while others are not. And these differences are in addition to the differences we saw among twelve-year-olds fifteen years ago, when some knew much more than others about using a book’s table of contents and index to find relevant information, and some enjoyed reading more than others because (among other things) they had larger vocabularies and did things during reading like visualize and make inferences.

One silver lining we see is that, with the Web, the potential to rapidly and helpfully disseminate tools and instruction for particular high-value reading skillsets has also grown exponentially. Of course, there’s a big difference between simply making a reading-specific web tool freely available and providing some instructional how-to screencasts, and actually apprenticing young readers into the purposeful and flexible use of a new tool for personally meaningful goals. Still, even modest steps in this direction are good steps worth taking, in our view, and we hope to see more movement in this direction in coming years.

Best regards,

Doug Hartman and Paul Morsink

Hartman

Morsink

Dear David and Jamie,

Thank you for your first message. We nodded in agreement as we read what you wrote about the fallacy of technological determinism and the important role of socio-cultural forces.

At the end of your message, you wrote that “the crossroads at which we [now] find ourselves is one of unbounded possibility” where “[d]igital technologies allow us to create almost any form of textual information and any imagined condition of literacy.” Here we first nodded, then paused, and had second thoughts.

The nod was for our shared enthusiasm. The pause and second thoughts were prompted by what we see as the need to be a bit more nuanced and a bit less sanguine, and to acknowledge that, what to some may look like “unbounded possibility,” to others may look like a hurdle, a maelstrom, or a cliff. In short, we’re not sure we can follow you in speaking of a generalized, inclusive “us” or “we” that is currently enjoying–or that will in the future enjoy–a world of “unbounded possibility.”

That said, we’re eager to think with you about this idea of “possibility” and what actually happens, and why, as new ICTs find their way into the world and as diverse readers and writers become aware of them, gain access to them, are introduced to them in school, and so on. What happens in these “contact zones” (to borrow and adapt a term coined by Mary Louise Pratt [1991] to characterize the spaces where two or more cultures intermingle and grapple with each other)? And why don’t more readers and writers appear to benefit in clear-cut ways from the seemingly “unbounded possibilities” of the ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) they use?

Our view is that, when readers and writers begin the process of taking up new literacy technologies, what unfolds is rather different than what happens with the adoption of technology in other domains–such as when a new car technology comes on the market.

With a new car technology (e.g., power brakes), we’re likely to see an impact on users’ subjective experience of driving (e.g., drivers’ improved experience when braking) as well as on basic metrics of mobility and safety (e.g., fewer accidents per vehicle). As well, while most car technologies come with a user manual and have a correct and incorrect way of being operated, some car technologies (e.g., those power brakes) can be used in slightly different ways by more and less expert drivers, or by drivers with distinctive driving styles, with varying results. At the end of the day, though, unless your acquisition of a new car technology coincides in your life with a geographical move to a new home or a new place of work, you and your technologically upgraded vehicle are most likely still driving on the same roads and still commuting the same route to and from your customary daily destinations. The possibilities of the new car technology mostly travel similar, familiar roads (or ruts, as the case may be) on which the older, previous technology was used.

New literacy technologies, on the other hand, can have a much more multifarious, less predictable, and sometimes transformative impact on the usage routes of a user’s literacy practices. To be sure, there are some technologies that appear to do little more than simply transport your meaning from point A to point B a bit faster and with slightly greater ease, as it were. But many literacy technologies in one way or another alter or transform literacy practices, sometimes in fundamental ways. They also change the reading geography you live in, so to speak, and may result in you driving through literacy landscapes you hadn’t traversed before–and maybe didn’t even know existed. (And quite possibly they didn’t previously exist!)

SMS messaging or texting, for instance, is a technology whose literacy “possibilities” are experienced very differently by different sub-groups and sub-cultures of the reading (and writing) population. Think for instance of the uptake of relatively inexpensive texting technology by geographically dispersed farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who now text each other information about crop prices and transportation options for getting their crops to market (The World Bank, 2011). For many farmers, efficient sharing of information and coordination with peers via texting has resulted not just in better-informed decision-making and higher income, but also in forging new economic, political, and social relationships.

Then consider the uptake of texting by teens in countries like Japan and the United States for personal expression and for socializing with peers. For millions of teens, this technology has resulted in an enormous increase in the amount of short-form reading and writing they do daily. As well, these teens have developed and propagated new genres of communication and new idioms (Plester, Wood & Bell, 2008). Teens have new resources with which to express themselves–and new forms of social interaction to express feelings and thoughts about (Zappavigna, 2012). They also face new demands to become adept at translating across dialects (Rosen, Chang, Erwin, Carrier, & Cheever, 2010).

The examples could be multiplied. The basic point we see is this: the impact of literacy technologies (such as texting) is highly differentiated and contingent on a variety of factors. Consequently, every new literacy technology is virtually guaranteed to yield different literacy experiences and “outcomes” for different sub-groups and sub-cultures. Users’ pre-existing literacy practices are obviously a crucial factor. As well, the uptake of each new app or tool is obviously strongly shaped by such things as users’ access to digital devices and to the Internet, access to peer and adult modeling and mentoring, involvement in affinity groups, and so on. “Possibilities” are thus always shaped into very particular enactment usages.

In sum: while we see the appeal of speaking of “unbounded possibilities,” when the rubber hits the road, and the fingertips touch the screen, we see these “possibilities” as being highly constrained and overdetermined, always. Users are drawn to (or have access to) particular literacy tools and tool-uses, and apply these tools in particular ways, based on their prior experience, their currently favored literacy practices, and the intentions or goals that drive their literate activity. They perceive the promise and benefit of particular tools differently.

We see important implications for researchers and educators.

For researchers, educators and others too (authors, curriculum designers, etc.), we think it is therefore not just intellectually prudent but ethically necessary to desist from speaking of the “unbounded possibilities” of literacy technologies. Instead, we think the starting point for conversations about technology integration must always be the literacy experiences of particular readers and writers, or particular communities of readers and writers, in particular contexts. For it is these particular literacy experiences of particular readers and writers today that will–or will not–grow, with technology, and under particular socio-economic conditions, into the particular literacy experiences and literate capacities of tomorrow.

Of course, there is a vast amount we still urgently need to learn on this front. We simply don’t know enough yet, even after one hundred years of scientific literacy research, to explain why people comprehend and compose in the ways they do (using a multitude of text types, in a myriad of situations, toward a legion of goals, with ever-evolving technologies). As well, even as we learn more, we are constantly reminded that literacy is as much about evolving social relations, cultural values, linguistic codes, and technological means as it is about more universal cognitive processes.

What we do know, however, is that “possibilities” are not seen the same way by everyone and are not, in fact, logistically, epistemically, and culturally the same for us as they are for our students, or even for our own children.

Best regards,

Doug Hartman and Paul Morsink

References

Plester, B., Wood, C., & Bell, V. (2008). Txt msg n school literacy: Does texting and knowledge of text abbreviations adversely affect children’s literacy attainment? Literacy, 42(3), 137-144.

Pratt, M. L. (1991). Art of the contact zone. Profession, 91, 33-40.

Rosen, L.D., Chang, J., Erwin, L., Carrier, L.M., & Cheever, N.A. (2010). The relationship between “textisms” and formal and informal writing among young adults. Communication Research, 37(3), 420-440.

The World Bank. (2011). ICT in agriculture: Connecting smallholders to knowledge, networks, and institutions. (Report # 64605) Washington, DC: The World Bank. Retrieved from http://www.ictinagriculture.org/

Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to create affiliation on the web. London: Continuum.

Reinking

Colwell

Dear Doug and Paul,

After reading your responses, we are convinced that our respective views are two sides of the same page (two halves of the same screen?). We are both speculating about what kind of future the present literacy landscape might become. The crossroads metaphor sharpens the point that we are in a position to choose, because of the “unbounded possibilities” that we posited and that you deconstruct in your response. But, we think the bridge between the valid points you make and the future we imagined in our chapter is the question we pose in our response immediately after our statement of unbounded possibilities: “What will we do with that freedom?”

In response to that question, in our chapter we used literary and historical license to drive down a road that arrives at what is in many respects an ideal future. Our approach was utopian, not dystopian, although both approaches in literature are really about the present. The former highlights the possibilities if we make the right choices now—at a crossroads—and the latter about what might happen if we don’t. Our intent was not to purposefully ignore or discount the challenging issues you raise, but to imagine a distant, potential future arrived at if we make the right choices or, perhaps more aptly, if we don’t undermine the inherent freedoms and progressive opportunities that digital forms and genres provide. And, we tried to suggest in our chapter that the right choices are grounded in a commitment to democratic ideals and a socially conscious pragmatism, at least in regard to open access to information.

So, despite the troublesome inequities, unique cultural and individual responses, and complex skills you legitimately identify and that demand our attention in the present, we retain a good deal of optimism about the future. That optimism is rooted in the belief that digital forms of communication, much more so than the relatively circumscribed writing technologies of the past, inherently favor the loftier goals of literacy in service of an egalitarian social existence and of basic human needs. Despite many current problems and issues that cannot be ignored or treated lightly, we see signs that overall we are on a positive trajectory sustained by the natural affordances of digital communication. The role of social media in the Arab Spring and current strong resistance to commercial interests’ effort to limit access to the Internet are two cases in point. These examples represent and fall within the “unbounded possibilities” that we intended in a broader historical sense.

Best,

Jamie and David