Dalila Hasanagic- New Media and New Literacies

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books (Rich, 2008, pg.2).     In my literacy debate response paper, I wrote about how I feel as though digital literacy is a supplement, rather than a replacement for critical and developmental literacy. The following paragraph is directly from my paper.      " One example of digital literacy being supplementary to foundational literacy is debating online, whether through websites or social media. To have a healthy debate, rather than a dysfunctional argument, people must possess and practice skills such as critical thinking, understanding different viewpoints, summarizing, and asking questions. These are all skills that children build through reading books in school and for leisure. Therefore, readi

  "The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).        Before the job I have now, I never realized how much our personal lives affect how we process and make sense of texts. I grew up in a largely populated city with small, rural towns surrounding us. I was so used to all the different cultures, races, and languages I was engaged with. I never realized how little diversity other kids in smaller towns are being exposed to. Now, I work in a small, rural school and I get to see the difference first-hand in the way they process texts and media based on their life experiences.       With children growing up in a world of social media and technology, I am interested to see how digital literacy will play a role in their ove