A New Literacies Reader is an introduction to social and cultural studies of new literacies from the perspectives of educators, education researchers and learners. The diverse topics addressed range from multimodal pedagogies, remix, performance poetry, and digital storytelling to issues associated with wireless environments, assessment, identity, and teachers' ways of taking up new technologies.

Situated at the intersection of two of the most important areas in educational research today — literacy and technology — this handbook draws on the potential of each while carving out important new territory. It provides leadership for this newly emerging field, directing scholars to the major issues, theoretical perspectives, and interdisciplinary research pertaining to new literacies. Reviews of research are organized into six sections: Methodologies Knowledge and Inquiry Communication Popular Culture, Community, and Citizenship: Everyday Literacies Instructional Practices and Assessment Multiple Perspectives on New Literacies Research FEATURES Brings together a diverse international team of editors and chapter authors Provides an extensive collection of research reviews in a critical area of educational research Makes visible the multiple perspectives and theoretical frames that currently drive work in new literacies Establishes important space for the emerging field of new literacies research Includes a unique Commentary section: The final section of the Handbook reprints five central research studies. Each is reviewed by two prominent researchers from their individual, and different, theoretical position. This provides the field with a sense of how diverse lenses can be brought to bear on research as well as the benefits that accrue from doing so. It also provides models of critical review for new scholars and demonstrates how one might bring multiple perspectives to the study of an area as complex as new literacies research. The Handbook of Research on New Literacies is intended for the literacy research community, broadly conceived, including scholars and students from the traditional reading and writing research communities in education and educational psychology as well as those from information science, cognitive science, psychology, sociolinguistics, computer mediated communication, and other related areas that find literacy to be an important area of investigation.

The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book «samples» work in the broad area of new literacies research along two dimensions. First, it samples some typical examples of new literacies - video gaming, fan fiction writing, weblogging, role play gaming, using websites to participate in affinity practices, memes, and other social activities involving mobile technologies. Second, the studies collectively sample from a wide range of approaches potentially available for researching and studying new literacies from a sociocultural perspective. Readers will come away with a rich sense of what new literacies are, and a generous appreciation of how they are being researched.

With contributions from leading scholars, this compelling volume offers fresh insights into literacy teaching and learning—and the changing nature of literacy itself—in today's K–12 classrooms. The focus is on varied technologies and literacies such as social networking sites, text messaging, and online communities. Cutting-edge approaches to integrating technology into traditional, print-centered reading and writing instruction are described. Also discussed are ways to teach the new skills and strategies that students need to engage effectively with digital texts. The book is unique in examining new literacies through multiple theoretical lenses, including behavioral, semiotic, cognitive, sociocultural, critical, and feminist perspectives.

New literacies have been researched with various age groups in a variety of settings, illustrating how text uses differ across contexts and highlighting stark divides between schooled and out-of-school literacies. Not surprisingly, schools have difficulty staying abreast of the technological and social aspects associated with new literacies. New Literacies Practices: Designing Literacy Learning takes into account these two concerns - the dichotomy of contextual uses of new literacies across spaces, and concerns that schooled instructional attempts with new literacies reify conventional literacy practices. Authors in this volume include classroom teachers and researchers who begin from a stance that in an interconnected, multimodal world, new literacies exist across spaces. It is no longer appropriate to consider if literacies between contexts, such as out-of-school and in-school, dovetail. Instead, we must shape examinations according to how they dovetail. The essays in this volume forge the amorphous divide between out-of-school and in-school literacies through a design of pedagogy and examine how teachers and researchers collaborate to design instruction that accounts for students' new literacies. This book acknowledges that new literacies must be embedded into the curriculum, not just included as an add-on course or activity to the school day.

Building on her award-winning research (featured in Playing Their Way into Literacies) which emphasizes that play is an early literacy, Wohlwend has developed a curricular framework for children ages 3 to 8. The Literacy Playshop curriculum engages children in creating their own multimedia productions, positioning them as media makers rather than passive recipients of media messages. The goal is to teach young children to critically interpret the daily messages they receive in popular entertainment that increasingly blur toys, stories, and advertising. The first half of this practical resource features case studies that show how six early childhood teachers working together in teacher study groups developed and implemented play-based literacy learning and media production. The second half of the book provides a Literacy Playshop framework with professional development and classroom activities, discussion questions, and technology try-it sections. This user-friendly book will inspire and support teachers in designing their own Literacy Playshops.

“Like a compass guiding you to what’s important and why in this rapidly evolving field, this new edition is utterly stimulating but also thoughtful and measured.” Daniel Cassany, Literacy Researcher and Teacher, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain "Essential reading for those interested in new and emerging literacy practices, New Literacies maps the contours of on- and off-line participation and how it is transforming learning and communication. This book provides the necessary theoretical background and illustration of practice for a radical re-appraisal of how we think about literacy and literacy education." Guy Merchant, Professor of Literacy in Education,Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University The new edition of this popular book takes a fresh look at what it means to think of literacies as social practices. The book explores what is distinctively 'new' within a range of currently popular everyday ways of generating, communicating and negotiating meanings. Revised, updated and significantly reconceptualised throughout, the book includes: Closer analysis of new literacies in terms of active collaboration A timely discussion of using wikis and other collaborative online writing resources Updated and expanded accounts of digital remix and blogging practices An explanation of social learning and collaborative platforms for social learning A fresh focus on online social networking A new batch of discussion questions and stimulus activities The importance of social learning for becoming proficient in many new literacy practices, and the significance of new media for expanding the reach and potential of social learning are discussed in the final part of the book. New Literacies 3/e concludes by describing empirical cases of social learning approaches mediated by collaborative learning platforms. This book is essential reading for students and academics within literacy studies, cultural or communication studies and education.

Multimodal Literacy challenges dominant ideas around language, learning, and representation. Using a rich variety of examples, it shows the range of representational and communicational modes involved in learning through image, animated movement, writing, speech, gesture, or gaze. The effect of these modes on learning is explored in different sites including formal learning across the curriculum in primary, secondary, and higher education classrooms, as well as learning in the home. The notion of literacy and learning as a primary linguistic accomplishment is questioned in favor of the multimodal character of learning and literacy. By illustrating how a range of modes contributes to the shaping of knowledge and what it means to be a learner, Multimodal Literacy provides a multimodal framework and conceptual tools for a fundamental rethinking of literacy and learning.

This book joins two important fields, that of literacy and multimodality, with a focus on local and global literacies. Chapters include work on media, popular culture and literacy, weblogs, global and local crossings, in and out of educational settings in such locations as the US, the UK, South Africa, Australia and Canada.

New literacies, globally popular among children and adolescents in and out of school contexts, are challenging educators and institutions to rethink pedagogies. As educators begin to embrace the pedagogical possibilities of multimodal texts and digital practices, they are exploring the complexities of assessing these new literacies. The essays in this book explore what it means to assess the sophisticated textual engagements of new literacies, including reading and writing online, social networking, gaming, multimodal composing, and creating virtual identities. Chapters offer practical examples of new literacies, and examine how assessment provides insight into the diverse ways in which language is conceived, valued, and used to inform the literate lives of its twenty-first century users. Scholars and educators will find this collection full of rich understanding of the assessment concerns raised by new communication practices, youth culture, digital engagements, and semiotic diversification.