EDU 6433 "old literacy" vs. "new literacy" and samurai vs. knight

While standard two describes the importance of designing and developing digital age learning experiences and assessments, I feel there is an immense importance to the “old literacy”, even in contrast to the argument for “new literacy” in a day and age of blogs and tweets (Richtel, 2012). Contrary to those, such as Duke Professor Cathy N. Davidson whom suggests the eradication of the term paper in lieu of creative blog writing, a form of the “new literacy”, I strongly advocate for the “old literacy”. Those including Fitzhugh, with the “page a year” solution (one page paper and source per grade level), and Douglas B. Neeves with bold sentiment states, “Writing a term paper is a dying art, but those who do write them have a dramatic leg up in terms of critical thinking, argumentation and the sort of expression required not only in college, but in the job market” support the ideals of the “old literacy”. While technology can certainly aid in learning experiences and differentiation, it should certainly be no substitute for learning how to clearly articulate a written point using standard essay structure, formatting, citation, grammar, conventions, etc., all of which are incredibly important, as Neeves suggests, for upper-level education and beyond. Even if students don’t plan for upper-level education, they still need to know how to write – not blog and tweet –write. There are certain baseline skills that come with essay-writing that are so much more than what they seem. Citing text evidence in an essay as a seventh grader for example, could perhaps help that student, later, as a senior, not spout of unvalidated claims regarding a controversial topic over social media because they know they need to support an argument with evidence and not just spout like an uninhibited geyser. I digress – a little.

A recent unit in my social studies class emphasizes the clear need for continual development of “old literacy” skills, despite arguments for a focus on those pertaining to “new literacy”. After a week of studying Japanese geography and culture, working through three textbook chapters and a mapping activity, students then spent a week rotating through nine stations (three per day for three days) exploring primary and secondary reference material, working through guiding questions, engaging in group discussion, and creating a small art piece related to samurai armor. The third week of the unit included instruction on comparative/contrast writing, with emphasis on transitions to show comparison, as well as re-teaching of strong thesis and plan sentences, incorporation of text evidence, and proper citation (which were concurrently emphasized in ELA with another writing task, as well as previous writing tasks throughout the year). Students were provided three sets of comparative literature on samurai and knights to analyze and incorporate in their essays, and were also encouraged to utilize any of the sources from the previous station work, to compare and contrast the samurai of Japan and knight of Europe. While the essay assignment, and unit in general, were not technologically rich, aside from the link to the variety of sources explored, I feel this is less important that the focus on “old literacy” skills that still hold utmost importance even in the digital age.

The work samples provided below for comparison depict that of a special education student (left) and a regular education student (right). The special education student received some additional, individualized instruction, as he is not part of regular ELA and therefore has not had essay-writing instruction, and differentiated expectations (single body paragraph instead of two to three), including the expectation that only one source needed to be cited. He still incorporated quoted and cited text evidence (scoring 80%), while the regular education student who turned in a two-body paragraph essay (scoring 60%) void of any text evidence, has received regular ELA instruction all year, and has turned in previous essays in which he quoted/cited text, meeting standards. What gives!?!

If the assignment had been to write a blog or tweet about the two warriors, would that have allowed students to deeply engage in the subject matter? I don’t think so - because it honestly would have been bad - they need more practice. Plus, I don't think all my students have access to this at home, and I do not think we would be allowed to do it at school. A basic understanding of writing is still necessary for either, however, and the basics are necessary before moving on to the creativity of Davidson's blogging/tweeting world (Richtel 2012). Clearly, there is still foundational knowledge to re-teach, so there won't be knight tweeting any time soon. And while it would be wonderful for students to use technology, for example posting to a website to respond to questions, as suggested by Clark (2017), they still need to be able to do this correctly, and they can do it on paper first. As a draft. Learning the steps of the writing process, where publishing is last, and could take the form of a blog, tweet, or web post, but must be done correctly, with the "old literacy".

Thus, I posit the question: should students like this continue to be exposed to essay writing until they master it, so then they may blog and tweet coherently and responsibly later in the future, or should they just skip to the creative blogging and tweeting straight off without learning any foundational structure? I would hope the answer is obvious, that students need these foundational skills, however “old literacy” they may be.

Reference List:

Clark, Melissa (2017). Using Technology Tools for Assessment in the Ensemble Setting. National Association for Music Education.

Richtel, Matt (2012). Blogs vs. Term Papers. The New York Times.