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Now, and into the future students are interacting with words, images, sounds, videos, and all types of other modes. Students no longer read or write like they used to. In the future we will be moving even further away from traditional texts, as the technology we have supports more engaging ways of ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ through the multiple modes afforded to us by technology. Educators need to take this into consideration, and be able to help their students navigate their way through 21st century texts and beyond.
Teachers need to stop valuing written texts over visual ones, and put all type of modalities on the same playing-field. Educators need to “encourage a critical re-examination of what counts as literacy but also broaden the definition of texts” (Schwartz & Rubinstein-Ávila, 2006, p. 43). By expanding the types of texts that students are exposed to, through critical framing and overt instruction (New London Group, 1996), teachers can help student better understand future texts. Serafini (2011) presents three perspectives for comprehending multimodal texts “(1) art theory and criticism, (2) the grammar of visual design, and (3) media literacies” (p. 342), and argues that “teachers will need new instructional strategies, vocabularies, and knowledge to support comprehension processes” (p. 342). Educators need to assist students through a digital literacy curriculum, how to read and write in a digital world, and instruct them on the importance of elements of modes in meaning making practice. |