Stoked

One of the things I love about reading to find out what I didn't already know is when I come across an article that discusses what I haven't been able to find. Tonight, I found such an article:

Grabill, J.T & Hicks, T. (2005). Multiliteracies meet methods: The Case for digital writing in english education. In English Education, V37, n4, July, pp 301-311.

Grabill & Hicks (2005) discuss the why and how of digital literacy importance. Recognizing the call for multiliteracies framework (New London Group, 1996), the authors call on Zhao & Frank (2003) to address the invasive species of technology, but also how English educators need to embrace this tool (p.303). Writing is restored as an immediate need for communication in a technological age. They continue with "audiences and writers are related to each other more interactively in time and space" (p.305). Technology challenges traditional principals and practices of composition because it transcends the teacher as the only reader of possible text. They write, "Writing instruction must equip students with the tools, skills, and strategies not just to produce traditional texts using computer technology, but also to produce documents appropriate to the global and dispersed reach of the web. This shift requires a large-scale shift in the rhetorical situations that we ask students to write within, the audiences we ask them to write for, the products that they produce, and the purposes of their writing" (p.305).

Boom. That's what I write when I find something that resonates with me. Boom Boom Boom.

Grabil & Hicks (2005) continue with the recognition that it isn't the English teachers place to teach writing with computers but to understand how computers as technology are being used as outlets for writing. Students still need to be taught about the traditional modes of writing and why writing matters. Teachers engage students through lessons on audience awareness, conventions, voice, etc. to prepare them for the world they will inherit as working individuals.

Finally, they state literacy should not be considered any longer without addressing technology, too (p.306).

I didn't have this source for my first draft of a literature review, but it offers many links to the points I was trying to make.