Although I did not meet my goal of finishing this book by the end of the week (today), I thought I’d post some great excerpts from what I’ve read so far. Hope they’re good food for thought as we enter the weekend!
This is from the section called “Our kids are illiterate.”
If you still doubt the need to change the role of schooling, consult the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), one of the most respected professional organizations in the U.S. A few years ago, it released a policy paper listing a new set of “21st century literacies” for all of us, not just our kids. It said 21st century readers and writers need to:
– develop proficiency with the tools of technology
– build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
– design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
– manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
– create, critique, analyze and evaluate multimedia texts
– attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments
What does that look like in real life? Try Jacob Arnott, a 14-year-old Australian who spend three weeks in London covering the 2012 summer Olympics for his two-year-old website, the Sporting Journal. Inspired by his passion for sports, Jacob has brought together over a dozen reporters aged 13 to 25 to produce a high-quality, timely news magazine that tracks Australian sports and athletes around the world. He calls it a “growing online media organization.” How cool is that?
And how literate is that, by NCTE standards? […]
Are the kids in your local schools literate, by the NCTE’s standards? Are the teachers? Are you?
I