Brad Hawksworth Reading Reflection #2

    For this week’s reflection I again have one main takeaway from the readings, it is similar to my main takeaway from the first reflection although it is about the complexity of the interactions between the various components of literacies as opposed to the infinite ways that different people may comprehend the same text. I also have a few personal observations based on the Baron (2021) text, and a question about one of the statements therein.  Finally, I will describe how all of this is likely to influence my approach to literacy within the scope of teaching a content course.

    As stated previously, my main takeaway from the readings related to new literacies and reading online is just how complex the interactions between all of the components of the process. Figure 1 of the proposed multifaceted heuristic of digital reading (Coiro, 2020, p. 11) alone captures this, but when considering also exponential increase of complexity as each source is added to the six interacting elements of comprehension illustrated by Hartman, Morsink, & Zheng (2010, cited in Coiro 2013). While the diagrams are complex by themselves, a few components which particularly stand out to me as either important or particularly interesting. The operational, cultural and critical dimensions of literacy described by Green (1988, cited by Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 15) was particularly interesting because it captures that students need to be able to understand the language, apply it in the current context, and think critically about that cultural context.  Another point that highlighted the additional complexity of digital literacy for me was the list of “at least five cognitive processes [which] influence comprehension in digital spaces.” (Coiro, 2020, p. 21) While looking at the list it appears that some of these processes are new to digital spaces, while others require more processing power in the digital realm than in print.  The shift from a single curated textbook to multiple digital sources, hyperlinked to additional sources requires a significant increase in all of the cognitive processes especially critical evaluation.  Prior to this course I also read an interesting article about new literacies which described the difference between how the meaning of literacy itself was changing and how new technologies were creating new forms of literacy within this larger context (Leu et. al., 2017).  At the time I found the article interesting but did not fully appreciate the magnitude of the implications it contained, especially the deictic nature of new literacies, which are appearing and being changed by technology which in turn changes the context and cultures around those literacies.  Ultimately, the complexities of new literacies is more apparent to me now, on top of the already complex nature of reading comprehension that I focused on in my first reflection.

    The Baron (2021) text particularly highlighted some of my personal experiences with reading digitally and left me with some questions to pursue.  One of the most interesting things to me was that the students’ comfort with a particular medium for reading does not necessarily relate to their assessed level of comprehension using that medium.  The University of Michigan study cited by Baron (2021) described the difference in effort exerted by students when searching the world wide web compared to when searching the school’s intranet.  The author suggests that students perceived that searching the web was easier and so they spent less energy conducting the search.  This resulted in less effective searches both due to the effort expended and the perception that the internet was easier. (p. 89) While the effort exerted was certainly a factor, it is complicated because it also occurs to me that the intranet is a more limited database and is likely populated with predominantly scholarly articles which should also improve the efficiency of the search.  Also, the discussion related to scrolling versus pagination and the physical feel of texts was particularly interesting to me. I know that I prefer reading print because I can remember geographically where I read a passage, but I had not considered whether I perform better reading print or digital text.  I also know that I get very frustrated reading a multi-column document in digital format. Having to go back to the top of a page to read the next column. 

    All these thoughts have led me to two main conclusions about my own teaching. First, I have up until this point avoided teaching literacy as part of my curriculum. I had the opinion that by the time students are undergraduates they should either have the requisite literacy skills or know that they need to seek additional hep. Baron (2021) stated that “fewer and fewer students are being taught how to identify and evaluate multiple print sources” (p. 102).  While the author doesn’t provide a source for this statement, I will make this a part of my courses. Rather than direct students to the writing lab (only three of my 70 students last year actually went), I will invite the staff of the writing lab to provide a lesson for the class on effective search techniques for scholarly sources in my discipline.  The second change to my teaching that I plan to implement is providing multiple options for students to complete assignments.  The readings make it clear that different skills are required for different parts of the comprehension and communication processes, and I know that personally I didn’t learn until I had already completed a master’s degree how to write effectively.  My goal would be to provide more than writing for students to demonstrate that they understand the content of the course.

References

Baron, N.S. (2021). How we read now: Strategic choices for print, screen, & audio. Oxford University Press.

Coiro, J. (2013, October). Online reading comprehension challenges [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWDEr2fKxA

Coiro, J. (2020, Feb. 20). Toward a multifaceted heuristic of digital reading to inform assessment, research, practice, and policy. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(1), 9-31. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.302

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2008). From ‘reading’ to ‘new literacy studies. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel, New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Berkshire, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.

Leu D. J., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J., Castek, J., & Henry, L. A. (2017).  New literacies: A dual-level theory of the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment. New literacies: A dual-level theory of the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment. Journal of Education, 197(2), 1-18.