(If you're one of my friends or students, you already know where this is going, so shhh... just bear with me)
Nowadays, we spend more time writing than we ever have before (Brandt, 2009).
We also create by integrating more things than we ever have before (New London Group, 1996). Yes, these words that you're reading with your eyeballs are absolutely writing. And it was also writing when I resized the Write Out image so it looked nicer on the page. And the narrative of the video games I might write in coding class are also writing. And the Twitter and Instagram posts that students throughout the world used to organize the Climate Strike... those are writing, too.
There are so many reasons to teach digital literacy (writing & reading, when they use many modes and involve an electronic device, are often called digital literacy). From equity (Hicks & Turner, 2013) to civic engagement (Mirra & Garcia 2017) to connections (boyd, 2007).
What if you don't have much experience with those digital literacies, though? How can you teach what you, yourself, weren't explicitly taught?
Aha! WRITE OUT.
Write Out is a two-week place-based writing celebration where people across the country explore, create, and connect digitally. It's a partnership between the National Park Service and the National Writing Project for the purpose of connecting people across the country as they explore the places around them (both natural and built), critically dig into the stories of places, and write (broadly).
So, if you're a teacher, and you've been thinking you want to know more about digital literacies, this is a great opportunity. It's free, you can participate as much or as little as fits your schedule, and it means you get to go outside a lot.
Need that place to sign up again? It's at writeout.nwp.org.
During WriteOut, the CLC will also be co-hosting a Writing Party with a bunch of other writing folks at UNH, but more on that later.
boyd, danah. (2007) “Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life.” MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brandt D. (2009) Writing over reading: New directions in mass literacy. In: Baynham M., Prinsloo M. (eds) The future of literacy studies. Palgrave Advances in Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Hicks, T. & Turner, K.H. "No longer a luxury: Digital Literacy Can't Wait." English Journal
102:6 (2013) 58-65.Mirra, N., & Garcia, A. (2017). Civic participation reimagined: Youth interrogation and innovation in the multimodal public sphere. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 136–158. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X17690121
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.
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