Broader Definitions
of Literacy
Technology and computer use have played into this broadening definition
of literacy because one is able to now represent text, learning, and
ideas in multiple ways, such as with buttons, scrolling bars, text,
graphics, and images (Reinking, 1998). Technology in a broad sense
can be defined as any tool that moves one toward being more literate,
such as a calculator or a computer. Throughout this study notions
of technology centered on the use of computers and hypertextual environments
that utilized non-linear text to convey ideas and meanings. Reinking
(1998) and Bolter (1998) refer to this new term that defines a new
type of literacy as hypertextual literacy. Hypertextual literacy is
the marriage of hypermedia and hypertext into new ways of thinking,
reading, and writing that moves learners away from alphabetic code
and toward a wider range of symbolic elements. This new definition
poses questions that ask: What is considered to be text? What elements
comprise text? How are texts appropriately structured? These questions
help to frame how our definitions of literacy are changing and will
continue to evolve as our understanding of technological transformations
of literacy move into a post-typographic world (Lemke, 1998; Reinking,
1998).
Looking at other new definitions of literacy and technology, hypertext
or nonlinear text, provides us with new production skills not used
before. The production skills are learning how to make effective choices
in framing, point of view and style, learning how to use visual and
auditory symbolism, and learning how to manipulate time and space
through editing (Flood & Lapp, 1995). Eisner (1994) sums up the
ideas best when he describes a conceptualization of literacy as one
that allows for multiple forms of representation. Multiple forms of
representation include visual literacy and media literacy. Visual
literacy is described as art, drama, television, film, and media literacy
is defined as the understanding and production of messages through
physical devices (Flood & Lapp, 1994). And to broaden this definition
of literacy further, Lemke (1998) adds that we can define literacy
as a set of cultural competencies for making socially recognizable
meanings by the use of particular material technologies and by the
use of particular material artifacts that mediate the process. All
of the definitions of literacy have some common elements that are
reflected in the current research (Reinking, 1998). Tierney and Damarin
(1998) describe the common elements as multiple ways of knowing, semiotics,
and the confluence of perspectives that can be built from cultural
differences. Literacy and technology are terms that are now linked
together in the question of: What is literacy? (Bruce, 1997). Ong
(1982) states that the materials and processes of creating texts have
linked the two ideas together in a way that one cannot be realized
without the other. The definitions of what literacy is have evolved
to reflect the communicative aspects of reading and writing but also
the effects of technology.
Theoretical Framework
The research was grounded in sociocultural literacy learning theory.
Dialogue and collaboration surrounded much of the learning in this
study. Literacy and technology combined were the vehicle for learners
to achieve new learning within the social collaborations. The children
authored collaboratively and social interaction was a large factor
in shaping how they responded. Semiotics was also important to the
topic because of the way writing could be constructed in hypermedia
environments, unlike how it is constructed in linear text. The roles
of stance and intertextuality also supported and helped to examine
the research in that stance and intertextuality notions helped to
illuminate understanding for multiple ways of knowing.
Sociocultural Learning
To gain a better understanding of how learning is influenced by technology
and literacy it is appropriate to explore learning in the sociocultural
realm. Sociocultural learning has grown out of the work done by Vygotsky,
Bruner, Piaget, Cole, and Wertsch. The roots of sociocultural learning
support learning, which is embedded in the context of social relationships
(Rogoff , 1990). Newman, Griffin, and Cole (1993) interpret sociocultural
learning as development that is interrelated learning from the child's
very first day of life. Vygotsky (1978) hypothesized that children
have two levels from which they learn: the actual developmental level
and the level of potential development. When children are engaged
in a problem-solving task at either level learning has occurred or
will occur. This space between these levels of learning is referred
to as the zone of proximal development. It is now understood that
learning and development are interrelated for children, and children
learn best when working in their zone of proximal development (ZPD).
This zone can be a place that the learner can function at a slightly
higher level when the learning is scaffolded by a more capable other.
The child can reach to higher levels of understanding as development
trails along. Maximum benefit in learning takes place when this ZPD
is embedded culturally.
Literacy learning in this way describes how readers and writers construct
knowledge with hypertext. Hypertext requires the reader and writer
to make intertextual links and the links can be defined as the meshing
of categories of information to create new unique categories or ideas
as defined by the discourse in which the reader or writer is functioning.
To apply this intertextual knowledge, readers and writers draw upon
knowledge of scripts, genres, social relationships, and practices.
These elements all contribute to how texts are socially constructed
within discourses to assert one's ideas (Beach, Appleman, & Dorsey,
1994). Barton (1994) asserts that all texts depend on earlier texts.
This assertion assumes that within text lies the potential for new
text and this also brings to light how language and text are closely
linked by Bahktin's (1981) notion of double-voicedness.
Creating literacy learning spaces provides a means for expressing
oneself in ways that reflect more directly the complexity of our thinking
and the interrelatedness of ideas (Reinking, 1995). As children create
texts, they develop spaces for themselves and others just as an architect
designs a space in a building. These spaces hold the potential not
only for meaning, but also for an opportunity to understand a child's
literacy development with a different type of lens. The architecture
or engagement of these spaces provides for a juxtaposing of multiple
texts that may achieve powerful ways of knowing and learning complex
knowledge. According to Sprio, Coulson, Feltovich, and Anderson (1994),
the multimedia nature of these forms of text being juxtaposed may
afford a kind of semiotic engagement that provides students access
to multiple symbol systems. Students might also be afforded ways of
knowing that are metaphorical or through analogies.
Hypertext authoring and reading brings into play transactional reading
and writing through the process of interpretation. Hypertexts are
malleable things and in certain respects a hypertext can be re-authored
each time someone enters it. The implication is that we must rethink
our conceptions of reader and writer. Our notions of what literacy
is must be broadened because technological developments are affecting
the nature, processes and uses of literacy (Teale, 1997). Transactional
reading theory is broad enough to include these new definitions; however,
types of interpretation may change as a result of the ways readers
and writers select stance.
Chase and Hynd (1987) list five possible perspectives that children
must consider as they author: the teacher, other classmates, their
own, a critics, and other children outside their classroom. Almasi
(1995) suggests that there is actually a sixth interpretant: the changing
interpretation within one reader when faced with challenges to their
interpretation from the text or from others. Hypertext has the ability
to engage readers and writers in the sixth level of interpretation
because it is dynamic, often reflective and introspective. There are
multiple interpretations with hypertext and readers must have tolerance
for and even an expectation of ambiguity, which may cause them to
rethink initial responses. The hypertext is viewed not as static but
as dynamic and changing and readers learn to understand that a flexible
use of stance is a necessary element in considering alternative meanings
(McKeon, 1999). Flood and Lapp (1994) suggest that we need to expand
our notions of reader-response to include the communicative arts,
which includes computer technology. Rosenblatt's (1994) explanation
of how reader-response theory also supports writers is clearly flexible
enough to accommodate these new definitions of literacy, which encompass
hypertext authoring.
Method
The School
This study was situated
in the context of a suburban elementary school in the Southwest. The
school was within blocks of a university and drew students from the
surrounding neighborhoods. Students who attended the elementary school
were in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. Literacy education
at this site was a focal point of the entire curriculum for all students
who attended the school.
The school literacy philosophy assumed that all children entering
school in the fall of their kindergarten year were readers and writers,
whether they were emergent or fluent in their abilities. School media
personnel supported the literacy philosophy by assisting the teachers
in selecting books or materials for units, by teaching library and
technology skills, and in generally supporting students as readers.
Students selected books from the school library on a flexible schedule
and students were often seen selecting or returning books before and
after school. Students were also observed talking to teachers, the
principal and the media specialist about a recent book they had read.
The media center environment was traditional in the way it was organized;
however, all books and materials were accessible to students. The
school computer lab, a room within the school library, was the only
area not totally accessible to the students. The library did contain
three computer stations with access to the Internet.
