Literacy Now

Digital media is an important tool for broadening access to knowledge and skills. Yet digital content and platforms can also reproduce structures of power. From white supremacist Tweets to ableist TikTok algorithms, oppressive ideologies show up everywhere online. Young people need critical media literacy practices to learn to identify and challenge the oppressive ideologies that undergird digital media and technologies.

That said, young people already use digital media to organize for justice and speak back to power. How can educators build on what students learn on social media to support and sharpen critical media literacies? To answer this question, we first need to know more about how students use digital media toward justice-oriented ends. I turned to LGBTQ+ YouTube to examine how young people resist intersecting oppressions of race, gender, and sexuality.

Critical media literacy on social media is serious work, but it can also be funny. Humor is nearly ubiquitous on LGBTQ+ YouTube, with reaction videos modeling a common form of critical humor. LGBTQ+ reaction videos respond, often comedically, to discriminatory media like right-wing political advertisements. I began to wonder: How do YouTubers who watch and comedically react to anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Black media perform critical media literacies? And how is humor functioning in reaction videos?

Humor as political possibility in digital culture

Through a multimodal analysis, I found that humor nurtures political possibility and supports critical media literacies. I approach political possibility as the sense that social change toward a more just world is possible. This possibility of transformation is vital for marginalized young people who may encounter injustice every day.

Humor also plays a central role in the YouTubers’ critical media literacy practices. Moments of humor defuse hatred and amplify agency to resist social injustice. Satire and parody in these videos challenge ideologies that undergird oppressive digital media, accomplishing important intellectual and political work. Viewers may learn moves for anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and anti-transphobic action. Humor as a performance of joy, exuberance, and care also lays the foundation for a better world.

Although humor may saturate new media, the use of humor to respond to injustice is not new. Queer and queer of color activists and artists have long used humor to disrupt hate and create community. As scholar Danielle Fuentes Morgan has argued, satire in Black communities subversively unmasks the unethical violence of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Reaction videos expand these practices of satire and parody to subvert phobic ideologies, build power, and cultivate joy.

Using humor in justice-oriented teaching

From YouTube to the classroom, humor has a place in social justice learning. Here are some ways educators can nurture humor as political possibility:

Develop a vision to value humor. Develop an expansive vision for how you can value practices of humor as political possibility. Build on the experiences, identities, and knowledge of your students and consider the sociopolitical context of learning. Consider making a point to better understand how funny digital media such as TikTok videos are meaningful to students as sites of learning.

See and support student digital activism. Marginalized students are using social media to get involved in social justice activism in their communities and online. Take notice of and find ways to support the everyday work students take up to resist and transform oppressive ideologies toward more just futures. For one, consider what knowledge students hold about social injustice and what desires they share for a better world.

Critically analyze everyday digital texts. To teach critical media literacies, bring in the digital media texts that students encounter on social media. Incorporate analysis of comedic multimedia texts such as reaction videos, memes, multimedia collage, or other forms of anti-oppressive remix. You might ask students to submit digital texts (videos, memes, images, etc.) from their everyday activities on social media.

Incorporate satire and parody in critical pedagogy. Educators engaged in critical pedagogy might incorporate parody and satire as forms of critical resistance in the pursuit of educational freedom. Through this approach, you can better understand the role of humor in critical literacies young people learn online and compassionately sharpen these practices with pedagogical assistance.

Design media production with digital mentor texts. Involve students in digital media production that engages the media they may encounter online, such as reaction videos. I tend to approach media production as an iterative cycle to engage ➝ explore ➝ reflect ➝ make. Engage with a mentor text, in this case a reaction video like that from YouTuber Mac Kahey, aka MacDoesIt. Explore other videos or posts of its kind on social media. Reflect together on what students noticed, thought, felt, liked, and would have done differently. Try it out by making a video that takes up and transforms the practices they saw.

Every educator needs to incorporate the important practices of social justice work and critical media literacy into their instruction. By examining these principles through the lens of humor, students connect with valuable lessons in how they can counter hate, create community, and speak out against potentially heavy topics in a way that keeps spirits high.

Addie Shrodes is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Her dissertation work examines the roles of humor, play, and protest in the critical digital literacies of trans and queer teens. You can follow her on Twitter @AddieShrodes.

As a literacy coach for grades K–6, there is nothing I love more than seeing students deeply engaged in collaboration. From the excitement on the faces of kindergartners as they turn and whisper their thoughts in a think-pair-share to the quick-paced discussion of sixth graders determining where to place vocabulary words according to their shades of meaning, the classrooms in my school are typically full of authentic and lively student interactions.

Student collaboration is critical. Partner reading builds fluency. Sharing manipulatives to retell a story strengthens language development and reading comprehension. The ability to share the pen with another, communicate clearly, and problem solve in teams has so many benefits.

Students need collaborative work now more than ever. Social distancing is taking its toll on student learning, particularly the kind that comes when students work in groups. But how do we bring collaborative learning into a virtual setting this year?

I’ve been meeting with teachers around the United States virtually this summer to support them with the implementation of a literacy curriculum that we use at my school, which calls for authentic collaborative work and rich student discourse. In the course of these meetings, I’ve come up with a few ideas for bringing collaboration into a virtual space.

Set up routines

Just like at the start of any school year, set up class routines for collaborative work during remote learning. Explicitly state expectations, routines, and procedures. Talk about digital norms and practices, such as how to raise a hand or get attention during an online class and how to appropriately use the chat function of a digital platform.

Just as you’d have a checklist of expectations taped to the wall of your classroom, post your expectations on a shared site within the digital platform. Give consistent praise as students are learning the routines and redirect as needed. Allow time for student reflection on routines because learning how to participate and collaborate is just as important as learning the content.

Make the learning purposeful

Collaborative learning should be purposeful. Just like in the traditional classroom, teachers should establish why they’re using a particular group-based or partner approach during instructional time. This will focus the activity and give teachers a lens for choosing a collaborative strategy.

When students can’t be together in person, have them record video conversations on tools like Flipgrid or Padlet. Require students to watch and respond to classmates by posting their own short video or writing a response to create a chain of linking comments. Don’t shy away from giving students—especially younger students—prompts or sentence starters to help them build rich and meaningful conversations, at least initially.

Make the learning authentic

As adults, we work together to achieve a goal or converse to learn about one another, and we want to provide this same experience for our students.

This can mean taking collaboration out of the virtual classroom space and engaging in collaborative experiences with family, friends, or community members. Consider this question we ask kindergartners: “How has life in America changed over time?” They can reach out to caregivers or family members and ask them questions about their experiences in school and at home. If a student doesn’t have anyone available to talk to, the teacher can share experiences through recorded clips or a Zoom call. Stakeholders such as administrators or PTA members can share experiences, too.

Provide fundamental feedback

Keep an eye on how collaborative work is going and give students guidance to steer it in the right direction. That tends to happen naturally in a classroom environment but will take extra work virtually. Provide praise and corrective feedback regularly on both procedures and collaboration. Use class time to reflect on the process of virtual learning, noting what students like and dislike.

If students are engaging in peer editing using a shared online platform, teacher feedback is necessary for it to be purposeful. If student feedback isn’t particularly robust, use this as a formative assessment. Use your next class session to model an appropriate response and introduce a rubric or sentence starters.

Modify activities for virtual learning

Many in-person activities that educators already use in their classroom have the potential to be moved into a remote environment with a bit of creativity. An example of an activity I’ve been thinking about converting to a virtual experience involves Chalk Talks.

As an in-person activity, students meet in groups and answer questions about a book that is posted in the classroom. With my fourth graders, I have used Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Students responded collectively to questions around topics such as how the main character changed over time and the difference between literal versus figurative text. In addition to responding to teacher questions, students have to weigh in on other groups’ comments.

Virtually, a teacher could place the students in several configurations. First, each student would work independently to answer a question. Next, students would meet in small groups in online breakout rooms and agree on one answer. Then, students would all come together in a whole group, giving “expert” groups a chance to share out. Finally, students would go back to breakout rooms and reflect on the different answers.

Younger students can also collaborate virtually. During an in-person kindergarten lesson, students might have worked together to identify the genre of a set of books. Then the students would have justified their choice by placing it on a graphic organizer.

To do this activity virtually, the teacher could record and share a video about the traits of different genres, and then students could come together in small groups in online breakout rooms to discuss their thoughts. Finally, students could drag-and-drop the titles in categories on Seesaw. Remember that younger students need to practice routines like speaking one at a time and using sentence frames such as “I agree with Katy because….”

I know educators are feeling nervous about the days and weeks ahead, but I also know they are putting a lot of thought into how to teach effectively and creatively in an online environment. By focusing on students’ needs, including the need to work collaboratively, I’m confident we can deliver great instruction.

As we adjust to life in the world of remote learning, families and educators are continuing to refine at-home instructional reading routines—especially for students who experience difficulties with reading comprehension. Whether students read fluently or haltingly, they may find it challenging to summarize, answer questions, figure out unknown vocabulary, and unlock deeper meaning.

How can we ensure that our students progress in their reading achievement instead of falling behind during the COVID-19 pandemic? What strategies can we incorporate into distance learning and at home to accelerate student literacy? Here I suggest new, engaging, and practical ways to use reciprocal teaching, or what I call the Fab Four, to improve literacy achievement.

Reading rescue: The Fab Four for success

The Fab Four are proven comprehension strategies that are easily adapted to home and distance learning for quick results. When researcher John Hattie ranked 138 teaching strategies according to their impact, reciprocal teaching landed at number nine, roughly yielding two years’ growth in one year.

The Fab Four are essential strategies good readers employ to understand texts: predict, question, clarify, and summarize. These strategies work with any text at any grade level to boost comprehension. Students exhibit confidence and engagement after just a few lessons.

When reciprocal teaching is used two to three times per week to discuss texts, some students improve six months to a year in a few months. In the classroom, the teacher guides students in discussions using the four strategies. Students may discuss in teams and eventually take on roles for each of these strategies: predictor, clarifier, questioner, and summarizer.

Close reading with the Fab Four at home

Good readers often reread challenging texts to gain better understanding. This “close reading” calls for students to reread for different purposes. The Fab Four strategies provide an ideal framework for rereading texts to develop better comprehension and fluency.

In the links at the end of this post, you will find lesson plans developed for parents and caregivers to use as they read and discuss informational texts and poetry at home with their children. Parents and caregivers should take turns with their child and be sure to make these experiences enjoyable rather than turn the Fab Four into a test. The result is an engaging exchange that promotes both improved comprehension and fluency. The poetry lesson includes suggestions for rereading for enjoyment and a performance for family members and friends.

Sample Fab Four Lesson

Predict

Discuss the title, author, visuals, and headings. Skim the text. Take turns.

“My prediction is that I think we will learn ________because_____.”

Read Together

Choose for the child or let the child choose how to read: silently, echo read, read-aloud, or in unison.

Reread to Clarify

Take turns finding words to clarify.

 “A tricky or interesting word or phrase to clarify is_____ . We can figure it out by _______.”

Answers might include sounding it out, finding smaller parts, reading on, rereading, or thinking about a synonym.

Reread to Question

Take turns asking questions.

 “My question is _____.” “I wonder______________.”

Reread to Summarize

Take turns summarizing.

“This was about__________.” “I learned__________________.” “My favorite part was__________.”

Adapting The Fab Four for families/distance learning

As part of your class reading instruction, try Fab Four lessons twice a week during Zoom, See-Saw, or another online meeting platform. Have students respond to reading using the Fab Four strategies as a discussion guide. Rather than calling on individual students, encourage a group discussion where multiple students give input to one another. Encourage sharing with a partner or team before the entire class discusses the text. Students may also mark texts with sticky notes or colored pencils. This practice through these remote learning platforms will allow students to benefit from sessions with peers as well as their families. You can model turn-taking with families and caregivers by having them participating in a digital meeting as well.

Teacher Created Materials

Here are a couple seven-minute Fab Four lessons available for free on the Teacher Created Materials YouTube channel.

• How to Boost Reading Comprehension With the Fab Four—an informational text Fab Four close reading lesson
• How to Improve Comprehension & Fluency with Poetry—a poetry Fab Four close reading lesson

We’ve also created a letter that educators can share with families and caregivers. This provides a quick FAQ about the Fab Four strategies and a pair of bookmarks you can use to practice these strategies with the provided text.

Lori Oczkus is a literacy coach, author, and popular speaker across the United States. She has extensive experience as a bilingual elementary teacher, intervention specialist working with struggling readers, staff developer, and literacy coach. Lori is the author of the book Reciprocal Teaching at Work 3rd ed. (ASCD/ILA, 2018; foreword by John Hattie, Ph.D.).

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has made it necessary to close schools across the globe. It’s also led to widespread cancellation of professional learning events that had been slated for spring, leaving teachers with even fewer outlets to connect and collaborate.

To help educators build community through conversation, the International Literacy Association (ILA) has created ILA Edcamp Online—a virtual adaptation of the popular unconference—scheduled for Tuesday, April 7, 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. ET.

The goal: to create a space where educators can connect in real time, on a level deeper than even Twitter chats or Facebook Live broadcasts can provide.

“Many teachers tend to be social creatures who find comfort and growth through their network of colleagues,” says Becky Fetterolf, director of program content and engagement at ILA. “The necessary distancing guidelines have limited activities substantially, so we wanted to create something that could meet those unfulfilled needs.”

For those unfamiliar with the Edcamp experience, here's how it works: Attendees drive the agenda, participants facilitate on-the-fly sessions, and interactivity is key. The resulting collaboration leads to professional topics that feel far more personal than a traditional “stand and deliver” session.  

ILA Edcamp Online will leverage Zoom, the video communications platform that’s been exploding as a result of shelter-in-place orders. but make no mistake: This won’t be a static webinar. Edcamps are characterized as “unconferences” founded on the idea that participants learn from one another.

“We’re making every effort to preserve the Edcamp format as we adapt the event from in person to online,” Fetterolf says. This includes sourcing discussion topics directly from educators. An informal survey distributed through email and social media yielded three topics:  

• Alternative Access: Connecting When Your Students Don’t Have Connectivity (session full)
• Continuous K–5 Learning During School Closures: Techniques, Tips, and Tools (session full)
  
• Supporting Struggling Learners: Instruction and Intervention in a Virtual Environment (session full)

“There were clear front-runners,” Fetterolf says. “It made it easy for us to build the ‘rooms.’”

Some Edcamp features won’t translate to the Zoom platform, however. One principle Edcamps employ is the “rule of two feet,” which encourages attendees who aren’t getting enough out of one discussion to move freely to another one. ILA Edcamp Online registrants can participate only in the session for which they register. However, notes from each discussion will be made public after the event for anyone to read.

Facilitators will leverage Zoom features such as polling, virtual hand raising, and group/private chat functionality to encourage the dynamic conversation that drives in-person Edcamps.

For this inaugural ILA Edcamp Online, space is limited. Fetterolf stresses the importance that educators who register commit to actively participate.

“When you register, you’re holding a seat for yourself,” she says. “But that also means another educator can’t fill that seat. So, we’re really hoping that everyone who registers and attends is prepared to engage.”  

ILA Edcamp Online isn’t the only new digital offering from ILA; for the month of April, educators can register for the ILA 2019 Replay, which delivers free access to six recorded sessions from last year’s conference in New Orleans, LA. Presenters include Pedro Noguera, Renée Watson, Donalyn Miller, David Kirkland, Tricia Ebarvia, and Dave Stuart Jr.

Also included in the ILA 2019 Replay: “What Research Really Says About Teaching Reading—and Why That Still Matters,” the wildly popular panel discussion led by P. David Pearson, Nell K. Duke, Sonia Cabell, and Gwendolyn McMillon that managed to fill a large session room and attract more than 150 livestream viewers at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday—an audience that continued to grow when the archive was shared.

Within days of registration for the ILA 2019 Replay opening, more than 2,000 educators signed up.

Those numbers, Fetterolf says, underscore the current need for quality digital programming. “So many educators tell us that ILA conferences are where they go to recharge and reconnect. To be able to bring some of that PD magic into their homes is our privilege.”

As for ILA Edcamp Online, if early social media buzz is any indication, registration is likely to max out quickly. (Edit: Sessions reached capacity in a matter of hours.)

“If this event is as successful as we’re anticipating, you can expect to see more of them from ILA in the future,” promises Fetterolf.

Links to register for both ILA Edcamp Online and the ILA 2019 Replay are available on the ILA Digital Events page.

In just a matter of days, educators from kindergartens to colleges around the world provided their students with printed learning packets or online learning plans before packing up their desks and leaving their campuses. Scan school websites today, and you will see instructions indicating that learning will be delivered “remotely.”

By its definition, remote means at a distance, far removed, and isolated. At a time when students may still be settling into learning routines and developing self-directed learning skills, these children are faced with schooling at home amid a global health crisis. Students are confronted with learning independently, away from school-age friends and their loving extended families.

Today’s COVID-19 crisis has come at a time when a digital divide still exists. With few days to prepare for delivering learning at a distance, many schools struggled to make learning continue through closures and extended breaks. In the end, whether students are asked to read print or digital texts or to write with pens or keyboards, the one important common denominator is that students need to feel a connection with their teachers and their classmates to succeed.

When planning for the best possible learning outcomes, educators must be mindful that learning requires social interaction for students to remain motivated. Yes, students need assignments tied to the curriculum, but they also need the continued support of a learning community, whether they are in grade school or graduate school. When students feel connected to their classes, they retain a commitment to their classwork, and teachers’ beliefs about the importance of fostering a class community are paramount.

What can teachers do to create connected communities for literacy learning?

• Provide timely and frequently written communication for students, whether sending home an online newsletter that you can make with Smore or posters made with Poster My Wall.
• Be available for two-way communication via telephone, email, or tools like Google Classroom and Google Hangouts.
• Build classroom relationships among students through their writing about their learning or about how they are learning differently at home. Students can establish classroom pen pals by exchanging tradition, handwritten letters and postcards or by posting to sites like Edmodo.
• Keep learning active and fun while respecting the diverse interests and abilities of students. Let students show what they know by composing comics with ReadWriteThink’s Comic Creator, creating characters with Voki, or uploading poems set to music with Flipgrid.
• Reduce the distance in distance learning by providing opportunities for synchronous learning wherever possible. Establish a class meeting time during regular school hours to check in with students using tools such as Zoom or Skype.
• Provide opportunities for students to share their knowledge with others by recording research projects and presenting them with digital tools such as Screencast-o-matic.
• Maintain high expectations for learning by getting a pulse of what your students have learned and still need to know. Kahoot! and Socrative are great game tools to garner student understanding and inform teachers of the need for future instruction.
• Keep students committed to reading and writing with high-quality lessons that can be found on sites such as ReadWriteThink, Newsela, CommonLit, and DOGOnews linked to engaging TE Ed videos.

Distance learning communities nurture feelings of continued connection and collaboration. For primary-age students especially, educators need to include families and caregivers as part of that community and join with them as partners for educating students. Online distance learning ends up becoming a family literacy experience because young children cannot easily negotiate technologies without help, and they should not be expected to do so.

Given the prevalence of online learning, educators  must not forget issues of privacy and online safety. Teachers should direct families and caregivers to appropriate resources for reading books (Epic! for example) and writing (Storyjumper). Common Sense Media is a great resource to use to determine appropriate digital tools. Furthermore, teachers need to check if new technology choices planned for lessons require added permissions. Also keep in mind that, although families may have laptops or smartphones, students may still need to share one device among several siblings.

For necessity’s sake, remote learning has now taken on a front seat as an instructional delivery method to teach and learn. We must recognize that remote learning can feel like removed learning if students aren’t connected with their families, teachers, and peers. It will take continued creativity and collaboration to make this new learning paradigm work as we all look toward “doing school differently.”

Likewise, educators must seek support from their schools and work with colleagues to find the best literacy learning solutions for students. Whether participating in peer-led conferences for professional development or seeking out professional organization resources, teachers also need to feel like a connected community of practicing professionals, even when teaching from home.

Cynthia Pope has researched K–12 online learning extensively, including her 2013 dissertation, Digital Distance Learning Communities. She an experienced K–12 educator, school administrator, and higher education professional, currently serving as a visiting assistant professor of education for Stockton University’s Teacher Education Program in New Jersey.