Literacy Now

If we have time to teach our students only one thing this school year, let it be critical literacy! There are few topics more crucial for students today than those that enable them to analyze information critically.

Gone are the days when trusted teacher- and peer-edited textbooks were the main providers of knowledge. So long to a time when most fake news existed at the checkout line in supermarket tabloids. These days, our students are flooded with information, and without the proper skill set for identifying fact from fiction, it will be difficult for them to determine legitimacy. Modern media come in many different formats, including print media (books, magazines, newspapers), television, movies, video games, music, cell phones, various kinds of software, and the Internet. Knowing how to read these media critically is the key to literacy and understanding for today’s learners and information consumers.

Critical literacy skills

Research suggests students spend about 30–40 minutes a day reading, but almost seven to eight hours a day consuming media. Understanding media and being able to analyze media messages critically are the skills required for being media literate. Media literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. According to the Center for Media Literacy, media literate youths and adults are better able to understand the complex messages we receive from television, radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines, books, billboards, video games, music, and all other forms of media.

In our age of participatory culture, we should be treating our students like the type of prosumers (producers and consumers of information) we would like them to become. While putting our efforts into teaching students the craft, ethics, and responsibilities in producing media, we must also teach them to become skilled consumers of information, discerning fact from fiction at every turn or click of a hyperlink.

In order to survive their daily flood of information, students need a solid critical literacy toolkit. We can provide these tools in many ways. One way is to teach students to use the 5W’s for Critical Analysis, recommended by Donald Leu, Deborah Leu, and Julie Coiro in their 2004 book, Teaching With the Internet K–12. They suggest it is helpful for students to ask the following questions while consuming information: Who is saying/writing/creating this? What was their purpose of the particular media that was used? When did they say/write/create? Why did they say/write/create it? Where can we go to check for accuracy?

This ongoing cycle of five questions helps students decide whether the information is legitimate and whether it was produced to inform, influence, undermine, or sell something. Another useful set of strategies for critically analyzing information is Google’s Believe It or Not Search Techniques and Strategies. These lessons enable students to experiment with real and hoax sites while honing their analysis skills.

Critical multimodal skills

The prevalence and influence of modern media make critical literacy an essential skill. Visual messages can be quite strong and provide a great deal of information beyond words. I often think about how easily images can be enhanced with tools like Photoshop or computer-generated imagery (CGI). This blend of photography and video is so realistic that it is often impossible for the viewer to know if something they see is real or not real.

An excellent educator resource for visual meaning making was introduced by The Learning Network blog at The New York Times, titled What’s Going on in This Picture?. The blog focuses on photojournalism, visual literacy, and critical thinking by asking viewers to think about one interesting photograph a week. The photos appear without caption or heading, requiring readers to rely on information gathered from the image alone. Commenters use visual thinking strategies to identify the image through virtual discussion. Typical questions about the images include the following:

1. What’s going on in this picture?
2. What do you see that makes you say that?
3. What more can we find?

Later in the week, additional information and a backstory about the image is revealed.

Additional ideas for developing media and critical literacy skills can be found at The University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab. The project, founded by Renee Hobbs, provides public programs, educational services, community outreach, and multimedia curriculum resources targeted to the needs of educators.

Call for action

Many are concerned about the mass media saturation of today’s students who will become tomorrow's adults. However, we can empower our students to critically negotiate the daily storm of information they receive. Placing greater emphasis on media literacy and, more specifically, on embedding critical literacy skills into our instruction is essential. It is our responsibility, as educators, to provide even our youngest learners with strategies for determining if information is fact or fiction.

Susan Luft, PhD, is an Elementary English Language Arts Coordinator for Scarsdale Public Schools, New York. She is also a member of Fordham University’s Digital Literacy Collaborative (FDLC) project. You can follow her on Twitter.

This article is part of a series from the International Literacy Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Late on the Friday before my school’s weeklong Thanksgiving break, a senior came by my office. He wanted to know why he received a D on his annotated bibliography assignment. After all, he had all five sources his teacher asked him to find. He was frustrated and wanted help.

Having been an English teacher for over a decade, I directed him to look at Google Scholar. We put his keyword food politics into the search bar. I explained to him that sources should be current, preferably within the last five years, and showed him how to reset the date range to 2011–2016. Then I explained to him that the best sources should be peer-reviewed journal articles with digital object identifiers (DOI)—kind of like a social security number for a reputable article. Then I pointed out the Google Scholar–tracked citation counts. I told him he should use books and then other credible websites sponsored by governmental or educational institutions, in that order, only if he couldn’t find any peer-reviewed journals for his topic. After my explanation, we looked at his paper together, and he said, “So one source like that book I picked would have gotten me a B, but using four random websites, I deserved to get a D.”

Moments like that gives me hope despite reading “Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds” published by The Wall Street Journal and many other news organizations. Citing the recent Stanford University study, many were alarmed by the fact that 82% of the middle school students “couldn’t distinguish between an ad labeled ‘sponsored content’ and a real news story on a website.” The study finding was not surprising to me because, having been concerned about this issue for a while, I have written posts about both digital literacy and digital footprint. The article also correctly pointed out how a lack of trained school librarians at many public schools had made the situation worse.

To continue to make matters worse, there are numerous fake news sites that deliberately mislead their readers. Recently NPR broadcasted a story on fake news sites, which revealed how numerous websites that appeared to be legitimate posted completely fabricated stories. One such story was shared over half a million times on Facebook. Although many social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google had announced their commitment to reduce the number of such postings using various computer algorithms, today’s media consumers need to be vigilant.

So what can we as teachers do to help our students?

1. Discuss credibility of sources. As a public school teacher, my students have asked me about my political beliefs more than once. I often used that as an opportunity to teach my students about the credibility of the source. To make my point, I would ask my students to look up articles on medical research findings. I pointed out whether an article was posted on websites like the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or Harvard Medical School. Then I had students look for the articles posted on other websites. I also pointed out the tone of the language used in certain articles. Then I explained the difference between an opinion posted on BuzzFeed and The Washington Post by discussing the role of an editorial board and journalistic ethics. When a student brings up a topic, ask the following questions, “Where did you hear that?” “Who was the source?” “Do you think they are credible on the basis of their education, expertise, and experience?”


2. Model productive research behaviors. I also shared how I conducted my own research for my publications. I introduced different digital tools such as Google Scholar and EBSCO and how I used my tools such as RefWorks and Paperpile to collect sources. I also encouraged my students to request help from a librarian in their own research. I often added a lesson on the difference between the manuscript requirement of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and that of the American Psychological Association (APA). I explained how the MLA valued the author whereas the APA valued the publication dates as indicated in the requirements of their respective Works Cited and Reference sections.


3. Teach the explicit differences among the sources. I had my students think in terms of points or grade as to which source should get an A, B, C, D, or F. I had students evaluate different Works Cited pages and grade them before creating their own. By formalizing the evaluation process, I emphasized the importance of using credible sources.


4. Require citations. Even when my students created a multimedia presentation such as a video or a slide presentation, I required my students to cite every source including any picture. Toward the end of the school year, all my students knew that they would not receive a passing grade without citations.

In a society where the number of views on a YouTube video or retweets on a Twitter feed becomes the standards for one’s credibility, we must do better to inform our students of which sources they should trust.

Digital literacy involves dealing with multimodal texts in many different communicative situations while using a range of communicative resources such as images, colors, videos, sounds, and graphics. It also involves respectfully communicating with people from different cultures in addition to those with different lifestyles.

Writing and reading digital texts

As writers, we carefully select certain words and organize these ideas into logical paragraphs. Beyond these textual writing practices, however, we also need to plan the text’s graphic design. As part of planning, multimodal choices are unlimited: What font will we use? What colors should be in the background? What images might we use, and where should we place them in relation to the text? Will we add movies, animations, or hyperlinks? If so, where should we insert them, and how should they appear for the reader? Is there any benefit to organizing the information with a navigational menu?

Consequently, reading and understanding ideas designed by a multimodal writer requires attention to each of these elements in addition to how to effectively connect them to better understand why they are assembled together and what meanings they convey as a whole.

Multimodal texts: every time, everywhere

Multimodality is a basic feature of texts, according to Gunther Kress, an Australian researcher who highlights elements of multimodality in his work. However, as teachers, we may sometimes treat multimodal text features as superfluous; neglecting to call students’ attention to the important meaning(s) they convey. In Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen remind educators of the need to consciously help students develop the ability to make sense of all of the multimodal languages blended or “orchestrated” into a text.

These efforts can more actively foster students’ critical literacy. As Jay Lemke wrote in his 2006 handbook chapter titled, Towards Critical Multimedia Literacy: Technology, Research, and Politics:

Critical literacy needs to respond to these historic changes [in digital texts]. We need a broader definition of literacy itself, one that includes all literate practices, regardless of medium. Books-on-tape are as much literate works as are printed books. Scripted films and television programs are no less products of literate culture in their performances than they were as texts. In printed advertisements, the message toward which we need to take a critical stance is conveyed not just by the textual copy, nor even by the copy and the images, but by the interaction of each with the other, so that the meaning of the words is different with the images than without them, and that of the image together with the words distinct from what it might have been alone. In the multimodal medium of the Web, the message is less the medium than it is the multiplication of meanings across media.

Hands-on multimodality

Focusing on multimodality does not require radically different ways of teaching nor does it require a computer. Even simple activities can open students’ minds to the power of images. I (Ana Elisa) have found that asking students to compose a set of directions for how to play Tic-tac-toe can produce some interesting results. Many students try to give instructions using only words, and they find it difficult to effectively communicate all of the steps. Some students ask for permission to include drawings in their directions and find they are much more successful. Taking time as a class to compare various forms of instructions creates the opportunity for rich conversations around the power of images as part of a meaning-making experience. I report on an analysis of these experiences in my book Textos Multimodais: Leitura e Produção or, in English, Multimodal Texts: Reading & Writing.

These kinds of experiences are only the tip of the iceberg! Continued experiences with multimodal text features open students’ minds to the role that multimodality plays in reading and writing.

To learn more, view a video in which Gunther Kress talks about multimodality. You might also enjoy this video in which Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope explore the multiple modes of representing meaning in today’s media.

Carla Viana Coscarelli is a professor in the School of Language Arts at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil and coordinator of Projeto Redigir/UFMG. Ana Elisa Ribeiro is a writer and a professor in the Department of Language and Technology of Federal Center of Technological Education of Minas Gerais.

Take a moment to think about the last photo taken on your cell phone or device. When shared with others, photos stimulate lots of recall and discussion. Have you noticed that when someone is in a photo he or she moves closer or zooms in to get a better glimpse and the person listens more intently to the retelling of the photo’s context or story? Similarly, photos capturing students engaged in special moments, events, or activities provide educators with powerful opportunities to actively involve students in meaningful and highly motivational oral language, reading, and writing experiences.

A photograph can be a powerful motivator and memory stimulator to retrieve specialized vocabulary and oral language conventions contextualized in an event. Oral retelling embedded within the activity and composed in text next to a photograph scaffolds reading. When photos are uploaded to apps, social media sites, or printed and assembled into personalized books, students engage further in important rereading activities that stimulate reading development.

Use photos to learn a new language

Depending on interest and needs, text composed near a photo might include specialized vocabulary, phrases, sight words, or sentences that reinforce grammatical structure. Recently, this technique was used in class while learning Spanish. We constructed various reading materials using photographs from Costa Rica. Text composed below a photo showed us standing next to a green tree to learn the Spanish word verde. When a monkey was outside our bedroom window, we took its photo to focus on learning animal names such as mono. Other photos and text consisted of learning names for food and everyday conversational phrases. Using QuickVoice Recorder, we recorded oral rereadings to measure proficiency in speaking Spanish. 

Develop vocabulary

Educators can purposefully sprinkle Tier Two words into conversations and use a camera to photograph events. For example, while children were eating spaghetti at an after-school program, a staff member used the words scrumptious, morsels, and devour to describe how and what the children ate. Later, the photos were projected on the wall and children were encouraged to use Tier Two words in sentences to talk about or act out the event in the photograph. Photos were also printed and added to a vocabulary wall for “reading around the room” activities.

Motivate secondary students

Screenshots of images viewed on the Internet or photographs taken with a camera of a particular topic can be imported to an app. Pic Talk offers a comic style way to create speech bubbles, to bring words to life, and showcase learning. The app offers lots of editing tools to personalize learning and can be shared on social media sites, sent as a text message, or e-mailed.

Support emergent and beginning readers at home

Photographs capturing children in activities provide indispensable access to materials to reinforce reading skills. A series of photographs might be taken of a child working in a family garden. Photos and oral retellings dictated from a child to an adult are typed next to each photograph telling how the soil was prepared and how the seeds were planted and watered, telling about first sprout sightings, and telling about how much the vines grew when measured by inches and feet. Photos can be uploaded to Read With Me Kids Book Maker and a personalized picture book created. Words are highlighted, and books can be read online with family. Photos can also be printed and combined into a book titled “My First Garden” and uploaded to Wix, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for global sharing with family members and friends. 

Encourage reading and writing in school

Teachers can keep a camera nearby to capture special moments and give students something to talk, write, and read about. For example, photos of playground rules can be projected onto a dry erase board or interactive whiteboard. Children’s oral statements are immediately typed or written under the photo by the teacher, and students choral or echo read words and sentences while teacher tracks text with a pointer or a cursor. Such experiences are further reinforced when photographs are uploaded to a class webpage or when printed and reread to peers and family members. Important oral language, academic language, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are integrated into meaningful literacy experiences.

Tammy Ryan has over 25 years of teaching experience. She is an associate professor of reading education at Jacksonville University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy. Her research focuses on beginning readers, digital learning, and international teaching experiences.

This article is part of a series from the International Literacy Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

“No longer is it enough to be able to read the printed word; children, youth, and adults, too, need the ability to critically interpret the powerful images of a multimedia culture. Audio and video literacy are key factors required of today’s students to interpret and produce multimedia,” as Northern Illinois University’s Sharon E. Smaldino said. Audiobooks are a proven literacy resource, which is why they’ve been used in classrooms for decades; however, using audio beyond the audiobook offers many advantages to classroom teachers. For example, audio is inexpensive, readily available, easy to store, and portable. Additionally, audio can be used to stimulate learning or to assist a struggling student. In the classroom, audio is typically used in listening activities; however, there are many ways students can record their own audio as a way to develop literacy skills.

Voice recording is a flexible tool that allows students to record their learning as well as build fluency skills. Voice recording can be completed on any device (tablet, laptop, smartphone, etc.) using free voice recording apps. Voice Memos is an easy-to-use app that comes preloaded on iOS devices. I have found that voice recording can be beneficial to fluency development. By allowing students to record their own reading, they have the ability to play it back and listen to themselves and self-check for fluency. Oftentimes after self-assessing, my students would rerecord their reading and make adjustments to produce a fluent reading. This same concept works very well with Readers Theatre performances too.

Voice recording is also a great way to document learning. Students can record their thinking about a topic or the content that they have learned. This is especially useful as an alternative to written assignments for young children, second language students, or struggling students with writing skills that are not fully developed.

A podcast is defined as making a digital audio file accessible. I have used podcasts successfully with all ages of  students from elementary to graduate level. My elementary students would record their weekly Readers Theatre to be posted on the classroom website. This provided an opportunity for students to practice their fluency skills as they rerecorded until they had the perfect performance. It also gave them a purpose for reading because families and friends in the outside world had access to listen to it.

One of my favorite assignments for my reading graduate students is the journal article critique podcast. Students choose a content-related article to critique, recording their critique in a podcast rather than in writing. I set forth guidelines for the critique itself and also for the podcast. The recording needs to be at least 1.5 minutes long but not exceed 2.5 minutes. The reader’s voice must be clear, and there cannot be any extraneous noise in the background. My students are reluctant to use the technology at first, but after they complete the assignment, I have found that it is one of their favorites, too. Many see it as a great way to teach summarization skills, as the time limits of the podcast really force the authors to determine the most important aspects of the text. My graduate students see this as an activity they can use immediately in their own classrooms. The completed podcasts are posted on our course discussion board. Students are required to respond to the podcasts of at least two of their peers, thus giving the assignment a real-world purpose instead of just writing another paper to be submitted for only the instructor to read.

Both teachers and students can use various types of audio to enhance learning opportunities using minimal technology. The ways audio can be integrated into literacy instruction are limitless!

Kristin Webber is a veteran teacher with over 20 years of experience. Currently, she is an associate professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Reading at Edinboro University, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy. She also serves as the Program Head for the Graduate Reading Program. Kristin has taught at every level from preschool to high school, and her research interests include the new literacies and instructional technology integration in teacher education programs.

This article is part of a series from the International Literacy Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).