Literacy to Literacies: The Pedagogy of New Time
Diana Nur Fathimah
1,2
1
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Wellington Rd, Australia
2
Balai Bahasa, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jalan Setiabudi 299, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: New Literacies, Literacy Pedagogy.
Abstract: This article explores the changing perspective on the concept of literacy to literacies and its’ implication for
literacy pedagogy. The traditional definition of literacy, which refers to the ability to communicate through
verbal mode has been replaced by the emergence of the term literacies, encompassing concepts of literacy in
various contexts. Literacy pedagogy, however, is still facing the issue related to equity and social justice.
Meanwhile, the emergent of new media (Green & Beavis, 2013) and the nature of socioeconomic demands
(Gee, 2014) have given a new challenge for literacy pedagogy to reform. The article proposes the integration
of new literacies into school curriculum as a respond to the demand of contemporary time which expects
individuals to have the ability to design identities, affinity groups, and networks as well as to have the ability
to build portfolio. The article argues that basic literacy skills offered at school should encompass the skill to
communicate using new media. Additionally, the teaching of new literacies is expected to equally benefit
students from both culturally and linguistically dominant background as well as the nondominant ones. The
debates on the integration of new literacies into school curriculum revolve around the issue on methodology.
The field is widely open to contribution, as the development of new media outraces the development of
literacy pedagogy. Therefore, methodologies to teach new literacies at school will always be in need for
improvement.
1 INTRODUCTION
Defining literacy is a challenging task as it usually
involves contestation and debates due to the political
nature it brings. In the perspective of structuralist and
linguistic models, literacy, in its singular form, refers
to the mastery of translating a sound of speech into a
symbolic form of writing as well as interpreting the
written words embedded within a socio-cultural
setting. Thus, being ‘literate’ traditionally means
being able to write and read (Kalantzis & Cope,
2012). Gee (1991) elaborates literacy skill as not only
the ability to write and read, but the ability to use the
language of the dominant discourse, or one discourse
that is valued the most among a variety of available
discourses. The dominant discourse ‘values ‘modern
consciousness’, namely believing that higher
intelligence is manifested in the kind of academic
language used in research, empirical reasoning, and
logical argumentation. Academic language is
epitomized by explicitness, analytic skills, logical
thought, abstract definitions and generalizations
(Gee, 2004, p. 280; Gee, 2012). With this definition,
the teaching and learning of literacy at school is
geared toward not only equipping students how to
read written symbols but also ‘prescriptively’ giving
students knowledge on grammars, conventions, and
values of academic discourse.
The emergence of social constructivism and
postmodern education in the 1980s brought a new
point of view of looking at literacy. The new term
‘literacies,' in its plural form, denotes the broad
possible interpretation of the concept. Literacy can be
defined in many domains other than language.
Literacy also takes many forms (Mills, 2009), such as
visual literacy, academic literacy, digital literacy, etc..
The concept of literacy can also be extended from
one’s ability to perform ‘communicative task in
society’ to one’s ability to take meaning and make
meaning from one’s experiences outside, using
multiple ways of communicating (Leander & Boldt,
2012; Gee, 2012; See Heath, 2013). In 1999s, The
New London Group (2000) introduced the concept of
‘multiliteracies’ which refers to the control the ability
to communicate in multicultural linguistic settings
and using multimodal communication media.
86
Fathimah, D.
Literacy to Literacies: The Pedagogy of New Time.
DOI: 10.5220/0007162500860090
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 86-90
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Finally, the changing definition of literacy allows
us to draw a conclusion on the concept of literacy, that
is beyond the ability to write and read. First, literacy
refers to the ability to make meaning and
communicate meaning using any possible media. It
means that literacy is a meaning-making ability that
is not limited to language only (Heath, 2013). Second,
the core concept of any literacy lies in its’ utility value
within the fluidity of social contexts; when social and
cultural contexts change, so does literacy and literacy
pedagogy. These two definitions suggest that literacy,
regardless of any forms it takes, is a tool that should
prepare people for future, to be an active citizenry,
and to function optimally in society (Kalantzis &
Cope, 2012; Green & Beavis; 2013).
2 CHALLENGES IN LITERACY
PEDAGOGY
The major problems of literacy education relate to the
issue of identity, power, and equity. Being literate
means having a control of the use of mainstream
discourse. Meanwhile, Discourse refers to a
consensus on how to speak, think, act, be, and
believe, in a community, which is used to identify
people’s membership within that socially meaningful
group (Gee, 1991). The teaching of literacy is closely
related to championing one identity over another. As
Gee (1991) says, the teaching of literacy “puts
forward certain concepts, viewpoints, and values at
the expense of others” (p. 4). Consequently, the
intersection between schooling and discourse might
benefit students who come from dominant discourse
while putting those who come from non-dominant
discourse at risk of feeling a sense of losing their
identity as they feel no sense of belonging to the
middle-class culture (William, 2005).
Meanwhile, in terms of power and equity, literacy
teaching often favours those who are familiar with the
dominant culture and disadvantages those who come
from culturally and linguistically marginalized
background. Scholars (Blake & Bowling, 2011; Gee,
2004; William, 2005) problematize the teaching and
learning of literacy, of which manifestation, in form
of instruction, learning goals, and assessments,
possibly puts students from non-mainstream
discourse at risk of experiencing difficulties. For
nonmainstream students, the acquisition of this
dominant literacy skill is hampered by the
incompatibility between home and school literacy
practices. The fact that schools demand students to
master ‘academic discourse’ shows that those who
speak academic discourse do better in society and
have more chances to gain social prestige and
mobility. Addressing these issues requires a kind of
pedagogy which cares about building critical
consciousness to critique the issue of power; an area
of which the current pedagogy is still considered to be
lacking.
Nevertheless, seminal works since 1970 have
acknowledged the mediating influence of students’
cultural background in mastering literacy skills.
Research in literacy for ‘culturally and linguistically
nondominant students’ (CLNS) shows that there has
been a gradual change in how researchers perceive
the cultural and linguistic practices of CLNS at home.
The cultural and linguistic practices of these
nondominant students had been considered as
‘deficient,' then ‘equal but different,' until recently
seen as ‘useful resources’ to develop their skill in
using dominant discourse: a view known as resource
approach. The equity issue favouring those students
living with mainstream upbringing has been
addressed by efforts to ‘build the bridge’ between
CLNS’s home lives and classrooms using resource
approach, which sees students’ cultural and linguistic
practices at home as useful material to develop their
literacy skills.
Additionally, other works showing the effort to
build the bridge between students’ literacy practices
at home and school also concern students from the
culturally dominant background. The examples are
works by Ryan (2005), Wilhelm (2016), and Sullivan
& Brown (2015) which suggest that students’ literacy
practices outside of school, including their interest in
reading marginalized genre during leisure time, can
be as valuable as literacy practices at school, if not
more. The research has indicated the significance of
mapping students’ literacy practices at home, not
exclusively for students from non-dominant culture,
but for all students. Students literacy practices outside
school is considered important to create a well-
informed instruction. Mapping students’ literacy
practices outside schools is paramount to develop
students’ overall literacy skills as well as to address
the identity and equity issues prevalent in education.
3 NEW TIME, NEW MEDIA
As the development of technology and
communication proliferates, there has been a
considerable change in the way literacy is
conceptualized. The new media has emerged and
grown along with the continuous use of the traditional
printed ones. New media is epitomized by its various
Literacy to Literacies: The Pedagogy of New Time
87

mode and modality, affordance for presence, social
participation, self-personalization, and user-
generated content, as explicated by Facebook,
Wikipedia, YouTube, and other forms of digital
media (See Green & Beavis, 2013). This new type of
communication mode gives birth to ‘online literacies,'
which is a “socially mediated ways of generating
meaningful content through multiple modes of
representation to produce digital texts for
dissemination in cyberspace” (Alvermann, 2008, p. 9
in Green & Beavis, 2013). The emergence of new
media and new literacies bring with them a new
challenge for literacy education as new media now
play a major place in students’ literacy practices.
Meanwhile, in the new capitalist world under the
philosophy of neoliberalism, education is seen as a
marketplace. Neoliberalism holds the idea that
people’s gain depends fully on people’s ability to
afford. In this case, schools, which are usually free or
subsidized, should only provide the basic skills (Gee,
2004) to maintain the stability of the market of
education. The ‘basic literacy skills’ refers to the
traditional literacy, namely the ability to
communicate using written form only. Hence, under
neoliberalism, there will be no room for new
literacies, consisting on the complex relationship
between various communication modes, to be
embedded in school curriculum.
The debate on literacy pedagogy in modern time
revolves around whether integrating new literacies in
school curriculum is possible, if not desirable.
According to Gee (2004), there are two options to
respond to this issue. First, we can accept schools’
neoliberal function by delivering “the basics” while
working outside school to provide activities and
experiences essential for students’ development, or
we can fight the neoliberal agenda by making schools
sites for creativity where students can gain skills and
experiencess suitable for success (p. 298).
The latter option is preferable as the primary
mission of education is to ensure that students can
participate fully in public, community, and economic
life (New London Group, 2000). Education has the
responsibility to create a literacy pedagogy that will
prepare students for their future. Hence, new
literacies should be taught at schools, adding to the
basic literacy skills that have been taught so far. The
issues on the inclusion of new literacies in school
curriculum can be categorized into three issues,
namely the relevance with current economic demand,
the pursuit of equity in education, and the issue on
practicality.
3.1 New literacies and Relevance to
Current Economic Demand
The dramatic economic change has replaced the
nature of work from the old top-down horizontal
chain of commands to the post-fordism, namely the
flattened-hierarchy emphasizing on collaborative
work and initiative. Hence, it requires individuals to
be an active participant (New London Group, 2000;
Gee, 2004; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012). In the new
capitalist world, “where knowledge goes out of date
rapidly, and technological innovation is common” (p.
284), there is a need for individuals to have the ability
to design identities, affinity groups, and networks
(Gee, 2004; Green & Beavis, 2013).
Additionally, in the new capitalist world, it is
important for an individual to be ready for shifting
their roles to respond to the unpredictable life
trajectories. One’s merit, which used to be based on
class, is now based on his or her portfolio, comprising
their experiences, skills, as well as their ability to
make use of their identities when needed (Gee, 2004).
The need for the mastery in new literacies becomes
undeniable as individuals can benefit from the nature
of new media, which allow them to present to
network and build social affinity with their peers.
New media allows people to “participate and create
content, rather than just ‘read’” (Green & Beavis,
2013, p. 46).
New literacies can enable individuals to represent
themselves through various modes and modalities.
Hence, the inclusion of new literacies in school
curriculum is the most relevant to the challenge that
students will face in this new capitalism, possibly in
the future economic demand. (New London Group,
2000; Gee, 2004; Green & Beavis, 2013; Mills,
2009).
3.2 New Literacies and Equity in
Education
According to Kalantzis & Cope (2012), equity is a
value that contributes to the fairness of society,
characterized by the availability of equal
opportunities for all people. In relation to literacies,
the emergence of new media and new literacies has
broadened the conception about literacy learning
through a wider discourse acquisition. The binary
distinction between school-based literacy practices
and home-based literacy practices has been
challenged, as scholars have acknowledged “the
permeability of the home in accessing literacy” (Pahl
& Burnett, 2013, p. 10). There is now a fine line
between schooling and education, of which the
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
88

former refers to the teaching and learning at one
institution, and the latter refers to a vast and rich
learning opportunities provided by various media
including those outside school (Green & Beavis,
2013). Students might vary in the degree of exposure
toward new media outside the school. However, as
new media and new literacies emerge to be an
inseparable part of people’s modern life in new time,
there needs to be a reconceptualization on the notion
of basic skills for literacy, from ‘being able to write
and read’ to ‘being able to communicate using
various modes and modalities.' Hence, to achieve
equity in literacy education (See Kalantzis & Cope,
2012), the new literacies should be included in school
curriculum.
The urgency to include new literacies in school
curriculum does not only benefit students who have
the least exposure to new literacies, but also those
who are familiar with it. According to Gee (2012), the
extent to which students can benefit from their early
encounter with literacy, either with traditional literacy
or the new literacies, depends on the availability of
mentoring from and interaction with adults which
stimulate their problem-solving skill and innovative
thinking. Therefore, although many people get the
exposures to either traditional literacies or new
literacies, it is only through this mechanism that ones
can acquire the advantage of mastering this discourse
which can lead them to success in the contemporary
world. Thus, the inclusion of new literacies in school
curriculum equally provides all students to develop
their competence in new literacies.
Additionally, according to Mills (2009), “the
intertextual institution of a dominant literary tradition
is inequitable since marginalized cultures also have a
stake in literacy practice in a multicultural and
globalized society” (p. 105). Teaching only the
traditional basic literacy skills means acknowledging
only one acceptable discourse that is worth valuing:
namely the basic academic literacy skills. Meanwhile,
teaching new literacies in school curriculum means
accepting the popular literacy practices prevalent in
current society, needed by people both from
marginalized and dominant culture. In this case,
scholars (Green & Beavis, 2013; Mills, 2009) are in
favour of some level of integration of new literacies
in literacy pedagogy.
3.3 The Practicality of Teaching New
Literacies
Given the complexity of new literacies interwoven in
students’ literacy practices in various loose domains,
what is needed is a permeable curriculum which
advocates the intersection between teachers and
students' literacy practices (Dyson, 1993, in Pahl &
Burnett, 2013). However, the suggestion to
incorporate new literacies into school curriculum
leads to inquiries related to its practicality: first,
whether integrating new literacies in school
curriculum equals to the reduction of time for
teaching basic literacy skills; second, to what extent
new literacies can be and should be integrated into
school curriculum (Green & Beavis, 2013). The
debate emerges as the term new literacies
encompasses a complexity and interrelationship of a
wide range of modes of communication, including
sound, camera-use, gesture, etc. (Mills, 2009, p. 106),
which is considered too broad to be included in school
curriculum.
Gee (2007) suggests that teaching literacy skills
can be done better when integrated as a strategy to
solve a real problem, rather than teaching it separately
out of context. Drawing on an extensive observation
on learning in video games, Gee (2007) proposes a
situated approach to teach literacy skills which
suggests that the learning of skills should be
embedded in a meaningful context where there is an
immediate purpose of learning it. The learning of
literacies, hence, lies within the integration of
numerous ways of producing text, in a real
communication context or cultural interactions (Gee,
2007). In higher education, the teaching of literacy
can be accommodated by the concept of ‘applied
learning’ through literacy practices experienced
during placement, which gives students a chance to
acquire multi-modal literacy skills relevant in the
desired contexts. Meanwhile, for secondary school
students, teaching literacy should be brought with
hands-on experience (Blake & Bowling, 2011).
Meanwhile, although the New London Group
(2000) acknowledge that new multiliteracies is an
ongoing project, they have proposed four components
on ‘multiliteracies’ pedagogy, namely situated
practice, overt-instruction, critical framing, and
transformed practice. These works have been
extensively applied, discussed, or even debated (see
Leander & Boldt, 2012). Other works (See Mills,
2009) provide alternative ways of integrating new
literacies in literacy pedagogy. Research on literacy
pedagogy in new media has not yet ended as the
development of technology and communication
outraces the development of literacy pedagogy.
Therefore, works in methodologies to teach new
literacies at school will always be in need for
improvement.
Literacy to Literacies: The Pedagogy of New Time
89

4 CONCLUSIONS
This article has discussed the key concepts of literacy
and the influence of contemporary time in the
development of literacy pedagogy. The concept of
literacy has changed from traditionally referring to
the skill to communicate through verbal and written
mode only, to ‘literacies’ which acknowledges
various ways of communicating and making
meaning. The major concern on literacy revolves
around three dimensions, namely critical dimension,
cultural dimension, and operational dimension
(Green & Beavis, 2013). While the critical
dimension, related to the issue of power, is considered
to be lacking praxis, the cultural dimension has been
addressed by various scholars endeavouring to bridge
culturally and linguistically nondominant students’
literacy practices at home and at school. Additionally,
in new time, the cultural dimension concerns literacy
pedagogy to create a curriculum which emphasizes on
the authentic meaning making and full participation
in society (Green & Beavis, 2013).
Meanwhile, in relation to its’ operational
dimension, the emergence of new media and its
intensity in circulating in individuals’ life gives way
to new literacies to be considered as necessary to be
integrated into school curriculum. The New London
Group’s (2000) formulation of four components on
‘multiliteracies’ pedagogy has invited scholars to
adopt, adapt, provide alternatives, or even to critique
its’ relevance with the current literary practices (See
Leander & Boldt, 2012). However, it is also noted
that the field is widely open to contribution, as the
development of new media is still constantly
influencing people’s literacy practices.
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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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