CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO 21ST CENTURY LITERACIES

Objectives
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to develop a clear and practical
understanding of the following:
 Definitions of conventional literacy; and
 Expanded views of literacy in the 21st century.

Explore
Literacy is defined by dictionaries as the state of being able to read and write
(Literacy, Literature, n.d.), Although it is the ultimate thesis of this chapter that such a
traditional definition no longer suffices in the information age, a thorough understanding of
literacy and its past nuances will give us a solid foundation in exploring and discussing the
“”new” literacies of the 21st century and why possessing them is now mandatory for both
teachers and students in all levels of education.
This chapter explores several definitions of literacy and what being literate means in
the multiplicity of contexts in the 21st century, with the goal of raising awareness on literacy
and giving teachers the opportunity to pause and reflect on their own literacies as they
attempt to teach the new literacies to their students.

TRADITIONAL OR CONVENTIONAL LITERACY

The word “literacy” stems from the word “literate” which first appeared in the 15 th
century and is in turn derived from the Latin words literatus, meaning “(a person), marked
with letters” – that is, “distinguished or identified by letters” – and carried with the idea that
such a person was cultured and educated. Since the subjects of the time (e.g…grammar,
logic, arithmetic, geometry, etc.) all had written texts (which were composed of letters) that
had to be studied, the ability to read and write was therefore of prime importance, leading to
the strong association of being “literate” with the ability to read and write.

Miller (1973) divides the conventional concept of literacy into three sub-categories
1. Basic Literacy – is the ability to correspond visual shapes to spoken sound in
order to decode written materials and translate them into oral language.
Simply put, it is the ability to recognize letters and words. This would be akin
to recognizing that the sequence of letters “b-a-s-a” forms the word basa in
Filipino, even without understanding what it means.
2. Comprehension Literacy – It is the ability to understand the meaning of what
is being read. To capitalize on the example above, this would be like knowing
that basa can mean either “to read” or “to be wet.”
3. Functional or Practical Literacy – It is the ability to read (i.e., decode and
comprehend) written materials needed to perform everyday vocational tasks.
This is the equivalent of reading the text “Ang bata ay nagbabasa.” and being
able to understand that basa here refers to reading and not to being wet.
 Based on this conventional view of literacy, we notice two things for reading (and
therefore literacy) to exists: (1) a text (consisting of symbols and grammar) to be read; and
(2) a meaning of message being communicated by the text for the reader to extract. Without a
text, there would be nothing to read; without meaning, the text is reduced to series of
incomprehensible doodles.

It should be therefore noted that even in Miller’s definition of literacy, the act of
reading implies a level of understanding. Simply knowing how to say a word (or a series of
words) is not the same as being able to understand what it means. Without understanding of
the meaning of the words, reading has not taken place. Based on this, Schlechty (2001)
defines the concept of functional literacy as the state of being able to read, but not well
enough to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a
basic level.

As the rest of this chapter will argue, this synchronicity between decoding textual
symbols and being able to extract and understand their meaning is a necessary part of being
literate, even as the new contexts of the 21 st century change the nature of what the “text” is,
and what it means to “read” and “write.”

EXPANDED VIEWS OF LITERACY

Despite the popularity of American films in the Philippines, many Filipinos cannot
follow the actor’s dialogue, and thus resort to guessing the overall story based on the actions
onscreen.
Despite the ubiquity of the traditional view of literacy, Roberts (1995) notes
that “in the past fifty years, hundreds of definitions of ‘literacy’ have been advanced by
scholars, adult literacy workers, and programme planners,” with even the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Ogranization (UNESCO, 2006) acknowledging that
literacy as a concept has proven to be complex and dynamic, it being continually defined and
interpreted in multiple ways.
In 2004, UNESCO formally defined literacy as “the ability to identify, understand,
interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated
with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to
achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their
community and wider society.”

Note that “reading” does not appear in UNESCO’s definition of literacy. Instead,
literacy has taken on a definition more akin to “knowing about something and what to do
with it.”

In this vein, Mkandawire (2018) more succinctly posits that literacy is “a form of
knowledge, competence, and skills in a particular field or area,” being supported by
UNESCO (2006), Burton (2007), and Mkandawire, Simooya-Mudenda, & Cheelo (2017),
which acknowledged that-as we have just pointed out – modern views appear to equate
literacy with knowledge.
 This shift in the definition of literacy from “reading and writing” to “knowledge” is
especially important as we explore the “new” literacies of the 21st century that seem far-
removed from the contexts upon which conventional literacy is based.

LITERACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

When viewed from the perspective of conventional/traditional literacy, the concept of

“new” literacies is a bit of a misnomer, as even these new literacies of the 21st century make
generous use of being able to read and write, rather than supplant them as skills necessary for
survival. However, when viewed from the perspective of literacy as knowledge, the new
literacies begin to make sense as they are the “skills and bodies of knowledge” that are
necessary for survival and productivity in the information age.

In the same vein of reasoning, the new literacies are not “new” per se- as in the sense
that they never existed before. Rather, we consider them to be new because the contexts in
which old skills and knowledge are being employed are new, both in nature and in scope. The
ability to do so in a new way that is concise, complete, and clear that is certainly new, given
that it will be how ninety percent of the population will be informed on the issue. Similarly,
being able to verify the truth-value and veracity of a document is not a new skill-but being
able to do so when there are a hundred similar documents available to you online is.

Case in point: Throughout history, humans have communicated on levels apart from the
spoken and written word, for example, visually, using the long - distance communication
system of smoke signals used by the ancient Chinese, the ancient Greeks, and the indigenous
peoples of North America.

In the Victorian era, there was such a thins as the “Language of Flowers,” where the
kind, color, and arrangement of a bouquet of flowers were used to communicate messages
that could not otherwise be spoken aloud in Victoria society (Greenaway, 1884). For
example, a bouquet of oak leaves (representing strength), purple roses (sorrow), while lilies
(resurrection), and pale- yellow tulips and rosemary (memory or remembrance) would
altogether communicate a message of sympathy, usually over the death of a loved one.

Successfully interpreting these “visual languages” requires a kind of “visual literacy”

to understand the message being presented and to manage the information encoded therein-
skills which, as following chapters will further reveal, are coming into use again in the 21st
century literacies. The difference is that now we are not analyzing smoke signal or bouquets,
but rather sounds, texts, and images from a hundred different sources at a nearly non-stop rate
to the point where accuracy, validity, and reliability of the messages we interpret form the
basis for some very important personal and collective decision-making.

Another difference involves the question of necessity: One did not need to be literate
in the language of flowers to live a fulfilled life in Victorian era England, but to be not media
or digitally literate in 21st century makes one vulnerable to manipulation by those who are,
and such manipulation can easily cost and individual time, money, property, and even life.
 These so-called “new” literacies arose from the increasing availability of
communication technologies that were once unavailable to the average individual.
Technologies like blogging and vlogging, social networking, and even text-messaging change
and expand both the extent and the form of our communication-blending text, sound, and
images in ways unforeseen and unprecedented (Richardson, 2014). Never before have the
opinions of a twelve year-old child in an unheard-of town in an unheard-of country been
available for everyone on earth to read and hear, and while adults might scoff at a child’s
opinions, that child might have more than a thousand online subscribers who certainly think
his or her opinions are important, maybe even more so than the opinions of adults.

Simply put, three things have been critical in the rise of the new literacies:

1. Increased Reach – We are communicating with more people, from more diverse
cultures, across distances than ever before.
2. Increased Means of Communication – We are communicating in more ways and
at faster speeds than ever before.
3. Increased Breadth of Content – We are communicating about more things than
ever before.

How do we work together with people of different cultures who might have vastly
different perspectives on communication, work ethics, values, religious beliefs, and
worldviews? What do we do when some of these might be mutually exclusive to our own? In
an age where information is power – where knowing more and knowing first can spell the
difference between success and failure – how do we leverage both current and emergent
technologies so that our endeavors are both productive and profitable? Moreover, how do we
navigate and manage the veritable minefield of information that was once considered taboo
and private and is now online, for all the world to see and judge, whether we like it or not?

Answering such complex questions requires new sets of skills and knowledge – ones
that our school system have never had to teach before. With these changes in with whom,
how, and why we communicate, new literacies are required not only to make sense of the
changes, but also to use these new technologies and paradigms in meaningful and productive
ways – something required not only of students, but of teachers as well.

To better address the need for teachers to be literate in these new literacies, this book
discusses and explores them in the ensuing chapters, namely:

Globalization and Multicultural Literacies explore the emerging need to locate,

verify, and ultimately manage online information, especially in an age where information is
power and where having the right (and wrong) information and the ability to communicate it
with others and use it to address real-world problems easy spell the difference between both
personal and career success and failure.

Ecoliteracy and Artistic and Creative Literacy explore the emerging demands for
knowing how to effectively and sustainably manage the natural resources that our increased
individualization and demands for productivity are so rapidly eating up. The chapter also
explores how this increase in productivity also brings with it an increased demands for arts
and aesthetics and the need to develop ways of effectively communicating through the
creative arts in industries dominated by objective data.

Finally, Critical Literacy addresses the increasing need to discern the underlying (and
often tacit) messages behind the new “texts” of the 21st century, particularly in an ever-
increasingly multicultural society where ideas, cultures, and ideologies vie with one another
for power and dominance in the minds of the masses.

Enhance
One of the ways students can be trained in the new literacies is to engage them in
digital storytelling, wherein the students take part in the traditional process of storytelling, but
with some digital enhancements. They choose a topic, conduct research, write a script,
develop a story, and through the use of multimedia, create something that can be played
online or on a computer.

Digital storytelling can be broken down into following six steps:

1. Writing – Write about a particular story from your life. The story must have a
central theme.
2. Developing a Script – Develop a script that identifies the important points of your
story.
3. Creating a Storyboard – Create a storyboard that visually organizes the flow of the
story. Assign a particular image to portions of the script.
4. Locating Multimedia – Use search engines to locate photos and videos. Photos
and videos from one’s personal collection may also be used.
5. Creating the Digital Story – Record the voice over for your movie. Create the
movie using the software that is available to you.
6. Sharing and Uploading – Share your story in class and upload your work online.

WRAP UP
 Traditional Literacy is the ability to read and write
 The traditional or conventional concept of literacy can be divided into sub-
categories:
1. Basic Literacy, which is the ability to recognize letters and words;
2. Comprehension Literacy, which is the ability to understand the meaning of
what is being read; and
3. Functional/Practical Literacy, which is the ability to read and written materials
needed to perform everyday vocational tasks.
 Modern views of literacy equate it with knowledge.
 New literacies have risen due to increased reach, increased means of
communication, and increased breadth of content. These new literacies are
globalization and multicultural literacy, social and financial literacy,, media and
 cyber/digital literacy, ecoliteracy, artistic and creative literacy, and critical
literacy.

-END-

Prepared by:

NELSON B. SEPATO
Master Teacher I
MAED-EM, LPT
Instructor