Redefining Literacy For The 21st Century

Create students of the future and leaders for tomorrow's information highway! Walk away with a new definition of literacy for the Information Age that you can pass on to learners of all ages. Find suggestions and resources for discovering your own path to promoting literacy in the 21st century. "Action Items," inside, suggest specific activities for all educators to undertake right away. A corresponding Web site that serves as a meeting place and discussion forum for collaboration and connectivity is also available to readers, where digital versions of charts, handouts and resources are at your fingertips. Appendices: Other suggested works, Where to look to find the future. Works Cited. Book jacket.

This seminal work on what literacy truly means in the 21st century is filled with big, meaningful ideas. The purpose of this book is not to replace the three Rs, but to expand them to a model for literacy that applies to classrooms which are shape-shifting under the pressures of converging conditions. This is a must-read for all educators! • Exposes meaning from global interactive, multimedia, and electronic cybraries • Employs information for solving challenges and constructing information • Express ideas compellingly and fluently through technology to a diverse audience This resource features an associated Wiki web page where readers can access presentation slides, links to blog entries about redefining literacy from the edu-blogosphere, online handouts for conference presentations and workshops, various files associated with this book, and regularly updated web links that have started with Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century.

An urgent, erudite, and practical book that redefines literacy to embrace how we think and communicate now We live in a world that is awash in visual storytelling. The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing, and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling's grammar, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate. But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we've made and an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we're poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling-much like the rules that define written language-do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy-from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media-on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.

What's Wrong with Our Schools and How We Can Fix Them examines the status of public education in North America and exposes many of the absurd instructional practices found in all-too-many schools. Written by three experienced educators, this book provides readers with a direct window into public education. The language is straightforward, the case studies based on real events, and the research evidence clearly presented. With chapter titles like, 'Subject Matter Matters,' 'A Pass Should be Earned,' and 'There is Too Much Edu-Babble,' the authors systematically demolish the ridiculous fads that have taken hold of public education. As unashamed apologists for the importance of knowledge and content in school curricula, the authors clearly show why the views of romantic progressives, like those of popular author Alfie Kohn, fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny. A consistent focus on common sense permeates this book and provides parents, teachers, and administrators with practical ways in which they can help improve public education. Anyone interested in the future of public education will benefit from reading this book. For more information, visit www.fixingourschools.com.

An urgent, erudite, and practical book that redefines literacy to embrace how we think and communicate now We live in a world that is awash in visual storytelling. The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing, and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling's grammar, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate. But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we've made and an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we're poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling—much like the rules that define written language—do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy—from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media—on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.

Drawing on real-life interviews, Brandt explores what happens when writing overtakes reading as the basis of people's daily literate experience.

For courses in Elementary Reading Methods. Balanced in its approach, Literacy for the 21st Century models how to execute the principles and processes recognized by the field as exemplary practice. The text features authentic classroom teaching models with student artifacts, minilessons, and four core instructional approaches for developing literacy skills. Chapters focus both on reading and writing processes and discuss how to develop fluent readers and writers, how to facilitate comprehension, how to organize for literacy instruction and how to use a variety of assessment procedures to document student learning. Because of its accessibility and practical pedagogical features, this text serves preservice teachers well. It also will function well for those teachers pressed into service in accelerated credentialing programs acting as an invaluable resource to get up and running quickly.