Literacy Practices, Performances, and Possibilities of a Digital Role-Play

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Multimodal Literacies, Performance Theory, and Digital Technologes

Abstract

This paper presents findings from an IRB-approved study about literacy practices of an adolescents’ digital role-play as they reimagined and performed a popular YA novel. The teens’ practices reflect broadened notions of literacies (Ito et al., 2010; Lankshear & Knobel, 2011). Writing and response invited participants to constantly re-shape and explore who they wanted to become in the digital story world. Data were collected of more than 400 scenes. Discourse analysis (Gee, 2012) is used to identify participants’ a) literary knowledge, b) establishment of identity, and c) challenges to the text. Findings suggest there remains a need and opportunity to design innovative literacy spaces in ways that support critical thinking about texts in relation to self-concepts and social identity.

Author

• Stacy Haynes-Moore, University of Iowa