Critical Digital Literacy Pedagogies: Challenges and Possibilities

• In Event: 47.094 - Critical Digital Literacies in a "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

The objective of this commentary paper is threefold. First, we clarify current challenges in the incorporation of Critical Digital Literacy practices in classrooms. These include contradictory pressures to foster creativity, provide experiences with contemporary literacy practices, focus on assessment, and aim for, or avoid, curricular standardization. Second, we offer two “worked examples” (Gee, 2010) of robust critical digital literacy pedagogies at play. This leads to a series of questions to foster further discussion about the complexities of Critical Digital Literacy pedagogies in K-12 classrooms.

Working from a critical, sociocultural perspective, we see digital texts as central to human interaction (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986; Vygotsky, 1978), and we interrogate the roles of agency and power in their creation and consumption. We draw from literature on creativity in digital media making (Burn, 2015; Sefton-Green, 2013) that can conflict with normative classroom writing practices (Banaji & Burn, 2007). We also draw from research on digital composition and teacher education (Author 2 et al., 2018) in relation to national standards in the US and abroad (Mills & Exley, 2014; Zancanella & Moore, 2014). Finally, we share an axiological commitment to justice for youth from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds (Author 3, 2018). To that end, we work with teachers, youth, and communities to foster critical digital literacy practices that reflect the complex desires of our communities (Tuck, 2009), while attending to issues of ethics in the production and consumption of digital texts (Luke et al., 2018).

Both worked examples informing this paper are drawn from qualitative studies employing fieldnotes (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011), semi-structured interviews (Weiss, 1994), and artifact collection to investigate the challenges and possibilities navigated in designing and engaging in Critical Digital Literacies pedagogies. The first focuses on an English teacher’s multimodal 6-week digital portfolio project wherein students made meaning through alternative writing paths. Despite this teacher's newfound understanding of students’ writing practices, she felt ill-prepared to scaffold or assess digital projects. The second example features a teacher who taught a third-grade class with several fully included students with disabilities. Her case, in which she helped children make their first-ever videos on iPads (Author 3, 2015), identifies ways teachers attempt to balance creativity and imagination with structured assignments for students with special needs.

Our worked examples illustrate the ways in which teachers negotiate new demands, remixing and rethinking normative classroom literacy practices (Ajayi, 2015). We close the paper with key questions that arise from our examples:
● How do we embrace agency and creativity for both teachers and students within normative institutional demands on writing?
● What space should critical digital composing be allotted in a curriculum in relation to more traditional literacy skills like essay writing?
● How and where might teachers learn skills, practices, and dispositions for facilitating critical digital projects?
As researchers continue to create and study critical digital literacy projects in and out of schools, we cannot afford to leave teachers and their pedagogical demands behind. To that end, this commentary paper centers issues of teaching, teacher education, and professional development.

Authors

• Anna Smith, Illinois State University

• Olivia Grace Stewart, St. John's University

• Jessica Zacher Pandya, California State University - Long Beach