Tuesday June 26th - McLuhan and Kress

One of my major take-aways from the Kress reading is that the meaning of the term literacy needs to be reevaluated because of the evolving nature of communication. Previously, written words on a white page was the dominant form of communication, but digital technologies have changed that so different forms are growing in their use and popularity. I am reminded of reading Mads’s teaching philosophy statement on Monday because she opened by describing a mundane experience that every person has on a daily basis - that of encountering a store clerk whose facial expression indicates that they are obviously bored, frustrated, and ready to go home. These details aren’t explicit, but human beings have the capacity and frequent practice at “reading” facial expressions and body language. This is another form of literacy among many others that Kress mentions which are typically not thought of generally and in schools. Because of the proliferation of different forms of communicating, it is important to acknowledge them in schools in order to ensure that students are literate beyond the ability to read text. This reminds me of Snapchat and Instagram as modes of communication that young people have mastered without being taught. Kids generally know what sorts of images go with what type of text in a Snapchat for their audience and the effect they want to have. This is a type of literacy that could possibly be tapped into in a more academic setting in the form of a multimodal project.

Another interesting aspect of the Kress piece was his discussion about the type of communication dictating its form (for example, the way that text is written linearly influenced the structure of sentences, paragraphs, and books as a whole). I’m not sure I’m understanding that full discussion entirely so it is something I’d like to come back to during class. His assertion that due to the prevalence of screens and writing on screens that “Writing will more and more become organized by the logic of the image-space of the screen” (20). I wonder how writing will change based on the fact that it is being done on screens probably more often than not these days.