syllabus: paper 2.

 


Unit Two-Paper #2: Assembling/Defining Your Literacy Toolkit/Needs.
∑ Assigned Oct. 10. Due Nov. 7.
This unit is the core of the class, and will have three parts that build on one another and overlap.


Situation: This essay asks you to consider the same problem as Paper #1, but to consider it in a wider scope. We looked at one skill that may be of use for the 21st century- What else do students need? As you research and think about your specific literacy needs, consider how specialized or general those needs are. If the skill you need is specific, are there general strategies or concepts that will be important to most students?


Audience/Purpose: Parts One (blogging) and Two (stretching) are primarily for yourself and others in the classroom. I encourage you to share your blogging and stretching ideas/projects. For Part Three, you will need to address an appropriate audience- probably teachers (like me, but not limited to me), politicians, or perhaps a "general reader".


Products: Part One: Continue to blog and filter reading material relevant to 21st Century Literacy. Extend your blogging to reflecting on other tools to use for your 21st Century Literacy (hardware, software, critical thinking, collaboration, time management). These blogs should include links. If you have concluded in your first paper that blogs are of limited or no value to education, propose to me an alternative means of gathering, storing, and sharing information (e-mail lists, the Blackboard system, etc).
Part Two: In one of the essays you will read, Elizabeth Moje and Josephine Peyton conclude that adolescents and young adults need to "learn new things, to have new experiences.. and to stretch their thinking" in order to be successfully literate in the 21st Century.

In asking you to stretch yourselves, I do not want you to overload yourselves mastering a new skill. I expect you to:
-Propose a project to me in writing. Explain how this project is a stretch for you, and explain how it relates to exploring "new literacy".
-Work with others in the class if you want to work on your collaboration skills (highly recommended).
-Commit yourself to 15-20 hours (per person) on the project.
-Determine your own grading criteria (an incomplete project, for example, can still be considered excellent if you come up with a strong outline or model, develop a few components fully, etc.).
-You provide your own evaluation: use your grading criteria to tell me whether or not you accomplished your goals. We will both need to agree to the negotiated grade.
The content you are developing for this unit can be re-organized and used here (a "Toolkit Web Site" or an instructional video), or you can work on some tools and skills that might be useful to your future plans (CAD, Flash, Photoshop, Freehand, etc).


Part Three: After you have researched new literacy in Part One and experimented with new tools in Part Two, I want you to reflect on those experiences by doing one of the following:
1. Write a fairly academic paper addressed to an appropriate audience in which you reflect on the meaning of "new literacy" and make a proposal for appropriate literacy education in the 21st Century.
2. Write a "manifesto" in which you define "new literacy" and speculate on both the needs and outcomes for new literacy education in the 21st Century (or argue against all the "new literacy" hype).
3. Produce a "new media essay" (video-essay or web-essay or Flash piece, etc) that will illustrate your new literacy skills even as you reflect on them.
4. Some other project that encompasses the requirements (get an OK from me).
Regardless of which option, you will need to define "new literacy" by drawing on the material you have read, and personalize "new literacy" by reflecting and speculating on what skills and tools you are likely to need in the next 5, 10, 15 years. The first two options should be 5-7pages; the third and fourth options are difficult to quantify-- talk with me about its quantity before you undertake it.


Questions to possibly answer:
What is "new literacy" to you? To the experts? What will work in the 21st Century and Why? Why did you pick the tools that went into your toolkit/project? Compare/Contrast that to what experts say should be used. What did you use for your "stretch project" and why? What did you learn from doing your "stretch project"?


  

 my information.

"Assembling a Toolkit for 21st Century Literacy"
[a.k.a. English Composition 110]
Instructor: Sybil Priebe
Office: Minard Hall 322B Office Number: 231-7154
Class Hrs: 8-9:15 am/9:30-10:45 am Tuesdays and Thursdays

Office Hrs: 12:30-1:30 pm T/R,
4- 5 pm Wednesdays

E-mail: ihaveabug@yahoo.com Weblog:
www.xanga.com/teacher47 Web Site:
http://sybilisticism.tripod.com