W8 Q1 - Suha | W8 Q1 | Forum

Drawing on this week’s readings, it is evident that literacy practices for students have been changing with the advent of the internet, especially the spread of Web 2.0 or social media platforms. Even though the NYT article dates more than a decade back, one can say if the changes were evident, then new trends and changes are being recognized today, with technology and the web having become an inseparable element of all aspects in one’s life.

Keeping this development in mind, I would like to propose the development of three literacies that scholar teachers need to equip themselves with. The first of course, is digital literacy. Children are born today with screens in front of them, and therefore their minds are developing keeping these and screens as part of their natural environment. Therefore, to utilize this natural environment in the process of teaching how to read and write, it is necessary for teacher-scholars to train ourselves in the digital ways of reading and writing.

The second kind of literacy I propose is emotional literacy. Teaching and learning how to read and write don’t need to be a task like it used to be. Instead, understanding the students’ emotional capacities, seeing how this interacts with their technological surroundings, and using these insights into teaching how to read and write will perhaps prove to be far more fruitful.

Finally, the third literacy that I recommend is cultural literacy. History has seen a dominance of the English language, and its literacy practices being used to suppress local and regional languages. However, the time spent on the internet by the youth has given them exposure to the linguistic and cultural diversity present across the world. This needs to be kept in mind while devising literacy teaching practices to diverse students.