What is Multiliteracy?

Now that I’ve provided you with an introduction to the Multiliteracy Project, I’m back to give you a run down of the literacies I see present in this collaborative work.

A colleague recently loaned me a very clever book entitled “World Class: The Re-education of America,” which was co-written by an Art teacher, Mary Ellen Shevalier and a French teacher, Françoise Piron. On page 66, Françoise Piron’s ideas sum up what the Multiliteracy Project is trying to do.

“If we are indeed committed to preparing our students for the world and for the future, then we must be able to work cooperatively with our colleagues to create curriculum that generates meaningful connections. We must integrate differing but complementary subject areas and make use of technological tools as a means to enhance student experiences in the classroom and beyond.”

The following questions may be raised: How can we at Marcellus improve what is already an excellent district? How can we better prepare our students for jobs that don’t exist today? What is one thing we can focus on to improve 21^st century learning? I’m going to answer all of these questions with one word: Multiliteracy!

This circle graph depicts the literacies that are present in the Multiliteracy Project, with some of them being more prominent than others. As you can see, multiliteracy means much more than becoming literate in more than one language. According to Wikipedia, cultural literacy is “familiarity with and ability to understand the idioms, allusions and informal content that create and constitute a dominant culture.” Information literacy is “the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.” Traditional literacy is knowledge of alphabetic and grammatical structures in one’s own native language allowing one to be able the read, write, and think in the language. I have grouped Network literacy, Computer literacy, and Digital literacy together because they all have the common theme of technology; however, they are not used interchangeably.

To describe network literacy, I will use P. Woessner’s “Technology in the Middle” website.

“In the words of Will Richardson, Network Literacy is ‘The ability to create, grow and navigate personal learning networks in safe, ethical, and effective ways.’  Students will engage in the networked world with or without us; our guidance can help them make responsible choices.”

This infographic best depicts a networked teacher. A networked teacher would use his or her networking skills with students and also teach those students how effective networking can improve learning and promote self-learning and life-long learning.

“Computer literacy is defined as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology efficiently, with a range of skills covering levels from elementary use to programming and advanced problem solving.” (Source: Wikipedia)

“Digital literacy is the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology. Digitally literate people can communicate and work more efficiently, especially with those who possess the same knowledge and skills. A person using these skills to interact with society may be called a digital citizen.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Creation literacy is something I made up for this project. I define it as the ability to create and share meaningful content. The content can be in any format. Creations could be artistic, musical, dramatic, digital, etc. This portion of multiliteracy has opened the most doors to collaboration and cross-curricular projects. We work with students who possess an enormous amount of creativity. By providing students with projects that offer creative choices, we can see improved student motivation and learning.

Learning literacy is the knowledge of one’s learning styles, and the proper use of this knowledge. Skills in learning literacy promote self-learning and life-long learning.

Finally, L2 stands for second language literacy. All the current research tells us that by learning another language we come to know our own language better, thus implying that literacy in our native tongues can be improved through second language learning. The proven benefits to language learning seem to keep growing. According to the staff writers at BestCollegesOnline.com, there are ten proven benefits to being bilingual:

1. Staves off dementia
2. Improves cognitive skills (in other words, it makes you smarter!)
3. Heightens creativity
4. Easier time focusing on tasks
5. Greater control over literacy skills
6. Heightens environmental awareness
7. Easier time switching between tasks
8. Denser grey matter
9. Faster response time
10. Higher scores on intelligence tests

Source: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2012/04/02/10-proven-brain-benefits-of-being-bilingual/

When two or more of these literacies are combined for instructional use, this is what I consider to be “Multiliteracy.” 

Thank you for reading! I will be back soon to explain the different dimensions this project has taken.

In the meantime, to learn more about the project creator, please visit here.

It Takes a Community: A Multiliteracy Project

By Audrey Misiano

Do you believe in the power of community and collaboration?

Do you believe in the power of cooperation?

Do you think that literacy is important?

Are you a life-long learner?

Are you willing to take risks and try something new?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, please read on!

Multiliteracy has become the theme of my life. It is my passion. Here you see my living, breathing multiliteracy project. My children are Soleil, my 5 year-old daughter and Geo, my 3 year-old son. First and foremost, I’d like to raise healthy, happy, and kind children. However, I am also wondering if I can raise my children to be literate in more than one language. Will they possess the skills necessary to be life-long learners? Will they be able to create meaningful digital content? Will they be successful and appropriate digital citizens? Will they be able to read and write well in their native language of English as well as in a second language? Will they possess cultural awareness beyond their knowledge of our home culture? After asking myself these questions, I started wondering…If I can raise multiliterate children, can I teach my students to become multiliterate?

The personal portion of this project began shortly after the birth of my daughter. My husband, Kevin, and I decided that even though he is monolingual, it was best for our children for me to speak to them only in French. This would mean Kevin would not always understand what was going on, but we believed that this inconvenience was worth the long-lasting benefits that bilingualism could provide our children. Luckily, Kevin has learned to understand quite a bit of French in the past five years! This blog is not about the personal side of this project, though. If you are interested in the personal portion of my project, please visit my other blog and Sunny Earth Academy.

The professional portion of this project is a never-ending roller coaster of ups and downs. As with all new things, there is an enormous learning curve and I have certainly had setbacks and even failures. From several failed attempts at grant writing to ideas that crashed and burned, it has been vital for me to accept failure as a lesson. As I teach my students, failure can be helpful for future attempts if one can take the lesson learned and put it into use. I teach them the acronym F.A.I.L. for “First Attempt in Learning” and tell them it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. As Wayne Gretzky said “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” In a class where I expect my students to speak in another language from day one, teaching “F.A.I.L.” has helped me build a caring environment where every student speaks French and Spanish.

In my next blog post, I will attempt to explain what the Multiliteracy Project is even though it is not a static idea. The project is continually changing. As the web of collaboration grows, the project evolves. At the end of this article, which I am dividing into several sections, I will invite you to start or continue this journey of discovery and collaboration. It takes a community to create best practices for our 21^st Century learners!