Negotiating New Literacies in English Teaching

Abstract

On the face of it there seems to be evidence that New Literacies are firmly a part of the English curriculum from kindergarten to matriculation in most English-speaking countries. There seems to be broad agreement that literacy can no longer be thought of as involving language alone and that images, in paper media texts, and also sound, movement and gesture in digital multimedia texts, need to be considered along with language as fundamental meaning-making resources in constructing text. The role of information and communication technology (lCT) in mediating a range of new types of text seems also to be widely accepted as an integral aspect of the English classroom. Formally, New Literacies are an explicit part of government-mandated school syllabi and curriculum documents in Australia and in the National Curriculum for England (Unsworth, in press; Macken-Horarik, this volume).