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Studies in Writing and Rhetoric
Multiliteracies for a Digital Age (Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (Paperback)) (Hardback) - Common
Multiliteracies for a Digital Age reviews the extensive literature on computer literacy and critiques it from a humanistic perspective. This approach, which will remain useful as new versions of computer hardware and software inevitably replace old versions, helps to usher students into an understanding of the biases, belief systems, and politics inherent in technological contexts. Selber redefines rhetoric at the nexus of technology and literacy and argues that students should be prepared as authors of twenty-first-century texts that defy the established purview of English departments. The result is a rich portrait of the ideal multiliterate student in a digital age and a social approach to computer literacy envisioned with the requirements for systemic change in mind.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 23, 2004
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February 25, 2009
In Multiliteracies for a Digital Age (2004), Stuart Selber takes a "post critical" stance (one which admits that technologies are here to stay, so we should consider how to use, deploy, and question them "in ways that align with, and productively challenge, the values of the profession" [8:]) in order to develop a model of literacy for students in a computer age. This model involves three types of literacy: functional, critical, and rhetorical.
Selber seeks to recover the word "functional," which has come under understandable scrutiny for its rote attention to skills at the expense of critical and rhetorical actions, and argues that functional literacy is still crucial because students must be able to control technologies, understand online environments, compete for work, and use the language of the powerful (35). He outlines five parameters of a functionally literate student: students can achieve their educational goals, understand social conventions (and thus, that functional literacy is social), use specialized discourses, manage their online world, and manage technological impasses (45).
Critical literacy is the ability to question and analyze computers as cultural artifacts, and challenge the values of those artifacts (81). For Selber, a critical approach involves four parameters: a critically literate student is able to be critical about the perspectives of design cultures, the contexts of use, the institutional forces that shape use, and popular representations of computers (96).
Rhetorical literacy is the ability to produce texts using technologies, to be authors (139). He argues for four parameters of rhetorical literacy: persuasion, deliberation, reflection, and social action (147). He focuses largely on interfaces, noting that students need to develop a scrutiny for how interfaces persuade and to design their own interfaces. Students need to deliberate through interface problems, understanding that these are "wicked problems" that are constantly being deliberated and have no clear cut solutions (only better solutions) (153-154).
Selber seeks to recover the word "functional," which has come under understandable scrutiny for its rote attention to skills at the expense of critical and rhetorical actions, and argues that functional literacy is still crucial because students must be able to control technologies, understand online environments, compete for work, and use the language of the powerful (35). He outlines five parameters of a functionally literate student: students can achieve their educational goals, understand social conventions (and thus, that functional literacy is social), use specialized discourses, manage their online world, and manage technological impasses (45).
Critical literacy is the ability to question and analyze computers as cultural artifacts, and challenge the values of those artifacts (81). For Selber, a critical approach involves four parameters: a critically literate student is able to be critical about the perspectives of design cultures, the contexts of use, the institutional forces that shape use, and popular representations of computers (96).
Rhetorical literacy is the ability to produce texts using technologies, to be authors (139). He argues for four parameters of rhetorical literacy: persuasion, deliberation, reflection, and social action (147). He focuses largely on interfaces, noting that students need to develop a scrutiny for how interfaces persuade and to design their own interfaces. Students need to deliberate through interface problems, understanding that these are "wicked problems" that are constantly being deliberated and have no clear cut solutions (only better solutions) (153-154).
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