Global Literacy in the 21st Century
This course is the sixth in a series of 11 courses in the in the sequence of courses. This course focuses on challenges and opportunities that exist when using the Internet as the common text in our classroom. When we say that digital texts and tools open up the classroom walls and provide opportunities for a global classroom…what does this really mean? The class comes right after Critical Literacy Praxis. The belief is that Critical Literacy Praxis will open up our eyes to the challenges of a global text, and then this class will provide opportunities to connect and collaborate in online spaces.
Course Description
This course allows students to explore literacy practices in their classrooms and districts from a world perspective. Nearly a quarter of 16 to 65-year-olds in the world’s richest countries are functionally illiterate; students will explore American schools’ roles in perpetuating this figure, investigating adult illiteracy as well as youth illiteracy. Students will also examine how literacy practices differ throughout the world and whether a monolithic definition of what it means to be literate may be expanding through technological connections.
Core Objectives
- Students will compare and contrast literacy practices throughout the world, examining the definitions in varying contexts.
- Students will investigate the power and privilege associated with various world literacy practices.
- Students will identify what literacy practices are reified in American schools, and what practices are devalued, examining the underlying reasons for each.
Essential Questions
- What are the wide range of issues affecting educational policy and classroom practice in multilingual, multicultural settings?
- What general concerns affect learners’ bilingual/bicultural/biliterate development in formal educational settings?
- What technological affordances can be used to remedy these concerns?
The full version of the syllabus is embedded below. This version of the syllabus is an artifact and does not contain all of the edits and revisions to the syllabus we use each semester for the class.
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