Literacy and its newer, more complex cousin multiliteracy are terms that are used in the teaching world as ways to talk about what skills are needed to communicate. But these concepts are useful to those outside of academia too because it defines more concretely what skills you need to get what you want in life. Simply saying you need to know how to read and write misses the complex ways we communicate. Here we define literacy and multiliteracy more simply and make it relevant to you through comparisons with food. (We all understand that at least, right?)
So, what do we mean by literacy? And multiliteracy?
Literacy refers to listening, speaking, reading, and writing, the basic skills needed to communicate. Reading a recipe on chocolate chip cookies, you interpret the instructions and apply your understanding as you make the recipe. You flash a smile and feel pride when you realize that you just made something delicious with your own two hands.
Multiliteracy takes literacy a step further. The New London Group coined “multiliteracy” in the mid-1990s to recognize two changes in society:
- Increased linguistic and cultural diversity
- And the rise of multimodal forms of communication, from traditional print to new technologies such as the internet, multimedia, and digital media.
Let’s go back to the story of making chocolate chip cookies. Once you’ve mastered the technique, you decide to play around with the flavors. You do a quick Google search and click on an intriguing Indian-spiced chocolate chip cookie recipe with cardamom. You learn about the floral, citrus spice, increasing your knowledge of cultural diversity, as you use digital media.
Multiliteracy is a suite of skills that everyone should know, and most are already quite proficient. But everyone could benefit by developing their understanding of multiliteracy in order to be a flexible and strategic global person. A multiliterate person thinks of literacy practices differently by placing communication into context; they are aware of the social and behavioral practices and cultural aspects in communication.
While the cooking part alone is vital, we see multiliteracy this way: you teach someone to bake a cookie, you help them take care of themselves and others for a lifetime. You teach them skills in communication, you help them connect and network successfully in life.
How do you teach multiliteracy?
Imagine that you are teaching students with a number of different backgrounds. They come from different areas in Florida, the U.S., and from around the world. With time, you learn that your students all love pizza. In their out-of-school lives, they work in pizza places, making it or delivering pizzas, eating slices while studying, or sharing pies with friends while watching a movie. Instead of shutting out this experience, you bring it in. You encourage students to look at the pizza ads from around the world, discuss pizza marketing campaigns, and examine social media engagement of top American pizza brands. These students begin to engage in multiliteracy, critically examining how public media is influencing their choices in the various modes (print, physical, digital, television). You have drawn on their out-of-school literacies (knowledge and recognition of an ad, a product, etc.) and interests (pizza!) to engage them in the classroom.
Here is another example of supporting students in their multiliteracy practices. A student has an interest in a particular country, such as Turkey, based on his cultural identity. Have the student create a Google map of Turkey. Then identify cultural practices of the Turkish such as shopping, cooking, and eating Turkish food. Then identify the social, cultural, and linguistic changes evident in the culinary practices in Turkey. For example, according to the Turkish Culture Foundation, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers in Turkey are publishing more and more recipes of Western foods. There are more take-out and convenience foods, parallel to the rise of women working. Vocational and hotelier schools are teaching Western foods. Questions to ask would be what is the future of ‘traditional’ Turkish foods? And eating practices at home?
So, let’s use every flavorful multiliterate tool and create a foolproof recipe for a dynamic classroom.