Laurie A. Henry

New Literacies: A Dual-Level Theory of the Changing Nature of Literacy, Instruction, and Assessment

Today, the nature of literacy has become deictic. This simple idea carries important implications for literacy theory, research, and instruction that our field must begin to address. Deixis is a term used by linguists (Fillmore, 1966; Murphy, 1986; Traut & Kazzazi, 1996) to define words whose meanings change rapidly as their context changes. Tomorrow, for example, is a deictic term; the meaning of “tomorrow” becomes “today” every 24 hours. The meaning of literacy has also become deictic because we live in an age of rapidly changing information and communication technologies, each of which requires new literacies (Leu, 1997, 2000). Thus, to have been literate yesterday, in a world defined primarily by relatively static book technologies, does not ensure that one is fully literate today where we encounter new technologies such as Google docs, Skype, iMovie, Contribute, Basecamp, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, foursquare, Chrome, educational video games, or thousands of mobile apps. To be literate tomorrow will be defined by even newer technologies that have yet to appear and even newer discourses and social practices that will be created to meet future needs. Thus, when we speak of new literacies, we mean that literacy is not just new today; it becomes new every day of our lives. How should we theorize the new literacies that will define our future, when literacy has become deictic? The answer is important because our concept of literacy defines both who we are and who we shall become. But there is a conundrum here. How can we possibly develop adequate theory when the object that we seek to study is itself ephemeral, continuously being redefined by a changing context? This is an important theoretical challenge that our field has not previously faced. The purpose of this chapter is to advance theory in a world where literacy has become deictic. It suggests that a dual-level theory of New Literacies is a useful approach to theory building in a world where the nature of literacy continuously changes. We begin by making a central point: Social contexts have always shaped both the function and form of literate practices and been shaped by them in return. We discuss the social context of the current period and explain how this has produced new information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the new literacies that these technologies demand. Second, we explore several lowercase new literacies perspectives that are emerging. We argue that a dual-level New Literacies theory is essential to take full advantage of this important and diverse work. Third, we identify a set of principles, drawn from research, that inform an uppercase theory of New Literacies. Then, we present one lowercase theory of new literacies, the new literacies of online research and comprehension, to illustrate how a dual-level theory of New Literacies can inform new literacies research that takes related but different theoretical perspectives. We conclude by considering the implications of a dual-level theory of New Literacies for both research and practice.