Home and School Models of Literacy
Both the students and I see the integration of various writing pedagogies and the conflicting conceptions of what constitutes good writing, as evidenced in their comments concerning how they employ their home use of new media to read the class hypertext:
"I like the
class hypertext because when I read an article I often times may not know
what something is or I would like to learn more about it. Therefore, by
having hypertext, I can
just easily click on subject and then learn more about it. I think
this method of learning is fast and easy because it allows for people
who are curious to find out what they want to know somewhat simultaneously
to when they are reading.
Oftentimes, when people are reading books or magazine articles, they are
too lazy to grab a dictionary to look up a word they don't know. However,
the downside to hypertext is that in the middle of reading
an article the reader may decide to check out a different link and then
abandon the first article by never finishing it."
Here, this student
articulates the difference between surfing a text and reading it in a
more thorough way. I believe that this conflict between home (associative)
and school (linear) methods of reading needs to be addressed directly
by educators in order to integrate
these very different models of literacy. Perhaps one place to look at
these different types of reading can be found in John Slatin’s (1991)
work on associative reading and new media technologies. Moreover, as the
following student comment reveals, the divide between home and school
reading practices often results in questions concerning discipline and
submission to a standardized model of reading and writing:
"Now, what I think can be a problem about the hypertext and each article having so many links is the lack of discipline most people will have when it comes to reading these. For instance, say I am reading one of the articles, and I come across a hyperlink that I want to click on and read more about, odds are that when I am done reading that, I won't necessarily go back to the original article. There could be tons of useful and important information throughout the rest of the original article, but since there are all of these hyperlinks, I won't necessarily go back and finish reading it. And most of the time, I won't even finish reading the second article, because I will click on another hyperlink at some point, and so on and the cycle just continues."
By presenting in-class comments concerning the ways students read hypertexts, educators can gain important access to reading, writing, and thinking strategies that are often invisible in educational settings. When I asked my students if they also employ some of these same methods when they study for tests or do research for class papers, many responded that the key to being a successful college student is the ability to skim texts and find the necessary information. In many ways, how they read the course hypertext thus helps them to examine how they read traditional works.
Technology, Writing, and Higher Education
Student Writers as Hypertext Users
Changing Conceptions of Academic Writing
Home and School Models of Literacy