Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century [Paperback]

David Franklin Warlick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1586831305 | ISBN-13: 978-1586831301 | Publication Date: March 2004

* Prepares students for a technologically defined 21st century!; *Practical, yet visionary; *Focused on literacy within the context of technology; and *Demystifies the future of literacy and "makes it simple" for educators and students alike.

Create students of the future and leaders for tomorrow’s information highway! Walk away with a new definition of literacy for the Information Age that you can pass on to learners of all ages. Find suggestions and resources for discovering your own path to promoting literacy in the 21st century. "Action Items," inside, suggest specific activities for all educators to undertake right away. A corresponding Web site that serves as a meeting place and discussion forum for collaboration and connectivity is also available to readers, where digital versions of charts, handouts and resources are at your fingertips. Appendices: Other suggested works, Where to look to find the future. Works Cited.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Warlick presents a scenario for the future of information literacy, and it will be a whole (not necessarily brave) new world. Chapter one gives a vivid fictional picture of a day in a future middle school in which learning and literacy occur through technologies such as interactive portable slates, and human interaction happens in configurations so flexible and fluid as to be impossible in traditional schools. The next three chapters follow a neat information-literacy progression. "Exposing the Information" presents strategies for investigation–tried-and-true methods segueing into new ways of accessing and processing information through interactive technologies. "Employing the Information" looks at how data will be analyzed and interpreted in combinations of new formats and technologies, some only dreamed of today. "Expressing Ideas Compellingly" provides a menu of potential publishing formats that will supersede what we teach today, and the final chapter deals with ethical considerations, which will be even more difficult to define and legislate. Profound and inescapable ideas are examined and spun out to logical consequences and conclusions, one of the clearest being that–like it or not–students are now on the cusp of a change in learning. The burden of determining accuracy and utility in content is fast shifting from the publisher to the consumer, and educators had better prepare those consumers to be up to the job. Well documented and presented with plenty of visuals and models, this is a sobering and critical read for anyone in education.–Mary R. Hofmann, Rivera Middle School, Merced, CA
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Review

This thought-provoking book discusses the need to redefine and expand our views of literacy to address our new information world. -- Library Media Connection, August/September 2004

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 113 pages
• Publisher: Linworth Pub Co (March 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586831305
• ISBN-13: 978-1586831301
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,289,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading for every K-16 teacher in America, June 19, 2005

By 

Wesley A. Fryer "Wesley Fryer" (Lubbock, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century (Paperback)

We live in a different world dramatically shaped and influenced by technology, yet the predominant teaching strategies employed in classrooms across the United States have changed very little. David Warlick's Book "Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century" should be required reading for every elementary, junior high, high school, and university teacher in the United States today. That is an extremely strong statement, but it is justified given the importance of the issues addressed by Warlick and the clear, readable style in which the book is written.

"Redefining Literacy" challenges many of the assumptions and beliefs that educators have about teaching and learning, and provides practical ideas for how teachers as well as students can prepare for the future, instead of preparing for the 1950s (as many schools today seem to be doing.) Warlick's point that teachers have GOT to stop asking students to merely "demonstrate their knowledge" with assigned research reports is so vital! With copy and paste skills and ready access to the Internet, anyone can create a reasonably decent "report" about any topic in a relatively short amount of time. The problem, of course, is that much of the content is likely to be plagiarized. We must ask students to DO THINGS with information, not merely memorize and regurgitate it, or spit it out as a fancy PowerPoint presentation or a formatted Word document. We must ask students to engage in the authentic literacy activities of our new century. Developing critical thinking skills and authentic literacy skills is certainly not a new idea-- educational thinkers like John Dewey and Paulo Freire wrote about these things many years ago and in great depth. Warlick's contribution is to put the need for this skill development in the technological context of the twenty-first century. If you are a teacher or want to be a teacher, you need to read this book.