Discussion: Rethinking Reading with the Digital in Mind
With Peter and Patty in mind, it is clear that digital reading not only demands a different set of skills than printed texts do
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But also it carries a different set of assumptions and epistemological framings based on how a text is designed and produced. Online reading assumes a natural understanding that complex discourses can materialize in designs and, equally, that modalities distribute messages. Table 2 summarizes what we have observed about digital reading practices.
By analyzing our data through a multimodal lens, we illustrate how online sites invite additional skills when compared with printed texts. Digital media adds new layers, like complex visuals, the dynamism of the storyline, and the related texts and supporting genres that accompany the story. Peter has fluency in his reading of Naruto's world.
He plays the videogame intensely, he is articulate about the nuances of the plot, and he extends this interest into other texts and media, such as game cards. Patty enjoys the online world of Webkinz. She has easily grasped the importance of earning Webkinz money, either by virtual work or through games.
She has willingly embraced the responsibility of owning animals, a responsibility quite real to her despite the Webkinz world's online restrictions. Her desire to mimic the actions of a real pet owner, either by making nutritious choices in food or by purchasing items to decorate her Webkinz's rooms, show how virtual texts can provide identities combining virtual and physical spaces for young children.
Kress (2006) discussed how the new communicative engagements of youths show their adeptness at using the semiotics of digital rather than printed texts to guide their understanding.
Peter, for instance, has a complex understanding of chakra and the ninja legends carried by and represented in the characters of Naruto, which show how the visual modality helps formulate the narrative for him. In many ways, his ability to align and capture the nuances of the characters of this series through the visual modalities designed by Kishimoto has prepared him well for the sort of digital reading which is more representative of contemporary literacy.
Contemporary literacy are necessarily for different genres of texts such as graphic stories (Schwartz & Rubenstein-Avila, 2006), televisual texts (Buckingham, 2007), videogames (Gee, 2003), and social networking (Rowsell, 2009).
Patty's use of the visual, gestural, spatial, aural, and linguistic modes on the interactive Webkinz site makes her reading experience more real for her. Her use of these modalities shows how she can cross the boundaries of childhood to spaces simulating the lives of pet-owning adults, through virtual responsibilities imitating the freedom of choice representative of adult worlds.
In many ways, virtual realities such as Naruto and Webkinz provide a platform for reading where the desire for the real experience guides the virtual play within each of these interactions. Watching students like Peter or Patty, it is clear that the use of language is experienced in truly dynamic forms, resulting in reading processes that are recontextualized, reworked, and remained to achieve their "own cultural purposes" (New London Group, 1996).
By dynamic forms, we mean a proficiency with an interpretation of visuals and semiotics more generally, and an understanding of allusions to hybrid texts for characterization and identity. Mediation of characters is found as much through dialogue as through visual grammars. The reading of images and texts shows an experience that falls outside the realm of present teaching pedagogies. Patty equated her care and understanding of her pets at home to caring for her pet within the provided discourses of the Webkinz world.
Discussion: Rethinking Reading with the Digital in Mind
By: endeavor
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