A talk delivered at the University of Oslo on a dual level theory of new literacies. For the published work, see: http://www.reading.org/Libraries/books/IRA-710-chapter42.pdf

1. Literacy as Deixis in An Online
World: Epistemological IssuesDonald J. Leu
Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology
University of Connecticut
New Literacies
new literacies new literacies new literacies new literacies new literacies

2. Thank you for the honor and the
opportunity to share a few thoughts
and learn more about your work!

3. `
The New Literacies Research
Team

4. THE NEW LITERACIES
RESEARCH LAB

5. Ray and Carole Neag
The Carnegie Corporation of New York
IES, U.S. Department of Education
The National Science Foundation
North Central Educational Research Lab
PBS
The Annenberg Foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Australian Council of Educational Research
OECD
Schools and teachers around the world.
Important Funding and Support
From:

6. What Have I Learned?
“The more I know, the less I understand.”
Don Henley, The Eagles

7.  Rapid, Disruptive Changes To Reading
and Literacy Are Happening All Around
Us.
 Never before has a generation lived
through such a period of profound
change to literacy, learning, and life
We Live In Epochal Times

8. Print Newspapers are
Disappearing

9. The Internet is a Disruptive Force For
Many Things, But Especially Reading &
Literacy.
Literacy is, of course, multiple but it is now
also deictic.

10. Deixis
• A term from early stages in the development of
sociolinguistics
• A class of words whose meanings change when
the context changes. (Filmore, 1971)

11. With the Internet, Reading &
Literacy Have Become Deictic.
 Deixis: Words whose meanings rapidly
change based on the extralinguistic context.
A form of exophora.
here there
Itodayyesterday
she
literacy writingreading

12. Yesterday

13. Today

14. New Technologies for Learning
Require New Literacies:
“Literacy is not just new today; it becomes
new every day of our lives.”

15. The Problem
A conundrum: 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?

16. Positioning A Solution Within Our
Social Context
The nature of work and reading has changed.
The rapid appearance of the Internet in both our
professional and personal lives.
Public policy initiatives by nations that integrate
the Internet into education.

17. The Nature of Work Has Changed
CEO
Upper Level Management
Upper Middle Level Management
Middle Level Management
Line Supervisors
Workers
The “General Motors” Model of Economic
Management
Wasted
intellectual
capital

18. In a Flattened World: Opportunities
Expand but Competition Increases
Team Team TeamTeam Team
These teams take full
advantage of their intellectual
capital to the extent their
education system has
prepared them for this.
Greater Intellectual Capital Use = Greater Productivity
Online Research and
Comprehension
1. Define problems
2. Locate information
3. Evaluate information
4. Synthesize and solve problems
5. Communicate solutions

19. The Internet Is Used Extensively in
the Workplace To Conduct Research,
Solve Problems, and Learn
Team Team TeamTeam Team
Online Research and
Comprehension
1. Define problems
2. Locate information
3. Evaluate information
4. Synthesize and solve problems
5. Communicate solutions

20. The Rapid Appearance of
The Internet in Personal and
Professional Lives

21. 40% of the World’s
Population Is Connected
to the Internet

22. New Literacies Are Required
by Everyone

23. Public Policies That Integrate the
Internet Into Education
The Australian Curriculum
Manitoba, Canada - Literacy With ICT Across
the Curriculum
Common Core State Standards - U.S.
“ICT competence is an important component
of the English curriculum…”
“…identifying questions…, locate information…
critical thinking…synthesizing…communicating
“…gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report”

24. These Are Confusing Times For
Theory
New Literacies = New Social Practices
New Literacies = New Strategies and Dispositions
New Literacies = Multiliteracies
New Literacies = Multimodalities
Classic Reading Comprehension Theory
Street, 1995, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006
Castek, 2008; Coiro & Dobler, 2007
Cope & Kalantzis, 1999; New London Group, 1996
Hull & Schultz, 2002
Kintsch, 1998; 2004

25. And Let’s Not Forget
The Larger Issue!
How do we develop literacy theory
when the object that we study
continually changes on us,
requiring additional new literacies?

26. One Approach
A dual-level theory of change framed
by qualitative methodological thinking.
New Literacies
new literacies new literacies new literacies new literacies new literacies

27. A Dual Level Theory of New
Literacies:
Learning from One Another to Advance Theory and
Research
New Literacies
new literacies
of social practices
and mindsets
(Lankshear
& Knobel; Street;
and others)
new
discourses
(Gee and
others)
new literacies of
online research
and
comprehension
(Castek;Coiro; Leu;
and others)
new semiotic
contexts
(Kress; Jewitt;
Lemke; and
others)
Multi-modal
approaches
(Hull and
others)
Upper Case New Literacies: Common patterns and principles
lower case new literacies
new
literacies of
young
children
(Marsh; and
others)
new tools
(Brown and
others)
Out of school
literacies
(Alvermann
and others)
etc.

28. New Literacies:
Nine Principles
1. The Internet is this generation’s defining
technology for literacy and learning in our global
community.
2. The Internet and related technologies require
additional, new literacies to fully access their
potential.
3. New literacies are deictic.
4. New literacies are multiple, multimodal, and
multifaceted and, as a result, our understanding
of the benefits from multiple points of view.
New
Literacies

29. New Literacies:
Nine Principles
5. Critical literacies are central to new literacies.
6. New forms of strategic knowledge are required
with new literacies.
7. New social practices are a central element of
new literacies.
8. Identity and epistemic cognition are important to
learning.
9. Teachers become more important, though their
role changes, within new literacy classrooms.
New Literacies

30. The new literacies of online
research and comprehension
New Literacies
new literacies of
online research
and
comprehension
gaming text messaging multimodal
content
construction
video creation

31. Why Have Some of Us Selected
This Line of Research?
 Closely connected to learning
 Immediate classroom application
 Appears to be increasingly important to
one’s success in life
 High frequency of use
 Our students appear to lack many of these
skills

32. An Example of Online Reading
Comprehension
Reading About Martin Luther
King
The new literacies of online reading comprehension

33. Locate Online Information
Evaluate Online InformationLocate Online Information
Evaluate Online Information
Locate Online Information
Evaluate Online Information

34. Evaluate Online Information
Evaluate Online Information
Evaluate Online Information

35. Evaluate Online Information
Evaluate Online Information

38. The new literacies of online
research and comprehension
1. Online reading comprehension is a self-directed process
of text construction and knowledge construction.
2. Five practices appear to define online reading
comprehension processing: 1) defining a problem and
then 2) locating, 3) evaluating, 4) synthesizing, and 4)
communicating information.
3. Online reading comprehension is not isomorphic with
offline reading comprehension; additional skills and
strategies appear to be required.

39. The new literacies of online
research and comprehension
4. Online information contexts may be especially
supportive for some struggling readers.
5. Adolescent “digital natives” may be skilled in
some areas of the Internet (social networking,
texting, video downloads, MP3 downloads, or mash-
ups) but they are not always as skilled in information
use and online reading comprehension.
6. Collaborative online reading and writing practices
appear to increase comprehension and learning.

40. Pushback: Four Arguments to
Reject The Difference Hypothesis
• “Reading a web page is no different from reading a
page in a book.” (Task isomorphism)
• “The cognitive processes are identical.” - inferential
reasoning is inferential reasoning; self-regulation is
self-regulation, etc. (Processing isomorphism)
• “One must critically evaluate sources offline as well as
online; one can conduct research offline as well as
online.” (Activity isomorphism)
• PISA data shows little or no correlation.

41. Reading Comprehension Has Changed:
Online and Offline Reading
Comprehension Are Not Isomorphic
(r=0.19, n = 89, N.S.)
Leu, Castek,
Hartman,
Coiro,
Henry,
Kulikowich,
Lyver, 2005
Online Reading
Comprehension =
ORCA Blog
Offline Reading =
Connecticut
Mastery Test (CMT)
of Reading
Comprehension

42. Additional Evidence:
Predicting Online Reading Comprehension
R2
Offline Reading
Comprehension
Additional R2
Domain Knowledge
Additional R2
Previous Online Reading
Comprehension
Total R2
Online Reading
Comprehension
.351* .074 .154* .579*
Coiro, 2011
The new literacies of online reading comprehension
Offline Reading Comp.=
CT State
Reading Test
Online Reading
Comprehension =
ORCA Quia

43. The Struggling Reader
Phenomenon

44. Implications:
New Literacies Theory:
Rapid Changes To Literacy Will Increase Likelihood of
Misalignments in Multiple Areas of Education
Assessments of Literacy
Equity, Access, and Instruction
Research
Professional Development and Teacher Education

45. Assessments of Literacy
In a world of increasing assessments, new literacies
will not fully enter the classroom until they appear in
important assessments.
Assessments will need to continuously include the
most recent technologies for literacy and learning.
Assessments will need to include collaborative online
reading.

46. Equity in Access and Instruction
Rapid changes will increase misalignments in
access and instruction by income inequality.
This will also be true with local, region, and
national comparisons.
More on this later….

47. Research: Essential Questions
1. What are the social practices, skills, strategies, and
dispositions essential to the acquisition of new literacies?
2. How might we best support the development of these
aspects of new literacies within both real and virtual
learning contexts?
3. How can we distribute research findings faster without
losing quality?

48. Professional Development and
Teacher Education
Perhaps the greatest challenge of all.
Should not assume new teachers are fully literate
with online information use.
Much more time will be required in both schools and
in teacher education programs as traditional models
of instruction are disrupted by Internet
technologies.

49. Theory Building In A Deictic World
of Literacy
Conducting and publishing research on a new
time cycle.
Reward systems that include collaboration.
Looking beyond our own lowercase literacies to
learn from others.

50. What Have We
Considered?
Literacy is deictic.
Theoretically, we are separating as we face a
central conundrum.
One solution is a two-level theoretical
framework.
This may help us learn from one another as we
advance both theory and understanding.

51. I Welcome Your Own
Thinking!
Literacy as Deixis in
An Online World:
Epistemological Issues