Literacy Narrative Update (A technological look)

While looking back at my literacy narrative, I feel like it is the Jay David Bolter of our readings this semester. Sure it has some interesting things in it, but overall it seems outdated. This semester I feel that I have developed a better understanding for literacy that I hadn’t quite realized before.

While I may seem to be knocking Bolter’s work, it is in no means something to look over. One aspect that he touched on that I found completely relevant to my literacy development was hypertext. I feel like Bolter puts it best when he refers to it as “disrupting the linear” (137). Hypertext created a new world of literacy that isn’t quite seen in print. I feel like the closest thing to this world that print has to offer is through “Choose Your Own Ending” books. I loved reading those when I was younger and it seems to be no surprise that I enjoy the adventure of hypertext. Hypertext is seen everywhere and makes literacy non-linear. While Bolter states the idea that narratives are often linear, specifically popular fiction, he also states that non-linear fiction may never be popular. Perhaps that is the case, but non-linear non-fiction is a completely different story. I feel like this form of literacy is fantastic. An individual could click a link on the American Revolution and see stories from different perspectives. One could read a Colonist’s side and a British man’s side to get a different side yet read about the same period in history. Hypertext has created a new world that still has tons of potential if tapped into correctly.

Bolster aside, I found some of our readings to be both refreshing and intriguing. Take “From the Vocabulary of Comics” as an example. Scott McCloud has created a narrative in a form that doesn’t seem like a task. It seems more like a pleasure. It reminds me of my children’s literature class I took where we discussed the significance of the graphic novel. While this isn’t necessarily digital, it is a breakthrough in reading. Now more people are seeing validity in some of the graphic novels and creating a more inviting option for students to read. I think this is a direct correlation to what we see with the digital age; to what I have seen with my literacy development. As social media has become the giant industry it is today, it has also completely transformed the literacy of individuals. It has created many debates on whether such sites are useful to students and if the reading/writing on these sites should even be considered reading/writing. It seems to me that anytime an individual takes the time to read or write, however “unintelligent” it may seem, it is useful and can be used to further the development of these students.

According to Richard Lanham in his essay “The Implications of Electronic Information for the Sociology of Knowledge,” electronic information “affects the organization of humanistic knowledge and the social basis of its production in some fundamental ways” (457). It also states the facts that electronic information changes what we mean by both author and text. If it changes what we mean by author and text, shouldn’t it also change how we feel about such authors and texts? I think this is where I am currently in my literacy development: discovering for myself how I feel about a new meaning of author and a new meaning of texts. Being an English major, it is hard to let go of traditional notions of these ideas. Being a part of the digital revolution we have seen in the past few decades, it is hard to not adapt to these new ideas. Time will only tell where I go with these feelings.

In today's society, access to the digital realm is practically endless. From smart phones to tablets to lab tops, the digital world is now on the go. It is becoming increasingly rare, or at least for me it is, for people to write with a pen and paper. Getting on a digital device and using a word processor or blog/social media site have become the norm. The world has changed and the access has made it increasingly dramatic. Digital media has made a huge impact on our world and, with it being so readily available, is only just beginning to tap into the potential that it has.

As I have seen with this course, the development of this essay is only just beginning. If I have made so many discoveries of myself in just a few short months, how will it look in just a few more weeks? Months? Years? Decades? The questions go on and only time can give these answers.