Comparing Larson And Marsh's Making Literacy Real

In Making Literacy Real, authors Larson and Marsh (2015) examine six frameworks and theories related to literacy education, these include: new literacy studies, critical literacy, digital literacies, multimodality and artifactual literacies, spatial theory, and sociocultural theory. The authors evaluated these literacies with respect to three key concepts: learning as changing participation, literacy as social practice, and discourse (Larson & Marsh, 2015). In synthesizing these frameworks into my understanding of literacy, I think it is important to reflect on these theories in relation to these three key ideas. Before I begin, I think it would be good to start with how the text’s authors define literacy. Larson and Marsh (2015) propose a “tightly constructed” definition based on the work of Gunther Kress (2010). The singular definition they provide is “the ability to decode, encode, and make meaning using written text and symbols” (p. 5). However, they are quick to point out that literacy also exists in “plural form,” a more subjective definition in my view that encompasses the multiple frameworks and theories surrounding literacy in society and education (p.5). The first concept the author’s address is learning as changing participation. I …show more content…
I place multimodal and digital literacies under this umbrella. Marsh and Larson (2015) define overarching discourse as “the various culturally organized ways of acting and being in the world, or ‘forms of life’, that are enacted, reproduced, or transformed through language in use” (p. 8). This of course is big “D” discourse. I think multimodal and digital literacies belong under this umbrella because they essential examine the diverse ways for interacting and communicating with the world. Multimodality addresses this at its most essential level, but digital literacy in particular addresses new ways of communicating which have become very important to modern literacy research and