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New Literacies: A Dual-Level Theory of the Changing Nature of Literacy, Instruction,
and Assessment
donald j. leu, university of connecticut; charles k. kinzer, teachers college, columbia
university; julie coiro, university of rhode island; jill castek, portland state university;
and laurie a. henry, university of kentucky
LITERACY AS DEIXIS
Today, the nature of literacy has become deictic. This simple idea
carries important implications for literacy theory, research, and
instruction that our field must begin to address. Deixis is a term
used by linguists (Fillmore, 1966; Murphy, 1986; Traut & Kazzazi,
1996) to define words whose meanings change rapidly as their con-
text changes. Tomorrow, for example, is a deictic term; the meaning
of “tomorrow” becomes “today” every 24 hours. The meaning of
literacy has also become deictic because we live in an age of rap-
idly changing information and communication technologies, each
of which requires new literacies (Leu, 1997, 2000). Thus, to have
been literate yesterday, in a world defined primarily by relatively
static book technologies, does not ensure that one is fully liter-
ate today where we encounter new technologies such as Google
docs, Skype, iMovie, Contribute, Basecamp, Dropbox, Facebook,
Google, foursquare, Chrome, educational video games, or thou-
sands of mobile apps. To be literate tomorrow will be defined by
even newer technologies that have yet to appear and even newer
discourses and social practices that will be created to meet future
needs. Thus, when we speak of new literacies, we mean that liter-
acy is not just new today; it becomes new every day of our lives.
How should we theorize the new literacies that will define our
future, when literacy has become deictic? The answer is important
because our concept of literacy defines both who we are and who
we shall become. But there is a conundrum here. 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? This is an important theoretical challenge that
our field has not previously faced. The purpose of this chapter is
to advance theory in a world where literacy has become deictic.
It suggests that a dual-level theory of New Literacies is a useful
approach to theory building in a world where the nature of literacy
continuously changes.
We begin by making a central point: Social contexts have always
shaped both the function and form of literate practices and been
shaped by them in return. We discuss the social context of the cur-
rent period and explain how this has produced new information
and communication technologies (ICTs), and the new literacies
that these technologies demand. Second, we explore several low-
ercase new literacies perspectives that are emerging. We argue that
a dual-level New Literacies theory is essential to take full advan-
tage of this important and diverse work. Third, we identify a set of
principles, drawn from research, that inform an uppercase theory
of New Literacies. Then, we present one lowercase theory of new
literacies, the new literacies of online research and comprehension,
to illustrate how a dual-level theory of New Literacies can inform
new literacies research that takes related but different theoreti-
cal perspectives. We conclude by considering the implications of a
dual-level theory of New Literacies for both research and practice.
LITERACY IN TODAY’S SOCIAL CONTEXT
Literacy has always changed. Historical analyses demonstrate that
both the forms and functions of literacy have been largely deter-
mined by the continuously changing social forces at work within any
society and the technologies these forces often produce (Boyarin,
1993; Diringer, 1968; Gee, 2007b; Illera, 1997; Manguel, 1996;
Mathews, 1966; N. B. Smith, 1965). This story began in Sumeria
with the invention of cuneiform tablets, the first system of writing,
during the fourth century B.C. (Boyarin, 1993; Diringer, 1968;
Manguel, 1996). It continues to the present day.
Often, we lose sight of these historic roots. We need to remem-
ber that social forces, and the technologies they produce, often
define the changing nature of literacy today just as they have in the
past. Clearly, the social forces in the present context will exert
similar changes. Thus, attempts to develop any theory of literacy
must begin by exploring the critical social forces at work today.
What are the important social forces at work today that frame,
and are framed by, the changes to literacy we are experiencing? We
believe they include the following:
1. Global economic competition within economies based increas-
ingly on the effective use of information and communication.
2. The rapid appearance of the Internet in both our professional
and personal lives.
3. Public policy initiatives by nations that integrate literacy and the
Internet into instruction.
Global Economic Competition Within Economies Based
Increasingly on the Effective Use of Information and
Communication
The world of work has been undergoing fundamental transfor-
mation (Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto, & Sum, 2007; Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development & the Centre for
Educational Research and Innovation, 2010; Rouet, 2006; M. C.
© 2013 by the International Reading Association (www.reading.org). Re-
printed with permission from Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, Sixth
Edition, Chapter 42, edited by Donna E. Alvermann, Norman J. Unrau, and
Robert B. Ruddell.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 20172
Smith, Mikulecky, Kibby, Dreher, & Dole, 2000). Indeed, it is this
social context that prompts many of the changes to ICTs and to
literacy that we experience, making the effective use of Internet
technologies a central component of the literacy curriculum.
Traditionally, industrial-age organizations were organized in a
vertical, topdown fashion where most decisions were made at the
highest levels and then communicated to lower levels (see Figure
1). This wastes large amounts of intellectual capital within an orga-
nization and results in lower productivity. Today, global economic
competition requires organizations to abandon these traditional
command and control structures to leverage all of their intellectual
capital, operate more productively, and become more competitive.
In a postindustrial economy (Reich, 1992), organizations seek-
ing to achieve greater productivity and become more competitive
reorganize themselves horizontally. Instead of all decisions ema-
nating from the top of an organization, teams within lower levels
of organizations are empowered to identify and solve important
problems that generate new knowledge and lead to better ways
of producing goods or providing services. These high-performance
workplaces seek to use the intellectual capital of every employee to
increase effective decision making and increase productivity. The
effective use of information to solve problems allows a horizontally
organized workplace to become much more productive and com-
petitive (see Figure 2).
Figure 1. The Typical Organizational Structure of
Industrial-Age Workplaces
The “General Motors” Model of Economic Management
CEO
Upper Level Management
Upper Middle Level Management
Middle Level Management
Line Supervisors
Workers
1. Command and control
2. Lower levels of education required
3. Wasted intellectual capital
4. Highly inefficient
5. Lower productivity
6. Little innovation
7. Little need for higher level and
creative thinking
Wasted
intellectual
capital
Figure 2. The Typical Organizational Structure of
Postindustrial Workplaces
Liaison and communication among and across teams
The figure shows new management and communication structures. Communication occurs in both directions at all levels, both
horizontally and vertically, as indicated by the dashed box that shows teams communicate and work with one another across
teams within a horizontal level but can also draw team members and communicate with teams vertically. Teams are often
composed of members from all levels through liaison and communication, which occurs largely through information and
communication technologies. The importance of communication and cross-team liaison/membership shows that new literacies
are required for this structure to occur.
CEO
Management team
Management team
Line supervisor and
line worker team
Line supervisor and
line worker team
Line supervisor and
line worker team
Line supervisor and
line worker team
Management team
This change has had a fundamental effect on the nature of literacy
within organizations. At the broadest level, members of these
teams must:
• Quickly identify important problems in their work
• Locate useful information related to the problems they identify
• Critically evaluate the information they find
• Synthesize multiple sources of information to determine a
solution
• Quickly communicate the solution to others so everyone within
an organization is informed
• Monitor and evaluate the results of their solutions and decisions
and modify these as needed
How do teams do this? Often they rely upon the Internet. Many
economists have concluded that productivity gains realized during
the past several decades have been due to the rapid integration of
the Internet into the workplace, enabling units to better share infor-
mation, communicate, and solve problems (Matteucci, O’Mahony,
Robinson, & Zwick, 2005; van Ark, Inklaar, & McGuckin, 2003).
Internet use in U.S. workplaces, for example, increased by nearly
60% during a single year (2002) among all employed adults 25
years of age and older (U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic
and Statistics Administration & National Telecommunications and
Information Administration, 2002).
The Rapid Appearance of the Internet in Our
Professional and Personal Lives
It is not surprising that the Internet and other ICTs have appeared
and become such a prominent part of our lives during the transi-
tion from an industrial to a postindustrial society. These new infor-
mation and communication tools allow horizontally organized
workplaces to identify important problems, address them, and
nimbly modify and customize solutions as contexts and technol-
ogies change. In many cases, all of this is accomplished with team
members situated in different locations around the globe.
This analysis suggests that competence with the new literacies
required by the Internet and other ICTs is a crucial determinant
of an engaged life in an online age of information and commu-
nication. However, it is important to recognize that these skills
are not limited to simply creating more productive workers and
workplaces. Even more important, the information resources and
opportunities available on the Internet provide individuals with
opportunities to make their personal lives richer and more ful-
filling. This happens while advocating for social justice, refinanc-
ing a home, selecting a university to attend, managing a medical
question, purchasing books, or any one of the hundreds of other
tasks important to daily life. We also see this happening as citizens
in some parts of the world use these skills and new technologies
to overthrow corrupt and undemocratic political systems. Prepa-
ration in the new literacies required to use the Internet and other
ICTs enables individuals to have more fulfilling personal as well as
professional lives.
NEW LITERACIES 3
Public Policy Initiatives by Nations That Integrate
Literacy and the Internet Into Instruction
Previously, we reported on public policies in nations beginning
to recognize how the Internet was changing the nature of literacy
(Leu & Kinzer, 2000; Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). At
that point, however, public policies about literacy and the Inter-
net often traveled on separate but parallel tracks. Today, we are
beginning to see the evolution of these parallel public policies as
they slowly become more integrated in nations such as Australia,
Canada, and the United States.
In Australia, for example, the Australian Curriculum, Assess-
ment and Reporting Authority (ACARA; n.d.) has developed the
Australian Curriculum. This Australian initiative integrates literacy
and the Internet within the English curriculum, not outside of it as
it had been previously. As indicated in the Australian Curriculum:
ICT competence is an important component of the English
curriculum [italics added]. Students develop the skills and
understanding required to use a range of contemporary
technologies. In particular, they explicitly develop increas-
ingly sophisticated word-processing skills to enhance text
construction. Students also progressively develop skills in
using information technology when conducting research,
a range of digital technologies to create, publish and pres-
ent their learning, and communication technologies to
collaborate and communicate with others both within and
beyond the classroom. (ACARA, n.d., General Capabili-
ties, Information and Communication Technology Compe-
tence section, para. 2)
The English curriculum integrates this capability into each year’s
statement of the content standards. Evidence of this integration
also appears in the “Elaborations” of the English curriculum such
as this one from Year 4 English (ELBE900): “Participating in online
searches for information using navigation tools and discussing sim-
ilarities and differences between print and digital information.” In
Australia, literacy and the Internet are becoming integrated with
new literacies.
In another example, this time from Canada, the province of
Manitoba has developed an educational framework called Literacy
With ICT Across the Curriculum (Minister of Manitoba Educa-
tion, Citizenship, and Youth, 2006). This initiative outlines skills
and includes standards required in the 21st century in all aspects
of their curriculum:
Identifying appropriate inquiry questions; navigating multiple
information networks [italics added] to locate relevant informa-
tion; applying critical thinking skills to evaluate information
sources and content; synthesizing information and ideas from
multiple sources and networks; representing information and
ideas creatively in visual, aural, and textual formats; crediting
and referencing sources of information and intellectual prop-
erty; and communicating new understandings to others, both
face to face and over distance. (p. 18)
In the United States, the Common Core State Standards Initia-
tive (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices &
Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) has sought to estab-
lish more uniform standards across states to prepare students for
college and careers in the 21st century. One of their key design
principles, research and media skills, shows that literacy and new
technologies are beginning to be considered together:
To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a tech-
nological society, students need the ability to gather, com-
prehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information
and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer
questions or solve problems, and to analyze and create a high
volume and extensive range of print and non-print texts
in media forms old and new. The need to conduct research
and to produce and consume media is embedded into every
aspect of today’s curriculum. (p. 4)
This design principle, however, is implemented most directly
in the Common Core State Standards for writing than for read-
ing (Leu et al., 2011). Consider, for example, these two (of 10)
Anchor Standards (A.S.) in Writing:
A.S. 6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and
publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
A.S. 8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and
digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each
source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagia-
rism. (National Governors Association Center for Best Prac-
tices & Council of Chief State School Officers, p. 41)
In the Anchor Standards in Reading, we find a focus on the
higher level thinking skills required while reading and conducting
research online (Leu, Forzani, et al., in press).
Although these changes are more evolutionary than revolu-
tionary, it is clear that literacy and Internet use are beginning
to slowly become more integrated into the public policies and
curricula of nations in ways that have a direct impact on literacy
education. Because of global economic competition, even nations
with a long tradition of local school control, such as Australia and
the United States, are beginning to develop important national
initiatives to raise literacy levels and prepare students for the use
of the Internet.
A DUAL-LEVEL THEORY OF NEW LITERACIES
That the Internet changes the nature of literacy can be seen in the
common ways that nations are trying to prepare students for these
changes. It can also be seen by the fact that many scholars recently
have been attracted to studying this problem and have sought to
describe the changes taking place (e.g., Gee, 2007c; Kress, 2003;
Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Lemke, 2002; New London Group,
1996; Street, 1995, 2003). Many use the term new literacies to
describe their work. New literacies, however, means many different
things to many different people.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 20174
Some people use the term new literacies to capture the new social
practices of literacy that are emerging (Street, 1995, 2003). Rather
than seeing new social practices emerging from new technologies,
they tend to see new technologies emerging from new social prac-
tices. Others use the term new literacies to describe important new
strategies and dispositions that are essential for online research
and comprehension (Castek, 2008; Coiro, 2003; Henry, 2006;
International Reading Association, 2009). Still others see new lit-
eracies as new discourses (Gee, 2007b) or new semiotic contexts
(Kress, 2003; Lemke, 2002). Others see literacy as differentiat-
ing into multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 1999; New London
Group, 1996) or multimodal contexts (Hull & Schultz, 2002), and
some see a construct that juxtaposes several of these orientations
(Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). When one includes terms such as ICT
literacy (International ICT Literacy Panel, 2002) or informational
literacy (Hirsh, 1999; Kuiper & Volman, 2008), the construct of
new literacies becomes even broader.
How are we to solve the conundrum posed earlier, where the
nature of literacy changes even faster than we can develop adequate
theory, especially within a context where there are so many com-
peting theoretical perspectives that have emerged to direct separate
lines of research? We believe the answer to this question is not to
privilege one theoretical framework over another, but rather to take
advantage of multiple perspectives, and new ones that will ultimately
emerge, to capture the full range of the complexities defining liter-
acy during a period in which literacy continually changes. In short,
we see the separate lines of work taking place within a context that
rapidly changes as an opportunity and not as a problem.
LOWERCASE AND UPPERCASE NEW LITERACIES
Just as economic units have found it more productive to restruc-
ture from a command and control mentality to take advantage of
everyone’s intellectual capital, we must do the same in the literacy
research community. We must find ways to bring all of our intellec-
tual capital to the important task of understanding the extraordi-
nary complexities that now define literacy as it continually changes
and becomes richer and more complex. We can no longer afford to
work in separate theoretical worlds, ignoring others and privileg-
ing our own. Recognizing that changes to literacy are taking place
at many levels, and being dissatisfied with isolated attempts to
capture those changes, we believe that a collaborative approach to
theory building is essential, one that takes advantage of the power
of multiple perspectives (Labbo & Reinking, 1999). This approach
suggests that the best solutions result from collaborative groups
who bring diverse, multiple perspectives to problems (Page,
2007). New Literacies theory takes an “open-source” approach,
inviting everyone who studies the Internet’s impact to contribute
to theory development and to benefit from others’ contributions.
This includes more traditional theoretical and research traditions
as well as those specific to new literacies because both old and new
elements of literacy are layered in complex ways, and the nature of
this layering and commingling is yet to be understood.
To account for the continuous changes taking place to literacy
as well as the growing multiplicity of perspectives that are emerg-
ing, we frame new literacies theory on two levels: lowercase (new
literacies) and uppercase (New Literacies). Lowercase theories
explore a specific area of new literacies and/or a new technol-
ogy, such as the social communicative transactions occurring with
text messaging (e.g., Lewis & Fabos, 2005). Lowercase theories
also include those that explore a focused disciplinary base, such as
the semiotics of multimodality in online media (e.g., Kress, 2003)
or a distinctive conceptual approach such as new literacy studies
(Street, 1995, 2003). These lowercase theories are better able
to keep up with the rapidly changing nature of literacy in a deic-
tic world because they are closer to the specific types of changes
that are taking place and interest those who study them within a
particular heuristic. Lowercase theories also permit our field to
maximize the lenses we use and the technologies and contexts we
study. Every scholar who studies new literacy issues is generating
important insights for everyone else, even if we do not share a
particular lens, technology, or context. How, though, do we come
to understand these insights, taking place in many different fields
from many different perspectives? For this, we require a second
level of theory, an uppercase New Literacies theory.
What defines this broader theory of New Literacies? New Liter-
acies, as the broader, more inclusive concept, includes those com-
mon findings emerging across multiple, lowercase theories. New
Literacies theory benefits from work taking place in the multiple,
lowercase dimensions of new literacies by looking for what appear
to be the most common and consistent patterns being found in
lowercase theories and lines of research. This approach permits
everyone to fully explore their unique, lowercase perspective
of new literacies, allowing scholars to maintain a close focus on
many different aspects of the shifting landscape of literacy during
a period of rapid change. At the same time, each of us also benefits
from expanding our understanding of other, lowercase, new liter-
acies perspectives. By assuming change in the model, everyone is
open to a continuously changing definition of literacy, based on the
most recent data that emerges consistently, across multiple per-
spectives, disciplines, and research traditions. Moreover, areas in
which alternative findings emerge are identified, enabling each to
be studied again, from multiple perspectives. From this process,
common patterns emerge and are included in a broader, common,
New Literacies theory.
This process enables the broader theory of New Literacies to
keep up with consistent elements that will always define literacy
on the Internet while it informs each of the lowercase theories
of new literacies with patterns that are being regularly found by
others. We believe that when literacy is deictic and multifaceted,
a dual-level theory of New Literacies is not only essential but
also provides a theoretical advantage over any single-dimensional
approach to theory building and research. We are richer for work-
ing together and engaging in common research and theoretical
conversations, something we believe happens too rarely.
NEW LITERACIES 5
CENTRAL PRINCIPLES OF AN UPPERCASE THEORY OF
NEW LITERACIES
Although it is too early to define a complete uppercase theory of
New Literacies emerging from the Internet and other ICTs, we are
convinced that it is time to begin this process by identifying the cen-
tral principles upon which it should be built. Our work is pointing
us to these principles of New Literacies that appear to be common
across the research and theoretical work currently taking place:
1. The Internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy
and learning within 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.
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. Teachers become more important, though their role changes,
within new literacy classrooms.
The Internet Is This Generation’s Defining Technology
for Literacy and Learning Within Our Global
Community
From a sociolinguistics perspective, Gee (2007b) and the New
London Group (2000) have argued that literacy is embedded in
and develops out of the social practices of a culture. We agree. We
have argued that the Internet and related technologies now define
the new literacies that increasingly are a part of our literacy lives.
Put simply, a central principle of New Literacies theory is that the
Internet has become this generation’s defining technology for lit-
eracy in our global community.
We can see this in several data points. More than a decade ago,
90% of adolescent students in the United States with home access
to the Internet reported using the Internet for homework (Pew
Internet & American Life Project, 2001). Over 70% of these stu-
dents used the Internet as the primary source for information
on their most recent school report or project, while only 24%
of these students reported using the library for the same task.
Four years later, in 2005, we reached the “tipping point year” for
online reading among adolescents in the United States. For the
first time, students ages 8–18 reported spending more time read-
ing online, 48 minutes per day, than reading offline, 43 minutes
per day (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). More recently, the
first international assessment of online reading among 15-year-
olds took place in 2009. The PISA International Assessment of
Reading (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel-
opment, 2011) provided important information about online
research and comprehension to public policymakers around the
world who were demanding it (see also R. E. Bennett, Persky,
Weiss, & Jenkins, 2007).
Perhaps the most compelling evidence, though, for this claim
may be found in usage. According to one of the most systematic
evaluations of worldwide Internet use, over 2.4 billion individuals
now use the Internet—more than one third of the world’s popu-
lation (Internet World Stats, 2011). Moreover, at the current rate
of growth, Internet use will be ubiquitous in the world within the
next decade. Never in the history of civilization have we seen a
new technology adopted by so many, in so many different places,
in such a short period of time, with such powerful consequences
for both literacy and life.
The Internet and Related Technologies Require
Additional New Literacies to Fully Access Their
Potential
New technologies such as the Internet and other ICTs require addi-
tional social practices, skills, strategies, and dispositions to take full
advantage of the affordances each contains. Typically, new literacies
build upon foundational literacies rather than replace them com-
pletely. Foundational literacies include those traditional social prac-
tices of literacy and the elements of literacy required for traditional
text reading and writing, such as word recognition, vocabulary,
comprehension, inferential reasoning, the writing process, spelling,
response to literature, and others required for the literacies of the
book and other printed material. However, foundational literacies
will be insufficient if one is to make full use of the Internet and other
ICTs (Hartman, Morsink, & Zheng, 2010; International Reading
Association, 2009). Reading, writing, and communication will take
new forms as text is combined with new media resources and linked
within complex information networks requiring new literacies for
their use (Dalton & Proctor, 2008; Wyatt-Smith & Elkins, 2008).
During this process, new online and traditional offline literacies are
often layered in rich and complex ways.
New Literacies Are Deictic
We began this chapter by suggesting that literacy has become deictic.
The rapid transformations in the nature of literacy caused by techno-
logical change is a primary source for the deictic nature of literacy;
new technologies regularly and repeatedly transform previous liter-
acies, continually redefining what it means to become literate.
The deictic nature of literacy is also caused by a second source:
the envisionments we construct as we create new social practices
with new technologies. Envisionments take place when individu-
als imagine new possibilities for literacy and learning, transform
existing technologies and practices to construct this vision, and
then share their envisionment with others (Knobel & Wilber,
2009; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Leu, Karchmer, & Leu, 1999).
Finally, rapid transformations in the nature of literacy are pro-
duced because the Internet and other ICTs permit the immediate
exchange of new technologies and social practices. Because we
can immediately download a new technology from the Internet
or send it to millions of individuals with just a keystroke, the
changes to literacy derived from new technologies happen at
a pace faster than ever before. In short, the Internet and other
ICTs not only change themselves but also provide the central
vehicle for exchanging new technologies for information and
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 20176
communication and new social practices. Thus, the already rapid
pace of change in the forms and functions of literacy is exacer-
bated by the speed with which new technologies and new social
practices are communicated (Leu, 2000).
New Literacies Are Multiple, Multimodal, and
Multifaceted
New literacies are multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted, and as
a result, our understanding of them benefits from multiple points
of view. From a sociolinguistic perspective, the New London
Group (2000) has defined multiliteracies as a set of open-ended and
flexible multiple literacies required to function in diverse social
contexts and communities. We believe the same multiplicity of lit-
eracy has also emerged because of multiple technological contexts.
The Internet and other ICTs require that we develop a system-
atic understanding of the multiple literacies that exist in both new
literacies practices (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) and in the skills,
strategies, and dispositions that are required with new technolo-
gies (Leu et al., 2004). This multiplicity of new literacies is appar-
ent on at least three levels.
First, meaning is typically represented with multiple media and
modalities. Unlike traditional text forms that typically include a com-
bination of two types of media—print and two-dimensional graph-
ics—Internet texts integrate a range of symbols and multiple-media
formats, including icons, animated symbols, audio, video, interactive
tables, and virtual reality environments (Callow, 2010; Lemke, 2002;
Walsh, 2010). As a result, we confront new forms and combinations
of texts and images that challenge our traditional understandings of
how information is represented and shared with others (Jewitt &
Kress, 2003; Unsworth, 2008). Semiotic perspectives on new lit-
eracies (e.g., Kress, 2003) allow an especially rich understanding of
changes taking place in these areas.
Second, the Internet and other ICTs also offer multiple tools.
Literate individuals will be those who can effectively determine,
from the Internet’s multiple offerings, a combination of tool(s) and
form(s) that best meet their needs (American Association of School
Librarians, 2007). Thus, New Literacies theory includes research
that is taking place with multiple forms of online meaning and con-
tent construction. It assumes that proficient users of the Internet
must understand how to construct meaning in new ways as well as
construct, design, manipulate, and upload their own information
to add to the constantly growing and changing body of knowledge
that defines the Internet.
A final level of multiplicity consists of the new social practices
and skills that are required as we encounter information with
individuals from a much wider range of social contexts (Hull,
Stornaiuolo, & Sahni, 2010; Hull, Zacher, & Hibbert, 2009). The
global sharing of information permitted by the Internet intro-
duces new challenges as we interpret and respond to information
from multiple social and cultural contexts that share profoundly
different assumptions about our world (Fabos & Young, 1999;
Flanagin, Farinola, & Metzger, 2000). These multiple contexts
for new literacies have important implications for educators
preparing students to critically understand and interpret the
meanings they find on the Internet and to communicate with
others (see Hull et al., 2010).
In a world of exploding technologies and literacy practices,
it becomes increasingly difficult to think of literacy as a singular
construct that applies across all contexts. As a result, we benefit
from the complexity that multiple theoretical perspectives pro-
vide (Labbo & Reinking, 1999). Any research study in new liter-
acies benefits when multiple theoretical frameworks inform the
research questions and results. It also suggests that new literacies
are best studied in interdisciplinary teams as questions become far
too complex for the traditional singleinvestigator model.
Critical Literacies Are Central to New Literacies
New Literacies demand new forms of critical literacy and greater
dependency on critical thinking and analysis. Open networks,
such as the Internet, permit anyone to publish anything; this is
one of the opportunities this technology presents. It is also one
of its limitations; information is much more widely available from
people who have strong political, economic, religious, or ideolog-
ical stances that profoundly influence the nature of the informa-
tion they present to others. As a result, we must assist students to
become more critical consumers of the information they encoun-
ter (Bråten, Strømsø, & Britt, 2009; Clemitt, 2008; Flanagin &
Metzger, 2010; Metzger & Flanagin, 2008). Although the literacy
curriculum has always included items such as critical thinking and
separating fact from propaganda, more instructional time devoted
to more complex analytic skills will need to be included in class-
rooms where the Internet and other ICTs play a more prominent
role (Hobbs, 2010). As we begin to study the new literacies of the
Internet, we will depend greatly on work from the communities
of critical literacy and media literacy to provide us with the best
research in this area.
New Forms of Strategic Knowledge Are Required with
New Literacies
New technologies for networked information and communi-
cation are complex and require many new strategies for their
effective use. Hypertext technologies, embedded with multiple
forms of media and unlimited freedoms of multiple navigational
pathways, present opportunities that may seduce some readers
away from important content unless they have developed strate-
gies to deal with these seductions (Lawless & Kulikowich, 1996;
Lawless, Mills, & Brown, 2002). Other cognitive and aesthetic
changes to text on the Internet presents additional strategic
challenges to comprehension (Afflerbach & Cho, 2010; Coiro,
2003; Hartman et al., 2010; Spires & Estes, 2002), inquiry
(Eagleton, 2001), and information seeking (Rouet, Ros, Goumi,
Macedo-Rouet, & Dinet, 2011; Sutherland-Smith, 2002). Thus,
new literacies will often be defined around the strategic knowl-
edge central to the effective use of information within rich and
complexly networked environments.
NEW LITERACIES 7
New Literacy Practices Are a Central Element of
New Literacies
It is increasingly clear that new literacy practices are a central fea-
ture of New Literacies. Work by Lankshear and Knobel (2006)
show us how two important elements of the changing nature of
literacy generate additional, new literacies practices. First, new
digital technologies enable new ways of constructing, sharing, and
accessing meaningful content. Second, the collaborative, distrib-
uted, and participatory nature of these digital spaces enable the
generation of what Lankshear and Knobel call a distinctive ethos
and what Jenkins (2006) refers to as engagement in participatory cul-
ture. As a result, continuously new social practices of literacy will
emerge, often within new discourse communities, and serve to
redefine literacy and learning.
New social practices will be needed in classrooms to interact
within increasingly complex technologies for information and
communication (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003; Kiili,
Laurinen, Marttunen, & Leu, 2011). Models of literacy instruc-
tion, for example, have often focused on an adult whose role was to
teach the skills he or she possessed to a group of students who did
not know those skills. This is no longer possible, or even appropri-
ate, within a world of multiple new literacies. No one person can
hope to know everything about the expanding and ever-changing
technologies of the Internet and other ICTs. In fact, today, many
young students possess higher levels of knowledge about some of
these new literacies than most adults.
Consequently, effective learning experiences will be increas-
ingly dependent upon new social practices, social learning strat-
egies, and the ability of a teacher to orchestrate literacy learning
opportunities between and among students who know different
new literacies (Erstad, 2002). This will distribute knowledge about
literacy throughout the classroom, especially as students move
above the stages of foundational literacy. One student, for exam-
ple, may know how to edit digital video scenes, but another may
know how best to compress the video so it can function optimally
in a Web-based environment. This social learning ability may not
come naturally to all students, however, and many will need to
be supported in learning how to learn about literacy from one
another (Labbo, 1996; Labbo & Kuhn, 1998).
Teachers Become More Important, Though Their Role
Changes, Within New Literacy Classrooms
The appearance of the Internet and other ICTs in school classrooms
will increase the central role that teachers play in orchestrating
learning experiences for students. Teachers will be challenged to
thoughtfully guide students’ learning within information envi-
ronments that are richer and more complex than traditional print
media, presenting richer and more complex learning opportuni-
ties for both themselves and their students (Coiro, 2009).
In a world of rapidly changing new literacies, it will be common
for some students to be more literate with some technologies than
their teacher is (Erstad, 2002; Harper, 2006). As a result, teachers
will increasingly become orchestrators of learning contexts rather
than dispensers of literacy skills. By orchestrating opportunities
for the exchange of new literacies, both teachers and students
may enhance their literacy skills and their potential for effective
communication and information use (O’Brien, Beach, & Scharber,
2007; Schulz-Zander, Büchter, & Dalmer, 2002). Because teachers
become even more important to the development of literacy and
because their role changes, an expanded focus and greater atten-
tion will need to be placed on teacher education and professional
development in new literacies.
THE NEW LITERACIES OF ONLINE RESEARCH
AND COMPREHENSION: A LOWERCASE THEORY
OF NEW LITERACIES
The new literacies of online research and comprehension (Leu,
Everett-Cacopardo, Zawilinski, McVerry, & O’Byrne, in press;
Leu, Forzani, et al., in press) is one example of a lowercase new
literacies theory. This frames online reading comprehension as a
process of problem-based inquiry and includes the new skills, strat-
egies, dispositions, and social practices that take place as we use
information on the Internet to conduct research to solve problems
and answer questions. It describes how students conduct research
and read online to learn. A more formal definition is as follows:
The new literacies of online research and comprehension
include the skills, strategies, dispositions, and social prac-
tices necessary to successfully use and adapt to the rapidly
changing information and communication technologies and
contexts that continuously emerge and influence all areas
of our personal and professional lives. Online research and
comprehension is a self-directed process of constructing
texts and knowledge while engaged in several online reading
practices: identifying important problems, locating informa-
tion, critically evaluating information, synthesizing informa-
tion, and communicating information. Online research and
comprehension can take place individually, but often appears
to be enhanced when it takes place collaboratively.
What do we know about the new literacies of online research
and comprehension? We are beginning to uncover many elements
of this aspect of new literacies. They include the following:
1. Online research and comprehension is a self-directed process of
text construction and knowledge construction.
2. Five practices appear to define online research and compre-
hension processing: (1) identifying a problem and then (2)
locating, (3) evaluating, (4) synthesizing, and (5) communi-
cating information.
3. Online research and comprehension is not isomorphic with
offline reading comprehension; additional skills and strategies
appear to be required.
4. Online contexts may be especially supportive for some strug-
gling readers.
5. Adolescents are not always very skilled with online research and
comprehension.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 20178
6. Collaborative online reading and writing practices appear to
increase comprehension and learning.
Online Research and Comprehension Is a Self-Directed
Process of Text Construction and Knowledge
Construction
Readers choose the online texts that they read through the links
that they follow as they gather information and construct the
knowledge needed to solve a problem. Each reader typically fol-
lows a unique informational path, selecting a unique sequence of
links to information and sampling unique segments of informa-
tion from each location (see, e.g., Canavilhas, n.d.; McEneaney,
Li, Allen, & Guzniczak, 2009). Thus, in addition to constructing
knowledge in their minds, readers also physically construct the
texts they read online (Afflerbach & Cho, 2008; Coiro & Dobler,
2007). While this is also possible during offline reading, of course,
it always takes place during online reading (see Hartman et al.,
2010). As a result, seldom do two readers read the same text to
solve the same problem during online reading.
Five Processing Practices Appear to Define Online
Research and Comprehension Processing
At least five processing practices occur during online research and
comprehension: (1) reading to identify important questions, (2)
reading to locate information, (3) reading to evaluate information
critically, (4) reading to synthesize information, and (5) reading
to communicate information. Within these five practices reside
the skills, strategies, and dispositions that are distinctive to online
reading comprehension as well as to others that are also important
for offline reading comprehension (Leu, Reinking, et al., 2007).
Reading to Identify Important Questions. We read on the
Internet to solve problems and answer questions. How a problem
is framed or how a question is understood is a central aspect of
online research and comprehension. Work by Taboada and Guthrie
(2006) within traditional texts suggests that reading initiated by a
question differs in important ways from reading that is not.
Reading to Locate Information. A second component of
successful online research and comprehension is the ability to
read and locate information that meets one’s needs (Broch, 2000;
Eagleton, Guinee, & Langlais, 2003; Guinee, Eagleton, & Hall,
2003; International ICT Literacy Panel, 2002; Sutherland-Smith,
2002). The reading ability required to locate information on the
Internet may very well serve as a gatekeeping skill; if one cannot
locate information, one will be unable to solve a given problem.
New online reading skills and strategies may be required, for
example, to generate effective keyword search strategies (Bilal,
2000; Guinee et al., 2003; Kuiper & Volman, 2008), to read and
infer which link may be most useful within a set of search engine
results (Henry, 2006), and to efficiently scan for relevant infor-
mation within websites (McDonald & Stevenson, 1996; Rouet,
2006; Rouet et al., 2011).
Reading to Evaluate Information Critically. Critically eval-
uating online information includes the ability to read and evaluate
the level of accuracy, reliability, and bias of information (Center
for Media Literacy, 2005). Although these skills have always been
necessary to comprehend and use offline texts, the proliferation of
unedited information and the merging of commercial marketing
with educational content (Fabos, 2008; Federal Trade Commis-
sion, 2002) present additional challenges that are quite different
from traditional print and media sources. Tillman (2003), for
example, contends that promotional efforts and related advertis-
ing may be more difficult to differentiate on the Internet than in
print and other mass media forms (see also Fabos, 2008). Others
(Britt & Gabrys, 2001) cite the lack of uniform standards and cues
regarding document type in online text environments as necessi-
tating a renewed interest in how students evaluate online informa-
tion. Without explicit training in these new literacy skills, many
students become confused and overwhelmed when asked to judge
the accuracy, reliability, and bias of information they encounter in
online reading environments (Graham & Metaxas, 2003; Sanchez,
Wiley, & Goldman, 2006; Sundar, 2008). Consequently, as more
students turn primarily to the Internet for their information (Pew
Internet & American Life Project, 2005), these critical evaluation
strategies become more relevant than ever before (Bråten et al.,
2009; Bråten, Strømsø, & Salmerón, 2011).
Reading to Synthesize Information. Successful Internet use
also requires the ability to read and synthesize information from
multiple online sources (Jenkins, 2006). Synthesis requires the
reader to bring together an awareness of the reading processes and
an underlying understanding of the text. The Internet introduces
additional challenges to coordinate and synthesize vast amounts of
information presented in multiple media formats, from a nearly
unlimited and disparate set of sources (Gilster, 1997; Jenkins,
2006; Rouet, 2006). This presents important challenges to online
readers as they determine what to include and what to exclude.
Reading to Communicate Information. A fifth component
of successful online research and comprehension is the ability to
communicate via the Internet to seek information or share what
one has learned (Britt & Gabrys, 2001). The interactive processes
of reading and writing have become so intertwined on the Inter-
net that they often happen simultaneously during communication.
Moreover, each specific communication tool on the Internet is
constituted differently and presents a range of new skills, strate-
gies, and social practices to use them effectively (Coiro, Knobel,
Lankshear, & Leu, 2008). New types of strategic knowledge are
required, for example, to effectively participate and communicate
in social networking environments such as e-mail, blogs, wikis, and
instant messaging (Castek, 2008; Lewis & Fabos, 2005).
Online Research and Comprehension Is Not Isomorphic
with Offline Reading Comprehension
Findings from several studies suggest that online research and
comprehension appears not to be isomorphic with offline reading
NEW LITERACIES 9
comprehension; additional reading comprehension skills seem to
be required (Coiro, 2011; Coiro & Dobler, 2007; Leu et al., 2005;
Leu, Zawilinski, et al., 2007). One study, among sixth-grade stu-
dents proficient at using the Internet (Coiro & Dobler, 2007),
found that online research and comprehension shared a number
of similarities with offline reading comprehension but was also
more complex and included notable differences. A second study
found no statistically significant correlation between scores on
a state reading comprehension assessment and an assessment
of online research and comprehension with good psychomet-
ric properties (Leu et al., 2005). A third study (Coiro, 2011)
found that offline reading comprehension and prior knowledge
contributed a statistically significant amount of variance to the
prediction of online research and comprehension, but an addi-
tional 16% of independent variance was contributed by know-
ing students’ online research and comprehension ability. These
data suggest that additional skills are required for online research
and comprehension beyond those required for offline reading
comprehension.
Similarly, Afflerbach and Cho’s (2010) review of 46 studies
involving think aloud protocols that focused on reading strategy
use during Internet and hypertext reading found evidence of strat-
egies that “appeared to have no counterpart in traditional reading”
(p. 217). Many of these strategies clustered around a reader’s abil-
ity to apply new strategies to reduce levels of uncertainty while
navigating and negotiating appropriate reading paths in a shifting
problem space (see also Afflerbach & Cho, 2008; Cho, 2010; Zhang
& Duke, 2008). Hartman et al. (2010) also offer examples of how
Internet research and comprehension places many more process-
ing demands on the reader that amount to a host of new cognitive
reading challenges for comprehending online texts. Finally, case
studies and videos of online research show that students who per-
form at a low level on state reading assessments sometimes per-
form at unexpectedly high levels on tasks of online research and
comprehension (Castek, Zawilinski, McVerry, O’Byrne, & Leu,
2011; Leu, Zawilinski, et al., 2007). Together, these results sup-
port the claim that additional skills and strategies may be required
during online research and comprehension beyond those required
for offline reading and comprehension.
Although differences appear to exist, we do not fully under-
stand how and why offline reading comprehension and online
research and comprehension are not isomorphic. Several expla-
nations are possible. Current results, showing a lack of correlation
between the two, may be because online research and comprehen-
sion is a problem-based task, while offline reading includes a wider
range of comprehension tasks (cf. Taboada & Guthrie, 2006). Or it
may be that the reading skills required to locate information online
are such “bottleneck” skills that students who lack this ability per-
form poorly online, even though they may be high performing
offline readers. Or the fact that greater levels of critical evaluation
are typically required online may be the source of the difference.
Finally, differences may be due to the new communication tools
that are often used.
It is also likely that we can increase or decrease statistical rela-
tionships between offline reading comprehension and online
research and comprehension by simply varying the nature of the
online research task. Online assessments that require richer, more
complex use of online tools (search engines, e-mail attachments,
blogs, wikis), or more complex information spaces, may generate
less of a relationship with offline reading comprehension compared
with online assessments that simply require the reader to read
information on a single website. So it is still early to claim that the
lack of isomorphism between online and offline reading is either
strong or weak. That it can be demonstrated appears to be the case,
but we require much more work to be able to fully understand
the conditions under which the two contexts for reading require
different skills and strategies.
We also do not know very much about the relative contribution
of various elements of online research and comprehension to suc-
cessful online research outcomes. It is likely that skill areas often
required earlier in the process (defining a problem, locating infor-
mation, and evaluating information) may be more determinative of
successful performance than other areas are, but we have not yet
evaluated this claim.
Online Contexts May Be Especially Supportive for Some
Struggling Readers
It is surprising to find that some struggling readers do very well
with online research and comprehension. Why might this be the
case? Units of text are typically shorter online as readers follow
informational links from one location to another, seeking infor-
mation that will help them solve their informational problem.
Shorter units of text are easier for struggling readers to process.
In addition, online readers construct their own texts to read, as
they choose different paths to follow. This increases engagement
and makes it more likely that readers find their way to texts appro-
priate for their abilities. Also, online texts contain multimedia, a
traditionally supportive context for struggling readers. Finally,
each webpage is really a graphic image, and struggling readers are
often quite skilled readers of information presented graphically.
Sometimes, too, these readers use a new literacies skill, the use of
Command + F, to quickly scan for information on a webpage with
extensive amounts of text.
Adolescents Are Not Always Very Skilled with Online
Research and Comprehension
Although adolescent “digital natives” may be skilled with social net-
working, texting, video downloads, MP3 downloads, or mash-ups,
they are not always as skilled with online research and compre-
hension, including locating (Bilal, 2000; Eagleton et al., 2003) and
critically evaluating information (S. Bennett, Maton, & Kervin,
2008; Sutherland-Smith, 2002; Wallace, Kupperman, Krajcik, &
Soloway, 2000). In fact, adolescents tend to overgeneralize their
ability to read online information effectively, informed by their
ability to engage successfully with online social networking, tex-
ting, and video games (Kuiper, 2007).
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 201710
Collaborative Online Reading and Writing Practices
Appear to Increase Comprehension and Learning
Emerging work suggests that collaborative online reading and
writing may yield important gains in literacy and learning. Work
by Kiili et al. (2011) suggests that collaborative reading of online
information about a controversial issue can lead to important
learning gains. Comparing individual reading (Kiili, Laurinen, &
Marttunen, 2008) with collaborative online reading (Kiili et al.,
2011), individual readers concentrated on gathering facts, whereas
the collaborative reading context offered additional opportunities
for deeper exploration of ideas and different perspectives. Greater
collaborative online reading also appears to lead to greater mean-
ing construction and knowledge construction (Kiili et al., 2011).
Work by Everett-Cacopardo (2011), Zawilinski (2011), O’By-
rne (2011), and Coiro, Castek, and Guzniczak (2011) also explores
the importance of framing online research and comprehension as
a collaborative, social practice. EverettCacopardo discovered that
a number of teachers find it highly effective to have their students
engage in collaborative, online projects with students in other
nations. Zawilinski found that collaborative blogging in social stud-
ies between students in first and fifth grades led to important gains
in understanding and communication. O’Byrne found that collab-
orative development of spoof sites led to greater skill with the crit-
ical evaluation of information related most closely to the elements
students focused on in the creation of their webpages. Coiro et al.
found that opportunities to co-construct meaning and responses to
prompts that require students to read on the Internet may foster
more efficient and productive comprehension of online informa-
tional texts—even among readers who are skilled at comprehend-
ing online texts independently. Thus, we are beginning to see this
area of new literacies research consider more fully the important
collaborative dimensions of online research and comprehension.
NEW LITERACIES THEORY: IMPLICATIONS
New Literacies theory tells us that the Internet and other contin-
uously emerging ICTs will be central to both our personal and
professional lives and that these technologies require new literacies
to effectively exploit their potential (International Reading Associ-
ation, 2009; Kinzer & Leander, 2002). It also suggests that we must
begin to integrate these new literacies into classrooms if we hope
to prepare all students for the literacy futures they deserve. Most
important, it suggests that continuous change will define the new
literacies of the Internet and other ICTs (Cammack, 2002; Leu,
2000). Because of this rapid and continuous change, misalignments
in assessment and instruction are likely to appear until we begin to
recognize that literacy has become deictic, and take action not to
fall behind the more contemporaneous realities of literacy. These
misalignments are likely to create important problems for any edu-
cational system unable to keep up with the changes.
Consider, for example, the consequences that result from our
current literacy assessments, such as the National Assessment of
Educational Progress or any of the state assessments of reading
in the United States. None of these assessments include any ele-
ments of new literacies. This misalignment with the contempora-
neous realities of literacy may result in increasing existing gaps in
reading achievement between rich and poor. How does this hap-
pen? The poorest students in any nation have the least access to
the Internet at home (Cooper, 2004). Unfortunately, it is often
the case that the poorest schools are also under the greatest pres-
sure to raise scores on reading tests that have nothing to do with
new literacies (cf. Henry, 2007). In poorer schools, there is often
little incentive to teach the new literacies of online research and
comprehension simply because they are not tested (Leu, O’Byrne,
Zawilinski, McVerry, & Everett-Cacopardo, 2009). Thus, students
in our poorest schools become doubly disadvantaged; they have
less access to the Internet at home, and schools do not prepare
them for new literacies at school.
In contrast, most children from advantaged communities have
broadband Internet connections at home. As a result, teachers
feel greater freedom to integrate the Internet into their curric-
ula (Henry, 2007). Thus, students in richer districts become dou-
bly privileged: They have greater access to the Internet at home,
and they integrate it more often at school. It is a cruel irony that
students who most need to be prepared at school for an online
age of information are precisely those who are being prepared the
least. This situation must change. We cannot afford to help the rich
get richer and the poor get poorer through misalignments in our
assessment instruments.
During a period of rapidly changing new literacies, we will
need to adapt to the continuously changing nature of literacy in
several areas. These include research, assessment, and professional
development and teacher education.
Research
Research might begin by focusing on two major issues: (1) What
are the social practices, skills, strategies, and dispositions essential
to the acquisition of new literacies? and (2) How might we best
support the development of these aspects of new literacies within
both real and virtual learning contexts? As we develop answers to
the first question, we should keep in mind that any answers will be
in continuous evolution, as even newer technologies will require
additional skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices for
their effective use. We should begin now to conceptualize this
problem from a deictic perspective, perhaps with a research focus
on how students and teachers continually adapt to the changes that
will be a part of our lives. Research on how students and teachers
learn how to learn may be far more important than a listing of
specific skills and strategies within the continuously changing land-
scape of literacy that will define our future.
Answers to the second question are likely to take place within
a context of problem-based learning (see Dochy, Segers, Van den
Bossche, & Gijbels, 2003; Hmelo-Silver, 2004) because we have
argued that new literacies are often used to solve problems and
communicate solutions with online information. One instructional
model has been developed for 1:1 computing classrooms in the
NEW LITERACIES 11
Teaching Internet Comprehension to Adolescents project (Leu &
Reinking, 2005) and described by Leu et al. (2008).
This project focused on inquiry-based learning around diverse
informational texts that students encountered on the Internet
while engaged in a series of curriculum-based information chal-
lenges. A three-phase approach to instruction was designed, called
Internet reciprocal teaching (IRT). Over a 20-week period, with
about 40 hours of instruction, this approach resulted in significant
effects on online research and comprehension among typically
low-achieving readers in seventh-grade language arts classrooms in
rural South Carolina and urban Connecticut school districts (Leu
& Reinking, 2009).
There is some indication that a more sustained period of IRT
instruction can yield an even greater effect size. Castek (2008)
found positive effects for fourth and fifth graders who were
instructed using IRT and laptops. Students in the experimental
group showed significantly greater gains in online research and
comprehension than did control students: t(52) = 5.79, p < .001),
with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.58). This study took place
in self-contained classrooms rather than the rotating, 40-minute
classes typical of middle schools, providing more time each day for
instruction. From these results, it appears that a longer period of
time, more than 40 hours, may be necessary to generate high levels
of online research and comprehension.
Another area in which important research is taking place is
online gaming. Several people have noted that literacy practices
and literacy-related learning activities occur within online game
play (Gee, 2007a; Squire, 2008, 2011; Steinkuehler, 2006). Lean-
der and Lovvorn (2006), for example, note how an adolescent
from the United States learned Finnish and various communication
strategies as a result of collaborative video game play experiences.
Yet, schools continue to emphasize traditional text-based literacy
practices while doing little to integrate the potentials of gaming
into the school curriculum.
We also need to consider broader sources of meaning beyond
text. Work by Kress, Hull, and others (Hull & Schultz, 2002; Jew-
itt & Kress, 2003; Kress, 2003) tell us that we must understand
more fully the roles of semiotics and multimodal forms if our stu-
dents are to use the affordances of tools now required in informal
as well as high-performance workplace and academic settings. We
must begin to shift from a focus mainly on text comprehension
strategies to the interaction among text, graphics, and other con-
tent (Kinzer, Hoffman, Turkay, Gunbas, & Chantes, 2011; Kinzer
et al., in press), especially during out-of-school contexts (Kleifgen
& Kinzer, 2009).
These and other areas of research that need to be explored may
not be able to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of lit-
eracy if traditional research paradigms are used; important aspects
of literacy are likely to change before a body of consistent research
findings can be gathered. Because new literacies continuously
change, we require new epistemologies and research practices that
keep up with the rapid changes we anticipate. How, for example,
can we keep up with new ideas about what to teach and how to
teach within research and dissemination paradigms that require
five years or more between the conception of a research problem
and the wide dissemination of results through research journals?
How can we assess students on their ability to use the Internet and
other ICTs when the very skills we assess will change as soon as
new technologies appear? While a New Literacies perspective does
not provide complete answers to these questions, it suggests that
these are critical questions to ask.
The answers may emerge in the new models of research likely
to appear among those who understand the changes we are expe-
riencing. Those who develop digital curricula, for example, may
come to realize that their most important resource is not the dig-
ital curriculum they provide to schools but rather the data they
obtain from students who use the curriculum. With a network that
both delivers curricular activities and assesses learning each day,
data could be used to conduct immediate research on the design of
lesson activities, revising a different element each night to obtain
immediate results on the effects of that change the next day. Any-
one with access to these data, and with the appropriate resources,
will be able to conduct research on a scale and with a speed that
we have not previously experienced. It is quite possible that the
assumptions we currently have about how, when, where, and why
instructional research is conducted will change rapidly in an age of
new literacies.
Assessment
We currently lack valid, reliable, and practical assessments of
new literacies to inform instruction and help students become
better prepared for an online age of information and commu-
nication. As a result, new literacies are not often integrated
into reading or language arts instruction (Hew & Brush, 2007)
and are, instead, typically viewed as an optional add-on rather
than a vital component (O’Brien & Scharber, 2008). Until we
develop valid, reliable, and practical assessments of new litera-
cies to inform instruction, their integration into the classroom
will always be delayed. Developing these assessments will be an
important challenge in the years ahead.
Dynamic, online texts and their associated literacy practices
require dynamic assessments that are sensitive to the diverse, multi-
ple, and rapidly changing ways in which learners read, write, learn,
and communicate information in the 21st century (Churches,
2009; International Reading Association & National Council of
Teachers of English, 2010; Knobel & Wilber, 2009). Similarly, a
range of social networking and information-sharing tools (e.g.,
Facebook, Twitter, Skype) continue to emerge and give rise to new
means of communication and ways of connecting and sharing with
wider and more diverse groups of individuals than ever before
(Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009; Johnson, Levine, Smith, &
Smythe, 2009). Consequently, authentic assessments of new liter-
acies should incorporate the information and communication tools
used in the workforce and in students’ daily lives (e.g., interactive
blogs, wikis, e-mail) to pose and answer questions, reflect on and
synthesize new learning, and collaborate across classrooms.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION • VOLUME 197 • NUMBER 2 • 201712
Assessments of new literacies should also document students’
evolving dispositions toward participation in globally networked
communities (Coiro, 2009; Popham, 2009). This includes assess-
ments that document the ability to work productively as a team,
appreciate differences in cultural practices and work patterns,
demonstrate flexibility and perseverance during online inquiry, and
respond appropriately to peer feedback (Afflerbach, 2007; Amer-
ican Association of School Librarians, 2007; O’Byrne & McVerry,
2009). Finally, we require better assessments of online research and
comprehension, ones that are both reliable and valid and also prac-
tical. The ones we currently have appear to be valid and reliable but
require extensive time to reliably score (Castek & Coiro, 2010).
Current work taking place in the Online Research and Compre-
hension Assessment (ORCA) project seeks this broader objective
(Leu, Kulikowich, Sedransk, & Coiro, 2009). This project has devel-
oped 24 assessments that present authentic problems to students in
science with text messages and collects data on both process and
product aspects of the research they conduct online. The task con-
cludes with students using their result to revise a classroom wiki or
e-mailing a school board president about the results they discovered.
A video of one assessment may be viewed by linking to this URL:
neag.uconn.edu/orca-video-ira/. The ORCAs are currently being
piloted and validated with representative state samples of nearly
2,800 seventh-grade students in Connecticut and Maine.
The most prominent challenge, perhaps, is that literacy assess-
ments, to date, are always assessments of an individual working
alone. Given the importance of social learning and collaborative
meaning construction on the Internet and other ICTs, we will
need to assess how well students can learn new literacies from oth-
ers and how well they can co-construct meaning and collaborate
in constructing written information with others. Learning how to
learn from others and learning how to collaboratively construct
meaning will be increasingly important in the years ahead. It seems
clear that new technologies will require new approaches to both
what is assessed and how we go about doing so (Coiro & Castek,
2010; Kinzer, 2010; National Research Council, 2001).
Professional Development and Teacher Education
Perhaps the greatest challenge that we face lies in professional
development. It is safe to say that our educational systems have
never before faced the professional development needs that will
occur in our future. Current professional development models are
often short in duration, with a focus on technology as a tool (War-
schauer, 2006), despite the fact that studies of laptop integration
universally conclude that extensive professional development on
higher level learning with technology is required before gains can
be realized (Penuel, 2006; Silvernail & Buffington, 2009; Silvernail
& Gritter, 2007; Silvernail & Lane, 2004; Warschauer, 2006). The
continuous changes that lie ahead for literacy will require continu-
ous professional development.
It is likely that new models of professional development will
require more extended commitments from school leadership
teams, over longer periods of time, than we are used to. It is well
established that professional development with technology inte-
gration takes longer than other areas of classroom instruction do,
as much as two to three times as long to produce the expected
effects (Becta, 2003; McKenzie, 2001; Saylor & Kehrhahn, 2003).
This is because training requires teachers to develop more than
new instructional strategies. They also have to develop proficiency
with new technologies, an even greater challenge for some.
Emerging work (Spires, Hervey, & Watson, 2012; Spires,
Zheng, & Pruden, 2011) has found Mishra and Koehler’s (2006)
TPACK model to be a useful framework for helping educators
understand the complex relationships among technology, content,
and pedagogy to facilitate teacher growth in new literacies (see
also Lohnes Watulak & Kinzer’s, 2013, argument for an extension
of this model). However, we need more research and clear data on
the efficacy of these and other new models to direct us in this area.
Our colleagues who conduct research on teacher education also
need to apply their finest heuristics, helping us to better under-
stand how to prepare new and experienced teachers to support
children in the new literacies of ICTs in the classroom. This will
require an understanding of new literacies by academic institutions
and teacher educators, who will need to implement changes in our
college and university preservice programs.
What seems certain is that Internet resources will increase, not
decrease, the central role teachers play in orchestrating learning
experiences for students as literacy instruction converges with
Internet technologies. The richer and more complex information
environments of the Internet will challenge teachers to thought-
fully support student learning in these new literacies contexts
(Coiro & Fogleman, 2011). This alone should make professional
development and teacher education important priorities.
THE CHALLENGES OF CHANGE: THEORY BUILDING IN A
DEICTIC WORLD OF NEW LITERACIES
We believe that we are on the cusp of a new era in literacy theory,
research, and practice, one in which the nature of reading, writ-
ing, and communication is being fundamentally transformed by the
Internet. It will be up to each of us to recognize these changes
and develop a richer understanding of them as we seek to prepare
students for the new literacies of the Internet and other ICTs that
define their future. They deserve nothing less.
To help us begin this journey, we have argued that one way to
understand the changes taking place to literacy is to build theoreti-
cal models around change itself. We have outlined a dual-level the-
ory of New Literacies, a perspective that provides a useful starting
point to inquiry in this area and one that is both close to the contin-
uous changes taking place at the lowercase level and also provides
an understanding of the generalized principles that are common to
all of the many contexts at the uppercase level.
Our own work tells us that each of us will be challenged in many
ways as we enter this new world of new literacies. We will be chal-
lenged to conduct and publish research before the very issues that we
study have changed as even newer literacies have appeared. We will be
NEW LITERACIES 13
challenged to use collaborative models of research because so many
of us work in institutions that still privilege the single-investigator
model for dissertations, tenure, and promotion. We will be chal-
lenged to gain access to school classrooms when schools are under
intense pressure to raise test scores, with assessments that exclude
the new literacies we seek to study, and have little time for anything
other than what is on their test. We will be challenged by the shift
to centers of research where curriculum developers have access to
massive amounts of daily data and rapidly change the classroom con-
texts for instruction in literacy and learning.
The most important challenge for each of us, though, may be
of looking beyond our own lowercase theoretical framework to
include findings taking place in other, related, new literacies work.
We must begin to think in ways that do not simply privilege our
own work but embrace the many other perspectives that can
enrich our own understanding. By looking across multiple, lower-
case, new literacies, we will develop a far richer understanding of
the important work that each of us is conducting.
This chapter has explored emerging theoretical perspectives in
new literacies and explained why we believe a dual-level, New Lit-
eracies theory is especially useful to understand the changes that
are taking place. We hope that by sharing this perspective and the
many challenges that we face, you will be encouraged to bring your
own expertise to the important research that lies ahead. Nothing is
more important to our collective future.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
1. What are some examples of new literacies that have arisen or will
arise in the Internet age?
2. How can you apply the recommendation for “collaborative online
reading and writing practices [that] appear to increase comprehen-
sion and learning”?
3. With respect to new literacies, what can schools of education do to
avoid “misalignments” of assessment and instruction?
NOTES
Portions of this material are based on work supported by the U.S.
Department of Education under Award Nos. R305G050154 and
R305A090608. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. Department of
Education, Institute of Educational Sciences.
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