Saturday, June 27, 2009
After class trip to Peggys Cove
Today was our first teaching day of the summer, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The long bright daylight hours meant there was ample time after the class was finished to spend a bit of time sightseeing. Today's choice was a quiet jaunt to Peggys Cove, captured here as a short video slide show remembering the offshore crash of Swissair Flight 111 on 2 September 1998.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
"Shimmering" literacies
We are very happy to welcome Bronwyn Williams' book Shimmering Literacies: Popular Culture & Reading & Writing Online as the latest publication in the "New Literacies" series.
"This book examines the powerful role of popular culture in the daily online literacy practices of young people. Whether as subject matter, discourse, or through rhetorical patterns, popular culture dominates both the form and the content of online reading and writing. In order to understand not only how but why online technologies have changed literacy and popular culture practices, this book looks at online participatory popular culture from MySpace and Facebook pages to fan forums to fan fiction. Interviews and observations reveal the skills and practices students develop, as they sit multitasking at their computers, across popular culture genres and electronic media. For educators, the book provides significant insights into popular culture literacy practices, thus illuminating how students are making meaning and performing identity every day as they read and write online."
Written in a lively and engaging style, and grounded in rich grounded studies of participatory popular culture, this book will appeal to all educators with interests in literacy, popular culture and identity.
