What is 21st Century Literacy?
While traditional literacy and a liberal education are still important (Nussbaum, 1997; Delbanco, 2012; Ferrall, 2011), in the 21st century students need to know more and be able to do more than they did in the past. Students need 21st century literacy. This new literacy includes traditional literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and arguing. But more importantly, it includes new literacy skills, such as critical thinking, scientific reasoning, and multi-cultural awareness (NCTE, 2008; Wagner, 2008; Grubb, 2003, p. 3; Sagan, 1996, p. 325).
Like older forms of literacy, the new literacy requires both the "effective use" of language and "large amounts of specific information" about the world (Hirsch, 1988, pp. 2-3). In addition to traditional literacy, students also need to learn about how knowledge is created, especially how the most reliable knowledge is made through scientific methods. Science has become the primary tool of the 21st century knowledge economy; therefore, students should be exposed to all major scientific methodologies. Students need an understanding of both qualitative (Cushman, Kintgen, Kroll, & Rose, 2001) and quantitative literacy (Paulos, 2001; Steen, 2001; Steen, 2004). And while knowledge of most scientific methodology does require advanced mathematical literacy, students with only minimal mathematical knowledge can still be introduced to both qualitative and quantitative scientific methods through an understanding of key concepts, theories, and data (Wilson, 2013). To fully understand scientific methodology, students need to know about the research university, academic disciplines, and the specific work that scientists do within their disciplines. Only then will students be able to concretely grasp how knowledge is created, debated, and refined through the scientific process.
21st Century Literacy is more than just reading and writing. It is knowing how to learn and know. Utilizing scientific research on cognition and meta-cognition, students need to understand how the brain creates and uses subjective knowledge, and the different processes that create objective knowledge. Students need to know how concepts work to define and categorize knowledge, and how concepts can be organized into conceptual frameworks that interconnect facts into larger fields of knowledge (Barber, 2012). Students need to be able to understand concepts as tools, which can be used to solve real-world problems (Fish, 2011, p. 15, 29). Most importantly, students need to recognize threshold concepts (Land, Meyer, & Smith, 2008), which enable new ways to see and know the world. Two of the most important threshold concepts involve learning to see writing as two separate tools: It is both a tool for thinking and knowing, and it is a tool for communicating knowledge and persuading people to see the truth. Students need to understand the theoretical purposes and the concrete practices of research, thinking, and writing. Psychologists call this holistic understanding “meta-cognition,” which means "thinking-about-thinking" and "thinking-about-doing." Such higher order thinking enables us to better understand ourselves ( both our strengths and limitations), which then enables us to know better and perform better (Dunn, Saville, Baker, & Marek, 2013). Students need to be able to do, not just know (Wenger, 1999).
This book will utilize these learning tools. Threshold concepts will be explained as concrete writing and thinking practices, and these concepts will be interconnected into the following conceptual frameworks: (1) The history of literacy, (2) How knowledge is created and how different forms of knowledge are used as tools to know, (3) and finally how knowledge is communicated through writing. These core concepts will be combined into a single concrete process, which is set within a specific social context. This book is about constructing and debating knowledge in 21st Century multicultural societies. This focus on process, rather than products, is based on the concept of social interaction through language as the fundamental basis for learning and knowledge creation (Vygotsky, 1981; Wertsch, 1991; Bakhtin 1981).
And as the specific social context of multiculturalism implies, 21st century literacy must also include political literacy (Gale, 1994; Gutmann, 1987; NTFCLDE, 2012). Students need background knowledge and training to become engaged citizens capable of fostering the public good. This important form of literacy will not be fully covered by this book, but the links between literacy, public schooling, democracy, and political freedom will be introduced and explained, especially in the first part of the book focused on the history of literacy.
21st century literacy is a collection of many higher order skills. Students need to be able to critically evaluate the reliability of diverse sources of knowledge in order to construct knowledge with scientific methods. It also entails openly arguing with diverse groups of people in order to explain and prove the truth. But we cannot forget that these 21st century skills are built on the foundation of traditional literacy: reading, writing, and basic mathematics. Knowledge is the essential first step to good communication and effective action. Truth has to be actively constructed by critical thinkers through meticulous and rigorous scientific methods. And this truth needs to be effectively communicated to diverse audiences through arguments in order to direct collective action to solve real-world problems.
References & Further Reading
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Delbanco, A. (2012). College: What it was, is, and should be. Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press.
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Ferrall Jr., V. E. (2011). Liberal arts at the brink. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fish, S. (2011). How to write a sentence and how to read one. New York: Harper.
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© J. M. Beach 2013, Revised 2016