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Contemporary Literacies Beyond the Classroom: A Teacher Seeks Out Participatory Culture
Publication: New Jersey English Journal
Date: April 2014
Summary: High school English teacher Lauren Goldberg chronicles her experience developing her own contemporary literacies and making professional learning connections online—and how it has informed her teaching practice.
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My first Twitter chats immersed me in new literacies, or 'Twitteracies' (Junco), demanding that I learn new skills for participation. Besides forcing me to represent my thoughts in a condensed format, the chat challenged me to read in a fast-paced, nonlinear way. Along with learning Twitter abbreviations and the etiquette for participation, I was bombarded with new terminology and texts.
I am still awestruck by the way Twitter allows me to quickly connect with experts. After designing a lesson using storyboards based on an article from New York Times' 'The Learning Network' (Olsen and Schulten), I tweeted the authors that I adapted their lesson. Within six minutes, I received a tweet from @NYTimesLearning asking for samples of student work.
When—to my horror—I discovered at the start of my sophomore American Literature class that a streaming video I had planned to show was no longer available online, I turned my horror into a teachable moment. I told my students of my failed attempt to save the video, how I had emailed the website's support staff last year and asked how long they planned to keep this video online for free. I searched my 'sent mail' folder live on my projection screen: 'There are no plans to take [the video] down for a while,' my saved email read, signed by the Communications Director of the company that produced the film. I recruited my students to use their smartphones to loc.ate a copy of the film online. One student found a free version on iTunes, but when downloaded, the file would not play.
I recognized this unexpected conundrum as an opportunity to practice authentic writing for different audiences. As a class, we composed four messages: a message to our school's technology department; a reply email to the Communications Director; an email to iTunes customer support; and a tweet to the director of the film. I then adjusted my lesson plan and began the next day's activity early. To my surprise, two class periods later, the original website's video was working again. I sent another tweet to the film's director; a member of the director's staff replied, 'Hi there—[the film] is back up and working! Enjoy!' I also received a reply from iTunes customer support correcting the problem in iTunes. While the original lesson may not have gone as planned, I was able to model for my students how to solve problems in the digital age; we combined our knowledge and resources to affect change."
Copyright ©2014 by the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with Permission.
Goldberg, Lauren. "Contemporary Literacies Beyond the Classroom: A Teacher Seeks Out Participatory Culture." New Jersey English Journal 
(2014): 29–34
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