Unfold studio: supporting critical literacies of text and code
| Published date | 13 May 2019 |
| Pages | 285-307 |
| Date | 13 May 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-05-2018-0039 |
| Author | Chris Proctor,Paulo Blikstein |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
Unfold studio: supporting critical
literacies of text and code
Chris Proctor and Paulo Blikstein
Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This research aims toexplore how textual literacy and computational literacycan support each
other and combine to create literacieswith new critical possibilities. It describes the development of a Web
application for interactive storytelling and analyzes how its use in a high-school classroom supported new
rhetoricaltechniques and critical analysis of gender and race.
Design/methodology/approach –Three iterations of design-based research were used to develop a
Web applicationfor interactive storytelling, which combines writingwith programming. A two-week study in
a high-school sociologyclass was conducted to analyze how the Web application's textual and computational
affordancessupport rhetorical strategies, whichin turn support identity authorship and criticalpossibilities.
Findings –The results include a Web application for interactivestorytelling and an analytical framework
for analyzinghow affordances of digital media can supportliteracy practices with unique critical possibilities.
The final studyshowed how interactive stories can functionas critical discourse models, simulationsof social
realitieswhich support analysis of phenomena such as socialpositioning and the use of power.
Originality/value –Previous work has insufficientlyspanned the fields of learning sciences and literacies,
respectively emphasizing the mechanisms and the content of literacy practices. In focusing a design-based
approach on critical awareness of identity, power and privilege, this research developstools and theory for
supporting critical computational literacies. This research envisions a literacy-based approach to K-12
computerscience which could contribute to liberatoryeducation.
Keywords Critical literacy, Computational thinking, Literacy, Design-based research,
Computer science education, Computational literacy, Multiliteracies, K-12 computer science education
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Literacy is about much more than learning to read and write. The practices which emerge
within networks of people and texts oftenhave prosaic goals such as conveying messages,
documenting agreements and establishing authority, but they can profoundly reshape
participants’cognition, identity practices and social relationships. Ong (2013) argues that
privileged access to reading and writing led to the emergenceof new social roles high in the
status hierarchy, and that widespread literacy in a society “restructures consciousness”
(p. 77) by synchronizing frames of reference such as dates, facts and perspectives on the
world. In addition to supporting practices which define social roles and relationships,
Scribner and Cole (1978) found that reading and writing were associated with changes in
individual cognition such as improved abstract communication, memory and language
analysis skills (pp. 27-29). It is not necessary to argue for a direct causal link between
This research was supported by a grant from TELOS, Technology for Equity in Learning
Opportunities, by Stanford's Transformative Learning Technologies Lab, and by the Lemann Center
for Entrepreneurship and Educational Innovation in Brazil. The authors are deeply grateful to the
teachers and students with whom they conducted this research, and to the colleagues who have read
drafts of this article.
Critical
literacies of
text and code
285
Received15 May 2018
Revised23 February 2019
Accepted25 February 2019
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.120 No. 5/6, 2019
pp. 285-307
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-05-2018-0039
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-5348.htm
reading and writing and cognitive change,rather they may be seen as tools which have the
potential to spur a different developmental path for the individual and for the society
(Vygotsky, 1980).
Societies all overthe world are increasingly becoming reliant on digitalmedia, sometimes
in place of print text. Digital media functions differently from print text (Murray, 2017), so
we should expect digital literaciesto function differently from print literacies. The designers
and technologists who invented personal computing were inspired by not just by
technological possibilities but also the possibility of new ways of living (Markoff, 2005).
Engelbart (1962) pursued augmented cognition through bootstrapping, a reciprocal process
by which technological advances allow new forms of cooperation and collaboration, which
enable further technological advances. Interfaces such as virtual reality and ubiquitous
mobile computing present notjust new information channels but also “material exteriority”
(Hansen and Hayles, 2000), extensions and transformations of the body which redefine the
subjectivities we may inhabit (Haraway,2006;Lanier, 2010). Nelson's (1974) development of
hypertext was motivated by the possibility of new social, political and economic
arrangement. In contrast to the view of computers as primarily information-processing
machines, we argue that personal computing and the internet have always functioned as
technologies of literacy, making possible networks of humans and computers whose
practices transformcognition, identity practices and social relations.
Educators who understand learningas situated in contexts of people, spaces, tools, ideas
and purposes (Collins and Greeno, 2011) recognizethe importance of bringing students into
communities of practice which engage with media in discipline-specific ways. They also
recognize the potentialof new media to support the developmentof new cognitive and social
structures (Pea, 1985). One goal of this article is to bring together two distinct research
communities concerned withpedagogy, literacy and new media. The first includes learning
scientists interested in how computers can support thinking and learning. The second
includes scholars of critical multiliteracies interested in how the same literacy practices
which can be so empowering also reproduce oppressive subjectivities and power
hierarchies, and in strategies for resistingand subverting them. The spread of computation
into all aspects of our lives, and the growing awareness that “Silicon Valley is not your
friend”(Cohen, 2017), makes it urgent that we integrate these two perspectives into an
understanding of criticalcomputational literacies.
The learning sciences are concerned with the mechanisms by which people think and
learn with technology, individually and as participants in larger systems (Bransford et al.,
2000; Nathan and Wagner Alibali, 2010). Building on early socio-cultural theory, the
learning sciences have produced functional accounts of literacy (diSessa, 2001), as well as
complementary constructs, describing how communities think and learn through
interaction with media. Theseinclude distributed cognition (Cole and Engeström, 1993;Pea,
1993), activity theory and figured worlds (Holland et al., 2001). Within these theoretical
frames, design-based research (The Design-Based Research Collective, 2003;Bang and
Vossoughi, 2016) develops new technologies to understand and improve learning. These
include Papert's Logo (1980); diSessa (2000) and more recent computational media
(Sipitakiat, Blikstein,and Cavallo, 2004;Barab et al., 2005;Resnick et al.,2009).
A second research community on literacy pedagogy is focused on multiliteracies (New
London Group, 1996), a term which draws attention to “the multiplicity of communication
channels and media, and the increasing saliencyof cultural and linguistic diversity”(p. 63).
Multiliteracies standsin a figure-ground relationship withthe learning sciences approach to
literacies, emphasizing sociocultural issues of identity, voice, positionality and power.
Bringing attention to the ways dominant literacies also marginalize and disempower
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