To Inquire about Inquiry

For my inquiry project for this course I have decided to focus on web-browsing and improving online literacy with quick critical content analysis of news articles. Many of the news websites and blogs that I rely on for my daily dose of news often have the option to read the 'quick story' or a quick paragraph analysis of todays headlines with link to the full article.

Often i find myself clicking these 'quick story links' much more often than focusing on one long article to immerse myself in. I have a hunch that with the news-ticker, breaking news focus, twitterized chomps of streaming information we are now accustomed to digest, we are losing some of the more critically in-depth understanding that comes with reading a full news article in its entirety.

However, I'd like to study if there is a way to rope a more in-depth understanding and analysis of headlines from these 'quick story links' or if there's some literacy strategy that can help deepening 'speed reading' literacy patterns into a more holistic literacy practice.

Political Science Perceptions

Thanks to my little brothers, I am constantly reminded how uncool reading is to today's adolescents. All throughout my adolescence and even up until now with this critical retrospect in the class, I have always taken my own love of literacy for granted. Even though i too grew up immersed in computer literacy and learning how to adapt with rapid advancements in technology, reading was always an essential part of my life both in and out of school. However today's preteen and teenager have a lot more entertainment at their fingertips constantly competing for their attention (and inevitably pulling them away from nurturing their own literature literacy development outside of the classroom setting). Most if not all of the teens i saw in the library during my stint as an assistant librarian were only there to check their myspace and surf around free game sites online.

However even though I do believe literacy for today's generation has certainly shifted away from a more traditional concept of reading (i.e checking out fiction books for fun) to a more technologically savvy definition literacy, i do not believe that literacy is lost on today's teens. If anything, I saw my students in Early College gobble up enough textual information on wikipedia in under 5 minutes that would put many of the reading comprehension skills of my 50yearold+ librarian coworkers to shame. In this vein, I do agree with Donna Alvermann when she points out the need to teach today's youth 'to read with a critical eye towards how writers represent people and their ideas.'

Especially in my content area, political science, critical comprehension while reading constantly updating twitter feeds and blog posts (which are, like it or not, the future of journalism and how current events are shared and discussed) is absolutely essential. Being able to critically read and comprehend multiple meanings and biases in not only scholarly texts but also current news articles is certainly crucial to 'becoming' a political scientist and is definitely a literacy skill i want to implement in my classroom.

WORD UP WORLD!

Are you there god? it's me, christin.

I'm reporting live from Wells 133 for 'The Teaching of Reading' course, my last masters course for GCSU's MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching) program. Here I will bring you commentary on literacy and my progress determining how to define and improve literacy, literally.

Hope you enjoy my ramblings!