Chapter 3 King and O'Brien

In the chapter "Adolescents' Multiliteracies and Their Teachers' Needs to Know: Towards a Digital Detente" King and O'Brien discuss the dichotomy of literacy and what should be learned in schools today. In this chapter, these authors illustrate the "electronic social hall" or the "mediasphere in which our students currently live. As teachers we need to create an atmosphere "where print and visual media meet to create textuality that bridges home, classroom, and community contexts"(40). Furthermore, as teachers we must prepare our students to enter and "attention economy" which will "provide our students the material benefits that come with attention"(41).

However, even though our students live in this "mediapshere,"the also live in school culture. King and O'Brien state, "In this culture, information is best understood as a limited commodity. Curriculum coordinators and teachers select, define, delimit, shape, and package the most important information"(41) This is antithetical to the mediasphere because students are not learning about media or what is going to be important outside of the classroom. This is something that pre-service teacher will have to deal with. We will be asked to teach set curriculums, but we must also know that students must learn about technology and media and how it plays into English.

One aspect of this chapter that I agreed with completely was that students that come from underprivileged homes do not gain the same education as students from middle to upper class homes. King and O'Brien state, "This, in effect, leaves the less privileged students with the basic curriculum of the schools, and with experiences that will get them low-paying, service-economy jobs"(44). I think that we must introduce our students to the mediasphere and make sure that they get the information on how to function in it in school.