Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies

Kate Pahl is a lecturer in education at the University of Sheffield, is course director of the Ed D in literacy and language at the University of Sheffield. She is the author, with Jennifer Rowsell, of Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom (Sage 2005) and is the author of Transformations: Children’s Meaning Making in a Nursery (Trentham 1999). Jennifer Rowsell is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Rutgers University where she teaches and conducts research in the areas of New Literacy Studies and multiliteracies. She has co-authored Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom (Sage, 2005) with Kate Pahl and The Literacy Principal with David Booth (Pembroke, 2002).

This book is an excellent edited collection that focuses on the New Literacy Studies as well as, and in relation to, other theoretical orientations. This book does a first-rate job in the way it uses specific instances from the authors’ data to argue that literacy does work in multiple, complex ways.

• Foreword by Gunther Kress (Institute of Education) and Brian Street (King’s College, London)Introduction by Kate Pahl and Jennifer RowsellSECTION I: IDENTITY IN MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES1. Global, Local/Public, Private: Young Children’s Engagement in Digital Literacy Practices in the Home - Jackie Marsh (University of Sheffield)2. Ned and Kevin: An Online Discussion that Challenges the 'Not-Yet Adult' Cultural Model - Donna Alvermann (University of Georgia)3. Escaping to the Borderlands: An Exploration of the Internet as a Cultural Space for Teenaged Wiccan Girls - Julia Davies (University of Sheffield)4. Weblog Worlds and Constructions of Effective and Powerful Writing: Cross with Care, and Only Where Signs Permit - Michele Knobel (Montclair State University) and Colin Lankshear (James Cook University)SECTION II: MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL SPACES5. Critical Literacy Across Continents - Hilary Janks (University of Witwatersrand) and Barbara Comber (University of South Australia)6. An Eye on the Text and an Eye on the Future: Multimodal Literacy in Three Gauteng Families - Pippa Stein and Lynne Slominsky (University of Witwatersrand)7. Crossing the Margins: Recontextualisation, Literacy and Semiotic Power? - Cathy Kell (University of Auckland)SECTION II: CROSSINGS IN LITERACY PRACTICES8. From Boardroom to Classroom: Tracing a Globalised Discourse on Thinking through Internet Texts and Teaching Practice - Sue Nichols (University of South Australia)9. Corporate Crossings: Tracing Textual Crossings - Jennifer RowsellSECTION IV: MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES IN PEDAGOGICAL SETTINGS10. So, What About Multimodal Numeracies? - Brian Street (King’s College, London) and Dave Baker (Institute of Education)11. Transformative Pedagogy: Teachers Creating a Literacy of Fusion - Elaine Millard (University of Sheffield)Afterword: Deborah Brandt and Katie Clinton (University of Wisconsin-Madison)