Literacy in 3D. An integrated perspective in theory and practice.

Green, Bill ; Beavis, Catherine

At a time when 3D and virtual worlds are part of media and digital communication it is interesting that Green's 3D model of literacy was conceived three decades ago. This model was at first developed around the importance of writing within functional, social and critical contexts and has been gradually adapted to incorporate literacy within technological changes in communication (Lankshear & Snyder with Green, 2000: Durrant & Green, 2000). The '3D' metaphor allows for the synthesis of layers of meaning making across different dimensions and in varieties of contexts, modes and forms. The book establishes the relevance of the model now as a sound theoretical and pedagogical framework for literacy educators.

The book presents the background to the 3D model and shows how it has been interpreted and applied by theorists, researchers and classroom practitioners. Its three part structure reflects its focus on each of these areas. Bill Green and Catherine Beavis are pertinent as editors with Bill as the theorist of the original model and Catherine with her cutting edge research on literacy and digital technology. Their partnership augments the theoretical and pedagogical focus of the book on the integral nature of literacy and information and communications technology.

The first section focuses on 'the 3D model in theory'. In Chapters 1 and 2 Bill describes the historical development of the model, its theoretical basis and locates it in current research, demonstrating its continued adaptation to theory and practices of literacy and communication. In Chapter 3 Catherine provides a detailed account of the way the model has been a basis for several national research projects, the Digital Rhetorics project (Lankshear et al., 1997) and the Information Technologies, Literacy and Educational Disadvantage (ITLED) project (Comber et al., 1997-2000). Particularly, it is interesting to consider how the model became a basis for literacy policy initiatives and curriculum documents in Queensland and South Australia and in several teacher education programs.

The second section, 'the 3D model in practice', brings together an exciting diversity of examples that demonstrate how the model has been applied in teacher education programs, in school classrooms and for teacher professional learning. Through each of these chapters the authors provide various articulations of the model for different curriculum areas, balancing ideas for pedagogy that are grounded in the theoretical framework. Nixon and Kerin provide detailed exemplars of how they have used the model to analyse websites with specific examples of using the three dimensions of operational, cultural and critical ways of responding to texts. In addition they demonstrate the way the model can be used for research design and analysis. Their two-tiered approach is acknowledged by O'Mara and expanded into her work in process drama where she demonstrates the effectiveness of the 3D model for students and for teachers' critical self reflection.

Durrant examines the model within the context of media studies and its adaptation for media education in the senior secondary curriculum. He critically reviews the 'shifting ground' between technoliteracy and media literacy and argues that elements of the 3D model have been an integral part of media studies for some decades if not explicated clearly or practised by teachers. Durrant uses the three dimensions of the 3D model to analyse the curriculum of Media Studies Courses in Western Australia and South Australia. His analysis reveals a continuum wherein the three dimensions of the 3D model could be used more explicitly by teachers of these courses. He offers the image of a 'media fan' to represent the simultaneity and depth of the model's three dimensions. Faulkner, Ocean and Jordan describe the application of the model within an interdisciplinary unit on multiliteracies for pre-service teachers. Students of literacy, mathematics and ICT were drawn together in this unit and challenged to interrogate the traditional discourses of their subject areas.

Beavis situates the 3D l(IT)eracy model within the Secondary English curriculum while demonstrating the relevance and reality of incorporating digital games as texts along with young peoples' experience of digital culture. She shows how the three dimensions of the model are evoked within the out-of-school process of gaming and, as her research has shown for some time, an important technocultural context for literacy education within school. Tour's important study combining technoliteracy with the 3D model reveals how each dimension of the model can provide insights for the education of ESL learners. From her research she contends that technoliteracy is not automatically acquired when learning English and her discussion has significance for ESL pedagogy for students of all ages as well as the tertiary students she studied.

Paradoxically models can offer us ways of thinking but be dangerous if they promote a rigid ideology. In the third section Snyder and Beale interrogate the notion of models. They provide an insightful comparison of four different models including those of Street (1984) and Warschauer (2008) and highlight similarities and differences between these and Green's model. They present a rationale for models that extend and inform conceptual frameworks thus implying that the 3D model is one, among others, that is able to clarify and 'generate new ways of envisioning literacy' (p. 173). It is pertinent that Green follows Snyder and Beale's chapter with a hint of a 'fourth dimension' for the model. In the final chapter Beavis and Green conclude with a detailed review of the three dimensions of the model locating these and their interrelationships within present and future educational contexts.

Unfortunately in Australian education contexts we have had contesting paradigms around language and literacy education along with 'literacy wars' (Snyder, 2008). The divisions have not served us well in profiling the achievements of literacy educators and researchers. This book affirms that the 3D model allows for the incorporation of other theories and frameworks. For example it provides emphasis on the skills or operational functions of literacy while integrating these with the cultural and critical dimensions; it allows for the application of Halliday's metafunctions of language(1975) within the perspective of systemic functional grammar; and it has been shown to incorporate the four reading practices of Luke and Freebody (1999). It allows for future adaptations.

This review cannot do justice to the richness and complexity of the studies and insights offered for researchers and educators. The book offers explanations of the inception and development of the 3D model that will be of interest to literacy theorists and students. It provides researchers with examples for research design and data analysis and presents teachers with specific examples of the how the model can be used for programming and assessment and applied within the subject English itself as well as for the development of language and literacy in other curriculum areas. Through this book the editors and their authors convincingly provide evidence of the functionality of the 3D model as a flexible, dynamic framework for literacy research and education in the 21st century. As Claire Wyatt-Smith comments in her Foreword it is time for 'new conversations to begin that carry the model forward to inform policy and practice and shape our futures and those of our students' (vi).

References

Comber, B., Green, B., Bills., D. Cormack, P., Hills, S., Homer, D. Nixon, H., O'Brien, J., & Thompson, P. (19972000). Information technology, literacy and educational disadvantage. Adelaide: South Australian Department of Education, Training and Employment.

Durrant, C., & Green, B, (2000). Literacy and the new technologies in school education: meeting the l(IT)eracy challenge? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 23 (2), 89-108.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1975). Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold.

Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (1999). A map of possible practices: further notes on the four resources model. Practically Primary, 4(2), 5-8.

Lankshear, C., Bigum, C., Durrant, C., Green, B., Honan, C., Morgan, W., Murray, J., Snyder, I., Wild, M. (1997). Digital Rhetorics:literacies and technologies in education: current practices and future directions (vols 1-111 plus Executive Summary). Canberra: Deparrtment of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Lankshear, C., & Snyder, I., with Green, B. (2000). Teachers and technoliteracy: managing literacy, technology and learning in schools. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Snyder, I. (2008). The literacy wars: why teaching children to read and write is a battleground. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Warschauer, M. (2008). Learning, change and power: competing frames of technology and literacy. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear & D. Leu (Eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies (pp. 215-240). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Maureen Walsh, Adjunct Professor Faculty of Education Australian Catholic University and Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney.

Bill Green and Catherine Beavis. 2012. Victoria: ACER Press