Magic or Mayhem? New Texts and New Literacies in Technological Times
The title of this session comes from a 1999 computer game, Magic and Mayhem. A highly literary fantasy/problem solving game drawing on myth and narratives ranging from Classical Greek to Arthurian. Initially a perfect choice for a curriculum designed around fantasy and popular culture, the game examplifies what it might means for literacy to be shifting in the direction of design (Kress and van Leeuin 1996. Kress 1995, New London group 1996 et al.). Yet, also characteristically, despite the enthusiasm of teachers workingin the project with which this paper is concerned, the game was ultimatly rejected as a textual choice because of age ratings and attendant fears. violence, panics, and community apprehensions about the anti-social and anti-literacy nature of games. ‘Magic and Mayhem’ speaks both to the possibilities and to the disruptiveness of linking literacy and curriculum with computer games.
Subject-Specific Literacy and School Learning: A Focus on Writing
This paper aims to contribute to educators' understanding of the contextualist nature of literacy, specifically in its relation to school learning. A particular view of literacy is proposed, as comprising three intermeshing dimensions: the operational, the cultural, and the critical. A notion of subject-specific literacy is presented which acknowledges the significance of the school subjects as specific contexts for learning and meaning and, via concepts drawn from recent linguistic-semiotic work, seeks to provide greater purchase on the nature of subject-area learning. A case is made for a strategic emphasis on writing in school learning, and also for the importance of notions of register and genre for writing pedagogy generally. The paper is to be seen in relation to considerable work, in Australia and overseas, in the area of language and learning theory, and has a whole-curriculum orientation.
News Bites: War TV in the Gulf
The manner in which television was used as a weapon by both Iraq and the United States during the Iraq War in 1990 is analysed. It is suggested that both the Iraqi and the American government used continuous TV images and individual channels to put across their points of view and also to glorify their military activities.