Literacies: Untangling a Concept
As a reflection of critical theoretical frameworks, my research is influenced by conceptions of critical literacies which are “historical works in progress. There is no correct or universal model. Critical literacy entails a process of naming and renaming the world, seeing its patterns, designs, and complexities, and developing the capacity to redesign and reshape it” (Luke, 2012, p. 9). This conception of critical literacy rings true for my research since how TEds "shape and deploy the tools, attitudes, and philosophies of critical literacy are utterly contingent: It depends upon students’ and teachers’ everyday relations of power, their lived problems and struggles, and … on educators’ professional ingenuity in navigating the enabling and disenabling local contexts of policy” (Luke, 2012, p. 9).
For this literature review, the primary conceptualization for literacy/literacies will encompass a critical framing of media and digital formats under the term MDL while recognizing that literacies are both an internal, cognitive ability and a social practice, with each requiring action and reflection. This literacy conception will be contextually placed within teacher education and the teaching and learning relating to MDL done in FoE. While Stordy’s (2015) taxonomies of literacies is particularly helpful as a starting point for a preliminary understanding of literacy/literacies, there is potential for further development of generating a phylogenetic graphic to establish origin stories of literacy terminology, integrating information about inherited characteristics, but that required more time than is available for this current review.