Portraits of new literacies in two Singapore classrooms

The need to broaden the notion of literacy has been continually emphasized within the field of New Literacy Studies in recent years. This is necessary because of the advent of information and communication technology (ICT) in our everyday, school and workplace literacy practices. A broader notion of literacy is needed to pay attention to the rearrangement in the constellation of modes of representation from print to screen which has profound consequences for meaning making and communication in the classroom (Kress, 2003). In this paper, we present our exploratory study in a Singapore high school whereby a multiliteracies curriculum was designed and implemented. We document our collaborating teacher’s changing perceptions towards meaning making and how her shifting perceptions change her pedagogical practices in her two English Language classrooms of 14-year-old students. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of developing new literacies for language teaching in Singapore.