Once a middle and high school teacher, Dr. William Kist is now a professor at Kent State University. He has become an in-demand consultant and trainer for schools across the country. Dr. Kist has written a number of books and dozens of articles regarding the changes in the definition and field of literacy. He also maintains an active social media presence on both Twitter [@williamkist] and his personal blog [William Kist]. Dr. Kist has either written or presented on the following topics: Updating the standards: bridging the gaps, writing in a digital age, new literacies in action, the socially networked classroom motivating the unmotivated adolescent reader, mapping the Common Core, aligning high school curricula and college readiness standards, integrating the anchor standards through all academic areas, and energizing the high school classroom (“William Kist”).
New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media
The first chapter of Dr. Kist's book, New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media, details the number of years he spent searching for, and then studying, middle to high school level classrooms where teachers had embraced new literacies. He then developed the five defining characteristics of a new literacies classroom (pictured right). This is an important source for a number of reasons as it makes a number of important distinctions regarding literacy as well as shows how his definition of literacy has changed and grown over the years.
One important distinction Dr. Kist makes is the difference between New Literacy and new literacies which I've an example of in the slideshow below. To paraphrase, New Literacy is the lens that some scholars bring to literacy noting it as a social practice whereas new literacies are the vast number of tools and techniques available to readers/writers today. Dr. Kist writes, "While Reinking got me thinking about reading as an increasingly interactive, nonlinear experience, I began to notice that other new literacies writers seemed to be focused less on the gadgets and toys an more on the very notion of literacy as a social process. It seemed that the nature of literacy as an inherently social practice was being talked about as much as were the new technologies" (Kist 7). This chapter leads me to believe that Dr. Kist may hold a sociocultural belief regarding literacy.
APA Citation:
Kist, W. (2005). New literacies in action: Teaching and learning in multiple media (Language and literacy series (New York, N.Y.)). New York: Teachers College Press.
One important distinction Dr. Kist makes is the difference between New Literacy and new literacies which I've an example of in the slideshow below. To paraphrase, New Literacy is the lens that some scholars bring to literacy noting it as a social practice whereas new literacies are the vast number of tools and techniques available to readers/writers today. Dr. Kist writes, "While Reinking got me thinking about reading as an increasingly interactive, nonlinear experience, I began to notice that other new literacies writers seemed to be focused less on the gadgets and toys an more on the very notion of literacy as a social process. It seemed that the nature of literacy as an inherently social practice was being talked about as much as were the new technologies" (Kist 7). This chapter leads me to believe that Dr. Kist may hold a sociocultural belief regarding literacy.
APA Citation:
Kist, W. (2005). New literacies in action: Teaching and learning in multiple media (Language and literacy series (New York, N.Y.)). New York: Teachers College Press.
"I Love to Flip the Pages": Preservice Teachers and New Literacies with in a Field Experience
APA Citations:
Kist, W., & Pytash, K.E. (2015). “I Love to Flip the Pages”: Preservice Teachers and New Literacies with in a Field Experience. English Education, 47(2), 131-167.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2008). From ‘reading’ to ‘new literacy studies. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel, New literacies: Everyday pracices and classroom learning. Berkshire, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.
Middle Schools and New Literacies: Looking Back and Moving Forward
Dr. Kist’s article from Voices from the Middle, was written about seven years after New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media. The reason I point this time passage out is because this reading also features the five defining principles of a "new literacies" classroom (pictured right). As you can see, the defining characteristics have remained the same, save for some difference in syntax. However, over the last seven years, there has been something new introduced to most classrooms across the country, Common Core State Standards. As such, Dr. Kist sought to provide teachers with a template that would “cover all of the four strands in the document (Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language), but would also maintain a balance between page-based and screen-based literacies” (Kist 19). I thought this guide might be helpful for teachers struggling to find the balance between both. I know I certainly did (and probably will again) when I was student teaching. If you would like to take a look at this chart, please see below.
APA Citation:
Kist, W. (2012). Middle Schools and New Literacies: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Voices From The Middle, 19(4), 17-21.
Kist, W. (2012). Middle Schools and New Literacies: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Voices From The Middle, 19(4), 17-21.
A Conversation, Made Possible by Twitter
Late Tuesday night I thought to myself, why don't I just try tweeting Dr. Kist? Turns out he wasn't just online, he was part of an ASCD Twitter chat!
Closing Thoughts and Loose Ends
I chose to research William Kist after a recommendation from Dr. Coiro. After reading a bit about him, I felt connected to his passions and interested in his research. He is a former middle school and high school English teacher (like I will be one day) and he specializes in technology integration (which I am very interested in). I found myself reminiscing a lot while reading his work, thinking about all of the new literacies I had discovered during my student teaching or doing my honors project also completed during the final semester of my undergraduate career. Overall, I enjoyed reading about his research, sharing an overview of my findings, and even talking with him on Twitter. I look forward to learning more about him and other scholars through these projects (and through his tweets that show up on my feed).
References: (Please note, the APA citations were taken directly from the URI library's "cite" tool which provides citations in a number of different styles.)
Kist, W. (2005). New literacies in action: Teaching and learning in multiple media (Language and literacy series (New York, N.Y.)). New York: Teachers College Press.
Kist, W. (2012). Middle Schools and New Literacies: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Voices From The Middle, 19(4), 17-21.
Kist, W., & Pytash, K.E. (2015). “I Love to Flip the Pages”: Preservice Teachers and New Literacies with in a Field Experience. English Education, 47(2), 131-167.
Kist, W. (n.d.). William Kist. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://williamkist.com.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2008). From ‘reading’ to ‘new literacy studies. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel, New literacies: Everyday pracices and classroom learning.
Berkshire, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.
Kist, W. (2005). New literacies in action: Teaching and learning in multiple media (Language and literacy series (New York, N.Y.)). New York: Teachers College Press.
Kist, W. (2012). Middle Schools and New Literacies: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Voices From The Middle, 19(4), 17-21.
Kist, W., & Pytash, K.E. (2015). “I Love to Flip the Pages”: Preservice Teachers and New Literacies with in a Field Experience. English Education, 47(2), 131-167.
Kist, W. (n.d.). William Kist. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://williamkist.com.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2008). From ‘reading’ to ‘new literacy studies. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel, New literacies: Everyday pracices and classroom learning.
Berkshire, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.