Book Reviews
Issue 33.2 Fall 2005 (Online Exclusives)
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Multiliteracies
for a Digital Age,
by Stuart A. Selber. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 240
pages.
Reviewed
by Kim Donehower, University of North Dakota
According to its mission statement, the Studies
in Writing & Rhetoric series addresses an audience of “general
compositionists,” a diverse group that shares certain broad interests and
commitments. One of the latest entries in SWR exposes what is perhaps the area
of greatest diversity, and inequity, within this group: familiarity with, and
access to, technology. In Multiliteracies for a Digital Age, Stuart A. Selber
argues persuasively that computer literacy is rightly the purview of the
humanities, and, more specifically, of English studies. Selber lays out an
ambitious and comprehensive agenda for achieving this end, arguing that a
computer literacy program must address functional, critical, and rhetorical
literacies.
It is impossible to read Multiliteracies without interrogating
one’s own relationship with technology in the composition classroom. Selber’s
book highlighted for me how my own career has moved from hand-coding department
websites in HTML as a graduate student and asking my students to experiment
with writing hypertexts, to adjunct work in a program with networked computer
classrooms, to two positions at universities in which the English department
has not had a single computer classroom dedicated to it. One of Selber’s key
points is that those of us in the humanities must have a say in establishing
standards and pedagogies for computer literacy because access to technology is
a social problem. The vast inequities in our own field bear out his point. If
many of us find ourselves teaching in environments with no or limited support
for integrating computer literacy into our classes, what, then, can we get from
reading Selber’s book?
Selber’s argument that English departments must
take up issues of computer literacy is compelling. As Selber notes, “for better
or worse, computer environments have become primary spaces where much education
happens,” and given this fact, we should not cede the definitions of what
constitutes reading and writing in these new environments to those outside the
humanities (3). In Selber’s words, this would “naturaliz[e] a set of literacy
perspectives that fails to support the pedagogical practices teachers of
writing and communication find most effective” (11). In addition, Selber argues
that humanistic values, which he defines as “justice, equality, civic action,
public service, and social responsibility,” must be brought to bear on a topic
that lies at the heart of unequal access to civic participation, educational
development, and economic advancement (86). What Selber promises, and delivers,
is a detailed agenda for the humanities, and specifically English departments,
to intervene in computer literacy education.
Selber argues that leaving computer literacy to
the computer sciences can mean an undue emphasis on functional models of
technological literacy, with these models’ inherent lack of critical self-reflexivity.
The functional model encourages us to see computer literacy as a neutral
technology, in the same way that print literacy is seen as a neutral technology
under the “autonomous model” derided by Brian Street. As composition and
literacy studies has shifted generally toward Street’s ideological model of
print literacy, seeing it as primarily a social practice, it seems only right
that we should understand computer literacy as a social practice as well.
Selber does not want us to wholly jettison the functional model of computer
literacy, however. If we were to ignore the fact that computers do function as
tools on one level, and that students must be taught to use those tools, we
would undermine the entire computer literacy enterprise. One of the strengths
of the book is Selber’s own constant critical self-reflexivity, which he terms
a “postcritical” stance. He takes strong, yet nuanced positions on a host of
thorny issues, and he is never ready to indulge in a false dichotomy or
overgeneralization about both the perils and promises of technology.
Essentially, Multiliteracies has three interwoven
components. The first is Selber’s convincing theoretical argument that espouses
housing computer literacy in English departments. The second is a useful
pedagogical roadmap for enacting this mission. The third is a specialized
discussion of computer rhetorics and other issues related to technology and
literacy, which are likely to be of interest primarily to those already deeply
involved in the study of computer literacy. In trying to address a general
audience, Selber offers something for readers at all levels of technological
expertise. This renders the reading experience somewhat uneven, as readers will
find Selber’s specialized discussions (embedded in chapters 2 through 4) more
or less easy to digest depending on one’s level of technological expertise and
commitment.
While chapter 2 interrogates the liabilities and
possibilities of a functional model of computer literacy, chapter 3 lays out a
framework for a critical computer literacy, guided by theoretical work in and
critiques of constructivist pedagogies as well as theories of critical literacy
education. Selber is a deeply thoughtful and well-read pedagogue who provides
useful heuristics for teaching. Here he uses the work of Bryan Pfaffenberger to
demonstrate how students might be taught to analyze “power moves” inherent in
various technologies and their uses. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is
Selber’s ability to lay out frameworks for teaching with examples from his own
practice that serve to illustrate, but not overshadow, the promising methods he
describes. Selber gives teachers ways to think about achieving the goals of
functional, critical, and rhetorical computer literacies, rather than specific
prescriptions, and he demonstrates well how the heuristics he offers have the
potential to energize the teaching of reading, writing, and technology.
In chapter 4, Selber offers similarly useful
ways to think about teaching the rhetorical elements of computer literacy,
identifying strengths and weaknesses in classical, symbolist, and institutional
perspectives on rhetorical analysis and laying out clear parameters for the
qualities of a rhetorically literate student in a “digital age.” Given its subject,
this is perhaps the chapter of broadest appeal to general compositionists, but
it also illustrates the difficulties Selber faces in trying to address a broad
audience on a highly specialized topic. The chapter begins with an accessible
and well-researched discussion of pedagogical goals for rhetorical literacy,
followed by an analysis of the textual nuances of hypertextual media. The
latter, while helpful for the novice, is daunting in its exposure of just how
much those of us who have been out of the technological loop must come to
understand should we embrace Selber’s call to claim technological literacy for
the humanities.
Chapter 5 can likewise be both inspiring and
frustrating. In it, Selber’s stated goal is to give teachers “some idea how to
develop” a program such as he describes, “even if their departments do not have
a specialist in literacy and technology on the faculty, and even if some
department members are rather fearful of technology” (184). As my own teaching
context fits the description here, I can attest that Selber gives a very
detailed idea of how to develop such a program. Resisting the temptation to
simply offer examples of classroom pedagogy—though he does offer
descriptive, helpful ones in this chapter—Selber identifies the types of
changes that must occur at the technical, pedagogical, curricular,
departmental, and institutional levels to achieve the type of program he
envisions. He also offers Donald Ely’s eight conditions for technological
change as a way to evaluate a department’s and institution’s readiness to
embrace such a program, and as a heuristic for assessing the health of programs
already in place. Ely’s guidelines, like Selber’s, are both extremely helpful
in their clarity and comprehensiveness, and sobering in their ability to expose
the hurdles many English departments must overcome should they aspire to the
kind of computer literacy program Selber advocates.
For readers whose technological, departmental,
and institutional resources are more felicitous, Multiliteracies for a
Digital Age offers a clear and comprehensive means of evaluating and expanding existing
computer literacy programs. There is much in the book for both the tech-savvy
and the tech-impoverished “general compositionist”; this is both its strength
and its weakness. In trying valiantly to address the broad spectrum of
compositionists on this issue, Selber shifts from offering entry points into
this discussion to more advanced analyses of specific technical issues and back
again. Readers, especially those who are just beginning to engage in these
topics, must read Multiliteracies with patience, identifying the best places to
start engaging with the issues Selber describes. It is especially important not
to let oneself be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the project he lays out, for
his argument that English departments must take up technological issues as
literacy issues is hard to deny. In a time when instrumentalist notions of
computer literacy have permeated discussions of how to improve public education,
it is vital for literacy professionals to attack such notions with the same
vigor with which we have fought instrumentalist notions of print literacy.
Selber provides a well-documented and pedagogically compelling means to this
end.
Grand Forks, ND
