Defining the phrase ...

The phrase “Alternative Texts” suggests different mediums in which text can be read. When I began this course I believed that the alternative texts that we would be exploring might be magazines, newspapers, and a few things online. It was definitely a shock to find that most of what we were to cover was online information and technologies. Not only that, but “texts” were so broadly defined as sound, images and text – basically anything visual or auditory - that youth encounter. Our class defined what alternative texts were through the many excellent presentations by fellow classmates. Examples of texts were audio books, online comics, fan fiction, video games, foreign films and tv shows, websites such as Youtube, Google, and Wikipedia, cellphones, blackberries, texting and instant messaging, and technologically advanced educational tools like the interactive white boards or specially designed software. Through each of these a message is projected to the viewer/reader where youth of today can either see the message bluntly displayed or symbolically suggested.

I have taken the opportunity to use my favorite computer game, The Sims 2, (an alternative text) to create an image definition. Meet Jayne. She explores many types of alternative texts.

Other definitions:

“Everyday youth see from between 400 to 600 advertisements.” - Surviving High School

“Digital Natives pick up bits and pieces of news and information as they go about their day... they in fact engage more with the material than those who are used to more traditional news formats, by virtue of writing a past about the idea on a blog or sharing it with a friend on Facebook or over instant messaging.” (Gasser & Palfrey, p.241)

“[W]e are creating what author Douglas Rushkoff calls a “society of authorship” where every teacher and every student – every person with access – will have the ability to contribute ideas and experiences to the larger body of knowledge that is the Internet.” (Richardson,p.4)

“Media literacy has developed a better account of the nature of the sensory, esthetic, and symbolic qualities of visuals, sound, and the moving image, and therefore, of multimedia.” (Livingstone, p.110)

Citations:

Gasser, U., and Palfrey, J. Learners (Chapter 11). From Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digival Natives. New York: Basic Books.

Livingstone, S. Internet literacy: Young people's negotiation of new online opportunities. From Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected.

Richardson, W. The read/write web (Chapter 1). From Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press.

Teen Files: Surviving High School (video). Arnold Shapiro Productions. (2000?) See also http://challengeday.org/