The course objectives are to:
1. Provide an overview of the social, cultural, political and 
economic conditions that gave rise to the New Literacies, and
2. Involve teachers and researchers in using the NLS as a 
framework for teaching reading and conducting research

* The impossibility of separating text-mediated social 
practices (e.g., reading and writing) from the larger world of 
gestures, contexts, values, tools and spaces
* The theoretically different stances scholars take when they 
work within a "New Literacy Studies" framework
* The cultural and historical implications of "less powerful" 
and "more powerful" literacies, especially in current times 
when educational institutions are bending to restrictive views 
of literacy teaching and learning
* The ways in which texts, power, and identity are linked, as 
well as the pedagogical implication of this linkage
* The tensions inherent in accounting for the local within the 
global (and vice versa), particularly in relation to designing 
research studies
* The impact of digital technologies on the changing nature of 
literacy
* The ways in which categorization is achieved (and 
deconstructed) by adults and youth working within digitally 
mediated environments