Literature Cyberlessons: Avenues for New Literacies, Critical Literacy, and Student Engagement While Reading

New Literacies, as defined by Lankshear and Knobel (2004), involve "using and constructing hyperlinks between documents and/or images, sounds, movies, semiotic languages (such as those used by the characters in the online episodic game Banja, or emoticons ('smileys') used in email, online chat space or in instant messaging), manipulating a mouse to move around within a text, reading file extensions and identifying what software will 'read' each file, producing non-linear texts, navigating three-dimensional works online and so on" (p. 16-17). In addition to being familiar with the basics of computer use, students need to be accustomed to navigating the World Wide Web by critical thinking and critical literacy to their reading, so as to encourage students to evaluate hypertext in a way that attempts to "disrupt the commonplace, interrogate multiple viewpoints, focus on sociopolitical issues and take action and promote social justice" (Lewison et al., 2002, p.382).