Alright so these questions will be for our discussion at the end of the activities

1.  The most obvious question of all: What is literacy? What does it mean to be literate? Which literacies do we value most in the classroom? Which literacies do we disregard (knowingly or otherwise) in the classroom? How might our answers to these questions influence our students’ learning?

2. Literacy, according to Gee, is “any technology that allows people to “decode” meanings and produce meanings by using symbols”. If our students began to mesh-code as Anzaldúa does in the excerpt provided, would they be considered literate, or would they be considered as not having a grasp of the English language?

3. Gee uses video game communities as models for language acquisition because these communities tend to recognize a wide range of skills as valuable (from helping “newbies” to finding glitches, making mods, organizing strategies, writing guides, etc), allowing all participants to be part learner/part teacher. Is this a viable strategy for traditional classrooms? And, if implemented, how do you ensure that students who are still very new to the domain (such as SLS or first-generation students) get the help they need without the teacher’s voice silencing the overall conversation?

4. Gee talks about passing tests and real understanding: How often we see this with our international students who study for the TOEFL, “pass” in terms of achieving the score needed for admission, and then drown in their composition classes but they don’t have a true understanding of the semiotic domain they’re attempting to skate into (and others where the need for understanding now becomes the determiner for passing). As instructors, where is our responsibility? 

5. One of the main objections to using tech in the classroom is that it often requires teachers to instruct students in an entirely new language set that may never be used again outside of the classroom or “non-real” situations (ie: play rather than work). This includes things like students learning the recipes for Minecraft or the elemental balances of pokemon…etc. Using foreign/less familiar domains can be helpful for getting students to consider contexts they usually take for granted (fish in water syndrome), but it’s also time consuming and takes a lot of effort on the part of the instructor, while also taking some time away from content instruction. What are some practical ways that you have found (or have thought about) that help you create semiotic domains despite these time/content limitations?