Invited presentation to the Doctoral Students' Colloquium Series, Teachers College, Columbia University, NYC. April 16.

1. Defining Literacy as
Social Practice:
Implications for new
literacies research
and classroom
practice

2. Framing and
designing studies
1.2.
Understanding
how social order,
human agency
and endeavor are
accomplished

3. SOCIAL
PRACTICE
THEORY

4. [Practices are] forms of
bodily activities, forms of
mental activities, „things‟
and their use, a background
knowledge in the form of
understanding, know how,
states of emotion and
motivational knowledge.
- Reckwitz, 2002: 254
“
”

5. Literacy
as social
practice

6. …Practice always refers to socially developed
and patterned ways of using technology and
knowledge to accomplish tasks….
[Skills] refer to the coordinated sets of actions
involved in applying this knowledge in
particular settings.
[T]asks that humans engage in constitute a
social practice when they are directed to
socially recognized goals and make use of a
shared technology and knowledge system.
- Scribner & Cole, 1981: 36
“
”

7. Literacy is
a set of socially organized
practices which make use
of a symbol system and a
technology for producing
and disseminating it .
- Scribner & Cole, 1981: 236
“
”

8. Technology/Tools
Skills
Knowledge

9. Socially patterned
ways of doing
“meaning work” are
involved in making
sense of the world.

10. Blogging is a social practice
Blogging isn’t just blogging

11. Social practice
& new
literacies
research
Tools Skills Knowledge

12. I’m an average student, Cs,
Bs and a couple of Ds in
Statistics and Economics
(tricky stuff >w<).
Maguma

13. anime music video remixing
e.g., “Konoha Memory Book”

14. Tools
• Windows “Movie Maker” (& Sony Vegas)
• Software for ripping songtracks from CDs
• Software for ripping video from DVDs
• Online services for converting video clip file
formats
• Interest-space profile pages (AMV.org, YouTube)
• Etc.

15. Skills
• Developing a new AMV
• Locating and downloading anime clips
• Being able to convert file formats
• Using video effects to further a storyline
• Using transition effects
• Superimposing still images over moving ones
• Using color shifts to convey mood
• Syncing video action and music lyrics and/or
beat
• Experimenting with masking
• Etc.

16. Skills: Masking
From: “Frontlines”

17. Knowledge
• Being an AMV remixer
• Attending to what makes a “good” AMV
• Responding to comments and providing
feedback to others (AMV.org, YouTube)
• Making “action” and “drama” AMVs
• Paying attention to other anime fans and their
knowledge and passions
– Spoiler alerts
– “fan service”
– “yaoi-esque” endings

19. (Relatively) Unobservable
“Well I hope you all enjoy it. Please
please PLEASE leave an opinion.”
“i spent a good amount of time on
this vid. and i really put alot of heart
into this one”

20. Maguma as a
“carrier” of anime
music remixing
practice & anime
fan practice

21. Classrooms and a social
practice conception of literacy
• The Pareto Principle (Shirky 2007; Gee 2013)
• Attending to richly descriptive case studies
(cf., Black 2008; Chen 2012; Thomas 2007;
Leander and Mills, 2007; Burn, 2009; for
more, see Lankshear and Knobel, 2014)

22. It’s no small thing to take on a
particular conception of literacy.

23. Michele Knobel
Montclair State University
knobelm@mail.montclair.edu
http://everydayliteracies.net
Twitter: netgrrrl

24. Image Attributions
• Slide 3: “Social Practice Workbook”
http://www.psusocialpractice.org/news/
• Slide 5: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-
C0OPvz38kew/UOVP6wJJCxI/AAAAAAAAB7k/WFV4ObSFPc4/s1600/
Time+Sqaure+New+York+2013.jpg
• Slide 10: http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/;
http://www.tasteofbeirut.com