ABSTRACT
The notion of being literate in today’s world embraces diverse contexts and texts and wide-ranging ways of communicating and making meaning. The exponential advancements in technology alone have contributed significantly to the shift in what being literate means. This chapter, consequently, explores literature and policy related to literacy education from an historical perspective. It discusses a traditional view of literacy as reading and writing printed texts, and how, over time, students’ capacities have needed to extend to other modes of communication as well as creative, critical and design thinking. The concept of literacy as a social practice (LSP) is also addressed by acknowledging the diverse literacy practices of people across a range of socio-cultural contexts. The chapter will also provide a rationale for aesthetics and artistic reasoning as well as how various societies and cultures express identities through arts thinking. It will be argued that these important arts-literacies are necessary for people to be literate today. An investigation of literacy education from an historical perspective is important for answering the question: what does it mean to be literate in the 21st century and beyond?
