ABSTRACT
This chapter shares the kinds of content area involvement students report and discusses the kinds of out-of-school literacies that students engage in by choice. It provides some examples of ways to bridge the gap between students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy activities. The chapter reviews the findings of studies that surveyed or observed and interviewed students from various grade levels in their explorations of and engagement in literate activity. Bertram Bruce identifies new literate functions-those literate abilities that include being able to effectively communicate through oral language, pagers, cell phones, computers, e-mail, the Internet, art, music, drama, film, video games, and digital aids. Text messaging, instant messaging, and Web surfing are examples of the new sociotechnical literacies, many of which are seeping into today’s workplace. Chatting online and communicating by e-mail with English language learner students or English as a second language learners was studied by Wan Shun Eva Lam.
