Lynn C. Lewis

editor of "Strategic Discourse: The Politics of (New) Literacy Crises"

November 4, 2015

Dr. Lewis is an associate professor of English in the Rhetoric and Professional Writing program at Oklahoma State University. She also serves as the Director of the First-Year Composition program. Her research focuses on digital, visual and new media rhetorics and writing studies pedagogies.This is an open access, web-born publication located at http://ccdigitalpress.org/ebooks-and-projects/strategic

John Trimbur's much-cited 1991 essay, "Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis," persuasively argues for a view of literacy crisis discourse as "always strategic," and demonstrates the ways in which it has reified "the meritocratic educational order" (285-286). This project considers Trimbur's argument close to 25 years later, examining twenty-first century literacy crisis discourses immersed inextricably in a technological age.

The contributors to this project contextualize their arguments by considering a variety of student writers through differing lenses. They interrogate widely circulating crisis tropes such as multitasking and hyper attention, plagiarism, needs for proceduracy literacy or demands for cultural literacy and decorum. They document and explore the braille literacy crisis, and the ever-present crisis of basic writing. Last, John Trimbur updates his argument at the close of the book, through an examination of historical, political, and economic pressures and fears, which inform literacy crisis tropes.

Our digital era has deepened old fissures and generated new ones. Inequality persists. Nevertheless, each contributor expresses optimism and agrees that literacy practices in the digital age present real opportunities. They also argue that literacy crisis discourses in the Internet age, whether new or old, remain strategic.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2016-honorees/lynn-lewis

Last Updated: 11 February 2016