Use Text V to answer questions 26 to 32.

Text V

Literacy as a Multidimensional Concept

An emphasis on the development of literacy as a fluid concept (Knobel and Lankshear, 2014) is one of the most recent advances in twenty-first-century education. To conceptualize literacy, the ability of the learner to make use of language takes precedence in typical Western educational systems. However, as Kern highlights, “literacy is more than a set of academic skills” (2000, 23). It varies depending on the social context and is embedded in cultural practice (Paesani et al. 2016).

Therefore, in order to define it, we must take into consideration the set of resources, sociocultural practices and competences––beyond reading and writing––that enable student interaction, critical thinking, the drawing of conclusions and the application of knowledge to curricular areas and real-world situations (New London Group 1996; Kern 2000; American Association of School Librarians (AASL) 2011; Cooper et al. 2012; Kucer 2014; Paesani et al. 2016; Reyes-Torres 2018; Warner and Dupuy 2018). As such, the multimodal training approach that we propose for the FL class stems from Kern’s notion of literacy, first, “as a process of creating and transforming knowledge” (2000, 29), and second, “as a matter of engaging in the ever-developing process of using reading and writing as tools for thinking and learning, in order to expand one’s understanding of oneself and the world” (40). This involves paying careful attention to language, while also developing a critical awareness of the relationships between texts, images, discourse conventions and sociocultural and digital contexts.

In sum, and in consonance with Kern and other scholars such as the NLG (1996), Steve Kucer (2014), Maria Brisk (2015), Paesani et al. (2016) and Shari Tishman (2018), we define literacy as a dynamic and multidimensional concept whose main aim is to provide twenty-first-century learners with the language skills, visual thinking strategies and dialogic attitudes that are necessary to develop the knowledge that allows them to grasp and evaluate information, organize ideas, exchange perspectives, construct meaning and reflect critically on a variety of sociocultural contexts. In order to foster such a multidimensional approach to literacy in EFL and implement it as an organizing principle (Kress 2010; Serafini 2014), it is necessary that teachers become acquainted with the three dimensions that both Kern (2000) and Kucer (2014) acknowledge as the key components: a) cognitive; b) conceptual; and c) sociocultural.

These dimensions constitute a field of forces that complement one another and are equally important in the process of both teaching and learning, and they also illustrate the multiple facets and fluid nature of literacy.

Adapted from: FERNÁNDEZ, Teresa; REYES-TORRES, Agustín; FERNÁNDEZ, Pilar. A multimodal approach to foster the multiliteracies pedagogy in the English as a Foreign Language context. ATLANTIS: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 94–119, 2020. Available at: https://www.atlantisjournal.org/index.php/atlantis/article/view/741. Accessed on: Mar. 21, 2025.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. | believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure — in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, | think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.

Cosmos. Carl Sagan.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. | believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure — in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, | think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.

Cosmos. Carl Sagan.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. | believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure — in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, | think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.

Cosmos. Carl Sagan.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. | believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure — in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, | think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.

Cosmos. Carl Sagan.