Envisioning university literacies in the 21st century : The case of the United States

Abstract EN

This article draws on extensive research about the evolving nature of university literacies in the US contextand about the most effective approaches to teaching them and learning them in the 21st century.

While the examples will come from US higher education, the questions addressed will be broadly applicable: 1) how disciplines interact with literacies, 2) how multimodal and digital work is changing our understanding of students’ literacy needs, and 3) how a rapidlychanging globalized multilingual world influences the way we think about and teach literacy.

The research frame of “knowledge transformation” and research results that establish concretely how to enable this transformation in terms of literacieswill provide the thread linking these challenges.

The article will conclude by highlighting key necessary research paths regarding teaching and learning university literacies for the future.