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Malaka Friedman
Finding the Middle Ground: Analyzing the Before and After of the Digital Divide Through the Lens of a Social Media Movement in Argument for Digital Literacy
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Rhetoric & Writing MA Portfolio
Digital Literacy History
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To understand how I came to my research area of digital literacy, I need to go into detail on my digital literacy journey.
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My parents came from two different areas of the digital divide. My father grew up in New Jersey and had several opportunities to develop his own digital literacy growing up. My mother on the other hand had less affordances growing up in Afghanistan. When she immigrated to the United States in the 1980s she took several classes at the local community college. She was advised that English as a Second Language (ESL) classes would be more of a benefit than any technology classes she may take. As a result her digital literacy is something she is still developing.
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Both of my parents were on different sides of the digital divide. Growing up I had to teach both my parents how to use digital technology, but in different ways to meet the needs of each parent. With my father I had to teach him how to use new platforms, like social media, for marketing and business purposes. With my mother I had to teach her the more basic details of using a computer for communication via email and how to search for items online.
I never thought this experience could turn into a professional interest.
Teaching at mentor2.0
After I graduated in 2014 with my BA in English, I was able to get a job with Big Brothers Big Sisters' college and career readiness program mentor2.0. A large part of the curriculum was geared towards students interacting with mentors through the use of digital technology. Through teaching my students questions would arise on how to use the digital tools expected of them. Questions on how to use USBs Word documents, and format emails were common questions. At the time I was taking my first courses in the Rhetoric and Writing MA program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and I tried to apply basic rhetorical principles of rhetor and audience to the lessons, specifically the digital aspect, I was teaching.
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Teaching First-Year Composition Courses
Similar questions would arise when I started to teach first-year composition courses at UNM. Through taking practicums I started to learn pedagogy on digital literacies and how learning to use technology is more about "mastering ideas, not keystrokes" (Gilster). I was also to be to start to understand how technology creates hierarchy economy: the ruling class who control networks, those who are involved in creating new knowledge, and finally simply operators (Wark).
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I wanted to take my knowledge further in the classes I taught. I became interested in how genres can be used as a tool for social action. To me digital literacies work as different types of genres, one with a pragmatic component that occurs within a genre claim (Miller). The more I looked into research on tdigital literacy and multimodality, the more I started to realize that who does and does not have access is not only a problem all over the world but particularly in the classes I was teaching. Students were still showing up to my office with their laptops because they did not know how to use them. One student even expressed frustration that in order to succeed in college overall he needed to not only only have a computer, but also have the digital literacies skills needed to use it.
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There truly was a digital divide in how my students came to understand the tools they needed to be successful in college and their eventual careers.
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Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction (OWI) Principle One:
"Online writing instruction should be universally inclusive and accessible”
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