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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
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they have pondered what counts as knowledge worth knowing,
which forms of expression are valid, and who gets to choose. From
Plato, who thought that writing was an "external crutch" that "led to
the deterioration of human memory" (Gee, 1988, p. 196) to
traditionalist defenders of the Great Books who believe that "To
mess with the canon [is] to mess with civilization itself," (Krystal,
2014), to those who continue to nominate Bob Dylan for the Nobel
Prize in Literature every year, everyone has an opinion about what
counts as literacy. This battle continues to rage across continents,
across university campuses and across elementary school
hallways. It's the five-paragraph essay versus the graphic novel
versus the PowerPoint versus the finger painting. Of all
communicative systems we use to make meaning, (written, visual,
spatial, tactile, gestural, audio, spoken, etc.) which are worthy of a
spot on the syllabus?
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