A framework for second language literacies research in Colombia

ML2
Medellín

Bio: Second Language Literacies is part of the five-course sequence for the English emphasis area of the MA in Learning and Teaching of Second Languages (ML2). In SLL (which may very well be an unparalleled course in Colombia), students will read and discuss how literacy is defined in today's language contexts. We will revise ideas about critical literacy, new literacies, multiliteracies, multimodality, and digital literacies, within the context of second languages, Colombia, and the world at large. Course readings include a blend of recent research in the field and a who's-who of the scholars who have influenced the field and continue to move it today: Paulo Freire, Donaldo Macedo, Brian Street, Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis, Gunther Kress, Arlette Ingram Willis, Ernest Morrell, Ira Shor, Rebecca Black, Allan Luke, Hilary Janks, and Donald Leu, just to name a few, will be our guests through their thoughts and words. The course is the creation of Dr. Raúl A. Mora. He did his doctoral work at the Language & Literacy Division in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Mora did his dissertation research under the supervision and mentoring of one of the top critical literacy scholars in the US, Dr. Arlette Ingram Willis. His literacy mentors during his tenure include Drs Bill Cope, Karla Möller, and Sarah McCarthey, with whom he took classes on literacy research topics. He did research on bilingual literacy with Dr. Georgia Earnest García and taught the course "Literacy in the Content Areas" with Dr. Mark Dressman. Other informal literacy mentors include Drs Violet Harris, Eury Bauer, and Kay Stahl (now at NYU). Dr. Mora's research interest in literacy lies in the field of alternative literacy paradigms. His work combines ideas from critical literacy, new literacy studies and multimodality to discover how second language literacies are surfacing and being reinvented in different urban and virtual spaces. He has also become one of the emerging leading scholars in the area of "literacidad", the Spanish term that discussed the views of literacy espoused by the alternative paradigms. In this area, he has already published two papers discussing the term, plus recent conference presentations and lectures in Colombia and Spain (and an upcoming presentation in Argentina). It is Dr. Mora's hope that this blog will trigger the establishment of a robust literacy research and inquiry community in Colombia and Latin America.

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