The passage from orality to literacy is difficult for many kids--not just kids who grow up in dominantly oral traditions but "digital" kids who zap, surf, chat over the phone, role-play with their netpals. In my talk, I explore new forms of literacy that emerge from kids' growing interest and fluency in digital technologies. Drawing from theoretical and empirical studies on the development of literacy, I discuss how written talk (in text-based narrative environments) fosters children's natural abilities to speak "a hundred languages," in a multiplicity of voices, and through dialog with others. Of particular relevance to the discussion is Walter Ong's concept of secondary orality. 

The New Literacy Project is a collaboration between USC's School of Cinema-Television and the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Working with select LAS faculty, the project integrates new media into traditional humanities courses with the goal not just of making students technically proficient but of transforming ideas of "expression" and "substance" themselves. The presentation will report on the first year of the project, with particular focus on the issues to arise when attempting such interdisciplinary collaboration.

The paper uses Plato's Phaedrus to examine the issue of change in media technology. In "Phaedrus," Socrates narrates an Egyptian story in which writing is cast in a problematic light, and tries to narrow areas in which written texts may circulate. This paper addresses Socrates' anxieties about writing, new technology, and foreignness, and tries to give historical perspective to the discussion of new media.