Teaching Resources for Reading Literature in the 21st Century

Literature and reading are being transformed by digital technologies. With a focus on Australian literature in its transnational context, this research will help teachers and students to learn about and practice new ways of reading and writing literature.

Education has traditionally been split along the lines of the 3Rs. Reading and wRiting was for the English classroom and ‘Rithmatic was not. As digital technologies have become increasingly entwined in how literature is circulated and received - and even created - statistical, computational, and algorithmic dynamics have become integral to how we read and write. Literature has always played an important role in English education because of its special aesthetic, moral, political, and cultural qualities. With literature increasingly enacted in new digital forms and systems, it can continue to play this role, but only if students are empowered to work in this 3(R)-dimensional world, with the digital literacies necessary to understand and create.