Content uploaded by Yasmin B. Kafai
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Yasmin B. Kafai on Jan 19, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
371
MULTILITERACIES
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 59 (4) January/February 2016 doi:10.1002/jaal.496 © 2016 International Literacy Association (pp. 371–375)
Humans are not ideally set up to understand
logic; they are ideally set up to understand
stories. (Schank, 1983, p. 38)
C
hris Thurman is a middle school teacher
at Charleston Charter School for Math
and Science (CCSMS) in Charleston,
South Carolina. In this position, he is tasked with
teaching introductory computer science to the incom-
ing sixth graders, using a variety of tools and coding
languages. During their career at CCSMS, students
will be required to utilize a variety of these texts and
tools as they prepare for a world that is constantly cre-
ating and manipulating technology to benefit individ-
uals. The mission of the school is to educate students
for success in college and careers by providing an in-
novative learning environment that is academically
excellent, developmentally responsive, and socially
equitable.
Chris sees that coding is important for students
at the school because it gives them a creative outlet
for critical thinking and collaborative problem solving
that will be useful in their future careers. He con-
siders coding a way for students to effectively com-
municate and share information with computers. In
the same manner that instructions would be written
differently for a first- grade student as opposed to a
twelfth grader, coding is like preparing instructions
for a computer to understand.
One of the biggest challenges he has is the lack of
computers necessary to teach his students. On a typi-
cal day, Chris works with about 20 students per class,
using only six computers. To overcome this challenge,
he frequently supplements with paper- based or collab-
orative activities from texts such as the CS Unplugged
workbook that require students to learn computational
concepts, such as binary numbers, prior to even turn-
ing on their computers. In effect, he is teaching com-
puter usage without using electronic devices while
striving to help broaden the horizons of students every
day in the computer labs. He focuses on the ultimate
goal of providing opportunities for students to engage
in computer science, engineering, and maker culture
while learning about coding and STEM topics.
“My biggest rewards are when my students are
excited about what they are learning,” said Chris.
I have seen students have that aha moment
when they figured out how to code programs
that work. Most importantly, I’ve seen them
working collaboratively to solve problems while
developing a love and deeper understanding for
how computers, phones, and other parts of their
everyday world work.
Through curriculum, guidance, and communication,
Chris ensures that the end result is an opportunity
for students to build their computational thinking
Computational Participation
Understanding Coding as an Extension of Literacy Instruction
QUINN BURKE, W. IAN O’BYRNE, & YASMIN B. KAFAI
Quinn Burke is an assistant professor of educational technologies at the
College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA; e- mail burkeqq@cofc.edu.
W. Ian O’Byrne is an assistant professor of literacy education at the
College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA; e- mail wiobyrne@gmail.com.
Yasmin B. Kafai is a professor of learning sciences at the University of
Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, Philadelphia, USA; e- mail
kafai@upenn.edu.
Authors (left to right)
The department editor welcomes reader comments.
W. Ian O’Byrne is an assistant professor at the College
of Charleston, South Carolina, USA. His research investi-
gates the literacy practices of individuals as they read/
write in online spaces. You can contact him via e-mail at
wiobyrne@gmail.com or on Twitter (@wiobyrne).
372
JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT & ADULT LITERACY 59(4) JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
MULTILITERACIES
while pursuing their own interests. He indicated that
he sees the joy and excitement students share as they
create something even they didn’t believe they could
do. Coding is sometimes viewed as challenging or dif-
ficult, but Chris is invigorated as he watches CCSMS
participants create and collaborate while writing their
programs.
Why Teach Coding?
The shift in U.S. finances to a knowledge- based econo-
my has been amply heralded by journalists, just as it has
been well documented by economists. According to
Rushkoff (2010) in his book Program or Be Programmed:
Ten Commands for a Digital Age, coding is the verita-
ble new literacy of the 21st century. Just as reading and
writing were once the demarcation line between the
literate and illiterate, so now is the capacity to code. As a
system of signals by which to govern and modify a com-
puter (Patterson & Hennessy, 2014), coding represents
the fundamental and most powerful way to work on a
computer and establish a presence in a digital world.
As a school that teaches coding, however, CCSMS
is atypical. Less than two thirds of K–12 schools of-
fer any computer science–based curricula, accord-
ing to the seminal 2010 report from the Association
for Computing Machinery, and this number drops
considerably lower among schools in low- income
areas (Wilson, Sudol, Stephenson, & Stehlik, 2010).
Programming, which has been identified as a crucial
way to apply algorithmic logic toward problem solving
in the new millennium, is still widely dismissed as
an erudite skill by many (Wing, 2006). However, it is
not a matter of turning all adolescents into computer
scientists but rather leveraging coding as a means to
get youths more engaged in the workings of the Web-
based media that surround them (Kafai & Burke,
2014; M. Resnick et al., 2009). It is within this con-
text that educators like Chris are trying to embed cod-
ing skills into instruction in schools through coding
camps and clubs geared toward youths.
Understanding the computational concepts
on which countless digital applications run offers
adolescents the opportunity to no longer simply read
such media but also become more discerning end us-
ers and potentially innovative “writers” of new media
themselves. In this column, we make the case for cod-
ing as a new literacy and the potential of teaching code
to learners through a series of workshops. Through
the workshop process, learners not only develop the
logic and problem- solving skills to think computa-
tionally but also socialize with one another through
their coded stories, developing a wider appreciation of
what it means to participate computationally.
The Process and Product of Coding
As Schank’s quote at the outset of this column sug-
gests, stories represent a uniquely personal product
by which to engage learners. Research (Bruckman,
1997; Kelleher & Pausch, 2006, 2008) on introducto-
ry programming environments such as MIT’s Scratch
(https://scratch.mit.edu) and Carnegie Mellon’s Alice
(www.alice.org/index.php) has demonstrated that
coding stories represents a particularly effective way
of introducing adolescents to programming. Having
students code their own unique digital stories in
Scratch and Alice gives them a particular end goal to
their programming activities and personalizes the ex-
perience, making learners more likely to persist when
difficulty arises. There is no shortage in the number
and range of introductory programming languages
currently offered for free or at minimal cost. For more
information, visit Common Sense Media’s website for
an extensive list at https://www.commonsensemedia
.org/lists/coding-apps-and-websites.
What is less clear, though, is how these various
introductory programming languages can be brought
into schools and within core curricular instruction.
Although stories offer an excellent product around
which to develop early coding initiatives, there needs
to be a more explicit process by which to generate
such stories. Here, coding can take a page from writ-
ing instruction, which has developed considerably in
K–12 schools over the past few decades. Examining
the nature of writing in her seminal book Education
and Learning to Think, L.B. Resnick (1987) adeptly
pointed out that the writing venture is not simply a
product but also very much a process and that the key
to effective writing instruction is to hold such duality
in balance, emphasizing the crucial steps by which
the product was generated. Although this may seem
obvious to readers now, it was no small point at the
time.
Understanding computational
concepts offers adolescents the
opportunity to become writers
of new media themselves.
373
Computational Participation: Understanding Coding as an Extension of Literacy Instruction
For the majority of the 20th century, schools
largely considered student writing only in terms of
the final product. Students were asked to write on a
topic, and the expectation was that it would be done
on the student’s time, not the school’s. Calkins’s
(1986) development of the writing workshop was
instrumental in changing this approach to writing.
Through the stages of prewriting, drafting, revis-
ing, editing, and publishing, she transformed the
often confusing and intimidating practice of writ-
ing into a series of manageable steps for students.
Such a shift was nothing less than a sea change on
the K–12 level, as it transformed writing from a skill
that once bordered on the arcane to a process that
was manifestly meant for all. As Calkins’s own men-
tor, Murray, cautioned educators about the craft,
“writing might be magical, but it’s not magic. It’s a
process, a rational series of decisions and steps that
every writer makes and takes, no matter what the
length, the deadline, even the genre” (as quoted in
Feinberg, 2007, p. 28).
Demystifying the Craft of Coding
Today, coding is likewise in need of such demysti-
fication. Still frequently perceived under the guise
of wizardry, the capacity to code is still widely con-
ceived as a trait that an individual is born with rather
than as a craft that one can learn and hone. Much
with writing nearly three decades ago, it is the job of
schools to disabuse the wider public of this notion,
and the writing workshop model represents a good
starting point for educators. The introductory pro-
gramming language Scratch offers multiple tutorials
around storytelling through a series of stages as an en-
try point into coding (Kee, 2011). Carnegie Mellon’s
Alice programming language has established an
offshoot program entitled Storytelling Alice (www
.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling) that explains the cod-
ing process in terms of constructing a narrative. The
Google CS First program likewise employs a story-
telling unit (www.cs-first.com/clubplan/storytelling)
as an early series of activities to get novices coding
through a series of stages. These are just three op-
tions freely available through the Web, but dozens
more exist online—and for good reason. By using
storytelling and the workshop model as a means to
introduce students and educators to programming as
a new genre of composition, the writers’ workshop for
programmers leverages an old literacy for the sake of
a new one (Burke, 2012).
Moving From Computational
Thinking to Computational
Participation
This is not to imply that stories and the workshop
model are the sole answers to the deficit of coding ac-
tivities in U.S. schools. Research (Adams & Webster,
2012; Burke & Kafai, 2012) has suggested that the
highly linear nature of storytelling and writing, in
general, precludes novices from employing key com-
puter science concepts such as variables, looping, and
conditional statements. Storytelling, however, repre-
sents an excellent starting point for young learners.
The proof ultimately lies in the vast number of stories
that adolescents share on open- source programming
websites. A query for “story” on the Scratch site alone
produces over 3.5 million unique user- generated
narratives, ranging from science fiction stories to
tales of fantasy to whole galleries dedicated to digi-
tal versions of Aesop’s fables (https://scratch.mit.edu/
studios/37347). Novices share online to have their
homespun creations viewed, commented on, and
even remixed by others. Learning to code for them is
not simply a matter of making content but also shar-
ing such content with others.
This impetus to share and connect with others
through code is characteristic of a wider shift toward
computational participation. Whereas computational
thinking uses an algorithmic lens toward problem
solving, computational participation extends this
thinking beyond the individual to integrate social
networks and digital tools in a networked society. It
is not simply a matter of figuring out problems but
creating content as a means of finding and connect-
ing with other adolescents and like- minded creators.
To a certain degree, this impetus to make, to gener-
ate content with computers, stems back to the vision
of arguably the most innovative educational thinker
with computers, Seymour Papert. His well- known
book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful
Ideas (Papert, 1980) was instrumental in introducing
coding to the K–12 educational landscape and get-
ting educators to treat computers as more than just
interactive television sets but rather actual tools for
creation. However, making today goes beyond simply
generating content. The ability to make content digi-
tally also means the capacity to share such content on
vast Web- based networks. Having something to share,
something to bring to the party, gives youths new-
found entry points to these open networks. Whether
it is sharing self- made video games and animations
374
JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT & ADULT LITERACY 59(4) JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
MULTILITERACIES
on the popular teen repository Newgrounds (www
.newgrounds.com) or even contributing source code
on the open- source GitHub (https://github.com),
youths use this impetus to make as a means to also
connect.
The book Connected Code: Why Children Need
to Learn Programming (Kafai & Burke, 2014) details
this shift from computational thinking to computa-
tional participation across four dimensions:
1. A shift from code to actual applications: The
first question for educators and learners alike is
no longer a matter of what programming lan-
guage is “right” but rather what we ultimately
want to make; this is the starting point for
creation.
2. A shift from tools to communities: There is no
shortage of introductory coding tools available,
but which ones best facilitate sharing such con-
tent? A supportive and resourceful community
is, in fact, a tool in and of itself, and developing
schools and classrooms around these virtual
spaces is an important next step.
3. A shift from starting from scratch to remixing:
Related to the previous dimension, the ques-
tion is less about demonstrating prowess by
building entirely anew but rather leveraging
existing resources (code and otherwise) to im-
prove and reimagine content; what schools per-
ceive as cheating is standard practice in STEM
industries.
4. A shift from screens to tangibles: The question
is no longer what is on your screen but what
is in your hands; as evident with the wider
inter-net of things, coding and connectiv-
ity have migrated away from the traditional
vestiges of computers to become truly ubiq-
uitous within the cars we ride and even the
clothes we wear.
Conclusion
For many, the idea that coding would ever be con-
sidered on the same level as traditional reading and
writing violates the sacrosanct. After all, reading and
writing are fundamental parts of our daily lives that
are deeply baked in to culture and society. To pre-
pare students for their future careers and lives, learn-
ers need to be able to read books and street signs and
decode the various media that permeate our culture.
Additionally, students need to be able to write or
encode information to share their story, apply for jobs,
or express love for another.
The focus on computational thinking and par-
ticipation in this column in addition to coding is
an attempt to highlight the fact that perhaps ado-
lescents need to understand algorithmic decision
making to intelligently process the digital world, but
they do not necessarily need to be able to code. In
addition, students may need to learn how to work
collaboratively with not only team members but
also artificial intelligence, computer systems, and
algorithms in the information- based careers of the
future.
If a learner reaches adulthood and cannot read or
write, it is generally identified as a collective societal
failure. As society is increasingly digitized, students
need to be able to read and understand the informa-
tion contained in code. Additionally, they need to
be able to write code information if they so choose.
Educators like Chris recognize the need for this and
are embedding these literacies into opportunities
for students within and outside of school settings.
Coding enables students to communicate, socialize,
and engage in literacy practices needed in their
future careers as global citizens.
References
Adams, J.C., & Webster, A.R. (2012). What do students learn
about programming from game, music video, and storytell-
ing projects? In SIGCSE’12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
(pp. 643–648). New York, NY: ACM.
Bruckman, A. (1997). MOOSE Crossing: Construction, com-
munity, and learning in a networked virtual world for kids
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012, February 1). Employment
projections—2010–20 (USDL-12-0160) [News release].
Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department
of Labor. Retrieved from www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/
ecopro_02012012.pdf
Burke, Q. (2012). The markings of a new pencil: Introducing
programming- as- writing in the middle school classroom.
Journal of Media Literacy Education, 4(2), 121–135.
Burke, Q., & Kafai, Y.B. (2012). The writers’ workshop for youth
programmers: Digital storytelling with Scratch in middle
school classrooms. In SIGCSE’12: Proceedings of the 43rd
ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
(pp. 433–438). New York, NY: ACM.
Calkins, L. (1986). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Feinberg, B. (2007). The Lucy Calkins project. Education Next,
7(3), 26 –31.
Kafai, Y.B., & Burke, Q. (2014). Connected code: Why children
need to learn programming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
375
Computational Participation: Understanding Coding as an Extension of Literacy Instruction
Kee, D. (2011, August 28). Digital storytelling with SCRATCH.
ScratchEd. Retrieved from scratched.gse.harvard.edu/stories/
digital-storytelling-scratch
Kelleher, C., & Pausch, R. (2006). Lessons learned from
designing a programming system to support middle
school girls creating animated stories. In Proceedings
of the 2006 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and
Human-Centric Computing (pp. 165–172). New York, NY:
IEEE.
Kelleher, C., & Pausch, R. (2008). Using storytelling to mo-
tivate programming. Communications of the ACM, 50(7),
59–64.
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful
ideas. New York, NY: Basic.
Patterson, D.A., & Hennessy, J.L. (2014). Computer organization
and design: The hardware/software interface (5th ed.). Oxford,
UK: Morgan Kaufmann.
Resnick, L.B. (1987). Education and learning to think.
Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Hernandez, A.M., Rusk, N., Eastmond,
E., Brennan, K., … Kafai, Y.B. (2009). Scratch: Programming
for everyone. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60 –67.
doi:10.1145/1592761.1592779
Rushkoff, D. (2010). Program or be programmed: Ten commands
for a digital age. New York, NY: O/R.
Schank, R. (1983). Dynamic memory: A theory of reminding and
learning in computers and people. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Wilson, C., Sudol, L., Stephenson, C., & Stehlik, M. (2010).
Running on empty: The failure to teach K–12 computer science
in the digital age. New York, NY: Association for Computing
Machinery.
Wing, J.M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of
the ACM, 49(3), 33–35. doi:10.1145/1118178.1118215
Use any ILA renewal notice to take advantage of this offer, or
log in and renew right now at literacyworldwide.org/renew.
RENEW NOW AND SAVE!
GET 3 YEARS OF RESOURCES
AND SUPPORT
As an educator and ILA member, you are passionate
about literacy and helping your students learn
and achieve. At ILA, we acknowledge, appreciate,
and applaud your dedication. We want to help you
continue on this positive path in the most cost-
effective way possible by providing the high-quality
teaching resources you trust—for less money.
In honor of your commitment to your students, and
to help you save on ILA membership, we are pleased
to offer a 10% discount on membership and journal
subscriptions when you renew for three years.
