A common framework for literacy assessment

A lot of the best things that happen at conferences take place between the talks: no matter whether it’s receiving feedback for your presentation or meeting someone who feels passionately about an interesting area of research, these conversations are really the human backbone of why I enjoy taking part in conferences.

This lunchtime, I met Kamakshi Rajjagopal from the Open University in the Netherlands and we had a very interesting chat about literacy frameworks. Something that almost everyone at the conference seems to struggle with is ‘assessing’ media competencies. How do we know whether someone is media literate?

On a holistic and more general level this is easy to determine: I would expect the person to be able to access and evaluate the media and then, possibly, to be able to produce it, too. In the case of film education for example, there should be an understanding about how meaning is constructed (shots, editing, lighting, …) and what effect these techniques have. However, as soon as we move into the categorisation of these skills at different levels, things become more difficult. I have always found the AQA and WJEC marking criteria for practical coursework pretty limiting.

Kamakshi suggested that we should look at the common aspects between old and new literacy and consider the common frameworks for literacy competence across Europe. Here, competencies are described with positive statements such as ‘I can write a paragraph without errors’. Where I think this comparison falls short in terms of film is that very little attention is paid to creativity (just like in writing)! Students are rewarded for ‘imaginative’ work but it is much more difficult to define ‘imaginative’ than it is to say that there are no grammatical errors in a sentence.

In a way, however, the comparison is an appropriate one if we remember that written language has many things in common with film making: there are parts (sentences and shots, paragraphs and scenes), there is a framework of rules (grammar and editing rules such as the construction of shot-reverse-shot) and there is the same consideration of fiction vs non-fiction (reports and documentaries). In the end, both forms include a degree of creativity no matter how ‘objective’ they are, too.

There are some examples of frameworks (done by the European Commission and UNESCO), however many definitions are basic and vague. On the other hand: would it really be possible to develop specific frameworks for every 'part' of media (film, radio, newspapers, blogs, ...) and where does that list end? Also, as we have seen with the development of film and media as subjects on their own right, just because something is assessed does not mean it gets taken more seriously. 

Yesterday, I was writing about how surprised I was that even after years and years of discussion, media literacy still did not have a common framework- surely by this point we should have long left definitions behind and moved on to making a united move towards implementation? An assessment scheme like the ones that exist for traditional literacy might potentially have a lot to contribute- whether Europe or communities beyond will be able to agree on one framework is a different topic!