Chapter 8: The Use of the Mediated Tools to Gain Insight into the Apollo Era Of Spaceflight

Literacy researchers and practitioners understand that literacy is multifaceted and that “literacies are constructed with and inseparable from identities, cultures, bodies, histories, actions, and emotions” (Chisholm & Whitmore, 2018, p. 5). These literacies can include visual literacies—the idea of seeing the text through images; embodied literacies—being the text; and emotional literacies—feeling the text through words on a page (Chisholm & Whitmore, 2018). Felten (2008) posited that “seeing is not simply a process of passive reception of stimuli but also involves active construction of meaning” (p. 61). These literacies can help preservice teachers construct meaning about a topic through a variety of different mediated tools such as images, quotes, and virtual reality (VR) simulation. In the classroom, this can allow for “rich, intertextual understanding and expression that do not privilege singular definitions of literacy” (Leonard et al., 2016, p. 340). As such, providing experiences where preservice teachers express meaning through different forms reiterates the notion that literacy should be broadly defined.