“I Love to Flip the Pages”: Preservice Teachers and New Literacies within a Field Experience

It is sometimes assumed that “digital natives” will more easily integrate new literacies into their classrooms once they begin their careers. This study followed preservice teachers at the junior level—who were taking part in a year-long field experience set in an urban high school. This field experience was set in the context of an English education methods course focusing on integrating new—literacies into the English classroom. Interviews, blog posts, and survey responses suggest that many of the preservice teachers (born around 1990) expressed some of the same traditional views about—using technology as teachers of an older generation. With some exceptions, most of the preservice teachers saw new literacies as best used to motivate students to learn traditional content.