Being Literate in the 21st Century tackles some of the most difficult questions for the next generation around literacy and thought. What will happen to our children and to ourselves as we move from a literacy-based culture to a digital one? Will our capacities for memory and attention change, and with it our patience for the present forms of literature? Will our thinking change? What will be the effects on the young? Will writing itself change. This book looks at research from multiple disciplines on what it means to be literate and nonliterate in terms of the plasticity of the reading brain. The affordances of different mediums will be examined, and a proposal for a biliterate brain will be presented. Finally, one of the great experiments in global literacy will be presented as a model for tackling the problem of universal literacy.

1: Introduction
2: The Linguist's Tale
3: A Child's Tale
4: A Neuroscientist's Tale of Words
5: The Deep Reading Brain
6: A Second Revolution in the Brain
7: A Literacy Agenda for Non-Literate Children

Maryanne Wolf , Tufts University

Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service and Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, at Tufts University. With her doctoral degree from Harvard University, and two degrees in Literature from Northwestern and St. Marys College/Notre Dame, she is a cognitive neuroscientist who conducts research on the reading brain, dyslexia, and global literacy. Author of over 130 scientific publications, and the recipient of multiple awards for teaching, research, and public service, Wolf wrote Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, now translated into 13 languages. She and her colleagues are developing digital learning tools to bring literacy to children in poverty around the world.