Multimodal composition as inclusive pedagogy: An inquiry into the interplay of race, gender, disability and multimodality at an urban middle school (original) (raw)
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English Education, 2020
This article details a self-study dissecting an interracial group of students' theories of Blackness in a postsecondary classroom. I begin by conceptualizing fugitive literacy practices as tools with which to awaken and animate education as the practice of liberation from whiteness and anti-Blackness. I then approach multimodal essay composition as one such practice and illuminate its application in a classroom. I show how this practice affirmed students as empowered producers of knowledge. I contend that pedagogues must pivot away from the disruption of whiteness and anti-Blackness as a defined target, and turn toward the destruction of both as a desirable goal. I conclude by considering further inquiries that this provocation invites vis-à-vis curriculum and pedagogy in English teacher education.
Writing remixed: Mapping the multimodal composition of one preservice English education teacher
This case study describes the creation of a digital multimodal poem by Mara, a preservice English Education teacher at a large state namesake university located in the Southeastern United States. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives broadly and New Literacies Studies specifically (Gee, 2012; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; The New London Group, 1996), this study uses multimodal discourse analysis (Jewitt, 2006; Lemke, 1998, O’Halloran, 2009) as a tool to analyze how one preservice teacher’s multimodal composition affected her concept of new literacies. To investigate what Mara learned through the multimodal composing process, we analyzed three sources of data a) Mara’s multimodal composition, b) Mara’s written reflection about her composing practices written immediately after she had created her multimodal composition, and c) a ninety-minute interview with Mara using photo-elicitation techniques. Findings indicate that multimodal composing practices can potentially take advantage of the relation between cognition and affect, and do so using cultural means of codification that are both inscribed by textual authors and encoded by acculturated readers. Such experiences may be more readily available to digital natives who are conversant with the affordances of electronic devices, a trend that is likely to grow as technology continues to advance and become pervasive in the lives of succeeding generations.
Rethinking Composing in a Digital Age: Authoring Literate Identities Through Multimodal Storytelling
Written Communication, 2010
In this article, the authors engage the theoretical lens of multimodality in rethinking the practices and processes of composing in classrooms. Specifically, they focus on how learning new composing practices led some fifth-grade students to author new literate identities-what they call authorial stances-in their classroom community. Their analysis adds to the current research on the production and analysis of multimodal texts through an analysis of the interrelationships between multimodal composing processes and the development of literate identities. They found that by extending the composing process beyond print modalities students' composing shifted in significant ways to reflect the circulating nature of literacies and texts and increased the modes of participation and engagement within the classroom curriculum. These findings are based on an ethnographic study of a multimodal storytelling project in a fifth-grade urban classroom.
Reframing multimodal composing for student learning: Lessons on Purpose from the Buffalo DV project.
Abstract In a study of urban secondary teachers moving out of professional development and into their classrooms, the research team documented the learning processes of teachers and student groups during their digital video composing to make sense of the curriculum. Taken together, these ethnographic case studies provide evidence that digital video composing can be a potent literacy tool that leads to increased student engagement and learning. Important to English educators is this finding: Learning to use and to teach digital composing can induce changes in teachers’ epistemology and social practices that promote changes in their teaching and student learning. In this article, a framework for a multimodal literacy pedagogy is elaborated, generated from these analyses of teachers changing over time. Teachers who have transformed themselves and their classrooms to enact student multimodal composing on curricular concepts have these transacting principles in common: They (a) design social spaces for mediating students’ multimodal composing activities; (b) co-construct with students authentic purposes for these composing activities about curricular concepts; (c) focus explicit attention to multimodal design and critique of multimodal texts; and (d) persistently open opportunities for students to draw on their identities and “lifeworlds” (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 2001).
Multiliteracies in Practice: Integrating Multimodal Production Across the Curriculum
Theory Into Practice, 2017
Supported by ever-evolving digital tools and online spaces, we argue that multiliteracies can be used to close the gap between teacher-directed, individual, and assessment-driven learning, and authentic, shared, and purpose-driven learning. This is particularly evident through multimodal composition and collaboration in primary classrooms. Over two decades ago, the New London Group argued that all meaning-making is multimodal. By representing their knowledge through multiple modes and for local and global audiences, students can express their identity, exercise agency, and foster a sense of authoring through multimodal production. A Classroom Scene W ithin the expansive, light-filled space, the energy is palpable. In one corner, a small group of students use tablets to engage in historical research and animatedly discuss their findings; on the stairs, students work individually on their laptops as they edit scientific documentaries; at the far side, a teacher draws a mindmap on the whiteboard, as a dozen students share their thoughts on literary characters. Years ago, these 180 upper primary students would have found themselves in 1 of 6 individual classrooms. But today, a concomitant change in architecture and curriculum finds them all working within one large, open space. Moving across physical and virtual spaces, interacting with the eight teachers, working at their own pace, and collaborating with their peers allows these Australian students to engage in multiliteracies and advance their disciplinary knowledge. The walls have come down.
English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 2021
Purpose: This study aims to investigate multimodal composition as an exercise or tool for teaching students theory building. To illustrate, an analysis of artifacts comprising a student’s multimodal composition, which was created in response to a multipart literacy assignment on theorizing Blackness, is analyzed. Design/methodology/approach: Afrocentricity served as both theoretical moor and research methodology. Qualitative case study, focusing on the case of an individual student, was the research method used. Findings: Multimodal composition was an effective exercise for surfacing the multidimensionality of a student’s complex knowledge while simultaneously placing the student in the powerful position of theorist. The process of composing multimodally integrated reading, writing and speaking skills while revealing the focal student’s need for targeted writing intervention.