#multiliteracies

Arcosanti, January 2019 (not quite Brutalist, but a beautiful concrete beast nevertheless).

Through my research of Tumblr-centered discourse and theory it became evident that the notion of fandom is prevalent. My initial thought was that this is not the Tumblr I am familiar with - I associated the term fandom with obsessions over TV shows like Dr. Who, the oeuvre of Joss Whedon, or My Little Pony, as well as Comic Con, Gen Con, Dragon Con, and any other nerdy conventions. (No offence to the nerds, I too have periphery nerd interests, I just hadn’t yet associated them with Tumblr). Early in my research I wondered whether I did in fact follow fandoms through Tumblr but simply never thought of them as such, and this was confirmed while reading Annette Koh’s (2020) critical essay of urban-themed Tumblr fandoms:

The concrete behemoths of mid-twentieth-century #Brutalist architecture had Tumblr fan clubs who celebrated the much-maligned buildings as exemplars of design rather than failures of modernism…Niche fandoms found each other and shared their transformative works, what fandom calls the creative adaptation of other people’s published work. There was a Tumblr devoted to redesigning subway maps for greater legibility, which struck me as a kind of fanfiction for public transit. Cartography as art was enthusiastically embraced, with a boomlet in hometown maps constructed from hand-lettered neighborhood names. Maps also rendered unfamiliar cities knowable, the overwhelming massiveness of Moscow or London or Tokyo turned into a friendly tangle of crayon-colored subway lines (pp. 337-338).

It is true, I am a member of the brutalist fandom, I’ve been following architectureofdoom and bauzeitgeist for years. What other fandoms am I a part of? Antique art ephemera, strange compositions, outsider art, demure collage, 60s psych GIFS, old photos of old buildings, retrofuturism, poetic space memes – my fandoms may be less nameable, but they exist, there’s a defined aesthetic connecting me with my followers and those I follow. Not only did I frequent Tumblr to experience ‘a mood’ or the affect created by my highly curated dashboard feed, but also to connect with the feeling of being around people who get it. Without having to ever explicitly state the fact, it felt like I had managed to surround myself with likeminded people in a nebulous world that existed within me, through the internet, and within others as though we connected as a kind of hive mind ruled by twee poetics, light melancholia and beautiful absurdity.

In 2017 Allison McCracken, who has extensively researched Tumblr phenomena and co-edited the 2020 ebook: a tumblr book: platform and cultures, wrote an article that focuses on the “peer education” (p. 151) that the digital platform fosters. My Tumblr participation waned in 2015 as I neared the end of my 20s, yet it seems that just as I left, an increase in collaborative activity, information sharing and circulation began within and amongst Tumblr communities, which mirrored and reverberated off the rising erratic political and social energy that continues today. McCracken sees more in the platform than just a meeting of minds: “For many youth, Tumblr has become an alternative, tuition-free classroom, a powerful site of youth media literacy, identify formation, and political awareness that often reproduces cultural studies methods of media analysis” (p. 152).

The consideration of Tumblr as a vibrant, multimodal digital space of intersecting thoughts, evolving literacies, symbiotic pedagogies and ongoing cultural critiques, evokes the New London Group’s (NLG) call for a redesign of educational approaches. Their collaborative 1996 article, "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies", radically suggests a designer-like approach to the revisioning of teaching methodologies. NLG’s focus was on the notion of multiliteracies, both “to account for the context of our culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalized societies... [and to] account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies” (p 61). Is it possible that Tumblr has organically developed into the kind of pedagogical environment that NLG was envisioning? Not only does the platform allow for the rapid exchange of cultural information, but also supports and fosters various text technologies, while concurrently allows users to design both their outward-facing persona, and their incoming feed of content. NLG further describes their technologically and culturally diverse vision:

A pedagogy of multiliteracies, by contrast, focuses on modes of representation much broader than language alone. These differ according to culture and context, and have specific cognitive, cultural, and social effects… Multiliteracies also creates a different kind of pedagogy, one in which language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes (p. 64).

In a current reality where we are constantly balancing our mindless technological obsessions with news-induced anxiety and wellness sentiments, it’s exciting to see that the space within a social media platform echoes, cultivates and carries forward a radical call for change from our recent past.

Whether used as a “backchannel” (2018, p. 363) within a formal education setting, as Melanie E. S. Kohnen advocates for in "Tumblr Pedagogies", or simply integrated into one’s recreational learning routine, Tumblr affords its participants with a space to explore content, learn socially, and connect to other likeminded individuals and their own sense of self.

This week, I chose to read and focus on the last three articles (Wysocki, Sheppard, and Ball). I definitely based this decision off of what the titles suggested, choosing to spend the most time considering ideas and arguments that would benefit my progression as a scholar more so than as an instructor (primarily because I am currently not involved in teaching). Wysocki’s “awaywithwords” was immediately interesting to me because of the design choice she made in the title itself and I was curious to see what she meant by “Unavailabe Designs.” I read Sheppard’s article because I found the direction of looking beyond skill in rhetorical work intriguing and wanted to learn more about his experience creating a multimodal website about the environment for children. Finally, Ball’s article stuck out to me via title as well, seeing as throughout every creative writing class I have taken, we were told to “show, not tell” and was curious to see how this could be applied to multimodal productions that usually tend to rely on the visual anyway. 

The arguments produced in each article intersect with what we’ve read in class because they strongly urge for the use of multimodal literacy in scholarly work, as well as attempting to guide the reader through ways to best accomplish this. Wysocki’s discussion of material, most notably when she says, “that it is always worth asking how our materials have acquired the constraints they. Have and hence why, often, certain materials and designs are not considered available for certain uses” (303), harkens back to our conversation about multimodal pieces being more than just technology. This is significant for me and what I am planning, as my final project is a physical piece. Not quite construction paper and crayon, but it uses material that would not be associated with what I am trying to do. (I’m being vague on purpose.) The Sheppard article falls neatly into the concept of collaboration that we have talked about, in which the use of rhetorical devices when making his website often conflicted with his own ideas and the reception of the audience, or between him and the scientists he was working worth. The collaboration process for multimodal texts works between both the creator/author and the audience, as the both change and interpret the text based on their preconceived ideas. Ball also works with items mentioned in class, mostly in regard to thinking beyond just text as the only form of scholarship. I specifically liked how detailed the author went into the “Digital Miltiliteracies” text and how she showed us the different rhetorical devices and concepts instead of just telling us what they were. While working outside of the academic box has its risks, Ball explains the benefits and necessities to doing so fairly well. 

🚀 Discover Japanese in Unexpected Ways! 🚀 Sometimes, a simple word search leads to fascinating discoveries! In this post, I share how a random search introduced me to Japanese business novels and new learning insights. Have you ever tried this method? 🤔✨ #JapaneseLearning #LanguageDiscovery

I’ve been consistently posting for two months, but today, I’m taking a moment to reshare a post from 2022 that still holds true for me. One of my favorite ways to explore Japanese is by diving into random searches and seeing where they take me—sometimes leading to unexpected discoveries, like the book I found in this post. If you’re looking for a fun way to engage with Japanese, try this method!…

Reflecting on the past few weeks of the course, I have been thinking a lot about my high school experiences and how many of them did not engage me in multiliteracies learning beyond Overt Instruction. In many of the classes at my high school, students were taught right from the textbook. The teacher would teach their content, writing notes on the board or projecting them onto a screen from an overhead projector. Students would take notes on what the teacher was saying – usually copying verbatim from the board or projector – and then the class would move on either to worksheets, individual reading, or textbook questions. While some of my teachers would include more creative projects or analysis and application of the lessons through group activities, most of the classes were about taking notes and then completing questions.

Even when my teachers planned interactive activities, like dramatic re-enactments of texts in English, there was not often an opportunity to connect what we were learning in class to our lived experiences. For instance, in grade twelve English, my teacher had us write and perform dramatic Dr. Phil-style skits about the play Hamlet and the family relationship between Polonius, Laertes, and Ophelia. The teacher had us write these skits using the text as a guideline, which engaged us in the application of the text’s events to a new context to assess our understanding. This activity was fun, but I did not find much meaning in it, as we were connecting the text to a real-world circumstance that did not have any significance for me. I did not watch Dr. Phil, and so the teacher’s use of Transformed Practice and the context she chose did not help me to learn the content. While this activity reinforced the events that were happening in Hamlet, the connections that my group and I made to the real world did not do any work to develop our understanding. Instead, they acted as another way for us to bolster our rote memory of the text’s events.

In some of my other classes, my teachers aimed to make use of Critical Framing. The critical analysis that teachers asked us to complete inspired text-to-text connections and did not often move beyond the realm of the classroom or the school. My teachers did not usually ask us to interrogate the texts for power dynamics or biases. We critically read and analyzed literature to learn more about characters or themes. For example, when we read To Kill a Mockingbird in grade nine, we discussed its themes surrounding racial justice, but this conversation did not move beyond the classroom and the content of the text. Our whole discussion focused on the text’s world and what occurred in it. We did not interrogate how the racial injustices in To Kill a Mockingbird are still present in today’s society. We also did not discuss the biases inherent in the book due to Harper Lee being a white woman, nor did we discuss its use of the white saviour trope. As Ginette Roberge writes, “To become critically aware readers, students must move beyond simple comprehension of text to a deeper understanding of the underlying meanings, a critical reflection on the text’s purpose and an awareness of the techniques used to influence the reader” (Ontario Ministry of Education, What works, 2013, p. 2). The skills of examining a text’s purpose and the goals an author had when writing it were ones I briefly got to exercise while studying George Orwell’s 1984 in grade eleven, but I did not deeply engage with these ideas and develop these skills until I entered into my postsecondary degree.

As I have made clear, most of my high school experience consisted of Overt Instruction with limited Critical Framing and Transformed Practice. Even when our teachers introduced new topics, they did not often use Situated Practice or draw on students’ funds of knowledge. The teachers related most of the new concepts introduced to previous content we covered. They did not often include student experiences, and there was very little focus on differentiated instruction. The vast majority of my teachers did not make use of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). When we had assignments, there were no choices; everyone had to do the same work. In daily instruction, most of our time was spent taking written notes either from the board or an overhead projector and then completing worksheets or textbook questions. Teachers occasionally showed videos, but for the most part, our learning was text-based and required strong reading and writing skills from all students. Students who did not enjoy this teaching style had to struggle through it.

One notable exception to all of the experiences I discussed above is the French teacher I had for all four years of high school. While we did some note-taking in her class, she also had us reading texts aloud, she would show us videos and have us listen to music, and her final projects always offered a choice of several activities. She focused on two of the key tenets of UDL, which are “universality and equity” and “flexibility and inclusiveness” (Ontario Ministry of Education, Learning for all, 2013, p.14). My French teacher focused on providing multiple forms of engagement, representation, and action and expression for her students (for a further explanation of how teachers can do this, see the CAST chart below). We used to read one French novel each year, and we always had meaningful, critical discussions when we read these texts. We would analyze the textual events, but we would also connect them directly to what we were learning about French society in the class. In grade twelve, we participated in debates about serious issues like animal testing and women’s rights. These debates forced us to critically analyze power structures in society and make use of our spoken French to debate our side of the issue. The students cared about these issues, so we were very involved in the work and learned a lot from it. Due to our teacher’s varied and challenging activities, French class was always engaging, and I had to work hard to succeed. However, I always wanted to put this work in, as I felt that it was meaningful and worthwhile. In some of my other classes, I worked hard, but I was not as engaged and was instead doing the work to finish it and get a good grade.

Overall, my high school experiences offer me a lot of guidance when I think about designing lessons for the students that I will teach. I recognize the importance of making use of Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice, and I aim to make sure that my lessons regularly make use of all of these types of literacies. Further, I want to make sure that I am regularly thinking about differentiation and aiming to make use of UDL in my lesson designs. I find it helpful to keep the diagrams I included throughout this post in front of me while lesson planning so that I can refer to them and ensure that I am inclusive of all students’ needs.

References

CAST. (2018). Universal design for learning guidelines [Infographic]. http://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (n.d.). The “how” of multiliteracies across the curriculum [Infographic]. https://newlearningonline.com/multiliteracies/theory

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). Learning for all: A guide to effective assessment and instruction for all students. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/LearningforAll2013.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). What Works? Research into Practice: Promoting critical literacy across the curriculum and fostering safer learning environments. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/WW_PromotingCriticalLiteracy.pdf

As I have delved into an exploration of what multiliteracies pedagogy is over the last few weeks, it has become clear that a lot of the educational issues that are important to me are integral to multiliteracies pedagogy and multimodal meaning-making. Some of the most important thoughts I bring to my educational practice involve how to make lessons accessible to students, how to engage different sorts of learners, and how to make use of diverse resources. Multiliteracies theory acknowledges the importance of all of these issues and places them at the forefront of pedagogical consideration.

Since beginning this course, there have been three main considerations in my mind. The first is a quotation from an article about literacy education by Christianna Alger. She writes, “effective teaching requires a commitment to engage both head and heart” (Alger, 2007, p. 620). This quotation in particular stood out to me because it applies to both students and the educators who design lessons for them. Educators need to engage the heads and hearts of their students in addition to engaging their own heads and hearts in finding resources, lesson planning, and the in-class process of education. As multiliteracies pedagogy points out, it is essential to inspire students by providing them with interesting content, and it is necessary to also engage their hearts so that they have an emotional stake in their education and a desire to succeed. This is a fairly obvious point to educators; we want students to feel engaged in the work they do in the classroom.

However, when I considered this quotation as it applies to educators, how to think through and apply some of the important and more novel aspects of multiliteracies pedagogy became clearer to me. For instance, multiliteracies pedagogy emphasizes educators being able to make purposeful choices from their repertoires of content and knowledge to create multimodal lessons (Kalantzis & Cope, 2019). When I think about this point in relation to Alger’s quotation, it becomes evident that it is and will continue to be essential for me to check in with myself as an educator and ensure that my knowledge (my head) is up to date on the latest pedagogical theories and technologies available to me. In addition, I need to regularly self-reflect to ensure that my heart is in the right place. I must make the right choices for my students when planning lessons. This involves several considerations, including meeting students’ diverse needs, having the compassion to ensure that my lessons will be manageable without placing undue stress on my students’ mental or emotional wellbeing, and making sure that I come to my classroom as an educator committed to anti-racist and inclusive practices.

That last point about inclusivity leads me to the second concern I have been reflecting on, which is equity in multimodal education. Multimodal pedagogy involves teaching using various forms of meaning-making and allowing students to submit assignments that make use of these various modes too. These modes can be text-based, oral, visual, spatial, and/or gestural (Kalantzis & Cope, 2019). This includes digital content like videos, audio recordings, or digital artifacts, spatial or movement-based activities like those often used in drama, and more traditional written artifacts. However, it is essential to consider the fact that students have differential access to and knowledge-bases concerning technology. Many students, especially those from lower-income families, do not have access to a wide variety of technologies in their homes. I am especially cognizant of this fact, as my mother has been a primary/junior educator in a low-income neighbourhood for over thirty years. She always has to consider her assignments carefully, as most of her students do not have access to technology that would enable them to film videos at home, create audio recordings, or even type assignments. This situation became especially clear in March 2020 when all learning suddenly became virtual. Many of my mother’s students did not have the resources to attend synchronous lessons online; some did not even have access to the Internet at home.

Due to my familiarity with these sorts of situations and their prominence even in our increasingly digital world, I recognize that assignments must provide options so that students can not only use the modes of meaning-making that work best for them but can also use the ones that are most accessible to them. This issue of access is just one of the many equity issues that are at the forefront of my mind. I want to ensure that my classroom functions as a safe space for students of all genders, races, sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds, and socioeconomic classes. I believe in the inherent value and potential of every student and want them all to flourish in my classroom. Teaching using multiliteracies pedagogy, and making use of multimodal pedagogy, will enable me to regularly consider my practices.

Finally, I have been thinking a lot about modes of pedagogy and how to consistently move beyond mere content delivery in my instruction at the secondary level. As Kalantzis and Cope (n.d.) note, there are four approaches to pedagogy. These involve progressive pedagogy, which is about student experiences, traditional pedagogy, which involves overt instruction, critical pedagogy, which is about student analysis of content, and applied learning, which focuses on transformed practice and applying learned concepts to new contexts.

As my main teachable subject is English, I will likely be working in a high school English classroom, which I believe provides myriad opportunities for moving beyond overt instruction. While I recognize that certain topics will require me to deliver a traditional lesson to provide students with the ideas and terminology they need to explore topics in English, I want to focus on critical analysis of texts and the application of ideas to new contexts through discussion in my classes. When I worked as a teaching assistant leading two tutorials on Shakespeare’s Histories and Tragedies, I liked to use multimodal methodologies in my lessons, even though I did not realize at the time that I was using this pedagogical framework. One activity that I found worked extremely well for engaging my small group of post-secondary students was to show them several clips of one scene from different productions of a Shakespearean play. We would then compare these clips to the students’ imaginings of what went on in the scene as they read the plays, and I would record their observations on the board. I had prompting questions prepared to get them talking, but would mostly allow the students to engage with one another and focus on whichever aspects of the production interested them. 

What I found from implementing these lessons was that my students were far more engaged and got a lot more out of the content when they could bring their perspectives to the videos and speak to one another about them. These lessons were very exciting for me and my students. The students told me they liked seeing the videos and were better able to understand the plays by watching scenes, which was something they did not do in the weekly lectures. I enjoyed getting to hear my students’ perspectives on the course content. What this proved to me is that, while overt instruction has its place, students respond very well to activities that ask them to analyze content and apply their knowledge. These multimodal methods of instruction are enjoyable for students while helping them to develop a variety of literacy-related skills. If I get the opportunity in practicum, I would like to try activities like these with my secondary students.

Overall, right from the outset of this course, it is clear to me how important multiliteracies and multimodal pedagogy is for both educators and their students. However, as Alger (2007) notes, expressed commitment to literacy instruction does not always lead to committed action. I plan to keep this idea in mind when I begin my teaching placement in November to ensure that I am thinking about issues of literacy, equity, and engagement, in addition to the development of critical literacy skills in my students as I teach.

References

Alger, C. (2007). Engaging student teachers’ hearts and minds in the struggle to address (il)literacy in content area classrooms. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(8), 620-630. http://www.jstor.com/stable/30139625

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (n.d.). The “how” of multiliteracies: Recruiting four pedagogical traditions [Infographic]. Newlearningonline.com. https://newlearningonline.com/multiliteracies/theory

While reflecting on the course readings about multiliteracies and the importance of multimodal teaching in the classroom, I have been thinking about how these pedagogical methods reflect the ethical responsibilities of teachers in Ontario. As a summary of this reflection process, I made this chart that examines how multiliteracies and multimodal teaching will enable me to fulfill the Ontario College of Teachers’ ethical standards for educators.

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU6Pfja-FLM

The multimodel resource I have chosen is a short film created by a student using adobe Flash. 

Literacies in a participatory, multimodal world: The Arts and Aesthetics of Web 2.0. Language Arts, 88(1), 43-50.