Photo interviewing is a useful method for qualitative inquiry in classrooms and with children. The idea of photo elicitation is especially relevant when interviewing children who have preset ideas about interacting with adults. Interviewing children is complicated by the school setting, in which children perceive the researcher to be some sort of teacher. This study explores the potential of photo interviewing to get around these problems, with data from one study of children’s perceptions about classroom writing.

The authors offer a new perspective on close reading that uses a range of multimodal texts to capitalize on the visual nature of contemporary society and to support literacy within the academic disciplines. Specifically, a qualitative study explored teachers' perspectives on the use of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a practice borrowed from museum educators that replicates close reading processes, to support literacy learning within subject areas. The analysis revealed teachers' beliefs that VTS supported students' academic vocabulary development and accountable talk. In addition, the teachers felt that VTS created a safe environment for all students to participate, thus providing access to the curriculum. The authors argue that teachers can adapt VTS to help students meet the needs of 21st century communication modes as they analyze and create print and nonprint texts in different forms of media.

C hildren know that a pictogram of a man or woman indicates a restroom before they can read the words men or women. They easily manipulate icons on touch screens, interpreting their meaning often before they can explain it in words. We live in a visual world yet don't always recognize the role images can play in engaging and supporting our students. Brenda's comment is a fourth grader's enthusiastic reaction to a standards-based geology curriculum that used photography alongside traditional teaching strategies. In her classroom, photography supported science and literacy learning for acquiring knowledge and demonstrating understanding of new concepts-that is, for both receptive and productive purposes.We wanted to explore photography's role in science and disciplinary literacy teaching because we believed it had the potential, especially in inquirybased learning, to "enhance what is possible by amplifying what teachers are able to do… [and] by extending what students are able to produce as a result of their investigations" (Schiller & Tillett, 2004, p. 401). Because students are comfortable making photographs using both disposable and inexpensive digital cameras and camera phones, photography was a natural way to integrate visuals for teaching and learning. We intentionally chose to look at how photographs could help students construct multimodal Marva Cappello is an associate professor at

This article presents an illustrative case study to explore the classroom potentials of critical multimodal literacy. We feature Marcela’s multimodal response to demonstrate how she engaged with visual and textual tools for learning. Illustrative cases are especially useful to explore a particular issue and often involve in-depth analysis of qualitative data that represents theoretical constructs or significant findings. Critical multimodal literacy is a framework that we developed from a synthesis of the research literature to describe the ways that children use tools (e.g., sketches, videos) for personal meaning-making, critique, and agentive learning in classrooms. Findings from the critical analysis of a young Latina fourth-grader’s multimodal production illuminate our framework, which consists of the following four components: communicate and learn with multimodal tools; restory, represent, and redesign; acknowledge and shift power relationships; and leverage multimodal resources to critique and transform sociopolitical realities all seen through an equity lens. We conclude with implications for how this critical multimodal literacy framework can promote equitable classroom practices that expand the literacy learning of all students.

Twenty‐first century literacy requires students to analyze and create images for communication across and within academic disciplines. Thus, literacy teachers are now responsible for supporting students as they engage with visual texts. We must carefully and intentionally choose images for teaching practice and consider the reader, instructional task, and visual text complexity. This teaching tip offers support for teachers making decisions about what images to embed in their practice and includes a scale to illuminate visual text complexity based on the qualitative criteria outlined in the Common Core State Standards.