Rethinking Composing in a Digital Age: Authoring Literate Identities Through Multimodal Storytelling

Abstract

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.

Teachers’ Perceptions about Teaching Multimodal Composition: The Case Study of Korean English Teachers at Secondary Schools

“…They all knew that outside the classroom students were exposed to new texts and resources, whereas in the traditional classroom paper and pencil were the primary tools used for the purpose of conveying messages. These findings are consistent with those of a number of researchers (Hughes & Narayan, 2009;Thompson, 2008;Vasudevan, Schultz, & Bateman, 2010); Specifically, the teachers' comments revealed their perception that students were more likely to participate actively in collaborative projects and reflective learning practices, demonstrating the essential features of willingness and enthusiasm.…”

Squaring Literacy Assessment With Multimodal Design

“…but by relatively mundane forms of information retrieval" (p. 92): the antithesis of design. Notwithstanding a substantial research literature that documents and celebrates some youth designfully expressing a digital "voice" to personally and socially transformative effects (e.g., Alvermann, 2008;Hull, 2003;Hull & Katz, 2006;Pleasants, 2008;Vasudevan, Schulz, & Bateman, 2010), we see that the multimedia texts young people create can often be mere assemblages of words, images and other resources casually appropriated online via some hastily chosen search terms and a few mouse clicks.…”

Constructing the Literate Child in the Library: An Analysis of School Library Standards

“…As Vasudevan et al (2010) found, when given the opportunity to work outside of the school space and to bring students' out-of-school lives into school projects, students were able to resist dominant notions of success. Therefore, I argue that both practitioners' and scholars' conceptions of inquiry, engagements with texts, and social responsibility practices must be widened.…”

“…In outlining such precise steps for the research stage of inquiry (New York City School Library System, n.d., p. 21), for example, the standards suggest that students may be deemed successful inquirers if they merely complete inquiry assignments by finding the right answers. However, these narrowly focused assignments might not be inclusive of student knowledge, heritage, and interests (Vasudevan, Schultz, & Bateman, 2010). Consequently, the funds of knowledge (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014) and interests that these students bring to the library may not be recognized.…”