Multiliteracies Case

Table of Contents

Introduction...................................................................................p3

Multiliteracies and a Pedagogy of Literacy...................................................p3

Reading Processes and Multiliteracies in the Classroom..................................p6

Teachers' Attitudes Towards Multiliteracies............................................... p10

Conclusion....................................................................................p13

References....................................................................................p14

Introduction

Modern Literacy theory advocates the 're-visioning' (Kellner, 2004) of education, and the incorporation of multiliteracies as an inherent feature of a new pedagogy of literacy (New London Group, 1996). This is reflected in curricula and educational policy (Mills, 2006, Fletcher, 2004, Victoria Department of Education, 2007). However, multiliteracies have not been widely implemented in the classroom, with teaching practices continuing to be dominated by the hierarchy of traditional print-based texts. Current pedagogic practices do not reflect the evolution of society brought about by multiculturalism and globalisation. My focus is to emphasise the importance of multiteracies competence and how the instruction and assessment of reading processes can be adapted to a pedagogy of multiliteracies. I conclude with how attitudes within the teaching profession can impede the incorporation of multiliteracies into classroom practice.

Multiliteracies and a Pedagogy of Literacy

'a practical and pedagogical acceptance of multiliteracies is not negotiable'

(Campbell and Green,)

The New London Group's (1996) call for the implementation of a new pedagogy of literacy that incorporates the multitude of literacies we encounter in our daily lives was a practical echo of Derrida's (1968) assertion that 'il n'y a pas de hors-texte'. Life is a meta-text, comprising a complex multiplicity of independent and interconnected literacies and there is nothing outside of it. Freire (1998) states, that in our reading processes we read not just the word, but the world; to do so we must be equipped with the skills necessary to navigate our way across a range of existing, new and nascent literacies.

Anstey and Bull (2006) define multiliteracies as comprising two categories - the multimodal, which necessitates competence with electronic, written and live literate practices (Lewis & Fabos, 2005), and the socio-cultural (Cope & Kalantzis, 2007; Luke and Freebody, 2003; Kress, 2003,) which is inherently contextual and which acknowledges the validity of new technologies and the increasing significance of social, cultural and linguistic diversity in today's world (Anstey and Bull, 2006). Traditional literacy instruction is print/paper-based, but competence solely with this medium is no longer sufficient (Mills, 2005; Winch et al, 2004) and literacy needs to be defined beyond such narrow parameters (McNabb, 1997). While these new texts are constructed and read in different ways, the reading processes involved in constructing meaning remain fundamentally transactional (Rosenblatt, 1978) with reference to both categories of multiliteracies.

Visual literacy, for example, is not a new development, although its importance has been enhanced by new technologies, but the significance of the image remains secondary (Mackenzie, 2006) to the written word, with teachers themselves being resistant to its incorporation into classroom practices (Box & Cochenour, 1994). However, the growing influence of semiotics has challenged this stance in academic circles, and critics such as Nodelman (2005) and writers such as Tan and Sendak have elevated the status of the picture book in the classroom. The literacy practices involved in reading such texts can be utilised when reading electronic and multidimensional texts in which the image has assumed a prominence (Unsworth, 2002) equal to, if not more important than, the printed word. Images are read differently to words, exciting imaginative, cognitive, experiential and intertextual effects (Walsh, 2006). While part of the visual reading process concerns articulating the impact of the image, as important is the process of reading the image itself, and how this affects the inferential and schematic dimensions of the reading process. How we read, not simply what we read, has significant implications for our reading of cybertexts, which are a complex and multimodal evolution of the picture book.

Multiliteracies are more than simply the incorporation of multimodal approaches to the teaching of literacy competence using different technologies. The socio-cultural element of multiliteracies concerns how and why we read the world. However, these are complementary, not conflicting, perspectives of reading. Any reading process is about making meaning. Readers are not passive receptacles for inflexible, given meanings, while texts are not fixed but subject to different, or re-, interpretations. In the realm of multiliteracies it is clear that texts are manifestations of Discourse (Anstey & Bull, 2006; Fairclough, 1992; Knapp & Watkins, 2005), which positions readers socially, politically and culturally. Discourse is hegemonic and ideological (Pecheux, 1982), and is a transactional process (Rosenblatt, 1978; Weaver, 2002) combining interdiscursivity (Foucault, 1995; Fairclough, 1992) and intertextuality (Kristeva, 1996) to which we bring all our experience (Butt et al, 2000).

This is recognised and articulated in the New London Group's concept of Design, which is a central feature of all reading processes and which takes into account the different transtextual and intertextual experience of readers in their construction and transformation of meaning. The instruction and assessment of reading should account for differences in meaning with reference to differences in purpose, an interaction that is a socio-cultural dynamic contingent on readers' (and teachers') awareness of their own literacy identities (Beavis; Cole, 2003) and their capacity to make meaning, not just of a print-based text, but of the multitude of texts and contexts that comprise their existence.

Reading