Senses, Emotions, Memories, and Associations in Multimodal Intergenerational Text-Making: The Promise of Phenomenology for Literacy Studies

• In Event: Intergenerational Contexts of Multiple Languages and Literacies

Abstract

This paper is based on a case study using ethnographic methods of the design and implementation of an intergenerational multimodal curriculum. Thirteen children (ages 3.8-5 years), 2 teachers, 1 principal, and seven elders from the community met bi-weekly for the bulk of one school year to engage in multimodal projects featuring art, song, and ipads. Using a phenomenological lens, the findings support the interconnected importance of people’s senses, emotions, memories, and associations in meaning making and the opportunities created by intergenerational multimodal literacy programs. The study illustrates the affordances of an open, immaterial, and perceptual perspective on literacy practices which may be particularly apt in this age when literacies are being redefined through the digital and multimodal.

Authors

• Rachel May Heydon, University of Western Ontario

• Jennifer Rowsell, Brock University