Authoring Selves: Children’s Multimodal Composing Practices

• In Event: Harnessing Agency: Children and Youth Translanguaging and Playing With Multimodal Literacies

Abstract

This paper discusses the language and literacy practices of young children. It draws on a year-long ethnographic case study of three emergent bilinguals during their second grade year. Data was collected in two dual language bilingual (Spanish/English) education classes biweekly during their literacy blocks. Data consists of field notes, reflective, semi-structured interviews with teachers and families, and collection of artifacts of children’s work. Student artifacts and other data generated during literacy events (Heath, 1983) were analyzed in-depth using multiple lenses. The children’s participation in literacy practices within the classrooms was considered in asking how the literacy curriculum builds on or negates the multiple identities that children negotiate and take up and the playful ways in which the authoring of selves is afforded space by classroom practices.

This work is grounded in multimodal theories of literacy (Author 5, 2006; Wohlwend, 2011) and critical sociocultural perspectives on language and literacy research, with the assumption that language and literacy learning is situated and shared meaning making that is both interpretive and interactional (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998; Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007). This framing emphasizes the multiple sign systems and modes of communication and representation through which meanings are expressed to produce, transform, and make sense of the world.

Findings indicate that children’s participation in school literacy varied. Children’s textual play showed they were innovative and transformative (Kress, 2003) as creative actors. Literacy curricula were in some ways inflexible and did not consistently support children’s textual play and talk about texts. While classroom practices drew upon multimodal approaches, such as shared storytelling, drama, and visual art, these creative practices were infrequent and held less weight and value within the verbocentric educational discourse.

The significance of this work is threefold: educators might design more responsive pedagogies that draw upon children’s experiences and inquiries and interests to spark talk and text-making. Second, children’s classroom space for authoring could be expanded by allowing more time for meaningful discussions in multiple languages and multimodal creation. Finally, it re-imagines school literacy to maximize children’s participation through open-ended and playful activities. Both use of “transmediation," translating from one sign system to another (Author 5, 2006) and “translanguaging,” or the use of multiple discursive practices (García, 2008), offer generative possibilities for emergent bilinguals as they make sense of, represent, and investigate their selves and their worlds.

Author

• Lorraine Theresa Falchi, Teachers College, Columbia University