Cultivating Selves Through Multimodal Engagement

• In Event: Aesthetics of Multimodal Play: Exploring the Expressive Creativity of Court-Involved Youth

Abstract

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
--Marcel Proust

Appiah (2006) captivates us with this belief that “cosmopolitanism is universality plus difference” (p.83). This notion of cosmopolitanism allows us to recognize a new space for community and forms of civic engagement and to discuss opposing and alienating values to construct a global ethic. As such, this idea proposes that education should shape students for global communities as well as the local thereby preparing students for life in the world. It highlights the need to cultivate a space where we value differences and use dialogue to connect with others and open opportunities to learn something new (Appiah, 2006).

These frameworks of cosmopolitanism have been an ethos of the media literacy workshop in the afternoon school program, where the workshop is designed to see the old with new perspectives—à la “making the strange familiar and familiar the strange” (Spiro, 1990). In this presentation, a particular focus will be on collage work done with participants that grew out of documenting this afterschool program’s “Family Night.” As a monthly ritual, “Family Night” invites youth participants and their families and friends to come together at the program for food and recognition awards for youth’s achievement. At several of these events, the youth were given flip cameras and digital still cameras to document and capture memories around them. These artifacts were then made into printed images that were used by participants to create collages. Through the youth’s collaboration in documenting, repurposing, remixing, and analyzing the artifacts, these assorted activities have nurtured a space for different narratives and awareness to emerge.

In considering the diversity of what youth know and learn and what they say and do, this presentation explores the ways in which multimodal play (Vasudevan, Dejaynes, & Schmier, 2010) —e.g., using media and producing art collage-- and interaction --e.g., analyses, discussion, and interviews-- cultivated different ways for youth to make meaning in social, cultural, and educational contexts. This conceptualization of educational cosmopolitanism, Hansen (2010) reflects, “can assist people in cultivating thoughtful receptivity to the new and reflective loyalty to the known” (p.1). Data analyzed for this presentation include discussions that took place during the production of collages, individual interviews with participants who attended Family nights and participated in the collage projects, and field notes. This paper will highlight the importance that multimodal play to inspire youth and educators to read, to listen, to understand, to explore, and to self-identify in multiple ways.

Author

• Ahram Park, Teachers College, Columbia University