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

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Papers in this session explore ideas around youth, media, aesthetics, and literacies through analyses of multimodal artifacts --videos, images, collages, audio-- produced by youth in various digital arts and literacies workshops held at an alternative to detention program in New York City. Multimodal play (Vasudevan, Dejaynes, & Schmier, 2010) is the common thread across the presentations and illuminates ways for youth to examine and redefine identities, as well as co-create and interact within the learning communities of this afterschool space. Engaging court-involved youth, ages 12-to-16 years old, in writing, media production, and media literacies, the presenters in this session draw from an ethos of cosmopolitanism (Appiah, 2006, Hansen, 2010) and aesthetic response as authentic learning (Graham, 2007).

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Section 4: Arts, Youth, and Action

Chair

• Lalitha M. Vasudevan, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• Documenting Self: “Behind the Scenes” of a Digital Storytelling Project - Kristine Rodriguez Kerr, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Examining Modal Resources in Youth Video Production - Melanie Hibbert, School of Continuing Education, Columbia University

• The Power of Imagery as Aesthetic Response - Lydia Peace Browne, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Cultivating Selves Through Multimodal Engagement - Ahram Park, Teachers College, Columbia University