"Save Our School": Children's Critical Digital Literacy Work in an Embattled School

• In Event: 18.070 - Interrogating the Multiple Meanings of Digital Literacies

Abstract

In this paper I offer an analysis of a set of digital videos created by children participating in the final year of a 4-year critical digital literacies project. The videos, composed by groups of children and viewed by decision-making adults, were part of a schoolwide effort to “save” their public charter school from closure. The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of this work are in critical digital literacies (Author 3; Merchant, 2007; Author 3). At Esperanza Elementary (all names are pseudonyms), I attempted to ensure that the digital literacy tools, practices, and artifacts in use were not simply replicating existing non-digital ones, but were instead fostering space for new critical practices to emerge from children’s complex engagements with multimodal expression (Jewitt, 2006; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001; Kuby, 2013; New London Group, 1996). One such practice in relation to digital texts is consideration of audience; in this project, teachers and I asked children to make videos to show to their peers, teachers, families, school board officials, and local politicians—real, local audiences (Bedard & Fuhrken, 2011; Comber, 2016).

To analyze these videos, I asked: 1) Which affordances of multimodal digital composing do children exploit and to what effects? 2) Within the overall “Save our School” message, what do interviewees and student producers value about the school? What rhetorical strategies do participants use? And 3) What critical digital literacy practices do children’s videos index? Data sources included 21 digital videos with a “Save our School” message, made by groups of students (from 2-5 students per group); pre- and post-video surveys of students; students’ written work; and 18 in-depth post-interviews with students. To begin to understand the ways children exploited the affordances of various modes in their video making process—and in the artifacts themselves—I started by creating multimodal transcripts of each video (Flewitt, Hampel, Hauck, & Lancaster, 2008; Hull & Nelson, 2005).

I then relied on several multimodal analysis approaches (Siegel & Panofsky, 2009). To answer question one about the ways children exploited the affordances of the video making process, I categorized the modes used and drew key examples from the 21 multimodal transcripts. To answer question two, I focused on the video interviews (of peers, teachers and parents) that students used in their digital videos, and on students’ written texts. I conducted an initial thematic analysis using traditional inductive methods (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). I identified major themes about the school’s value to community members, parents, employees, and students; I also identified the rhetorical strategies used by participants. To answer question three, I broadened my analytic gaze to capture, and categorize, the critical digital literacy practices children used within this project (including, but not at all limited to, relying on the aforementioned rhetorical strategies). Findings suggest that such critically aware multimodal projects can foster powerful texts that showcase innovative and sometimes risky language and literacy practices. The study highlights the need for continued engagement with multimodal authorship for real purposes in school.

Author

• Jessica Zacher Pandya, California State University - Long Beach