Scrapbooks, Body Biographies, and Whirligigs: Teachers Narrate Their Responses to Multimodalities for Teaching English

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Experiences of Teachers: Early Childhood and Teacher Educators

Abstract

We (a teacher educator and three English teachers) collaborated to answer the question, “What are the effects of multimodal teaching in English classes in a local secondary school on the recurring narratives of four teachers?”. Using action research in concert with narrative inquiry, we collaborated in three English classrooms to implement three multimodal activities—body biographies to study characterization, resolution scrapbooks to process plot lines, and whirligig installations to turn around the story of retribution facing the protagonist. At the completion of each activity, we came together to share our responses via reflective journals and several group conversations, which we thematically curated into both separate and intertwined narratives of teaching.

Author

• Cynthia Marlene Morawski, University of Ottawa