The Role of Multimodal Texts in Support of Cultural and Linguistic Literacy Practices

• In Event: 31.090 - Radicalizing Writer's Workshop: Disrupting Monolingual Language Ideologies Through Multimodal and Multilingual Practices

Abstract

This paper describes research on writing instruction that attends to multimodality as well as multilingualism. The New London Group (1996) calls for a broader view of literacy in an increasing culturally and linguistically diverse world. Recent research provides evidence of the linguistic and cultural practices support emergent bilinguals’ engagement and academic success in the content areas (Avila, 2013; A. C. Barton & Tan, 2009; Buxton, 2006; Fránquiz & Salinas, 2013; Moje et al., 2004). It is clear that more research is needed to understand how students interact dynamically within and across different modalities (e.g., visual, audio, spatial, and/or behavioral) and the effect of their interactions on meaning-making processes (Zapata, 2013). A pending question in the literature is How does emergent bilinguals’ engagement with multimodal texts support learning and biliteracy development in distinct content areas? Using a case study approach (Stake, 1995), this paper explored ways in which one bilingual teacher in a third-grade classroom merges (bi)literacy practices in language arts, science, and social studies content and skills by introducing multimodal texts that sustain students’ varied cultural and linguistic meaning-making processes.

Theoretically, this paper uses a multiliteracies framework and a multiliteracies pedagogical approach, considering different modes in texts grounded in classrooms’ literacy practices. I also consider multimodal theory to understand how individuals interact and engage with multimodal texts. This paper also draws from dynamic bi(multi)lingual theory, where linguistic practices happen in interaction, focusing in particular on translanguaging theory.

Analysis of bilingual children as they engaged in writing and writing instructioin highlighted the role of curricular tools such as multimodal texts. Literacy practices extended to modeling through a projector; discussing in small groups; critical questioning; referring to experiential knowledge; and vocabulary learning through repetition, anchor charts, gestures, drawing to define words. I also illustrated how literacy practices worked in synchronization and texts supplemented each other. While written texts took on distributive functions to preserve or transmit disciplinary knowledge in the form of planned discourses, unplanned discourses were practiced by the teacher and students when designing and producing texts. In unplanned discourses, individuals rely on immediate context to make their messages explicit (Johnstone, 2002, p. 210). Interestingly enough, the unplanned discourses enabled dynamic and flexible practices in this bilingual classroom for content-area learning.

These findings are significant because translanguaging in unplanned discourses appears to serve the purpose of improving the balance of linguistic resources in (bi)literacy practices. Through multiliteracies, Ms. Braun was able to build a classroom space for more equitable linguistic practices. Designing and producing texts across content areas facilitated the navigation of biliteracy practices—an important skill for emergent bilingual students. The practices studied here are based on the dynamism and flexibility of language, literacy, and culture, which are crucial for the inclusion of a more humanistic and culturally sustaining pedagogy leading toward a much-needed “democratic project of schooling” (Paris, 2012) in the United States. This research offers implications for how writing teachers can structure curriculum and instruction that is responsive to bilingual children’s linguistic resources.

Author

• Lucia Cardenas Curiel, Michigan State University