Students' Visual Literacy and the Challenges for Multimodal Meaning-Making

• In Event: Photo/Voice, Film, and Visual Literacy in Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of an empirical case study on multimodal texts at a public junior high school exploring students’ readiness in multimodal meaning making. Addressing the question of how students achieve synergy across modes when creating a multimodal text, it was found that students’ multimodal literacy requires skills that could be developed at individual as well as group level by engaging them in empirical actions. Artistic choices in the majority of drawings seemed less connected to the text and more connected to the naturalistic characteristics of elements. Students failed to represent the ‘big idea’ of their multimodal text and making intentional choices of linguistic and visual elements to represent this idea.

Authors

• Agni Stylianou-Georgiou, University of Nicosia

• Eliza Pitri, University of Nicosia