Writing as Insiders: The Contradiction of Narrowed Meanings Within Expanded Expressions

• In Event: Critical and Social Justice Inquiry Through Curriculum Practices in the English Language Arts Classroom

Abstract

Abstract. Research continues to call for the expansion of literacy instruction to connect to the fluid and dynamic realities of authentic literacy enactments in formal and informal spaces. This paper examines one approach to teaching multiliteracies within a literacy methods course for preservice teachers (PSTs) including explicit exploration of multimodal and digital meaning-making. The contradictory results illustrate how increasing emphasis on these dimensions of literacy expanded PST beliefs and instructional practices in isolated ways that limited full recognition of the diversity of experience encompassed within multiliteracies. Implications for teacher education include the need for explicit and integrated approaches to multiliteracies embedded within literacy instruction, so that innovation may confront, rather than reinforce, inequities.

Author

• Lindsay M Stoetzel, Ferris State University