Rethinking Multiliteracies: Deaf Children Storymakers in Ghana, India, and Uganda

• In Event: Multiliteracies and Multimodality in Reclaiming Authority in Reading and Lives

Abstract

Deaf children are often marginalised in countries in the Global South, deprived of opportunities to access education through their L1, a sign language. We discuss a Storymakers project, adapting a multiliteracies resource from Finland brought into a program in four locations in Ghana (1), India (2) and Uganda (1). Taking an ethnographic perspective we investigate how the children’s semiotic repertoires were expressed through diverse multimodalities, and what experiences and understandings of multiliteracies learning and teaching were enacted. Diverse findings demonstrate how the project was adapted and taken up by children and their teachers, leveraging multimodal capacities. This research provides support for the notion of semiotic repertoires as an inclusive notion and for a flexible approach to multiliteracies pedagogies.

Authors

• Julia Gillen, Lancaster University

• Uta Papen, Lancaster University