Translingual, Digital Comic Book Composing: Teacher Instructional Moves in a Multilingual, English-Medium Second-Grade Classroom

• In Event: Supporting Multilingual Learners’ Literacies Through Translingual Practices and Pedagogies

Abstract

Purpose and Framing
Classrooms in the U.S. increasingly serve students who speak multiple languages (NCES, 2023). Translanguaging pedagogies support multilingual learners’ (MLs) language and literacy development through instruction that invites use of all language resources (García & Kliefgen, 2010). Research is needed exploring how translanguaging pedagogies can be enacted in English-medium schools. To address this need, this paper explores instructional practices of second-grade teachers as they taught a unit on digital comic composing in an English-medium classroom serving MLs, including invitations for students to translanguage. Specifically, I ask: What instructional practices do second-grade teachers implement when teaching digital comic composing in a multilingual, English-medium classroom?
This study is framed by community translanguaging (Kim et al., 2021), which views translanguaging as a collaborative process in which people draw from community repertoires in a semiotic ecology. This approach rejects ideas of individualism, instead viewing “language as embodied, embedded and distributed across people, places and time” (Pennycook, 2017, p. 276). To better understand the multitude of semiotic resources composers employ as part of the community repertoire, I also draw on multimodal theory (Kress, 2010). Multimodality helps illuminate how authors draw on multiple modes, including oral, visual, and digital when composing.

Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
Data were drawn from a larger qualitative study (Miles et al., 2014) of one second-grade writing workshop located in a state that mandated English as the language of instruction. Of the 18 students in the class, eight identified as speakers of Spanish in addition to English. I collaborated with the classroom teacher to implement instruction, which included intentional modelling and invitations for student translanguaging. This study focuses on a 15-day writing unit in which students composed digital comics about a time they travelled somewhere special.
Data include daily fieldnotes, lesson plans, images of student compositions, and audio/visual recordings during the 40-minute writing period. Data analysis involved identifying all interactions involving teachers in whole-group or small-group settings. I then used constant comparative coding (Miles et al., 2014) of these data to identify instructional practices enacted by teachers.

Findings and Importance
Instructional practices implemented by teachers to support students’ translingual, digital comic composing fell into three categories: 1) traditional literacy practices, 2) digital composing practices, and 3) translingual composing practices. Traditional literacy instructional practices included: grammar and spelling support and structure/planning support. Digital composing instructional practices were: spatial mapping, discussion and modelling of multiple modal tools (e.g., audio, image), and technological support (e.g., use of search feature). Finally, translingual composing instructional practices involved: discussion around rationales for use of multiple languages, modeling use of multiple languages, and scaffolding of use of multiple languages.
Together, findings illustrate how teacher instructional moves built and drew on the multimodal, translingual community repertoire to support students’ creation of texts that adhered to traditional literacy norms but also involved creative use of multiple modes and languages. Implications for teachers of MLs are discussed, including the potential of digital comic composing for supporting student translanguaging.

Author

• Lindsey W. Rowe, Clemson University