Week 7: Creating Multimodel texts in the classroom

Week 7

Creating Multimodel texts in the classroom

Multimodal literacy refers to ‘meaning-making that occurs through the reading, viewing, understanding, responding to, producing and interacting with multimedia and digital texts.’ (Walsh, 2010:213). Merchant (2005) believes that children benefit from being taught ways to become more digitally literate in modern society. Admittedly I had never thought PowerPoint could be extended beyond its convention slide shows, creating an interactive book using this software has illustrated how easy it could be to incorporate ICT into literacy lessons. More importantly the software is usually is programmed into school computer systems, therefore is accessible to everyone.

There is evidence to suggest that reading digital texts require extensive skills. UKLA supports this notion, as students aged from 3-16 years of age were extensively observed using a range of skills and strategies when reading screen based texts (Bearne et al. 2007). The findings concluded that the navigation of screen-based texts frequently involved radial browsing, which differs from the conventional left to right reading process. With radial browsing, several processing skills are needed simultaneously; the research found that students were able to search for particular language, images and music to retrieve information (i.e. internet links). Pupils would also need to use a level of comprehension to obtain the information needed. Admittedly, all the skills above were required for me to create the multimodal text using PowerPoint. Walsh (2010) exclaims that National Curriculum documentation for English emphasises the importance of students reading and producing multi-modal and digital texts; arguably as multiple skills are needed and developed during the process.  

Despite this Walsh (2010) states that it ‘does not articulate clearly how these texts can be incorporated into teaching, learning and assessment’ (pp213). For instance adapting teaching to contribute to the raise of digital literacy, summative assessment is usually print-based.  Walsh (2010) also states that it is important to consider the extent to which digital technologies can be incorporated into the literacy classroom context without minimizing the importance of the ‘rich, imaginative and cultural knowledge that is derived from books.’ (Walsh, 2010: 212).

On the other hand, the creation of the multimodal text today could not only be a task for the pupils, it could also be used as a hook to engage pupils. As for some, print based texts may seem daunting, the interactive story could eliminate these potential barriers to their learning and allow particular pupils to fully access and engage in the task (Dean, 2010). Bearne and Wolstencroft (2007) also state that it is essential for children to interact within lessons as they are more likely to be motivated to learn. I would certainly use PowerPoint to create an interactive book for my class, particularly with features that allows the teacher to add text during the slideshow, perhaps during class discussions in order to capture pupil’s thoughts. 

Bearne, E. & Wolstencroft, H. (2007). Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing. Multimodal Literacy 5-11. London: Sage

Merchant, G. (2005) ‘Barbie meets Bob the Builder at the Workstation: learning to write on screen’ in Marsh, J. (2005) Popular Culture, New Media & Digital Literacy in Early Childhood. Oxon: RoutledgeFalmer

Walsh, M. (2010) Multimodal literacy: what does it mean for classroom practice?Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 33 (3) pp211 – 239