Multimodal Composing in Classrooms ─ Learning and Teaching for the Digital World

Miller and McVee (learning, instruction, and literacy studies, U. of Buffalo, State U. of New York) encourage teachers and other educators to rethink literacy and literate practices and engage in new literacies, which go beyond linguistic texts and draw on multiple modes. They present nine cases from US education scholars who describe the composition of multimodal texts and the opportunities and limitations this creates in elementary through graduate settings. Examples are discussed such as the responses of preservice and inservice teachers when exploring digital technologies and literacies in a teacher education course; the use of digital videos, including multimodal composing in a music video; hyper-text slides; and a multimodal poetry project. They illustrate six components of this practice: developing a new literacies stance, initiating a social space for mediation of collaborative composing, co-constructing a sense of purpose for students' multimodal composing, drawing on and encouraging students to draw on their identities and lifeworlds, making design elements explicit as meaning-making tools, and supporting embodied learning through students' translating symbolically with modes. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Suzanne M. Miller is Chair, Department of Learning and Instruction, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

Mary McVee is Associate Professor, Literacy Studies and Director, Center for Literacy and Reading Instruction, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.