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8/15/2018

What's in A Name?

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Exploring Names Through Picture Books 

A little over two years ago, I sat on the couch and intensely watched Janis: Little Girl Blue, the documentary of Janis Joplin’s life.  At the conclusion, I said to my brother, “If I ever have a little girl, I am naming her Joplin.”  
 
Joplin, of course, represented one of the most revered musicians in the world, but she was so much more than that.  She moved forward a cultural revolution in the 1960s, leaving behind a community that shunned her for her belief in racial equality.  Joplin represented strength, passion, independence, pioneer, and advocate.  All of these are traits that I could only hope would one day describe my daughter.  
 
Names carry stories, hopes, dreams, and histories. These are important and should be celebrated in the classroom.  As educators, we can encourage children to explore their stories and share them in the learning community.  These stories provide us a little more insight into who our children are, the histories they carry with them, the hopes hidden in them, and so much more. 

Exploring Our Names Through Picture Books 

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The Name Jar shares the story of a young girl, Unhei, who has just moved from Korea. The students in her school struggle to correctly pronounce her name, making her adjustment even more difficult. After going as the "no-name" girl for a while, a special friend does an act of kindness that reminds her how special her name really is.  Unhei is given a name stamp by her grandmother before leaving Korea, something that ends up bringing her and a classmate closer. 
Response: As a follow-up activity, have the students stamp their names vertically down the page.  By each letter, write an adjective that starts with each of the letters.  Hang the acrostic poems up in the classroom, giving the children time to read them and get to know their classmates. 

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Figure 1 Adjective Name Acrostic Poem

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Isabella tries on the many identities of brave and extraordinary women that she looks up to.  In the end, she learns the most important lesson from these women... be yourself! 
​Response: Have the students write about someone they look up to, someone who has influenced their lives, or why it is important to always be yourself. 

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Yoon, whose name means "shining wisdom," enjoys speaking and writing in her native language, Korean. She gets frustrated at school and no longer wants to be Yoon, ready to let go of her Korean identity.  She feels like an outsider to her American classmates until something changed in her. 
​Response: After reading the book, research the meaning of your name and discuss whether you think that meaning is a good fit or not.  

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Moe and Mo share the same name and live in the same community.  Their life experiences are both similar and different.  This book reminds us that our name is only a part of our identity.  But, there are many other facets, and it is not just similarities that allow us to connect with identities. 
Response: How do Mo and Moe's story remind us that our cultural, religious, and/or political differences can bring us together rather than divide us?  

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Sangoel, a refugee from Sudan, has to leave everything he knows behind after his father is killed in war.  The one thing he is able to bring with him is his name that has been handed down to him from his father. On top of being in an unfamiliar environment, he struggles with the mispronunciation of his name until he comes up with a creative way to teach his peers how to say it. 
Response: After reading My Name is Sangoel, draw a symbol to help others remember the pronunciation of your name.  Discuss the importance of correctly pronouncing others' names.  

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Baraka begins his life perceiving his disability as something negative that holds him and his family back.  But as his story plays out, the reader finds it hard not to look past this disability and see all of the blessings that he brings to others' lives.

​ Response: Consider Baraka's given name, Muthini, which means suffering.  Why is Baraka a better name for him? 

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Bilal and his sister move to new a school, and their Muslim religion is not accepted by their peers.  Bilal starts to think that hiding his Muslim identity is better than being bullied like his sister.  Another person on campus notices this identity struggle and gives Bilal a book that makes him rethink abandoning his name and religious identity. 
Response: Think about what inclusion means. As a class, brainstorm words that are related to inclusion.  Using a few of those words, write a short essay on the importance of making people feel included and a part of the school community.

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After moving from Taiwan to San Francisco, Na-Li, replaces her Chinese name with Hannah. This book shares the story of Hannah's adjustment while her family waits on their green cards. 

​Response: How do our names share unique stories about us? If you moved to a new location, would you change your name to match the culture of your new home or keep your name?  Explain why. 

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Hussein, whose name has been passed down to all of the men in his family, is forced to give it up when an army arrives, giving him a new identity card with the name "Henry" on it.  Hussein is forced to take on this new name, leaving behind his that carried so much meaning and so many memories. 

Response: After reading My Name Was Hussein, write about some of the memories that your name carries with you.  How would you respond if someone gave you an identity card with a new name and expected you to begin going by that identity?  

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Jorge's story is shared as he attempts to balance fitting in in a new country, while holding on to his memories and traditions from his home country.  This bilingual, poetry book illustrates the many tensions that children feel when moving to a new place. 
Response: Using My Name is Jorge on Both Sides of the River, write a poem about your name and what it means to you. 

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After being made fun for writing her name in Japanese, Yoko becomes self-conscious and decides she no longer wants to attend school.  With the support of her mother, teacher, and a few peers, Yoko learns that cultural differences can't get in the way of strong friendships. 
Response: After reading Yoko Writes Her Name discuss how font, like color, spacing, and sizing, all carry meaning.  Allow the children to use a computer to type their names in a font that represents them somehow.   When the children have finished, have them share their fonts with their peers and explain why they chose the font they chose. 

Exploring Names in Math 

1. Read a name book to your children and discuss how the main character's name and identity are connected.  
2.Minilesson: Place value addition or traditional algorithm 
3 Model: Find the value of the main character's name, using the “Value of Words” activity sheet. 
4. Together: Find the value of your name with the children. 
5. Children: Have the children find the value of their names, using the same template. 
•Allow students to use the sticky note letters to create their names.  
•Below each letter, have them write the value. 
•On the grid paper, have the children add each letter together to find the total value of their names. 
6. Students will then find a partner and find the value of their names combined. 
7. Repeat this with sets of partners/groups until you have found the value of all the names in the class together. 
​8.  Discussion: What happened to the value when we combined our names? In any community, our value increases when we work together, look out for one another, and appreciate the differences that make up our community. We are better together. 
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value_of_names_.pdf
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File Type: pdf
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The Autobiography of My Name

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Every name has a story.  This multi-genre project explores names by writing across the genres. Here is a short summary of this project.  A more in-depth explanation will follow in a later blog. 
1. Read aloud Alma and How She Got Her Name and share a small story behind your name. 
2. Listen to the following Story Corps:
https://storycorpsorg-staging.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sykes-1.mp3​
3. Explore how to conduct an interview and explain that children will be interviewing their family on the story behind their names. Go over the Name Interview with the children and give them some time to conduct this interview and dig up the many stories their names carry. 
4. As the week goes on, read Book: My Autobiography to the students.  As you read, have the children think about what their names' autobiographies would be. 
5. When the children bring back their interviews, give them each a few minutes to share some interesting ideas they learned about their names. 
6. Using the interview responses, the children will create a Multi-genre, Multi-form Name Book Autobiography:
  • Write an autobiography of your name, starting with the birth of it (even if it is before the your actual birth) and ending with the present. 
  • Free-verse Poem: Write a descriptive poem, stating what color your name would be and describing what that color symbolizes. 
  • Personal Narrative: Write your birth story using a narrative structure. 
  • Fantasy: Create a fantasy story, where the main character has your name.  Exaggerate some of your traits to make the story fantasy. 
  • Visual Representation: What does your name symbolize?  Create a visual representation to represent your name (painting, sketch, digital art, collage, etc.). 
  • Expository: What is a name? Explain why names are important and how they are more than something the teacher calls out every morning or your friends call to get your attention. 
name_interview_.docx
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File Type: docx
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Children's Literature

  • Kyuchukov, H. & Eitlen, A. (2004). My name was Hussein. Honesdale, PA: Boyd Mills Press. 
  • Martinez-Neal, J. (2018). Alma and how she got her name. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. 
  • Medina, J. & Broeck, F. V. (1999). ​My name is Jorge on both sides of the river.  Honesdale, PA: Boyd Mills Press. 
  • Mobin-Uddin, A. & Kiwak, B. (2005). My name is Bilal.  Honesdale, PA: Boyd Mills Press. 
  • Recorvits, H. & Swiatkowska, G. (2003). My name is Yoon. New York: Frances Foster Books.
  • Walters, E. & Fernandes, E. (2013). My name is Blessing.  Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra Books. 
  • Wells, R. (2008). Yoko writers her name. New York: Disney Book Group. 
  • Williams, K. L., Mohammed, K. & Stock, C. (2009). My name is Sangoel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. 
  • Yang, B. (2004). Hannah is my name. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.  
  • Yangsook, C. (2001).  The name jar.  New York: Dragonfly Books. 
  • Zalhen, J. B. & Amini, M. (2018). A moon for Moe and Mo. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge. 
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8/7/2018

Putting Identities at the Heart of Teaching and Learning

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Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it. 
Elastigirl, The Incredibles
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Figure 1 Identity X-Rays Adapted from Cultural X-Rays (Short, 2009)

The identities that we carry with us matter more than ever. They decide the spaces we are and are not allowed to enter.  They decide which borders we can cross and which we cannot.  They are a predictor of college graduation, incarceration, and even health later in life. Identities matter.  As educators, we have an ethical responsibility to make sure that our classrooms include, respect, and give voice to the many identities that enter them. 

Children bring into classrooms lived experiences, meaning-making and communicative practices, sets of skills, and customs that assist them in making sense of the social world.  Unfortunately, our education system perceives these assets children bring in as deficits (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005).  It is no secret that this neglect of our children’s cultural, social, and emotional assets is no longer holding up in non-White, linguistically-diverse, and low-socioeconomic classrooms.  Most upsetting is the detrimental effects the literacy practices being pushed off on children in schools have on the learning and developing identities of the children our system serves (Delpit & Dowdy, 2008; Gay, 2010; Lee, 2000).  

When we enter the classroom this new school year, students and educators will bring with them diverse cultural groups, lived experiences, values, languages, dispositions, and social contexts.  These may or may not align with those privileged in schools.  This is important to consider because we cannot expect children from diverse backgrounds to be motivated to engage in learning from perspectives and lived experiences that do not connect with their own.   

As Gay (2002) put it, “When academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful” (p. 106).  As a result, children will be interested in and absorb the learning more completely.   In other words, when children can connect to the experiences, history, and people presented in the teaching and learning, motivation to engage in them will increase. 

If we want to begin connecting with, learning from, and authentically interacting with the children that enter our classrooms, we have to explore the many identities they bring with them. If not, we cannot build on them. We have to set conditions early in the year to get to know our children beyond a surface level and continue that curiosity about them throughout the year, as they grow, change, and expand their perspectives. 

Freire (1998) posed the question, “Why not establish an ‘intimate’ connection between knowledge considered basic to any school curriculum and knowledge that is the fruit of the lived experience of these students as individuals?” (p. 36).  This “intimate connection” requires a reconsideration of the way we build on the identities in our classrooms and use our children’s assets to inform the teaching and learning.  In order to do that, we must get to know these identities beyond a surface level. 

Identity-Based Curricula

So what theoretical ideas ground identity-based curricula?  I turn to the work of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2009; Lee, 1997), Cultural Modeling (Lee, 2001), Funds of Knowledge (Gonzales, Moll, & Amanti, 2005), Funds of Identity (Estaban-Guitart & Moll, 2014; Estaban-Guitart, 2016) and Biography-Driven Instruction (Herrera, 2010).  All of which are grounded in the beliefs that: 
  • Students bring with them assets and expertness that should be harnessed and built on. 
  • Educators should take on positive perspectives of parents, students, and families, avoiding a deficit perspective. 
  • Students should see their lives reflected in the teaching and learning. 
  • Educators should have high expectations of all students. 
  • Educators should have in-depth knowledge of students’ lives outside of school and the content being taught in school, so the two can be interwoven.

Classroom Application 

Identity Inventory 

This past spring, I taught a graduate literacy course, Making the Literacy Connection: Language to Reading, and we explored ways of tapping into our children's Funds of Identity.  Using Esteban-Guitart and Moll's (2014) five major types of Funds of Identity,  we compiled an Identity Inventory that could be used with students of all ages. The questions position us as educators to get to know our students beyond a surface level and to begin setting conditions in our classrooms so children see their lives reflected in the teaching and learning. Since then, I have edited, added, and thought more deeply about this as a tool.  I hope that this inventory can be a starting point for you to think about the types of questions you might ask to get to know students and their families. 

​Exploring Students' Scripts Through Visual Autobiographies 

Each of use carries with us “a database of stored emotional memories that influence the way we think, feel, and behave,” which are known as “scripts” (Jennings, 2015, p. 60).   Getting to know the scripts our children bring into the classroom with them is crucial if we want to build a community where they see their lives reflected.  The following multimodal literacy and language experience opens a space to explore our many scripts and identities.
  • Using the book Artists, Writers, Thinkers, and Dreamers: Portraits of Fifty Famous Folks & All Their Weird Stuff​ by James Gulliver Hancock, explore some of the visual biographies in the book.  
  • Discuss the layout and the way sketches are positioned to share someone's life story. 
  • Have students plan out their visual autobiography, thinking about the scripts they want to share and the ones they want to leave out. 
  • ​Using photos, symbols, sketches, words, and any other visual representations, have the students create their visual autobiography. 
  • Hang them in a gallery-style format and let the children explore one another's final piece, leaving questions and comments for their classmates.
  • Use these throughout the year to plan.
  • Allow students to pull stories from this throughout the year as a pre-writing tool.   
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Figure 2 Sample of a Visual Autobiography.

Digital resources to create a digital visual autobiography:
  • Spark Adobe: https://spark.adobe.com/make/photo-collage-maker/
  • BeFunky: https://www.befunky.com/features/collage-maker/

Identity Masks

Tatum (2000) noted that identity is complex, shaped by historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. She further acknowledged that the answer to the question, “Who am I?” is one that “depends in large part on who the world around me says I am” (p. 9).  Some of our identities we choose, some we are born into, and others are given to us without our permission.  This experience positions us to think about the many "masks" we wear. 
  • ​Read aloud Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Meyers. 
  • Have students make their own I Am list. 
  • On a blank mask, write the identities from the I Am list, purposefully positioning and sizing them to represent the  weight each identity carries in the life of the composer. 
  • Hang the mask in a gallery-style format, giving the students time to explore all the identities that make up the community. 
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Figure 3 Identity Masks from the Assembly of Expanded Perspectives on Learning Conference
​Estes Park, Colorado 2018
 

​Artifactual Literacies 

Artifacts represent our many identities.  They carry with them a range of narratives that provide insight into the lives of those who the artifacts belong to.  Pahl and Roswell (2010) remind us that artifacts personify “people, stories, thoughts, communities, identities, and experiences” (p. 2).  In the classroom, artifacts can provide us insight into our children’s narratives outside of school.
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Our class has always celebrated Valentine's Day a little differently than most other classes.  Instead of bringing in decorated boxes that are ready to be filled with sweet letters and candy, we all bring an artifact that represents us in some way.  We share a short story about our artifact and lay it in the middle of the circle, celebrating US and the many stories we bring to the community. Students write a piece about their artifact to publish in the class artifact book. 
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Figure 4 Artifact Party with Fourth Graders 

​Assets Wall 

Our children bring in with them beliefs, values, customs, thinking patterns, communicative practices, and numerous other assets that make our learning communities rich and diverse.  As educators, it is important that we find out what those assets are, harness them, and begin building on them immediately.
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A great way to do this is to start the year with an Assets Wall. The children create a web, putting their names in the middle and their strengths or assets on the outside of the web. When complete, post these webs on a wall so students can access them, finding "experts" in the room when they need assistance or want to collaborate.  This wall is updated throughout the year as new students join the community, as students discover more about themselves, and as students recognize assets their peers carry with them. 
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Figure 5 Assets Wall with Fourth Graders 

A Simple Rule in our classroom is to teach and learn in every interaction.  If we are to treat children as teachers and position ourselves as learners, we have to set conditions for this type of space to emerge.  An asset wall is one that supports democratic classrooms by acknowledging that there are many experts in the room. 

​Exploring Our Roots 

Our beliefs, values, and upbringing ground and shape us as humans. Pressures from outsiders can sometimes make us lose sight of this. This text set explores these ideas, the impact they have on who we become, and how we never forget where we “came” from.
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Response
Institutions, educational, religious, and political, can make us feel like outsiders. We may have to participate or attend events, but we don’t always see our lives reflected. Write about an institution where you do see your life reflected. Write about one that you are a part of but do not see your life reflected. 

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Response
Think about some place that “you knew first”. Illustrate all of the things that you loved about that place. Use your illustrations to create a poem.

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Response
Sometimes the things we want to remember about a place don't fit in a suitcase or trunk of a car. Draw an illustration of something you would want to remember or take with you if you had to suddenly leave.

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Response
People around the world are leaving behind everything they know to seek refuge and safety. What feelings, connections, or ideas are you left with after reading this? How did this, if at all, change your perception about the current situation taking place at our borders right now?

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Sometimes people are forced to flee, leaving behind everything. Think about how the characters in these books “took” things with them. What would be important for you to take with you?  What memories of your life now would you hold on to the tightest?
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There are moments in life where we feel like we don't belong.  What does Amanda Gorman mean when she says, "Nothing that is human can be alien to me." 

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Who am I?

Who am I?  That's a question that I don't think we reflect on enough.  Who we are is not something that is static; rather it is dynamic and constantly shifting.  Every life experience that we have, or don't have, impacts our identities.  Our upbringing. The people we meet. The people we don't meet.  The trips we take.  The books we read.  All of this, and so much more, make up our many identities.  

When a new school year begins I always ask the questions, “How will I get to know the many identities that make up the classroom?” and “How will I set conditions so children see their lives reflected in the teaching and learning?”.  I hope that these multimodal, literacy experiences will assist you in getting to know children beyond a surface level, so we can build on children’s cultural, social, emotional, and economic assets, making the teaching and learning relevant and rich.

References 

  • Delpit, L. & Dowdy, J. K. (2008). The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. New York: The New Press.
  • Esteban-Guitart M. (2016). Funds of identity: Connecting meaningful learning experiences in and out of school. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
  • Esteban-Guitart, M., & Moll, L. C. (2014). Funds of Identity: A new concept based on the Funds of Knowledge approach. Culture and Psychology, 20, 31-48.
  • Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civil courage. Oxford, England: Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching (2nd ed.).  New York: Teachers College Press.
  • Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 55, 106-116.
  • Gonzalez, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Routledge.
  • Herrera, S. (2010). Biography-driven culturally responsive teaching. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
  • Jennings, P. A. (2015). Mindfulness for teachers: Simle skills for peace and productivity in the classroom.  New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
  • Ladson-Billings (2009). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. 2nd edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Lee, C.D. (2007).  Culture, literacy, and learning: Taking bloom in the midst of the whirlwind. New York: Teachers College Press.
  • Lee, C. D. (2001). Is October Brown Chinese? A cultural modeling activity system for underachieving students. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 97-141.
  • Lee, C. D. (1997). Bridging home and school literacies: A model of culturally responsive teaching. In J. Flood, S.B. Heath, D. Lapp (Ed.). A handbook for literacy educators: Research on teaching the communicative and visual arts (pp. 330-341). New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
  • Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2010). Artifactual literacy: Every object tells a story. New York: Teachers College Press.
  • Tatum, B. D. (2000). The complexity of identity: “Who am I?.” In Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Hackman, H. W., Zuniga, X., Peters, M. L. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, sexism, anti-semitism, heterosexism, classism and ableism (pp. 9-14). New York: Routledge.

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8/4/2018

Multimodality: Expanding the Communicative Landscape and Moving Beyond Linguistic Achievement

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As I continue to see the term “multimodal” float around in books, articles, and on social media, I find it hard not to join this conversation.  The past six years, I have done research on multimodal assessments and multimodal portfolios with elementary students.  I have found that by expanding our communicative landscapes in classrooms, we afford children diverse opportunities to make meaning and communicate (Lawrence, 2017; Lawrence & Mathis, 2018).  Multimodal approaches to literacies assist in expanding the communicative landscape and setting conditions that foster an inclusive community that empowers all its agents. 
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​The American public-school system has generally accepted the belief that traditional and normalized approaches to communication will meet the needs of our linguistically and culturally diverse children. This notion is legitimized and reinforced through traditional and/or behavioristic approaches to teaching and learning, “non-negotiable” demands placed on teachers by states and districts, and standardized methods of assessment.  Unfortunately, the literacies privileged in schools do not reflect the literacies privileged in the world. 
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Figure 1 Disconnect Between School Literacies and World Literacies.

Literacies privileged in schools assume that reading and writing are the means in which children interpret and create texts, demonstrate their learning and knowledge, and make meaning in society. A central issue with this narrow perspective is that it overlooks the reality of contemporary communication and assumes learning is a linguistic achievement.  I am not suggesting that school literacies and world literacies are dichotomous. It is obvious that in many of the world literacies, you will need school literacies. But, I am hoping to point out that we are sending our children into the world without important thinking patterns and skills to engage in world literacies. Empathy. Creativity. Flexibility. Innovative thinking. Compassion. Problem-solving skills. Responsibility. Leadership. Collaboration. Adaptability. Global awareness. And the list could go on. 

This fixed and outdated approach suggests that communication is unchanging and language is the only means of communication.  Despite social, cultural, and technological changes in our society, curricula and assessments that drive classrooms continue to posit “linguistic adherence” at the center (Kress, 2010, p. 7).   In an attempt to maintain a standard language that adheres to the social norms valued by those in power, American public education continues to push off practices that reduce communication to language.  Sadly as we can see, such approaches do not prepare our children for the demands of the the many literacies they face in the world. 

​What is multimodality?

Multimodality has become quite the buzz word lately, even making its way into the new Texas literacy standards. In some cases, multimodality has been reduced to integrating a photograph or Infographic into a lesson without any discussion of the modes utilized.  While photographs and Infographics are multimodal texts, we have to consider the way the composer has orchestrated the color, font, positioning, words, etc. to create a larger meaning. Utilizing a multimodal framework requires a deconstruction of modes to make meaning or a construction of modes to communicate a larger meaning.

Multimodality brings together communication, representation, and power and recognizes that language is "no longer the carrier of all meaning" (Kress, 2000, p. 339).  Multimodality expands the communicative landscape beyond language and 
assumes that representation and communication are shaped by a multitude of modes.  A mode refers to the channel of communication for a single unit of meaning.  Each mode is a channel of communication and/or meaning making and is valued differently across social and cultural contexts.  Examples of modes are colors, fonts, positioning, sizing, gestures, etc. Take this student's painting as an example. 
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Figure 2  Rinna's Great Migration Series Painting.

Rinna uses a river to divide the two girls. The girls do not have faces, a technique that Jacob Lawrence utilized. The girls are reaching for one another, almost as if they want to be together but cannot. She uses positioning to show this racial divide that's prevalent past and present. Though there are no eyes on the young girls, they both appear to be gazing at one another.  Positioning, color, and layout share a story of societal and political lines drawn between racial groups. No words were needed. 
​Modes are organized and prioritized to meet the demands of the context.  All factors, including “generation, class, region, and maybe in a newly unstable manner, gender” have effects on the modes chosen and the manner in which they are orchestrated (Kress, 2010, p. 23). Orchestration of modes is an important facet of multimodality.  When an individual intentionally organizes modes, she or he considers the interactions among the modes and how they work together to create a larger meaning, like Rinna did in her painting. 
 
If we as educators are to utilize a multimodal instructional framework, the opportunities for meaning making and communicating have to be grounded in social semiotics.  “From the point of view of social semiotics, truth is a construct of semiosis, and as such the truth of a particular social group, arising from the values and beliefs of that group” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 159). In other words, truths are dependent on the social context in which they are created and accepted. This opens a space for us to explore all the ways in which we interact, experience, and negotiate meaning-- an open system rather than as a closed system.
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Figure 3 A graphic that highlights the social and cultural influences on signs in our world. 

​This graphic does not just say “multimodality”.  Each letter shares its own story, and that story differs from individual to individual dependent on her or his cultural upbringing, lived experiences, and socioeconomic influences. These representations differ across communities and have been socially shaped over time.  Fifteen years ago, the fourth letter would have been considered by most a blue T.  Over time, it has been socially and culturally shaped. Take any of the other letters and considered how it has been socially shaped, how its stories differ from person to person, and how the color, font, and positioning all contribute the meaning each carries. 

Why is multimodality important?

The world is becoming more diverse, plural, and connected, yet current literacy practices privileged in schools continue to utilize a single mode to validate meaning-making and communicative practices (Johnson & Kress, 2003).  Not only do these practices focus on a single mode of meaning-making (reading and writing, whether oral or written), but they also assume that literacy and language are “fixed systems”-- comprised of discrete skills that can be taught and measured in isolation (Blommaert, 2010; Gibb, 2015, Pennycook, 2007).  This validation of a single mode of “literacy” and the privileging of fixed meaning-making systems, with no attempt to assess other modes or meaning-making potentials, has resulted in children not being prepared for the world outside of school, children not feeling a part of the system, and literacies being reduced to a short set of objectives written on the board. 

Our children face a world where global citizenship is going to require them to reach a global consciousness that “integrates spiritual and environmental awareness into the recognition of deeper socio-economic and technological forces” (Horesh, 2014, p. 9).  Reaching such a consciousness requires students to receive and communicate a wide range of information in a variety of forms, and instruction and assessments should reflect this. Despite informative and inspiring steps toward multimodal pedagogy, instructional, assessment, and curricular practices that reflect the majority continue to overtake classrooms, privileging the mainstream and reinforcing dominant ideologies.  As educators of our future citizens, we can no longer wait for policies to change, mandates and accountability to slow down, or district curriculum writers to posit children at the heart of teaching, learning, and assessments.  We must take it upon ourselves to make sure that the literacies we are privileging in our classrooms reflect the literacies our children face in the world. 

Professional Resources 

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References 

  • Albers, P. & Sanders, J.  (2010).  Literacies, the arts, & multimodality. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
  • Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gibb, T. (2015). Literacy and language education: The quantification of learning. New
  • Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, 146, 53-63.  
  • Johnson, D. & Kress, G.(2003).Globalisation, literacy and society: Redesigning pedagogy and assessment.  Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 10,  5-14.
  • Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design, London: Routledge.
  • Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication.  New York: Routledge.
  • Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 337-340.
  • Lawrence, W. & Mathis, J. (2018) Meeting the needs of and giving voice to linguistically diverse children through multimodal and art-based assessments. In B. Berriz, V. Poey, & A. Wager, Art as a Way of Talking for Emergent Bilingual Youth: A Foundation forLiteracy in K-12 Schools. New York: Routledge.  
  • Leonardo, Z. & Grubb, N. W. (2014). Education and racism: A primer on issues and dilemmas. New York: Routledge.
  • Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2012). Literacy and education (2nded.). London: Sage.
  • Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows. London: Routledge.
  • Serafini, F. (2014). Reading the visual: An introduction to teaching multimodal literacy. New York: Teachers College. 
  • Serafini, F. & Gee, E. (2017). Remixing multiliteracies: Theory and practice from New London to new times. New York: Teachers College.  
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    Whitney Lawrence

    This blog shares instances from my own classroom and thinking about democratic practices in the classroom. 

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