ERIC Number: EJ824402
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Feb
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0141-0423
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Multi-Modal Redesign of School Texts
Walsh, Christopher S.
Journal of Research in Reading, v32 n1 p126-136 Feb 2009
Multiliteracies-related research is just emerging from the formal discourse of pedagogical theorising and how it may look in practice needs further exploration. This research, initiated under that warrant, presents practitioner research and the enactment of a multiliteracies curriculum with Year 8 students in New York City's Chinatown. The study describes a collaborative digital literacies project with a local contemporary arts museum where students engaged in the multi-modal redesign of school texts. First, the article outlines a move of multiliteracies theory into curriculum practice where students explored questions of Chinese-American and immigrant identities through a discourse analysis of history texts. Then, drawing on a digital gothic and hip-hop cartoon Web project, it outlines how students challenged ways their ethnic identities were positioned by drawing political satire cartoons about immigration to the United States. The project concluded with a virtual exhibition of students' artwork where they inserted their cartoons within existing educational websites using HTML and Flash. It argues that the redesigned websites are a new set of multi-modal literacy practices that allow youth to disrupt racist and exclusionary discourses they encounter in school texts and their lived experiences.
Descriptors: Art Education, Cartoons, Discourse Analysis, Art Expression, Literacy, Student Developed Materials, Student Projects, Student Publications, Web Sites, Multicultural Textbooks, Information Technology, Partnerships in Education, Reading Research
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 8
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A