From the original performances of Shakespeare's plays and the illustrated title page of his First Folios, to the current day use of YouTube, mobile phones and tablets, multimodal texts have been apparent across Western cultures. The rapid development over the last 20 years of technology has markedly increased access to a much broader array of…

Utilizing a New Literacies Studies framework, this article presents critical lessons in film production from a multiple site case study. Examples of children's classroom experiences demonstrate how filmmaking and play come together in a process of storying--a collaborative and multimodal approach to text composition. Students in both preschool and…

Zhao (2009) notes that when people are intrinsically motivated, they will become courageous. By inviting texts that students value into literature classrooms, educators can reconcile the sometimes seemingly disparate goals of engagement and accountability. Our work with preservice teachers revealed an intersection between motivation and new…

21st Century students need a complex set of skills to be successful in a digital environment. Digital literacy, similar to traditional definitions of literacy, is a set of skills students use to locate, organize, understand, evaluate and create information. The difference is that it occurs in an environment where a growing set of digital tools…

While recognizing that digital access is not evenly distributed in the United States, which is to say nothing of the global distribution, one can safely say that this transformation is already here; people are already at the moment in which the ability to use social media, and particularly social media as amplified through the power of the mobile…

This paper draws on data collected at the Kitengesa Community Library in Masaka District of Uganda to discuss some of the different literacies that are important in African environments. First, the literacies associated with different languages are analysed, these being classified as "supralanguages" (English in Uganda), "lingua…

The everyday reality of children's multilingualism is a significant resource for expanding students' perspectives on the world, but many questions remain regarding the negotiation of these resources in mainstream classrooms. Drawing on research from a long-term Canadian study of multiliterate pedagogies, this paper explores mediation of home…

The lack of strong literacy skills and practices among students is perhaps the clearest indicator that the education system continues to leave millions of children behind. To advance the reading, writing, and speaking skills of middle and high school students, this study examines a professional development model that brought trained…

Our purpose in this paper is to foreground contextual issues in studies of situated writing practices. During a year-long case study in a rural Kenyan secondary school, we applied a number of ethnographic techniques to document how 32 girls (aged 14-18 years) used local cultural and digital resources (i.e., donated digital cameras, voice…

The V-SPACE project equipped English teachers with iPads as tools to create and maintain virtual spaces for their students. Teachers learned effective ways to integrate technology with English content while strengthening technological knowledge and pedagogical skills. In a summer institute, 29 high school teachers were trained, using their iPads,…

New literacies have many functions in schools and learning, but science and mathematics education are among the contexts where their full potential has yet to be explored. This book both illustrates and critically analyzes the practice of blogging and its possibilities for fostering different ways of communicating, interacting, learning, and…

The comprehension of multimodal texts is now a key concern with the release of the Australian National Curriculum for English (ACARA, 2010). However, the nature of multimodal texts, the diversity of readers in classrooms, and the complex technological environments through which multimodal texts are mediated, requires English teachers to reconsider…

This paper positions local literacy issues against a backdrop of increasing global ethnolinguistic diversity. National language choices are generally influenced by wider debates on the "politics of location," so decisions about language(s) associated with teaching literacy in schools tend to occur at the intersection of national and international…

Transnational youth represent an increasing demographic in societies around the world. This circumstance has amplified the need to understand how youths' language and literacy repertoires are shaped by transnational life. In response, this article presents a case study of a Mexican adolescent girl who immigrated to the United States and continued…

Background/Context: This paper theorizes and describes a program-wide pedagogical design for teacher preparation that addresses central problems related to supporting beginning teacher candidates in designing engaging classroom interactions in and across diverse contexts. Focus of Study: In particular, we aimed to support the development of…