Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Multimodal literacy practices'

In this dissertation I present findings from a qualitative case study of five early adolescents engaged in an online programming community. As a researcher, I was interested in how early adolescents designed digital media as they learned how to code within an online programming community known as Scratch. My research was guided by two questions: (1) What are the literacy practices and processes embedded in the design and collaboration of products created within an online programming community? (2) In what ways do participants make decisions in the design of their projects created in Scratch? The data collected for this descriptive case study included participant created digital media products, interviews, observations, and online community artifacts. Based upon a content analysis of the digital media products and an inductive analysis of the interviews, observations, and community artifacts data, I determined participants demonstrated decisions connected to the design of projects created, decisions focused on the function of projects, and decisions connected with meaning. I created a typography to represent the decisions made by participants as they created projects in Scratch. Additionally, participants expressed a sense of accomplishment and expertise in Scratch product development. Findings from this research provide a nuanced understanding of the literacy practices and processes enacted by early adolescents as they create digital media in an online programming community via the use of coding.

In this thesis, I have argued that only when literacy is understood as a 'social practice and the repertoires of the students who use it considered, can a spirit of learner-centeredness be enacted in Singapore's schools. It argues that adolescents engage in multi modal textual repertoires, in and out of school, which comprise the collective assembly, production on the go, mu!titasking and fun. These findings lead to an important understanding that literacy practices may be best understood as a complex configuration of school and home practices which cannot be easily disaggregated into separable school and home practices. This thesis also suggests that literacy and learning are inseparable in social practice, regardless of the sites of their occurrences. Rather than framing school and outside school as two clearly-bounded domains of literacy practices, this thesis contends that the connection between them is captured by the relationship amongst literacy demands, practices and technology affordances. Although this thesis shows that adolescents emphasise the social affordances of digital media in their out-of-school literacy practices, it argues that their participation in these practices have enabled them to meet the demands of their school work and thus sheds light on their ways of learning, namely learning by doing and social learning. Contrary to the widely-cited view that multiliteracies are paramount in this digital age, this thesis highlights the tension in adolescents' identities in learning and suggests that traditional print- based literacy in language learning remains key to their social futures. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of New Literacy Studies, this thesis adopted an ethnographic perspective to study ten 14-year-old Chinese adolescents' literacy practices in Singapore. Data for this thesis were collected over a period of eight months from participant observations, with video-and-audio recordings, conducted in a school in Singapore, semi-structured and in- depth text-elicited group and individual interviews, the adolescents' research diaries, and their artefacts from school and out-of-school literacy practices

This practice-led project has two outcomes: a collection of short stories titled 'Corkscrew Section', and an exegesis. The short stories combine written narrative with visual elements such as images and typographic devices, while the exegesis analyses the function of these graphic devices within adult literary fiction. My creative writing explores a variety of genres and literary styles, but almost all of the stories are concerned with fusing verbal and visual modes of communication. The exegesis adopts the interpretive paradigm of multimodal stylistics, which aims to analyse graphic devices with the same level of detail as linguistic analysis. Within this framework, the exegesis compares and extends previous studies to develop a systematic method for analysing how the interactions between language, images and typography create meaning within multimodal literature.

Interest in comics as Swedish school material has risen in the last few years and the publication of comics for children and adolescents has also increased. Meanwhile, although research around new literacies has taken an interest in combinations of image and text, there is still little research on comics as a literacy material, especially as part of school practices. With comics’ rise in popularity, and their quality as examples of new literacies, this points to the relevance of exploring how meaning making with comics is done in schools. The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge on how locally situated literacy practices are done, practices in which pupils and teachers make meaning with comics. The study combines literacy, comics and discursive psychology to investigate aspects of literacy not as individual, inner workings, but as part of participants’ social constructions, in line with New Literacy Studies. With this perspective, it is possible to investigate literary concepts such as narrative, and participants’ construction of story elements, through the way in which these aspects are utilized by participants to construct social action – what participants do with their utterances. To study this, video recordings have been made in one primary and one secondary school, in two different Swedish cities. The results of the study show constructions of a comics literacy, where participants engage with both visual and textual aspects of the material and negotiate focalization of narrative perspective and construction of narrative structure as well as narrative devices such as speech and thought bubbles. Furthermore, meaning making of comics literacy also includes the construction of discourses around comics as a specific type of story telling, either for material or literary reasons. The thesis discusses how participants construct classroom literature, and provides insight into how interaction around comics enables participants to construct and negotiate discourses around what comics literacy is and what it enables, as well as how to talk about, create, and read comics.
Intresset för serier som svenskt skolmaterial har stigit de senaste åren och publiceringen av serier för barn och ungdomar har också ökat. Även om forskning om new literacies har intresserat sig för kombinationer av bild och text så finns det fortfarande lite forskning på serier som literacymaterial, speciellt som en del av skolpraktik. Med det stigande intresset för serier och deras kvaliteter som exempel på new literacies, så pekar detta mot att det finns en relevans i att utforska hur meningsskapande med serier görs i skolan. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap om hur lokalt situerad literacypraktik görs där elever och lärare skapar mening med serier. Studien kombinerar forskning om literacy, serier och diskursiv psykologi för att, i linje med New Literacy Studies, undersöka aspekter av literacy som en del av deltagarnas sociala konstruktioner – inte som ett individuellt, mentalt fenomen. Med detta perspektiv är det möjligt att undersöka litterära koncept som narrativ och deltagares konstruktion av berättelseinslag, genom det sätt på vilka dessa aspekter används av deltagare för att interagera – vad deltagare gör när de säger något. För att studera detta har videoobservationer använts i en lågstadieskola och en högstadieskola i två olika svenska städer. Resultaten från studien demonstrerar konstruktioner av serie-literacy där deltagarna engagerar sig i både text och bild i materialet, diskuterar berättandeperspektiv och konstruktioner av narrativ struktur, såväl som berättarverktyg, t.ex. prat- och tankebubblor. Därutöver inkluderar serie-literacy också deltagarnas skapande av seriediskurser där serier görs till en specifik typ av berättande, antingen på materiell eller litterär basis. Avhandlingen diskuterar hur deltagare konstruerar klassrumslitteratur, och studien erbjuder en insikt i hur interaktion runt serier möjliggör för deltagare att konstruera och förhandla diskurser om vad serieliteracy är och vad det erbjuder för möjligheter, såväl som hur deltagare kan prata om, skapa och läsa serier.

If not ignored completely, the body has been under theorized in literacy research. However, recent research in cultural studies, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, education, and the arts suggests that the body is implicated in thinking and knowing as well as doing. In this dissertation I examine high school technical theater. In this robustly embodied activity students build sets, rig lights, and paint backdrops in preparation for a theatrical production, as well as run sound and lighting and perform scene changes during the production. I use data from high school technical theater to explore the body in literacy, embodied learning, collaboration, composition processes, and experiential learning. I gathered data primarily during out of school work sessions over the multi-week production cycles of six plays produced at one high school over two school years. As an experienced theater technician, I used participant observation as the primary method of data collection, supplemented with semi-structured interviews with the technical director, artistic director, and four students. I collected data and analyzed data through iterative processes in which analysis began during data collection, emerging analyses influenced data collection, and constant comparisons to new data influenced emerging analyses. Observations of student work revealed that student theater technicians employed literacy skills including speaking, reading, writing, drawing, calculating, and interpreting the written text of plays as necessary elements of the normal course of technical theater work. Observations of teaching and learning showed that little explicit instruction was used but that mini-lessons, individual and collective problem solving, and multiple configurations of collaboration among more and less experienced technicians led to the development of critical thinking and physical skills, as well as proficiency in the creation of props through the evaluation and application of building techniques and materials. I used theories from art making and multimodal literacy to examine technical theater building projects as examples of composition. My findings show that the design of technical theater texts - e.g. props, scenery, lighting - emerges through a recursive process of creation and interpretation and is mediated by the technicians' knowledge of building techniques and materials. Situated learning and activity theory were used to analyze learning in the technical theater community. Results demonstrate that the structure of the community allows for learning through experience, apprenticeship, and collaboration as well as through the creation of texts that balance personal expression with collaborative enterprise.

The multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group is a response to the emergence of new literacies and changing forms of meaning-making in contemporary contexts of increased cultural and linguistic diversity. This critical ethnographic research investigates the interactions between pedagogy, power, discourses, and differential access to multiliteracies, among a group of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in a mainstream Australian classroom. The study documents the way in which a teacher enacted the multiliteracies pedagogy through a series of mediabased lessons with her year six (aged 11-12 years) class. The reporting of this research is timely because the multiliteracies pedagogy has become a key feature of Australian educational policy initiatives and syllabus requirements. The methodology of this study was based on Carspecken's critical ethnography. This method includes five stages: Stage One involved eighteen days of observational data collection over the course of ten weeks in the classroom. The multiliteracies lessons aimed to enable learners to collaboratively design a claymation movie. Stage Two was the initial analysis of data, including verbatim transcribing, coding, and applying analytic tools to the data. Stage Three involved semi-structured, forty-five minute interviews with the principal, teacher, and four culturally and linguistically diverse students. In Stages Four and Five, the results of micro-level data analysis were compared with macro-level phenomena using structuration theory and extant literature about access to multiliteracies. The key finding was that students' access to multiliteracies differed among the culturally and linguistically diverse group. Existing degrees of access were reproduced, based on the learners' relation to the dominant culture. In the context of the media-based lessons in which students designed claymation movies, students from Anglo-Australian, middle-class backgrounds had greater access to transformed designing than those who were culturally marginalised. These experiences were mediated by pedagogy, power, and discourses in the classroom, which were in turn influenced by the agency of individuals. The individuals were both enabled and constrained by structures of power within the school and the wider educational and social systems. Recommendations arising from the study were provided for teachers, principals, policy makers and researchers who seek to monitor and facilitate the success of the multiliteracies pedagogy in culturally and linguistically diverse educational contexts.

The multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group is a response to the emergence of new literacies and changing forms of meaning-making in contemporary contexts of increased cultural and linguistic diversity. This critical ethnographic research investigates the interactions between pedagogy, power, discourses, and differential access to multiliteracies, among a group of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in a mainstream Australian classroom. The study documents the way in which a teacher enacted the multiliteracies pedagogy through a series of mediabased lessons with her year six (aged 11-12 years) class. The reporting of this research is timely because the multiliteracies pedagogy has become a key feature of Australian educational policy initiatives and syllabus requirements. The methodology of this study was based on Carspecken's critical ethnography. This method includes five stages: Stage One involved eighteen days of observational data collection over the course of ten weeks in the classroom. The multiliteracies lessons aimed to enable learners to collaboratively design a claymation movie. Stage Two was the initial analysis of data, including verbatim transcribing, coding, and applying analytic tools to the data. Stage Three involved semi-structured, forty-five minute interviews with the principal, teacher, and four culturally and linguistically diverse students. In Stages Four and Five, the results of micro-level data analysis were compared with macro-level phenomena using structuration theory and extant literature about access to multiliteracies. The key finding was that students' access to multiliteracies differed among the culturally and linguistically diverse group. Existing degrees of access were reproduced, based on the learners' relation to the dominant culture. In the context of the media-based lessons in which students designed claymation movies, students from Anglo-Australian, middle-class backgrounds had greater access to transformed designing than those who were culturally marginalised. These experiences were mediated by pedagogy, power, and discourses in the classroom, which were in turn influenced by the agency of individuals. The individuals were both enabled and constrained by structures of power within the school and the wider educational and social systems. Recommendations arising from the study were provided for teachers, principals, policy makers and researchers who seek to monitor and facilitate the success of the multiliteracies pedagogy in culturally and linguistically diverse educational contexts.

The purpose of this ethnographic case study is to document multimodal literacy and numeracy practices of seven Saudi postgraduate students enrolled in the Master of Commerce Accounting program at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Specifically, it aims to investigate the interrelated dimensions of multimodal texts, literacy and numeracy practices, and contexts. The study employs a multidimensional framework for researching the participants’ literacy and numeracy practices in three course modules: Accounting Concepts and Methods, Principles of Finance, and Management Accounting. The study includes a metadiscourse analysis of collaborative wiki literacy practices in the Intermediate Financial Reporting module. The framework consists of three stages of analysis: description of literacy and numeracy requirements, description of literacy events and participants’ actual practices and their experiences, and a Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of Business texts. The analysis of the study is primarily based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The findings of the case study revealed the academic literacy and numeracy practices students were expected to manage with in key topics in the business modules. The analysis of the three accounting modules and the online literacy practices revealed the multimodal and multisemiotic nature of accounting discourse, diversity of text type, the literacy and numeracy practices, and features of collaborative learning. The multiple-perspective framework has implications for the investigation of tertiary students’ literacy practices in other disciplines with the application of an SF-MDA of financial statements, graphs, and mathematical symbolism.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2014

abstract: This dissertation explored the literacy practices that developed around comics when two secondary teachers (one AP Science and one AP English) used comics in their classroom instruction for the first time. It also explored the ways the teachers and their students positioned comics within their specific classroom contexts. Historically, comics are a marginalized medium in educational circles—widely considered non-academic despite the recognition by scholars for their sophistication as a multimodal medium. Scholars, librarians, teachers, and comics authors have made the case for the inclusion of comics in educational contexts citing their ability to support the literacy development of struggling readers, engage reluctant readers, promote lifelong reading, and convey information visually. However, the roles comics can play in educational contexts are still under researched, and many gaps exist in the literature including a lack of real world contexts and clearly reported instructional strategies. This study aimed to fill these gaps by reporting the literacy practices that students and teachers develop around comics, as well as contextualizing these practices in the classroom contexts and students’ and teachers’ experiences. Drawing from a social semiotic view of multimodality and the view of literacy as a social practice, I conducted a qualitative case study using ethnographic methods for data collection which I analyzed using an interpretive framework for qualitative data analysis and constant comparative analysis. I found three literacy practices developed around comics in these contexts—Q&A, writing about comics, and drawing comics. I also found that teachers and students positioned comics in four primary ways within these contexts—as a tool, as entertainment, as a medium, and as a traditional form of literature. Based on my findings, I developed three assertions: 1) there is a disconnect between teachers’ goals for using comics in their instruction and the literacy practice that developed around the comics they selected; 2) there is a disconnect between the ways in which teachers position comics and the ways in which students position comics; and 3) traditional views of literature and literacy continue to dominate classrooms when multimodal texts are selected and utilized during instruction.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 2018

abstract: ABSTRACT This mixed methods study examines 126 community college students enrolled in developmental reading courses at a mid-sized Southwestern community college. These students participated in a survey-based study regarding their reading experiences and practices, social influence upon those practices, reading sponsorship, and reading self-efficacy. The survey featured 33 structured response prompts and six free response prompts, allowing for both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The study¡&brkbar;s results reflected the diverse reading interests and practices of developmental college students, revealing four main themes: -the diversity and complexity of their reading practices; -the diversity in reading genre preferences; -the strong influence of family members and teachers as reading sponsors in the past with that influence shifting to friends and college professors in the present; and, -the possible connection between self-efficacy and social engagement with reading. Findings from this study suggest these college students, often depicted as underprepared or developmental readers, are engaging in diverse and sophisticated reading practices and perceive reading as a means to achieve their success-oriented goals and to learn about the real world.This study adds to the limited field of community college literacy research, provides a more nuanced view of what it means to be an underprepared college reader, and points to ways community college educators can better support their students by acknowledging and building upon their socio-culturally influenced literacy practices. At the same time, educators can advantage students academically in terms of building their cultural capital with overt inculcation into disciplinary literacies and related repertoires of practice. Keywords: college students, reading, sponsorship, multimodal reading practices, developmental education, social networking, and literacy
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2014

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.