I chose the
following question for my inquiry: How do Multiliteracies practices affect struggling
readers and writers in their learning?
(1) Significance
of Question in my Teaching Practice and Context
The
question is significant in my teaching context because of the demographics of
the students at my school, and particularly in my class. I currently work at an
international school in Japan in which our mission statement states that we are
an inclusive school. Therefore, many students with various needs are attending
our school, coming from a variety of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds.
Unlike public schools, we do not receive any government funding because we are
a private school with no financial ties to the Japanese ministry of education.
Therefore, we often do not have the resources necessary to effectively support
learners with disabilities, such as appropriate tools and specialists. In addition,
since many of the families come from a variety of cultural and ethnic
backgrounds, we have many English Language Learners who struggle in literacy as
well. Therefore, I would like to explore how Multiliteracies would benefit struggling
readers and/or writers. This would include children who have disabilities, speak English as an additional language, or have a combination of both.
(2) Significance
of Question to my Students’ Literacy Learning in Contemporary Times
In
contemporary times, students are required to show their learning in a variety
of ways. At my particular school which is an International Baccalaureate
school, the skills to communicate their knowledge through multiple modalities
is a prominent component of the program. Specifically, at the end of the
Primary Years Program which starts in Kindergarten and ends in grade 5,
students inquire into a central idea over
the period of approximately six weeks. Throughout the process of inquiry
learners collaborate with their peers, teachers, and other people from the
community to gain deeper understandings of the central idea. At our school,
student in grade 3 and beyond use a tool called Google Community to share their
learning, give constructive feedback and problem-solve through a digital
platform where resources and information in multiple modalities are used on a
daily basis.
In
the final exhibition, learners present their findings in front of the school
and community. In this process, they are required to share what they have
discovered through their inquiry in a variety of ways. For example, in past
exhibitions, there were student-created videos, visual arts, music, theatre, and
more. A main goal of the program is to help learners develop the skills
necessary to communicate in dynamic ways through multiple modalities,
which is an essential component of becoming a life-long learner. Therefore, the
program focuses on supporting learners in the process to build the skills to
collaboratively learn and share their new knowledge and understandings through
multiple modes of expression.
(3) My Emergent Understanding of Multiliteracies Characteristics
The purpose of education is to prepare children to successfully
participate as citizens in the global workforce. Since the nature of the
workforce has drastically changed in the past 100 years, the nature of
education must adapt to such changes (Robinson, 2008). In the old economy, traditional forms of
literacies and content knowledge through memorization adequately prepared
children for a workforce which were the “product of the
industrial revolution: factories, production lines and hierarchies” (Robertson,
2013). In contrast, the new economy requires “problem solving, creativity and
information and communication technology literacy,” (2013) since we are
preparing our students for our unpredictable economies of the 21st
century (2008). As a result of the difference in what the new economy
requires, the education also must shift in accordance to this global trend.
Along with such drastic changes, the English language itself
has also diverged into multiple versions of English, depending on the culture,
subculture, country, ethnicity, interests, and so on (Cope and Kalantzis,
2009). Consequently, the nature of communication itself has become more
dynamic, as stated by Cope and Kalantzis, “…the need to conceive meaning making
as a form of design or active and dynamic transformation of the social world,
and its contemporary forms increasingly multimodal, with linguistic, visual,
audio, gestural and spatial modes of meaning becoming increasingly integrated
in everyday media and cultural practices.” (2009, p. 166) In short, children
are now encouraged to construct meaning using multiple modalities to reflect
the changing nature of the social world. Furthermore, traditional forms of
alphabetical literacy are no longer adequate, and must be combined with the use
of multimodal forms of communication (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009, p. 166)
Cope, B., &
Kalantzis, M. (2009) “Multiliteracies”: New
literacies, new
learning. Pedagogies: An International
Journal, 4(3), 164-195.
The RSA.
(2010, October 14). Changing Education Paradigms [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/event-videos/2008/06/changing-paradigms/
Robertson, C. (2013, April 10). Why Multiliteracies?
[Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.lc2.ca/item/105-why-multiliteracies
