Multimodality

1. TCETC Submission
May 9, 2013
Maureen Kramanak
One significant difference in the social context of communication today is that
“print itself can take on many forms through visual design and synergy with
images” (Dresang, 1999; Hammerberg[Hassett], 2001; Hassett, 2006a; Sipe,
1998, 2001),until it is literally pushed off the page (Kress, 1998). Social media
encourages short “bursts” of text, accompanied by other, perhaps more
“interesting” forms of communication. “Therefore, if we are to talk about reading
instruction within this new context, we need “to realize that written language is
being displaced from its hitherto un-challenged central position” (Kress, 1999, p.
68).
Print represents only one mode of communication, and it is not always the
most important focus. When reading these books in the classroom, students and
teachers alike need to focus on all of the various textual elements (e.g., print,
images, graphics) as well as other modes of communication that can occur within
the social context of the classroom, such as the interactive and playful
conversations that can happen around the text as meaning is being made.
Emerson Elementary in Kansas City, Kansas where I did this project with 20 fifth
graders, is a Title I school, with 94% of its population (grades K-5) qualifying as
economically disadvantaged, cognitively or physically disabled.

2. Despite what might be viewed by some as dire population statistics, Emerson
has shown exemplary academic progress in the last three years, becoming a
State of Kansas Reward School in 2012 and continuing that status in 2013.
This year, we chose to concentrate on our boys, particularly our African-
American boys, as that group is traditionally the lowest achieving of all testing
subgroups. In studying this subgroup, I discovered that communication skills, if
understood from a multimodal and multilingual perspective, are highly developed.
These students are able to switch between languages and modalities (symbolic
competence) with relative facility, the interface and modality that best suits them
in a particular situation.
For our project we chose the platform Glogster (http://glogster.edu.com).
Glogster fit nicely into multimodal instruction because multimodal literacy refers
to the use of numerous modes to communicate one’s message. Thus, writers
can develop multimodal texts using Glogster by embedding a range of modes to
convey a unified message. These virtual posters can be shared with a global
audience, providing important opportunities for students to critically examine their
work.
As with objective test results, writing scores for African-American boys tended
to lag behind. After a semester of glogging, my hypothesis was that the African-
American boys writing skills would improve significantly.
We chose social justice as a platform, first discussing what social justice
meant, generating numerous examples. Next, we found glogs around the theme
of social justice, and the students wrote essays describing them in the form of an

3. opinion piece. Finally, the students designed their own glogs around the theme
of social justice. The writing was outstanding, with most of the pieces scoring
between 3 (“meets standard”) and 4 (“exceeds standard”) including those of the
African-American boys.