Martin Waller, a classroom teacher and educational researcher, presents on multimodal approaches in literacy education, highlighting the evolution from traditional to modern literacy practices. He discusses the importance of integrating diverse communicative practices and social media in teaching, emphasizing the need to address the disconnect between home and school literacies. Waller’s work also focuses on creating engaging learning environments that utilize technology to enhance students' literacy skills.

1. The New Literacies Classroom
Martin Waller
Classroom Teacher and Educational Researcher
Holy Trinity Rosehill Primary School
UKLA National Conference 2013 – Multimodal approaches to the teaching of literacy

2. My work…
Classroom Teacher of Orange Class (Year 2) and Class 5
(Year 5) at Holy Trinity Rosehill Primary School in the UK.
Creative Learning Coordinator for Nursery through to
Year 6.
Previous postgraduate student (MA in New Literacies) at the
University of Sheffield.
Independent educational researcher working with a range of organisations.

3. This work is based upon…
Waller, M. (2010). It‟s very very fun and ecsiting – using Twitter in the
primary classroom. English Four to Eleven, Summer, pp. 14–16.
Waller, M. (2011). „Everyone in the World Can See It‟ - Developing Pupil
Voice through Online Social Networks. In G. Czerniawski, & W. Kidd, (Eds),
The Student Voice Handbook: Bridging the Academic/Practitioner Divide.
London, England: Emerald.
Waller, M. (2013). Subject to Change: Social Media, Education and
Contentious Literacies. In Unsworth, L. and Thomas, A. (Eds.) (in
preparation). English Teaching and New Literacies Pedagogy: Interpreting
and authoring digital multimedia in the classroom. Peter Lang: New York.
MA in New Literacy Studies research at the University of Sheffield.
Ongoing classroom research and projects.

5. Multiple Literacies
New Literacy Studies (Street, 1984, 2003; Gee, 1996)
A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996; Unsworth,
2001)
Multimodality and visual design (Kress, 1997, 2003)
Critical Literacy (Comber, 2001)
Popular Culture and Literacy (Millard, 2003; Genishi and Dyson, 2009)

6. Literacy Education in
England…

7. “I think it’s about learning about verbs and different
things and stories. Erm like punctuation and
different kinds of... well English”
Year 6 Child

11. The ‘old’…
‣ Certain types of activity privileged in
the curriculum
‣ Literacy conceptualised as a set of
discrete skills taught in isolation,
regardless of context - „teacher centric‟
(Pahl and Rowsell, 2005; Larson and Marsh, 2005)
‣ Focus on print-based decoding skills
and the written word (Unsworth, 2001)
‣ „Autonomous‟ view of literacy (Street, 1984)

12. The ‘recent’…
‣ National Literacy Strategy and „literacy
hour‟ introduced to British schools
‣ Represents deeply conservative
ideology of what counts as „literacy‟
(Urquahart, 2002: 33)
‣ „Common language‟ to describe and
prescribe literacy (Urquahart, 2002)

13. The ‘new’…
‣ Curriculum needs to be expanded to
take account of diverse
communicative practices
(New London Group, 1996)
‣ Focus on „designs for meaning‟ and
identities, cultures and contexts (New London
Group, 1996)
‣ The digital/virtual worlds that children
move within cannot be ignored (Davies and
Merchant, 2009)
‣ Multiliteracies and „Ideological literacy‟
(Street, 1984; New London Group, 1996)

14. The ‘now’…
‣ „Awesome disconnect‟ between home
and school literacy practices (Genishi and Dyson, 2009:
4)
‣ Teachers have pluralist view of
multiple literacies
‣ Year 6 children‟s views more
consistent with narrowly conceived
definition of National Literacy Strategy
‣ Source: Unpublished MA Research completed at the University of Sheffield:
Do children’s perceptions of literacy link with those of their teacher after following
the National Literacy Strategy Framework for Teaching (DfEE, 1998)?

15. Social Networking Sites
Web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct
a public profile or semi-public profile within a bounded
system, (2) articulate a list of other users within whom
they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their
list of connections and those made by others within the
system.
(boyd and Ellison, 2008: 221)

16. Much of the moral panic around new media focuses on
the idea that they distract the attention of children and
young people from engaging with print literacy practices
and are a causal factor in falling standards in literacy in
schools.
(Davies and Merchant, 2009: 111)

17. Habitual literacy practices…

19. Social Networks in the Classroom
Social networks are here to stay - so how can we use
them in schools?
What value can they add to an already
crowded classroom?
Is it safe to use social networks in school?
What’s the point?

25. Reading in this context means not simply
decoding, but involves the taking part in the
construction of social networks in which
knowledge is co-constructed and distributed.
(Marsh, 2010: 29)

28. Twitter Rules
Children must not mention their name or any of their
friends by name under any circumstances.
Children must not check for replies or
direct messages.
Children must not navigate away from our Twitter
stream page or look at other people‟s profiles.
(Waller, 2010)

29. Real world literacy…

31. Embedding Popular Culture
KiKi’s Delivery Service - Studio Ghibli 1989
Original story by Elko Kadono

33. Creating multimodal texts through blogging…

35. class5.htrblogs.net

47. Multimodality in teaching punctuation…
i can‟t think of anything more important to all of us than
our kids and their future barbara morgan is the first in a
series of astronauts who will fly into space a back-up to
christa mcaullife in 1986 after challenger she returned to
the classroom to teach again in 1998 she was selected as
the first educator astronaut and now more than twenty
years after challenger she is a fully trained and qualified
mission specialist astronaut ready to capture the magic of
spaceflight and share it with teachers and students
around the world

48. Multimodality in teaching punctuation…
“I can‟t think of anything more important to all of us than
our kids and their future” – Barbara Morgan.
Barbara Morgan is the first in a series of astronauts
who will fly into space (a back-up to Christa McAullife in
1986). After Challenger, she returned to the classroom to
teach again. In 1998, she was selected as the first
educator astronaut. And now, more than twenty years
after Challenger, she is a fully trained (and qualified)
mission specialist astronaut – ready to capture the magic
of spaceflight and share it with teachers and students
around the world.

50. The power of Web 2.0…

56. Badges for Learning…

60. class5.htrblogs.net

61. Multimodal Analysis
Setting
Sound
Action
Language
(SSAL)

63. Find out more…
email class 5 blog
martinwaller@me.com class5.htrblogs.net
twitter blog
@MultiMartin www.changinghorizons.net
@MisterWaller