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Curriculum & Leadership J ournal | Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts

http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/helping_teachers_to_explore_multimodal_texts,31522.html?issueID=12141[11/07/2014 11:28:14 p.m.]


4 June 2010 Issue: Volume 8 Issue 16 > Articles
Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts
Michle Anstey
Geoff Bull
The authors are co-directors of Anstey & Bull Consultants in Education (www.ansteybull.com). Michle
Anstey is a former Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, where she was
Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education. Geoff Bull is a former Associate Professor at the University of
Southern Queensland where he was a Program Head and taught undergraduate and postgraduate
courses in literacy and literature. He is a former national president of the Australian Literacy Educators'
Association.

Current definitions of literacy frequently refer to multimedia and multimodal texts. There are references
to such materials throughout the Australian Curriculum: English Draft Version 1.0.1, which defines
literacy in the following way:
In the 21st century, the definition of literacy has expanded to refer to a flexible, sustainable
command of a set of capabilities in the use and production of traditional texts and new
communications technologies, using spoken language, print and multimedia. (p 5)
One of the six aims stated in the draft curriculum is that students will have the opportunity to
'understand, interpret, reflect on and create an increasingly broad repertoire of spoken, written and
multimodal texts across a growing range of settings'.
It is therefore timely to consider how teachers can become familiar with and confident in their use of
multimodal texts in the classroom.

What are multimodal texts?
A text may be defined as multimodal when it combines two or more semiotic systems. There are five
semiotic systems in total:
1. Linguistic: comprising aspects such as vocabulary, generic structure and the grammar of oral and
written language
2. Visual: comprising aspects such as colour, vectors and viewpoint in still and moving images
3. Audio: comprising aspects such as volume, pitch and rhythm of music and sound effects
4. Gestural: comprising aspects such as movement, speed and stillness in facial expression and body
language
5. Spatial: comprising aspects such as proximity, direction, position of layout and organisation of
objects in space.
Examples of multimodal texts are:
a picture book, in which the textual and visual elements are arranged on individual pages that
contribute to an overall set of bound pages
Curriculum & Leadership J ournal | Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/helping_teachers_to_explore_multimodal_texts,31522.html?issueID=12141[11/07/2014 11:28:14 p.m.]
a webpage, in which elements such as sound effects, oral language, written language, music and
still or moving images are combined
a live ballet performance, in which gesture, music, and space are the main elements.
Multimodal texts can be delivered via different media or technologies. They may be live, paper, or digital
electronic.

Helping teachers support students facility with multimodal texts
Based on our research, and the work we have conducted with teachers in Australia and New Zealand,
we have identified six areas of professional learning of particular value for integrating multimodal texts
into classroom practice.
1. Knowledge and understanding about reading and writing multimodal texts that are delivered in
different ways (paper, live and digital electronic).
Particular understandings about the design of multimodal texts support their effective classroom use.
These include an understanding that texts perform a particular function over time or within a specific
context, and they are designed to achieve particular communicative purposes. An understanding of a
texts purpose, audience and method of communication is key, as is an understanding of not only what is
included in a text, but how different elements relate to each other, and the effect they are designed to
achieve.
2. Knowledge of the five semiotic systems of which a multimodal text can be composed.
Teachers and students need to understand the codes and conventions of each of the five semiotic
systems in order to make or convey meaning through them. Therefore just as we now need to know and
teach a linguistic grammar we must provide teachers and students with a grammar that enables them to
select and use semiotic systems effectively in a multimodal text. For example, when composing a multi-
modal text they will need to make decisions about whether to show a characters emotions through
sound, gesture, facial expression or descriptive words, or some combination of these.
3. Metalanguage that facilitates the analysis, discussion and understanding of how multimodal texts
work.
Metalanguage refers to the specialised terminology that describes how a multimodal text works. For
example, the grammar for each of the five semiotic systems provides a metalanguage for discussing how
they convey meaning.
4. Explicit pedagogies that make the processes of reading and writing multimodal texts transparent.
Explicit pedagogy is functional and goal directed and ensures that teachers and students have a
common understanding about the expectations and responsibilities of learning. In an explicit pedagogical
approach, classroom interaction has particular characteristics and it is recognised that every literate
practice in the classroom builds students understandings about what counts as literacy or literate
practices.
5. Ensure that the school has a balanced, school-wide approach to the teaching of literacy and
multimodal texts.
It is essential that the school has mechanisms in place to assist teachers in maintaining a coherent
approach to teaching with multimodal texts across all year levels in order to reinforce a common
Curriculum & Leadership J ournal | Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/helping_teachers_to_explore_multimodal_texts,31522.html?issueID=12141[11/07/2014 11:28:14 p.m.]
terminology for talking about texts and common understandings about them. A balance among the text
types and the semiotic systems used must also be maintained. School curriculum plans and unit and
lesson plans should be audited regularly to ensure balance and consistency.

Commencing the professional learning process
Teachers who are beginning to work with multimodal texts often associate them with technology, and
may be reluctant to engage with them if they lack confidence with ICT. An excellent alternative for
introducing the terminology, concepts and issues involved with multimodal text is via the picture book.
This familiar example of multimodality, that is suitable for all year levels, can be used to examine and
articulate the codes and conventions of the visual and linguistic semiotic systems.
Many of the codes relating to still images are common to those of moving images, so once confidence is
achieved with picture books teachers can move on to film and video. A good place to start is with
advertisements that, while short, provide all the characteristics of a multimodal text using audio, gestural,
visual, linguistic and spatial semiotic systems. A great resource for advertisements is
www.bestadsontv.com, from which material can be downloaded for a small fee.
Teachers who begin to engage with multimodal texts and more sophisticated technologies will find that
their concepts about literacy, definitions of literacy and their literacy-related pedagogies are challenged;
which can be confronting. When supporting teachers through this professional learning it is important to
actively talk and learn about the change process as a topic in its own right, including how it affects us
and how we can prepare ourselves for working through change. Teacher leaders can also work with
teachers in identifying the types of challenges they might encounter and support mechanisms that will
help them address and meet these challenges.

Further reading
For comment about the change process we recommend the works of Fullan, Calabrese and Hargreaves
in the references below. Further information on explicit pedagogies that make the processes of reading
and writing multimodal texts transparent is provided in Chapter six of our forthcoming book (Bull and
Anstey 2010a). See also Cole and Pullen (2010) pp. 142145. A description of auditing instruments that
ensure that the school has a balanced, school-wide approach to the teaching of literacy and multimodal
texts is provided in Chapter 6 of Anstey and Bull (2006) and Chapter 6 of Bull and Anstey (2010).
References
Anstey, M & Bull, G 2006, Teaching and Learning Multiliteracies: Changing times changing
literacies International Reading Association, Newark, Delaware, (available through Education Services
Australia).
Anstey, M & Bull, G 2009, Using Multimodal Texts and Digital Resources in a Multiliterate Classroom
e:update 004, e:lit: Primary English Teaching Association, Marrickville, pp. 18.
Bull, G & Anstey, M 2010 a, Evolving Pedagogies; Reading and Writing in a Multimodal World,
Education Services Australia, Melbourne.
Bull, G & Anstey, M 2010 b, 'Using the Principles of Multiliteracies to inform Pedagogical Change',
Chapter Eight in Cole, DR & Pullen, DL Multiliteracies in Motion, pp. 141159 Taylor and Francis,
London.
Curriculum & Leadership J ournal | Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/helping_teachers_to_explore_multimodal_texts,31522.html?issueID=12141[11/07/2014 11:28:14 p.m.]
Calabrese, RL 2002, The Leadership Assignment: Creating Change, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.
Fullan, M 2001, Leading in a Culture of Change, Wiley, San Francisco.
Hargreaves, A 1994, Changing teachers Changing Times: teachers work and culture in the postmodern
age, Teachers College Press, New York.
Hargreaves, A & Fullan, M eds. 2008, Change Wars, Solution Tree Press, Bloomington.
The Australian Curriculum: English Draft Version 1.0.1 available at
www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Documents/English%20curriculum.pdf
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