Multimodal Transformations in the Field of Literacy Education
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Review of Research Review of Research Marjorie Siegel Rereading the Signs: Multimodal Transformations in the Field of Literacy Education Given the reading and writing ceptual lens for understanding digital movies, master the intri- responses of the children we what children did when reading cacies of computer games, and studied, the multimodal nature environmental print or writing a participate in fanfi ction or inter- of the linguistic sign is a key story led Harste, Woodward, and active websites such as Neopet. feature not only in literacy but Burke to conclude that literacy com to recognize that literacy to- in literacy learning. and literacy learning were multi- day means more than “knowledge —Harste, Woodward, modal events, a proposal that has of letters,” as the OED would have & Burke, 1984, p. 208 taken on new signifi cance today. us believe. Contemporary litera- The second quote is taken from a cy scholars have argued that liter- Surely it is time for all those in- recent essay by Anne Haas Dyson acy is always socially situated and terested in multiple languages titled “Diversity as a ‘Handful’: ideologically formed (Gee, 1996; and language variants, in diverse Toward Retheorizing the Basics” Luke, 2000; New London Group, cultural practices and world (2004). In one brief sentence, Dy- 1996; Street, 1984). Thus, lan- views, in the expanding symbol- ic repertoire of our time to ap- son catalogues the theoretical guage arts education can no lon- propriate and re-accentuate this shifts that have made diversities ger ignore the way that our social, word “basics.” of language, culture, and symbol- cultural, and economic worlds —Dyson, 2004, p. 214 ic resources the “basics” of lit- now require facility with texts and eracy practice and development. practices involving the full range These two quotes, published 20 The urgency with which she ar- of representational modes. The years apart, can serve as points gues for the need to take back the question we face as literacy edu- on a compass to guide this explo- meaning of “basics” from its use cators is how we might begin to ration of research on multimodal in the discourse of current legis- theorize these multimodal trans- transformations in a fi eld we still lation, policies, and practices is a formations and how research can call the “language arts.” The fi rst warning to us that the access and be a resource for addressing the is taken from Language Stories meaning that multimodal trans- pedagogical challenges we cur- and Literacy Lessons (1984), a formations have offered to so rently face. My aim in this essay, book that conveyed the research- many children are now in danger therefore, is to take stock of what ers’ insistence that young chil- of being erased through a narrow research on literacy has to say Language Arts dren’s encounters with print be and regressive vision of literacy about multimodal transformations, taken on their own terms rather learning in school. and what questions we might pur- than held up against adult liter- In choosing “multimodal trans- sue to understand the possibilities such transformations hold for chil- ate practice. Harste, Woodward, formations” as the theme for their ● and Burke (1984) accomplished inaugural issue, the new edito- dren’s learning and lives. 84 Vol. this shift from adult conven- rial team of Language Arts has tions to child inventions by bring- signaled a change in the literacy THE MULTIMODAL NATURE ● ing a semiotic perspective to the landscape that puts images, ges- 1 No. study of young children’s litera- tures, music, movement, anima- OF YOUNG CHILDREN’S cy learning. Semiotics is an inter- tion, and other representational LITERACY LEARNING ● disciplinary fi eld of studies that modes on equal footing with lan- Despite the claim that multi- 2006 September examines how meaning is made guage. We need only consider modality is new on the litera- through signs of all kinds— the ease with which children to- cy scene, children have always pictures, gestures, music—not day can not only draw, sing, and engaged in what are now called just words. Expanding the con- dance, but also produce their own multimodal literacy practices. 65 LLA_Sept2006.inddA_Sept2006.indd 6655 88/9/06/9/06 77:58:34:58:34 AAMM The turn toward multimodality ia Woodward, & Carolyn Burke a picture of themselves and writ- can be traced back to the interest (1984) pursued emergent litera- ing their names, and writing a sto- in understanding young children’s cy along a different path, one that ry and a letter. These researchers literacy learning and development did not privilege written language could have categorized children’s that took hold in the late 1970s. above all other symbol systems in responses as successful or unsuc- Spurred on by observations of their accounts of literacy learning cessful approximations of con- Review of Research how children invented the writ- and development. For example, ventional literate behavior, but in ten language system (e.g., Bissex, both studies showed that when doing so they would have missed 1980; Clay, 1975; Read, 1975), young children wrote, they did the complexity of children’s lit- literacy researchers began to not just make meaning through erate acts by “confusing product question the idea that learning to linguistic signs. As Harste et al. with process . and confusing read required formal instruction argued (1984), talking, gestur- convention with language” (p. 15). (i.e., “reading readiness”) and ini- ing, dramatizing, and drawing are Instead, they looked through tiated studies of “literacy before “an intimate and integral part” of socio-psycholinguistic and semiot- schooling” (Ferreiro & Taberos- the writing process (p. 37). These ic lenses, and interpreted the chil- ky, 1982). This research, which studies, initiated more than 25 dren’s responses as instances of came to be known as “emergent years ago, were most responsi- sign-making that were organized, literacy” (Teale & Sulzby, 1986), ble for questioning the centrality intentional, generative, and so- shifted attention to the knowledge of print in literacy and for ex- cial (i.e., situated and mediating). and processes of literacy learn- panding the symbol systems that As they observed children mak- ing that children demonstrated as were deemed necessary, not just ing sense of environmental print, they participated in events such “nice,”1 for literate practice. Tak- they realized that for children, text as storybook reading and dramat- en together, this work represented is not limited to the printed marks ic play. The language of “prelit- an important break with conven- but is part of a “sign complex erate behaviors” thus gave way tional theories of literacy and lit- formed by print and other com- to an awareness that when chil- eracy development. Though quite munication systems in relation to dren wrote signs (famously DO different methodologically, each situational context” (p. 169) (e.g., NAT DSTRB, GNYS AT WRK study emphasized the importance The Crest toothpaste carton sig- [Bissex, 1980]) or read famil- of sign-making in all modes, and, nifi ed “Brush teeth”). Given this iar storybooks, the results could in doing so, challenged the pre- view of text, it is not surprising not be interpreted as unsuccess- vailing belief in conventional or that the researchers paid close at- ful imitations of adult writing and adult-defi ned literacy as the lens tention to the “border skirmishes” reading, but as refl ections of chil- for and endpoint of literacy de- (p. 178) over meaning and form dren’s growing facility with the velopment. that erupted as children moved full array of knowledge required In their study of young chil- from writing to drawing and back to mean through written language dren’s initial encounters with again. Harste et al. thus proposed (see Yaden, Rowe, & MacGilli- print, Harste et al. (1984) asked that literacy learning was not a vray [2000] for an update on this children ages 3–6 to engage in a matter of gaining control over lin- literature). Yet, re-envisioning variety of researcher-designed lit- guistic signs but involved “seman- children’s literacy development eracy activities, including read- tic negotiation” (p. 168) of the as “emergent” did not necessar- ing environmental print, reading multiple semiotic resources avail- September 2006 September ● ily mean re-envisioning litera- a predictable book, writing every- able when encountering texts in cy or literacy development; the thing they could write, drawing contexts. defi nition of conventional litera- The researchers’ refl ections No. 1 No. ● cy as mastery and control of the on this theoretical shift are as systems and processes of written striking today as in 1984 when language, as well as the develop- 1Here I allude to the title of Andrew they wrote: Vol. 84 Vol. mental continuum from emergent ● Ortony’s important paper on meta- to conventional literacy, remained phor and language, “Why Metaphor In short, our program of research fi rmly in place. Is Necessary, Not Just Nice” (1975), in forced us to abandon what in which he argued that metaphor was Anne Haas Dyson, (1982, not merely a linguistic ornament, but retrospect might be termed a 1983) and Jerome Harste, Virgin- the basis of comprehension. “verbocentric” [Eco, 1976] view Language Arts 66 LLA_Sept2006.inddA_Sept2006.indd 6666 88/9/06/9/06 77:58:34:58:34 AAMM Review of Research of literacy and to adopt a semi- documented). From her earliest entering new social dialogues otic one, in which the orchestra- studies, Dyson’s aim was to: in an expanding life world. As tion of all signifying structures such, written language learning from all available communication . unhinge writing development is inevitably a part of learning systems in the event have a part. from its narrow linear path and about social and ideological (1984, p.