Metacognition and Multimodal Literacy: Adolescents Constructing Meaning from Multimodal Texts by Margaret Ann Shane A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Secondary Education University of Alberta © Margaret Ann Shane, 2019 Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that adolescents are somehow naturally adroit at the selection, navigation, consumption, and creation of online texts; that they are more likely to be engaged by multimodal and online texts than by printed material. School boards and the teaching profession are heavily invested in rhetorical celebrations of such technology as a means to improve student achievement based on assumptions about how teens read multimodal, online texts. This study explores how young people aged 12-18 engage with online multimodal texts, both familiar texts of their own choosing and novel titles presented by the researcher. Specifically, this study aims to understand which metacognitive strategies study participants demonstrated during three successive online reading sessions. To this end, this study undertook to answer the following research questions. What is the level of metacognitive awareness exhibited by youth while engaging with multimodal texts? Which traditional print reading practices are identifiable in participants’ reports of their metacognitive strategies? Which metacognitive skills are exhibited by young people while exploring “the semiotic landscape” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2005, p. 16)? The research questions aim to shed light on how adolescents employ metacognitive awareness, knowledge, and control in their construction of subjective socially and culturally mediated meaning. Are adolescents effectively engaging with these texts? Are these texts helping or hindering student learning? A secondary interest pertains to the pedagogical environment in which students engage with online multimodal texts. Data generation occurred through think-aloud sessions. Data analysis was conducted through the 11- process Metacognitive Process Inventory (MPI) (Block, 2005). Results suggest that young people demonstrate confidence and metacognitive engagement with familiar online texts that often challenge traditional print literacy strategies. Nevertheless, their critical metacognitive ii skills become less effective when they are presented with novel online multimodal texts. Participants also reported strong relationships with print reading that informed their online reading habits. A secondary focus of the study pertains to the experiences of participants while at school and the environment in which multimodal online reading is conducted in Alberta classrooms in the early 21st century. Keywords: multimodal literacy, metacognition, online reading, classroom technology iii Preface This thesis is an original work by Margaret Ann Shane. No part of this thesis has been previously published. The research project of which this thesis is a part received research ethics approval from the University of Alberta Ethics Board, Project name ADOLESCENTS’ MULTIMEDIA LITERACY AND METACOGNITION, No. Pro00053798. This study was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SHHRC) of Canada. iv Acknowledgments I am at a loss to convey adequately my gratitude to my academic advisors Dr. Margaret Mackey of the School of Library and Information Studies and Dr. Jason Wallin of the Department of Secondary Education, both of the University of Alberta. Many thanks are due also to all the members of my candidacy and final defence committees including Drs. Elaine Simmt (Chair), Tami Oliphant, David Lewkowich, and jan jagodzinski, all of the University of Alberta Department of Secondary Education, and Dr. Jackie Marsh of the University of Sheffield School of Education. I must also gratefully acknowledge the support of the entire faculty, staff, and students of the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information studies including Drs. Anna Altmann and Toni Samek. A debt of gratitude is owed also to the public school teachers of Alberta and The Alberta Teachers’ Association for affording me a sabbatical to pursue this work. Deep and abiding love and thanks go out to my sisters, Anna Desrosiers and Mary Golab, my mother Patricia Shane, my son Patrick Cariou, and a dedicated cadre of supportive colleagues and friends. Most especially, I must celebrate with my deepest thanks and love the contributions of my husband Shaun Cariou to the completion of this work. Thank you, Husband, for your support, humour, generosity of spirit, wise counsel, and boundless patience in this and in all things. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Preface iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vi List of Figures and Illustrations x Chapter 1 – Introduction 1 The Researcher’s Weltbild 3 Chapter 2 – The Story of the Study 11 Framing the Study 11 Research Questions 12 Cui Bono? Who Benefits? The Rationale for the Study 12 The Research Design 15 The Research Plan 17 Study Context and Location 18 The Role of the Researcher 19 Selection Criteria 21 The Study’s Selected Multimodal Texts 22 Session 1 – The Personal Online Tour 23 Data Generation 25 Data Analysis 27 Social Interactionism within this Study 29 Challenges of Data Analysis 29 vi Study Rigour 33 Ethics 34 Significance of the Research 34 Working Definitions 37 Multimodality 37 Participatory Culture 39 Metacognition 42 Semiotics 43 The Hyptertextual 47 Beyond the Act of Reading – Visual Interest and Experiential Setting 48 Remediation 51 Chapter 3 – What the Literature Offers 56 Contemporary Multimodal Literacy and Metacognition Debates 56 Major Theoretical Frameworks 57 Constructivism 57 Constructionism 60 Symbolic Interactionism: Blumer’s “Barbaric Neologism” 65 How is Metacognition Important to the Study of Multimodal Literacy? 70 Other Theoretical Influences 72 Readers and the Reading Experience – Iser and Rosenblatt 74 Understanding Reading 77 Expanding Notions of Literacy – Rabinowitz, Bloom, Gee, and Pahl 81 The Place of Popular Culture 84 vii Chapter 4 – The Online Multimodal Texts, Sessions 2 and 3 89 Session 2 89 Outrances 90 What Afterlife? 91 Skywriting 93 Session 3 96 The Virtual Choirs 97 Where Good Ideas Come From 100 Chapter 5 – Participant Profiles 104 Chapter 6 – Participants’ Responses and The Modified Metacognitive Process 143 Inventory (MPI) The Modified MPI 145 Employing the MPI 145 Excavating the Text 146 Multimodality and Metacognition in Participants’ Responses (MPI) 154 Chapter 7 – Commentary and Conclusions 216 Introduction 216 Symbolic Interactionism and Participants’ Self-Selected Texts (Session 1) 216 Metacognition Attached to Familiar and Novel Online Texts 219 Abandonment: Habit? Metacognitive Strategy? Or Both? 221 Affect in Responses to Novel Multimodal Texts 228 viii “Real Reading” Versus “What Happens at School” 232 Alberta Classrooms – Access to Online Multimodal Texts 234 A Final Word of Thanks 244 References 245 Appendices 300 ix List of Figures and Illustrations 1.1 Opening Cartoon 1 2.1 Participatory Culture Skills 41 2.2 Voice of the Shuttle Website, 2018 53 2.3 Voice of the Shuttle Website, 2001 54 2.4 British Legends 55 3.1 Hubble Telescope Deep Field Image 66 3.2 Sand magnified 68 4.1 Outrances Landing Page 89 4.2 Outrances Second Image 90 4.3 Outrances Sample Slide 91 4.4 What Afterlife? Main Page 92 4.5 Skywriting Landing Page 94 4.6 Skywriting Sample Image 94 4.7 Virtual Choir, 2.0, “Sleep” Opening Image 98 4.8 Virtual Choir, 2.0, “Sleep” Sample Image 98 4.9 Virtual Choir, 2.0, “Sleep” Sample Image 99 4.10 Where Good Ideas Come From Sample Image 100 5.1 BuzzFeed.com Landing Page 107 5.2 USDebtClock.org 112 5.3 NHL.com 122 5.4 NHL.com 123 5.5 Tokyo Mew Mew 126 x 5.6 “Can’t Hold Us” Lyric Video Image 128 5.7 “Can’t Hold Us” Lyric Video Image time index 0.33 seconds 129 5.8 BuzzFeed.com 131 5.9 IGN.com 138 5.10 Game Grumps 141 6.1 Excavating a Text 146 6.2 The Sandman cover, 1989 151 6.3 Mock-up of Sandman Cover, with Apologies to Gaiman 152 6.4 What Afterlife? Main Page 190 xi Chapter 1 – Introduction A sad story… An unusual story… Figure 1.1 Opening cartoon (Shane, 2019). How do readers bridge the space between the panels shown in Figure 1.1? Which resources, cues, conventions, and processes support the interpretive effort demanded by this meaning-making endeavour? Do readers springboard off the minimal printed text? The sequence of images? How do influences of culture, language, socio-economics, and visual design act upon readers’ construction of meaning? How does the reader synthesize aboutness from the multiple representational modes (modalities) conveyed by the images alone, the printed text alone, and/or 1 the relationship between the two? Which modality might be primary and which secondary? Is the space between the panels, in fact, empty? Or is it alive with intertextual vibrations, readers’ expectations, remediations, conventions, and representations? The cartoon invites readers to construct meaning using the visual conventions of the contemporary comic book, specifically the temporal progress of the image (McLeod, 1994). Modalities are dynamic even within the confines of established convention. They can work in concert or in opposition to each other in any given instance, either inter-textually or intra-textually, challenging, hindering, supporting or enriching readers’ meaning making in innumerable and surprising ways (see Davis & Neitzel, 2012 for a discussion of collaborative meaning making). Betweenness, the mystery of interstitial