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Children’s emerging conceptions about literacy and its functions are influenced by their experiences with a wide range of written and oral literacies, including the use of digital technology, in their homes and communities. Now that mobile technologies have become intuitive to use, relatively inexpensive, small and easy to move around and networked, they have provided an entry point for transformations in the creation and sharing of texts – they are changing the way young children ‘do’ literacy. In this chapter, the authors discuss the ways that children learn about multimodal texts; how mobile technology can facilitate the reading, creation and sharing of multimodal texts in preschool and primary classrooms; the literacy skills necessary for reading multimodal texts, and; strategies for planning instruction into which multimodal texts and mobile devices are integrated. Examples of how children may engage in multimodal reading and writing in and out of the classroom are also provided.

This paper aims to propose a critical multimodal framework to understanding pedagogical materials that focuses on not only the verbal or the visual components but also the interaction between the two semiotic resources that constructs power relations as a result of intermodal interaction, and it further provides an example of an in-depth analysis of one text using this approach.

The paper proposes a critical multimodal framework that draws from Serafini (2010) and Royce (1998). Details about how the two works complement to form a critical multimodal framework are discussed, after which the paper analyzes one example from an English-language textbook using the proposed framework to demonstrate its strengths.

The findings highlight the power relations constructed in texts as a result of the interaction between the verbal and visual components, specifically how the visual mode functions to rationalize the power relations constructed in the verbal mode. These findings also establish the significance for considering the larger context of materials production and reception identified in the ideological perspective to appreciate how texts reflect discourses in diverse locales.

This paper argues that even though critical multimodality has often been discussed conceptually in L1 literacy scholarship, how to put these conceptualizations into practice has not been addressed systematically. The paper also contends that critical perspectives to understanding multimodal texts are also important in L2 English-language teaching. The critical multimodal framework proposed thus serves as a conceptual and methodological framework for multimodal reading and interpretive practices in both L1 and L2 contexts.

This paper aims to examine language learners’ critical multimodal literacy practices with a moving-image text, focusing on text comprehension and interpretation rather than text production. It takes a critical perspective towards multimodality and proposes the simultaneous emphasis on critical and multimodal literacies.

This qualitative teacher-inquiry adopts critical multimodal literacy as the framework for understanding learners’ literacy practices. The course implementation highlights images, sounds and words as encompassing the five modes of visual, aural, linguistic, gestural and spatial (Arola et al., 2014) in emphasizing the multimodal in critical multimodal literacy, and the purposeful organization of the images, sounds and words as reflecting the critical in critical multimodal literacy. The analysis also adopts Serafini’s (2010) concentric perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives as the tenets of critical multimodal literacy.

The findings show that focusing on images, sounds, words and their purposeful organization enabled the students to critically examine a moving-image text through considerations for the multiple modes and arriving at the structural and ideological interpretive perspectives.

This study fills a gap in the literature, as very little research has been done to investigate the ways in which language learners engage with, that is, comprehend and interpret, moving-image multimodal texts. In addition, it presents a critical multimodal literacy framework based on Serafini’s (2010) tripartite perspectives and offers pedagogical suggestions for incorporating critical multimodal literacy in language classrooms.

This study aims to seek to demonstrate how explicit teaching of SFL metalinguistic and multimodal “grammars” enhanced 8-9-year-old children’s deeper understanding and production of multimodal texts through critique of the construction of mini-documentaries about animals: the information, language of narration, composition of scenes and resources to engage the viewer. It also seeks to demonstrate how a knowledge of metalinguistic and multimodal “grammars” contributes to students achieving both content knowledge and understanding of the resources of semiotic modes.

A design-based approach was used with the teacher and author working closely together to implement a unit of work on mini-documentaries, including explicit teaching of the metalanguage of information reports, mini-documentary narration (aka script) and multimodal resources deployed to scaffold students’ creating their own mini-documentaries.

The students’ mini-documentaries demonstrate how knowledge of SFL written and multimodal SFL-informed “grammars” assisted students to learn how meaning was created through selection of resources from the written, visual, sound and gestural modes and apply this knowledge to creating multimodal texts demonstrating their understandings of the topic and how to make meaning in a multimodal mini-documentary.

The research is limited to the outcomes from one group of students in one class. Generalisation to other contexts is not possible. Further studies are required to support the results from this research.

The linguistic and multimodal SFL-informed grammars can be applied by educators to critique multimodal texts in a range of mediums and scaffold students’ production of multimodal texts. They can also inform assessment criteria and expand students’ conception of what is literate practice.

Knowledge of a linguistic and multimodal metalanguage can provide students with the tools to enhance their critical language awareness and critical multimodal awareness.

This chapter documents a commitment to culturally responsive teaching through the implementation of multimodal text sets in English language arts teacher education. Using a communities of inquiry framework inspired by justice-driven approaches to literacy learning, preservice teachers at New Mexico State University designed curriculum and instruction that considered the importance of students' digital literacies to meaning-making and communication. Through the presentation of a course unit that explores how multimodal text sets inspire literacy learning that is culturally relevant for students whose racial, linguistic, and cultural identities are often absent in mainstream school curricula, this chapter highlights the notion that digital literacies are accessible to and supportive of the minority serving educational institutions of New Mexico. Preservice teachers first considered what topics sparked their curiosity or inspired them to step into learning before exploring topics to which their future students will be drawn to investigate in language arts. Integrating two frameworks for creating text sets, preservice teachers then selected a targeted, canonical text around which to build their sets and supported it with multimodal scaffolding texts. Following the work and reflections of one focal student, this chapter offers unit descriptions, snapshots, and implications of personalized literacy experiences with creating inquiry-based, multimodal text sets in a secondary methods course.

Young children often enter formal schooling with a range of digital experiences, including using apps on tablets and engaging with interactive educational toys. The convergence and increased accessibility of digital resources has made it more convenient for young children to navigate multiple modes (e.g. words, images, sound and movement) as they construct meaning across many different texts. The purpose of the study is to examine affordances and choices when students compose multimodal texts.

Three lines of inquiry support this study: the social construction of writing practices, multiliteracies and multimodality and intertextuality. Data analysis used an iterative two-tiered process of reading, rereading and coding students’ multimodal compositions and supplemental field notes (Creswell, 1998; Strauss and Corbin, 1998).

Analysis of the 23 multimodal compositions revealed three significant findings related to choice and affordances of multimodal texts: the popularity of Minecraft as a topic choice based on the social interactions of students; semiotic concurrence and semiotic complementarity and sophisticated use of literary techniques (e.g. nonlinear structures, shifting point of view, asides and emojis) across the multimodal stories, particularly those that carried Minecraft themes.

Students’ intentionality with the modes in their compositions suggested they were fully aware of the “complexity, interrelatedness and interdependence between image [animation and sound] and language” (Shanahan, 2013, p. 213).

Literacy research exploring multimodal composition and justice-oriented children’s literature each have rich landscapes and histories. This paper aims to add to both of these bodies of scholarship through the emerging assemblage of Studio F, a fifth-grade classroom. The authors share poststructural analytic encounters with attention to the unexpected multimodal relationships and the justice-oriented talk and texts that emerged, as well as the classroom conditions that produce them.

The authors think with assemblage theory to examine the newness that emerged as one small group of students wrestled with the emerging instances of racism present in Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles.

Together, the living arrangement of bodies, materials and discourses created openings for students’ explorations of race and racism.

This paper offers teachers and researchers space to rethink what is possible in the literacy classroom when the authors re-envision classrooms as vibrant assemblages, support emergent multimodal composing processes and follow students’ critical encounters toward justice-oriented literacies.

This article presents an analysis of empirical literature on classroom assessment of students’ multimodal compositions to characterize the field and make recommendations for teachers and researchers.

An interpretive synthesis of the literature related to practices and possibilities for assessing students’ multimodal compositions.

Findings present three overarching types of studies across the body of literature on assessment of student multimodal compositions: reshaping educational practices, promoting multiliteracies approaches to learning and evaluating students’ understanding and competence. These studies’ recommendations range along a continuum of more to less structural changes to “what counts” in classrooms.

This review only considers studies published in English from 2000to 2019. Future studies could extend these parameters.

This analysis of the literature on assessing student multimodal compositions highlights foundational differences across studies’ purposes and offers guidance for educations seeking to revise their practices, whether their goals are more theoretical/philosophical, oriented toward reshaping classroom practice or focused on ways of measuring student understanding.

Rethinking assessment can reshape educational practices to be more equitable, more theoretically commensurate with teachers’ beliefs and/or include more thorough and accurate measures of student understanding. Changes to any or all of these facets of educational practices can lead to continued discussion and change regarding the role of multimodal composition in teaching and learning.

This study fills a gap in the literature by considering what empirical studies suggest about why, how and what to assess with regard to multimodal compositions.

The purpose of this study is to examine five Secondary English Language teachers’ perceptions and practices of multiliteracies teaching in the context of a decade after multiliteracies was introduced into the English Language syllabus in Singapore.

Adopting a case study approach, the authors observed 12 multiliteracies lessons taught by the five teacher participants across three secondary schools. The classroom data included field notes and video-recordings of the lessons. The authors also conducted pre-lesson and post-lesson interviews with the teachers to understand their beliefs and the rationale behind their classroom practices. The video-recordings of the lessons and audio-recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic coding.

The authors identify an essentialising of multiliteracies to the skills of viewing and representing with multimodal texts, as well as a sense of uncertainty amongst the teachers towards the teaching of multiliteracies. In terms of practices, the authors observed an attempt to connect with the students’ life-worlds through the use of authentic materials, but often only in service of language learning. The authors also highlight the constraining influence of assessment on shaping multiliteracies learning. The findings of this study resonate with the conclusions that some of the earlier studies reported on teachers’ perceptions and practices of multiliteracies teaching. This resonation suggests perennial issues and challenges which remain unresolved.

This study is limited by the number of participants as well as the selected lessons the authors observed. The schools, while selected because they were considered as mid-range public schools in Singapore, were also not representative of all Singapore schools. As such, the authors acknowledge that the generalisability of the findings from this study is limited.

The issues raised in this study resonate with the findings from previous studies both from Singapore and around the world. The persistence of these concerns over time and space that remain unresolved demands attention and concerted action from policymakers, curriculum developers and education researchers, to address the challenges in multiliteracies teaching and learning.

This study was conducted a decade after the launch of the English Language Syllabus 2010, which first incorporated multiliteracies into the curriculum. This study examines the teachers’ perceptions and practices in relation to the policy intent. The implications from this study are relevant to educators interested in integrating multiliteracies in the literacy curriculum internationally.

To explore the funds of knowledge that six emergent bilingual students build upon as they produce multimodal texts, how the practices surrounding these events are mediated, and the role of student agency within an ethnographic social semiotics framework. Ethnographic methods were used to document this yearlong study that included videotaping small group interactions, writing field notes, conducting interviews, and collecting multimodal work samples. The researcher served as a participant observer in a third-grade classroom where she met with students two days per week to interact with mulitmodal poetry. The findings reveal the media-rich popular culture and home digital practices students bring with them to school and the ways in which these resources were utilized for designing multimodal poetry. Several essential factors are discussed including funds of knowledge, role of play and creativity, nonlinear writing structures, and agentive design decisions. Multimodal text making requires a revamping of classroom literacy instruction that embraces multiple modes especially noting the importance of images, central role of experiential learning, and space for student choice thus empowering them as learners.