Transcript: Hello. I wanted to kind of delve deeper into why multimodal learning has become so popular over the past ten years, why it is valid and important, and why multimodal learning should be incorporated into the 21st-century high school literature classroom on a regular basis.
The first thing that I wanted to focus on was what multimodal learning is in general. And essentially, multimodal learning is a way of teaching and learning that incorporates various modes such as pictures, illustrations, audio, speech, writing, imprint, music, movement, gestures, and facial expressions to make meaning. These modes can be used individually or in conjunction with one another. So the main thing with multimodal learning, in general, is it is not meant to erase writing and print. It's not meant to erase the importance of writing and print. However, it definitely is something that can supplement the teaching of reading and writing in a traditional fashion. One thing that I mentioned in my paper and was just something that I've noticed as well is that technology has become or technology is rapidly changing in our current society and it's become a very important part of our current society, social media as well. As a result, this current generation of students that are high school aged, so from 14 to 18, essentially their whole lives revolve around the use of technology, social media, consuming images, consuming video, and reading text a lot less than what maybe previous generations have. As a result, what is happening in the classrooms has to change or adjust as well. But a lot of school districts have been slow to make these required changes and multimodal learning is a part of that.
Another thing to think about with multimodal learning, and I'm going to go ahead and shift here, is that also includes the idea of multimodal literacy. So multimodal learning and multimodal literacy go hand in hand and you can't really have one without the other. So our traditional idea of literacy is the skills associated with reading and writing. So a student's ability to read and a student's ability to write and the skills that we teach have always been directly connected to reading and writing and a student's ability to do so. But now that times are changing, we have to also consider students out of school literacies, which is another. A phrase that you see in a lot of the research associated with multimodal literacy and multimodal learning and out-of-school literacies are basically those skills that students may have that are things they may be engaging in, those modes that they may be engaging in outside of school that are not normally or atypically taught or addressed at school. So, their ability to find a video and create meaning with it, find images and create meaning with it, what they're doing on social media, then blogging and what that means. So, there are a lot of things that students are doing outside of school that could be beneficial in an academic setting, but it's not being used in that fashion, so teachers aren't really addressing that.
Another thing I want to talk about with multimodal literacy is the idea that it's not just solely on what they can do with the modes, how they manipulate modes to make meaning, but also the perspective. Students are approaching these texts from multimodal text and regular text. What underlying context is associated with that multimodal text? What underlying context is associated with the student themselves? So, what perspective are they approaching the text with? Because a lot of the research I read also points out that no student approaches a piece of literature or a multimodal text from the same perspective. So, that also has to be considered when a student is being taught and you're bringing in these multimodal assignments into the classroom.
The next thing I wanted to bring up was the idea of multimodal text and what that is, because teachers sometimes will be told about multimodality, you should be more multimodal, have your students use multimodal skills. But teachers are not being shown how to do it and how that looks. So I did want to incorporate that as well. With the multimodal text, I do mention that that includes graphic novels, comics, websites and blogs, and that these are all supplemental options to assist students in increasing their engagement and their performance. Because many students are not as engaged when it's the rote reading and writing approach, and they do disconnect, they don't perform as well. B ut, if you can bring in these graphic novels specifically, and use them as a supplemental tool not to replace but to supplement that, they can be very effective in re-engaging those students who have checked out and aren't as interested specifically when you're reading a more difficult classical text. For example, with Macbeth, I'm a firm believer in supplementing with the graphic novel, whether that be having the student read the original version first in its entirety, and then circle back and read the graphic novel version, whether that be using excerpts from the graphic novel only of the more important scenes in the play to help students get an even further or deeper understanding and also to be able to visualize because this is how students are learning out and it's their natural way of learning and what they're doing outside of school. So bringing some of that into the classroom I think is very helpful.
I also talk about multimodal assignments. Specifically, I focused on remix journaling and multimodal projects mostly because those are the two things that I think are simple and easy to incorporate into a classroom for a teacher, specifically a literature teacher. So, remix journaling, essentially it's taking the idea of journaling that many high school literature teachers are already doing and adding that multimodal component. So having students journal, so use text, but also bringing in images, bringing in video clips, and maybe even music to supplement the meaning that they're making from the reading. So being able to make meaning not just with their words, but with those other modes as well, is very important. And I think it's great with the remix journaling because it does help to increase the critical analysis skills once again, their engagement, and then their overall performance as well because they are interacting with that text on a deeper level than they would have if they had just simply done written, handwritten, or typed journaling without all the additional components. And the multimodal projects would take that even a step further by having a student use an extended period of time to create or work on a project that does have a multitude of multimodal components. And once again, it's that higher level thinking, higher up on Bloom's taxonomy, but at the same time including those multimodal components.
And then finally, I wanted to display what teachers can do to bring in their multimodal skills. Because if you're constantly as a teacher asking students to be multimodal, use their multimodal skills, and incorporate that into their learning, but you're not showing them how to do it and you're not doing it, then you may have less buy-in and less success with the strategy. So, I wanted to just show a couple of strategies teachers could use. So I focused on multimodal scaffolding and anchoring. So, multimodal scaffolding is basically the same thing as regular scaffolding, which is something that many teachers are taught to do. But you're adding multimodal components, so you're adding those images, you're bringing in paintings in, having students maybe look at that before they read a certain text and interpret. You're bringing in clips, you're bringing in songs and lyrics, maybe other videos to help with that scaffolding process as you build up to a particular skill or to a particular reading and anchoring kind of piggybacks on that, except it's solely based on clips. And it's really encouraging teachers to use video clips daily, or as much as they can, so that students are seeing that multimodality in the classroom on a regular basis. And finally, these are my sources. These are all the sources that I consulted and read.
