Week 4 Readings

Multimodal Education – Hassett et. al

When I first entered my 301 classroom and we started talking about genre I had a pretty specific idea of what the term meant and how it applied strictly speaking to different types of movie, literature and music categories. After taking the class I realized that it also included different categories that I had never even thought of like street signs, labels, etc…

“Although possessing traditional print literacy skills continues to be sufficient for many communication tasks, the demands of digital media and visual texts within a multimodal culture require complex new ways of coding and decoding image–text relations.” (pg. 1)

The article talks about books (that, in my opinion are still the most tangible form of learning how to read because the child literally has to manipulate the book in front of them) and how over the past few years authors have become a bit more avant garde in their writing styles. It also talks about how different forms of media are influencing children as well. In adopting new forms of print culture into the classroom the teacher has to learn how to assimilate her or his teaching style to those new forms of print. Students have to learn how to read texts differently since they are not necessarily restricted to the confines of a tactile book.

“Consequently, being able to navigate the Internet, use digital media, or read a children’s book involves being able to decode and comprehend alphabetic print in conjunction with other socially and culturally shaped forms of representation, that is, in conjunction with multiple modes.” (pg. 3)

Understanding Literature – Langer

“There has been little research to help literature keep pace with what we’ve learned about the processes of making meaning in reading or writing. There is little to guide educators about what it means to come to understand literature, nor about what the teaching of literature has to offer to the intellectual development of the growing mind.” (pg. 1)

Just as with the Hassett article above, there is a different way of looking at things. With Hassett it was different modes of writing whether it be print-based text or technology-influenced-based text. Here, Langer calls for the need to change how we view literature and how it is taught. How it seems to only teach to the cannons and teach that which we already herald and champion in elitist circles. But her writing calls for “envisionment” which allows the reader to interact with the text, bring in their own personal knowledge, and reflect on how the reading might apply to them. When you make the literature reader-based rather than forced historicity or cannon essentials then the reader has much more motivation to read as well as sees more value in the education they are receiving.

Critical Literacy – Creighton

“Developing simultaneously with who language instruction, the publication of children’s literature over the past twenty-five years has resulted in the widespread use of picture books, novels, and informational texts in the classroom as an integral part of the curriculum. As teachers have moved away from the linguistic, laboratory-style approach to reading, which utilizes graded texts with a focus on systematic phonetic development, we find instead anthologies of real literature in the classroom, drawing from a variety of genres by classic and modern-day authors.” (pg. 2)

Critical literacy – like the Langer article above – helps to bring to light what the reader brings to the text. Not all of our students are going to be upper middle class white kids who have faced very little hardship in life so by integrating books that speak to issues that many students face into the curriculum, you allow that student to interact with the text as well as see themselves in that text. And, just like Langer’s “envisionment” theory it allows students to find motivation in their reading by seeing themselves represented by the author.