Critical Multimodal Literacy

Abstract

This research investigates how three female Nigerian high school students were taught to deploy critical multimodal literacy to interrogate texts and reconstruct unequal social structures. A class of ninth-grade students in an all-women school was given instruction through the analysis of how multiple modes were used to represent meanings in textbooks. Data were collected from multiple sources, including students' interviews, observations, classroom videos, social media posts, and artifacts of students' literacies to analyze how they reflect on and critique their personal experiences in Nigeria within and through the English curriculum. The findings suggest that the teacher and students co-constructed possibilities for the learners to critique the social production of gender and resist structural practices that diminish their voices and their literacy learning. The findings indicate a need for English teachers in Nigeria to enact critical multimodal literacy pedagogy which relates instruction to female students' interests to promote agency and change. Keywords critical multimodal literacy, critical literacy, new literacy studiesThere is an urgent need for English curriculum in Nigeria to change its reading instruction emphasis from grammatical rules to integrating multimodal literacy practices into instruction, so that teachers can prepare students to read and create multimodal texts. The high school curriculum focuses exclusively on language-based topics such as Ajayi 217 adjectives, tenses, and verbs without paying attention to students' home literacies 1 such as surfing the web, emailing, texting, blogging, chatting, posting messages and images on social network sites, and reading and writing multimodal texts. To compound the situation, the curriculum appears to treat literacy as neutral and value-free, without much consideration to how biases against female students are reproduced or how the students draw on their own knowledge and identities as resources to shape literacy learning (Kendrick & Jones, 2008;Kendrick, Jones, Mutonyi, & Norton, 2006).It is not surprising that more than 50% of female students in Nigeria drop out of school before reaching the 12th grade. Educational statistics between 2004 and 2008 from Nigerian Universal Basic Education Commission showed that "the gross enrollment ratio of girls is significantly lower than that of boys" (British Council Nigeria, 2012, p. 29). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO; reported that girls' completion rates of school in Nigeria are lower than boys, particularly in the northern states, where girls' completion rates were as low as 7.8%. Many factors influence the education of female students. Some parents prefer sending their boys to school "because only sons inherit and carry on the family name" (Mahdi, 2011, p. 11). Other factors include early marriage, pregnancy, and poor quality teaching. Also, in many communities women are regarded as subordinate to men (Badawi, 2007). The effect of these gender biase...

Blurring Boundaries: Drama as a Critical Multimodal Literacy for Examining 17th‐Century Witch Hunts

“…In this article, we argue that drama can create a space for secondary students to blur the boundaries of history, by offering opportunities to make connections between instances of historic discrimination and those that students have experienced and witnessed in contemporary society. We also seek to trouble claims that drama leads to empathy (Diamond, 2007;Yassa, 1999) and to present literacy educators with a complex portrayal of the ways power dynamics can operate when using drama as a critical multimodal literacy (Ajayi, 2015;Kalantzis & Cope, 2012;Rowsell, 2013). We argue that the multiple modes of literacy and FEATURE ARTICLE role-play involved in drama provide rich possibilities for learning through students' negotiations of an imagined social hierarchy, in spite of inherent risks.…”

“…Multimodal literacies further this thinking by exploring how people, as inherent meaning makers, use a synaesthesia of modes simultaneously, in parallel, or substituting one mode for another to create depth of meaning (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012). Applying a critical lens to multimodal literacies insists that these meanings are dependent on social, cultural, and domainspecific contexts and that students connect language, spatiality, posture, and gesture to interrogate historical and contemporary social power relations (Ajayi, 2015).…”

“…During the class debriefing, she chose not to share her thoughts. However, her interview articulates an analysis of power circulation, abused in and out of the fictional world, revealing the potential that multimodal drama activities have for students to critically reflect on their lives (Ajayi, 2015).…”

Digital role-play in a secondary English language arts classroom

“…Research of teacher and students' digital participation is important to help illuminate myriad and complex ways that issues of power and identity are embedded within everyday learning experiences (Alvermann, 2008;Ajayi, 2015;Jenkins, & Kelley, 2013;Lammers & Marsh, 2015). For example, an increasingly common pastime and interest of adolescents is online gaming (Apperley, 2014;Gee, 2003;Lenhart, 2014).…”

“…Studies of adolescents' online discourse illustrate ways that language use can be a literal reflection of social identities and serve as a metaphor for adolescents' notions of who they might wish to become (Black, 2009;Davies, 2014;Haynes-Moore, 2013;Subrahmanyam, Greenfield, & Tynes, 2004). Examinations of adolescents' digital experiences matter as they illuminate processes of recognizing, exploring, and assuming identities in participation with others (Ajayi, 2015;Alvermann, 2001;Jones & Woglom, 2016;Lewis et al, 2007).…”