For this task, I was struck by the current emphasis in education around multi-modal presentation of content. The increased focus on accessibility and diversity within learners has necessitated a change of venue from the traditional classroom lecture style teaching. There is more focus on concept based teaching, flipped classrooms and various forms of literacy (prose literacy, numerical literacy, digital literacy, health literacy, and many others) as mentioned in the New London Group (1996) work.
In the re-design of this task, I wanted to present a completely different form of presentation. In his article, Gee (2005) discusses musical notation and rap and it’s relationship to literacy:
What do we want to say of someone, for instance, who
Gee, 2005, p. 17
can understand and even compose rap songs (words and music), but cannot
read or write language or musical notation?
Of course, in traditional terms, this person is illiterate in terms of both
language and musical notation. But yet he or she is able to understand and
compose in a language style that is distinctively different from everyday language
and in a musical form that is distinctively different from other forms of
music. We might want to say that the person is literate in the domain of rap
songs (as a distinctive domain combining language and music in certain characteristic
ways), though the person is not print literate or musical-notation
Literate.
This resonates with me, as there is a theme of multimodality that can appeal to different styles of learner and hits different parts of the brain. I have no musical background at all, so really had to use a different type of creativity that I’m not used to using. I did enlist the help of my young adult daughter to help match the words to the cadence of the song.
To start, I had to decide on the background rhythm tone – bright and happy or heavier and dark? I also had to consider copyright, so looked through YouTube’s free library of music in the Hip Hop/Rap genre.
Once the music was established came the task of making the words fit into the cadence of the music, which was a huge challenge. This required a much different idea of literacy and structure that demanded thinking very differently about the structure of a sentence. This was very difficult for someone with very structured ideas of writing and grammar. This for sure requires a different type of literacy that challenged me to push my boundaries.
References
Anno Domini Beats. (2022). Culture. YouTube Audio Library.
Gee, J. P. (2005). Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a “waste of time”? [EBook]. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (pp. 13–50). Palgrave Macmillan. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=308383&ppg=20
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–93. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u
*I had posted my reply a bit less than a month ago, but for some reason, my reply never went through, so I am re-posting it on the blog.*
Hello Angela! I really enjoy how you chose to make a rap and ditched the traditional way of the “what is in your bag ” task. This is definitely a great way to hook students into the task. What is great about this task is that there is no “wrong” way of completing it. Multi-modal tasks provide students with the opportunity to complete academic tasks and be creative at the same time. A quote that stood out for me was : ” In a profound sense, all meaning making is multi-modal” (The New London Group, 1996, p.81)”. Great work!
Hi Petros, Thanks for your comment! I hope you were directing your comment to me, Deborah, and not Angela.
I like the openness of the task as well – without these boundaries, learners are free to really think outside of the box in honour of all learning styles and abilities. Thanks!