My storybook: Task 7 – Mode Bending
When considering how I was going to describe the contents of my bag in this mode-bending manner, I was at a loss of how it would look and how I was going to change it. Finally, I concluded that I was going to create a storybook with a younger audience in mind. I felt this was the best way to acknowledge the multiliteracies pedagogy mentioned by the London Group (1996). When I considered the layout and content, I thought about my audience’s limited literacy capabilities and thus added audio to each page while maintaining cropped images, from the original page, of each item in my bag.
The intention behind using the same images draws from my experience working with non-verbal students. Through my past experiences, it was always beneficial to complement language, written or audio, with concrete images of the item or action. Accordingly, I took one image from Task 1 and cropped each item.
By adding the image to the front of the book and then all cropped images on different pages, I used the concepts of over instruction by scaffolding the learning from Task 1 with the image of my bag contents. I wanted to include these images as those who may be unfamiliar with the language and its normalizations, that compacts the information with the assumption that everyone understands, does not exclude those who want to participate in the reading of this book (London Group, 1996).
In addition, I have then begun “building on and recruiting what the learner already knows” (London Group, 1996, p.86). The practice of scaffold learning has been accomplished by cropping and adding each item from the bag and using the direct image ask to master the skill of what each item is and matching it with the name given by the author. This attempt to seek scaffolded learning and overt instruction has been a manner to consciously ensure that more powerful learning occurs when I integrate conscious mode switching (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009).
The curriculum in my province emphasizes that each student is different, and we have to teach to many different learners. Therefore, the teacher should not forget that so too should design and redesign old materials or units into new ones.
This activity has allowed me to remember why it is essential to include multimodalities in my classroom.
References
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4:3, 164-195, DOI:10.1080/15544800903076044
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.