BREAKING BARRIERS: Multimodal & Media Literacy in the CfE

Rick Instrell14 May 2011AMES Conference

Curriculum Potential SpaceFreedom

Control

IntegrationFragmentation

Traditional subject-based curriculum (3Rs)

Post-moderncurriculum (4Rs)

1 2

3 4

4Rs (William Doll)•Richness•Recursion•Relations•Rigour

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(eg Drama, Art & Design)

(eg Mathematics,English)

(CfE???)

(eg Media Studies)

3Rs cf 4Rs• Richness (depth, breadth)• Recursion (spiral curriculum)• Relations (t-l, l-l, relevance)• Rigour (critical)

• Narrowness• Linearity• Disconnection• Uncritical

But 3Rs approach is required to achieve 4Rs: need 3Rs+4Rs

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Contexts for AMES position paper

1. CfE (+concerns over possible disappearance of Media Studies and Computing courses)

2. Recent developments in Media Studies:– Multimodality– Social media

3. International educational thinking:– NLG on multiliteracies and need for cross-

curricular metalanguage– Henry Jenkins on participatory culture

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Proposals1. Review of multimodal literacy across all curriculum

areas (e.g. case studies: history, mathematics)2. Review of multimodal literacy across all assessment

(e.g. authentic assessment, multimodal rather than monomodal assessment)

3. Introduction of new NQs (e.g. Digital Media Production, Moving Image Arts, Digital Media Arts)

4. Multimodal literacy development programme– Good practice in Scotland and abroad– Pilot project in schools, FE, TEI– On-line CPD, teaching resources and assessment

exemplars (Glow)

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Review of Curriculum Areas

• Need to engage and develop 21C pupils’ online competences

• Holistic analysis of CAs can reveal absences/ enrichments (key aspects of Media Studies useful here as they provide a holistic heuristic)

• Multimodality: all communication involves the orchestration of modes in rhetorical structures to construct meaning in cohesive and engaging texts

• Pedagogic practices: shift from teacher-direction to dialogic collaborative enquiry

• Assessment practices: holistic, authentic, multimodal

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Response to David Buckingham 1

On participatory culture1.Agree that there is a participation divide and that the numbers actively developing politically/artistically challenging user-generated content is limited2.Agreed that Web2.0 is a business model with the user selling themselves to capitalismConsequently I would argue that new media NQs must:1.Teach learners how to produce crafted and challenging UGC2.Teach learners about the financing of internet resources and the ways in which old and new media interact in the WWW

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Response to David Buckingham 2

On ten things that are wrong with multimodality:1.Agreed that neologisms are difficult (original texts by Kress and van Leeuwen can be a heavy read; try David Machin instead)2.Multibanality – obvious that media texts are multimodal – but it can remind analyst to attend to all aspects of a text (e.g. often in film analysis acting and audio are neglected); if it is banal so much the better because it should be easy to use its concepts to forge a cross-curricular metalanguage3.Multimodality considers the orchestration of modes but also considers the role of interpretation and intertextuality

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Response to David Buckingham 3

4. From theory to evidence can be useful if moving from theory to dominant forms e.g. most film posters do have a top (ideal)- bottom (real) structure with reading path; even poor theory generates observations e.g. poster does not have top-bottom or left-right structure; so what is the structure? Even faulty theory can generate useful observations (cf. Karl Popper)

5. Formalist approaches are useful in identifying principal rhetorical structures and devices in particular media

6. Should the goal of intentional control of modes and modal interaction not be a goal for teacher/pupils? Surely this is needed to design and interatcively craft texts

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Response to David Buckingham 4

7. Multimodal analysis is but one tool – it needs to be supplemented by political economy, social theory, cultural studies perspectives which are the basis of media studies

8. Not empty gesture to audience; it tries to understand the social purpose of the communicator and how the attempt to affect an audience is implemented in modes/interactions

9. See 7,810. Curriculum politics: we need a way of linking different

disciplines if we are to encourage interdisciplinary work and escape from ‘silos’; multimodality/multibanality is the best tool for this!

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Questions for Media QDT• Adjustment of key aspects

– e.g. add Sociocultural Context– e.g. combine Language and Narrative into Rhetoric– need to think about institutional professional production and

audience-initiated prosumer production • Adjustment of analysis unit content

– multimodality better model than Barthesian semiotics for media production and analysis

– learners will expect a media course to engage with social media and video games

– the key problem for media organisations is how to utilise social media and monetise content; so we need to consider how old and new media interact

– how do we ensure learners’ public sphere engagement? (that’s why non-fiction was included)

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Questions for Media QDT• Adjustment of production unit content

– need to emphasise that simulated professional production is creativity within constraints (compliance, cost, time, health & safety, …)

– should there be a place for prosumer production and distribution?– all professional media production is now multimedia and uses old and

new media so should Media Production reflect this?– especially as digital production can be so speedy and learners should

have experienced production in P1-P7 and S1-S2• Adjustment of assessment

– division of Language and Narrative in course assessment unnatural (unify as Rhetoric?)

– single text for all questions in Media Analysis is not authentic– assessing media production by written examination is not authentic

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Dispositions of Digital Media Producers

Research by Sheridan & Rowsell (2010) identifies the following dispositions across digital media producers:•Creativity (via active participative networks)•Design (research, evaluation, remixing, convergence)•Spin (how to rhetorically develop an idea – requires attention to form and arrangement)•Multimodality (choosing and combining modes to implement the spin)

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How do we encourage these?

• Collaboration (pupil-pupil; teacher-pupil; teacher-teacher) cf. Doll’s richness, relations

• Interdisciplinarity (breaking subject boundaries) cf. richness, relations

• Trial and error (iterative non-linear nature of process) cf. recursion, rigour

• Production (open-ended production rather than closed reproduction) cf. richness, recursion, rigour

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Implications

• AMES involved in SQA QDTs and SWGs• How does AMES advise SQA to construct courses and

assessment practices which foster desirable dispositions and provide a more meaningful and motivating experience?

• How do we assist teachers at all levels to address multimodal & media literacy?

• What are the implications for your practice?• What support mechanisms would help?

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BibliographyAMES (2011) Breaking Barriers: Multimodal and Media Literacy in the Curriculum for Excellence. Accessed 14/05/2011

at http://www.mediaedscotland.org.uk/AMESPositionPaperFeb2011.pdf.Bearne, E. and Bazalgette, C. (eds.) (2010) Beyond Words: Developing Children’s Response to Multimodal Texts.

Leicester: United Kingdom Literacy Association.Doll, W. (1993) A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum. New York: Teachers College Press,.Instrell, R. (2008) “Something Old, Something New, Something Excellent? – Part 1” in Media Education Journal, 43,

Summer 2008, 9-16. Instrell, R. (2010) “Something Old, Something New, Something Excellent? – Part 2” in Media Education Journal, 48,

Winter 2010/2011, 3-11. Instrell, R. (2011) “A Plain Language Guide to Multimodal Literacy” in Drinkwater. M. A. (ed.) Beyond Textual Literacy:

Visual Literacy for Creative & Critical Inquiry. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press. Jenkins, H. et al. (2006) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century.

MacArthur Foundation. Accessed 01/01/2011 at http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF.

Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. London: Hodder Arnold.New London Group (1996) “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures”. In Cope B. and Kalantzis M.

(2000) Multiliteracies. London: Routledge. Also accessed 01/01/2011 at wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm.

Sheridan, M.P. and Rowsell , J. (2010) Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age. London: Routledge.

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