Multimodality, ‘Reading’ and Literacy

From Jewitt's reading on the abovementioned, I feel that people are generally familiar with the multimodalness of traditional forms of reading and writing (text and images) on print. Most would be considered literate these days based on just that notion. However, with the advancement in technology, a new configuration of reading is required. Today, we understand that one can only be deemed truly literate should he or she be able to interpret and reproduce an integrated display of text, image, sound and movement on screen. Despite the shift in the definition of one's literate-ness, we can never escape the inherent irony that is engraved in our curriculum's policies and assessments which underscore the linear view of reading yet linguistic view of literacy. There is therefore a mismatch between what the world demands of students and the offer made by the officials.

With regard to the article's focus, while it appears that writing is gradually decentred and reliance of image/visual and other modes over words is increased, the prevalence of it in relation to other modes seem to be a pressing concern when one 'reads' the screen. I found what Jewitt mentioned about the relation of writing to tension and critique rather intriguing and interesting. In my opinion, such design of information gives an opportunity for it to be a stimulus for a fruitful and critical discussion. Additionally, it is especially useful for critical literacy classes that require students to uncover contradictions or underlying agenda perpetuated in such design.

In view of such benefit that the evolvement of reading and literacy offer, the call to rethink about them should be embraced as it prepares our children for the future world. Hence, if I had my way, I would really urge for the reform of assessment methods so that students do realise too, the value of being critical of the writings or generally designs of information they see surrounding them.

Language and Literacy Education: Purpose?

Based on Stein's and Tan's readings, the following is my take on the gist of what I have read and understood:

"The purpose of language and literacy education is to provide a platform for pupils to fully participate in classrooms through the process of meaning-making or representing meaning regardless of their cultural or linguistic background. The equal opportunity provided by the education system will also empower every individual to communicate their identity by granting them a voice in any mode possible instead of marginalising them."

I have used the phrases "fully participate" and "equal opportunity" to describe what I understood of the reading because both Stein and Tan suggest the notion of 'inequality' when it comes to the way classroom lessons are delivered because most of the time, the information perpetuated in class would marginalise or exclude those who do not share the same cultural or linguistic background that the school values.

For example, in a discussion of Places of Interest, be it located in Singapore or more so, overseas. Given the scenario that Pupil A comes from a family who is well-travelled and had the opportunity to visit maybe Paris, Japan, and all the places of interest in Singapore and Pupil B who had just been to the Zoo with the school. Chances are that Pupil A would be in a better position to participate fully in the discussion as compared to Pupil B because the former would have more to share. This would lead to the silence of the latter's voice. Thus, I believe that here, with the introduction of multiliteracy pedagogy, if properly embraced and carefully delivered by the teacher, Pupil B will have a higher chance of being included in the discussion since the pedagogy underscores how "language meets with cultural and linguistic diversity" (Cope and Kalantzis In Tan, 2008).

Conclusively, both readings also propose how literacy and language education would "...empower every individual to communicate their identity by granting them a voice in any mode possible..."
because, in my opinion, when diversity in the classroom is seen as a valued quality, every pupil will be able to voice out their opinion in their preferred mode – verbally, linguistically, visually or best still, integrating the different modes into a digital story.

Establishing Personal Identities through Videography

How do we, as teachers, get students to understand that the different elements in videography – angling, movement, positioning of shots, voicing, selection of shots, etc. – generate certain meaning in establishing their personal identities?

Using a video clip or a film as a teaching resource in the classroom seems to be less of a dream these days. The fact that pupils are well exposed to these modes (after undergoing various multimedia courses) makes those resources appropriate to engage and lead them to achieve a more critical understanding of what is presented, represented or more so perpetuated in them.

As an extension or complementary step to using these resources, teachers should consider and encourage pupils to become videographers that explore their "real identity" and generate certain meaning when establishing them. So, pupils must firstly undergo a course that explains the technicalities of videography skills as mentioned above.

Now, for them to discover what matters to them or who they are in the first place, I think that it can be achieved by getting pupils to experience various situations that they are unfamiliar with. I strongly believe that one's true character or personal identity will finally surface when pushed to the extreme. Therefore, these situations must be carefully crafted and may also be situations which reflect a 360-degree turn from the life they encounter.

For example, pupils may visit the boys' home or girls' home or even a community service trip to any neighbouring country and think about how people their age are coping or living their situations. Prior to this trip, teacher must first tap on the technical skills that they learnt and examine a couple of documentary-like clips with regard to issues that are pretty much opposite of their lives in Singapore. The following could be an exemplary clip that could be shown to pupils:

After showing the clips, teachers will engage pupils in a class discussion of how the videographer of each clip had used the elements mentioned and based on those elements, the kind of meaning or message they got from it – be it how the music matches the visual they see, the impact of zooming in and out of the picture or even how text complements the thought of the participant represented and many more.

Teachers will then lead them to reflect on themselves, what they like or dislike about their lives and then compare it with the people they are visiting. With the skills they had learnt from the videography course and knowledge on the elements based on the discussion, pupils will then record probably a 2-minute clip in which what they feel importantly for and their individual perspective on the issues are shown through the positioning and selection of the shots as well as the angling, voicing and etc... This would also mean that viewers would comprehend the attitudes, beliefs and values of each pupil just by watching what they portray in the clips and thus pupils would have successfully communicated and established their personal identity through placing what reflects or is of importance to them in the video.

Critical Literacy in Everyday Life

From the perspective of students as the reader, the following image, taken from a familiar poster located in the 'white tiger enclosure' at the Singapore Zoo, will be examined in terms of Freebody and Luke's (1990) four-part model for "Reading as Critical Social Practice".

Coding Competence
This "fact poster" or "informational poster" uses the combination of colours, text (different fonts/sizes), realistic image, schematic diagram and icons to deliver its purpose. To be able to crack the poster and read the content effectively, students must be able to recognise that the poster adopts both the top-to-bottom reading directionality (i.e. reading the heading first to know the content below) as well as left-to-right directionality (i.e. reading the legend to understand what the different colour represents). Simultaneously, they must also be able to understand how framing differentiates the heading from the content as well as distinguishes where the different examples of wild tigers can be found today. In addition, to read this poster effectively, besides understanding the legend in the bottom left foreground, students should also be able to recognise the function of the icon. Lastly, to crack this image, they must also recognise that the 8 orange vector lines that points out of the map towards the realistic (naturalistic) images or icons depicts the text "There were once 8 kinds of tiger in the world. Only 5 remain today."

Semantic Competence
To make meaning of the poster, students have to know the exact location of the different countries in the world since the large green mass in the poster represents part of the world map. Having "limited background knowledge" (Luke, 1995) hampers their comprehension of the poster as they may not be able to articulate where the wild tigers can exactly be found despite the text "where do tigers live today?" in the heading. In light of our role as teachers, this sophisticated call for intertextuality seeks us to explicitly teach students the conventions of a world map which in turn makes new demands on them.

Additionally, to make meaning of the green and orange land mass in the poster, students will need to bring in their prior knowledge of maps, in which the common use of legend, in the case of this poster, is to illustrate what the colours represent. Besides that, to comprehend the use of a mixture of realistic images and icons to denote the different kinds of tiger in the world, teachers will have to explicitly introduce the notion that realistic (naturalistic) images or icons used to depict the text represent the tigers that are still in existence and extinct ones respectively.

Drawing from their everyday experiences of reading newspapers, magazines and even textbooks which are strategically included with images, students understand that it is indeed a common practice that images are captioned in the mentioned genres and discourses because of the limitation that each mode offers – text relay more information about the images while images help text participants visualise the subject matter discussed in text. Hence, living in such cultural configuration, students are thus accustomed to how the poster include caption or in this case the specific name of the species shown in the realistic images and icons.

Pragmatic Competence
This poster, situated in the white tiger enclosure, serves the purpose of provisioning information with regard to the location of the different kinds of wild tigers today. However, as text user, students will have to dwell deeper and understand that the Singapore Zoo is all about conserving animals and saving them from extinction. Hence, when students use the text, they do not just read the information given and remember them for personal purpose or school, they also have to uncover, from the design of the poster, how the Zoo's mission to save wild tigers from extinction is highlighted for the purpose of embracing humanity.

Critical Competence
Based on the above examined competences, it is noted and henceforth assumed that the ideal image reader constructed by the poster would be of someone who has a certain degree of map knowledge and very much interested in knowing more about the white tigers placed in the enclosure. Clearly, the most salient subject in the poster is the tigers – they being the only naturalistic image in the poster. So, the construction of the ideal reader as the former is demonstrated through how the image maker (i.e. the Singapore Zoo) silenced the country labels in the world map. The latter is depicted by the use of possible question asked by image readers (i.e. "Where do wild tigers live today?") as a heading.

The use of multimodal approach when designing the poster as opposed to purely using text or images is brilliant because it helps to deliver the Zoo's intended message better. Besides being able to illustrate its informational value, the poster's multimodalness (i.e. in terms of the sense of authenticity and realism in which the natural images of the wild tigers offer) also evoke a sense of interconnectedness between animals and image readers as human beings – responsible and empathetic members of the community who can make a difference to the lives of these animals some day.

Narrowing the profile of the image readers down to the local Secondary 2 students, it is very likely that most of them will be able to assume the stance of an ideal image reader for the case of this poster because they would have gone through a lesson on reading maps. However, in our culture, most students, without the explicit instruction from their teachers may not be able to decipher the latter purpose (i.e. evoke a sense of interconnectedness between animals and image readers) of the poster instead. To a certain extent, this may be attributed to the situation in which most of our local students have yet to embrace the spirit or probably the habit of thinking critically despite the emphasis on such traits during their lessons in school. Slowly but surely, we hope that our students will have the critical eye in them to be able to uncover such notions that exist underlying the surface meaning of the designed poster.

A Lesson on Critical Reading
Based on the profile of the targeted learners – Secondary 2 Singaporean students, I would approach the lesson by showing the students different parts of the poster independently in which the heading, text, legend, image, icon, and map exist are different entities. Here, students may be grouped in threes to discuss and predict from just the heading, what the content should entail.

By revealing the entities one by one, students will then elaborate or modify their predictions. They will then infer from their predictions the purpose, audience and context. At the end of the prediction exercise, teacher will then show students the actual poster and get them to compare and contrast the similarities and differences that exist between the actual and predicted text in terms of their purpose, audience and context and deliberate why so.

Carrying out this activity gives students the opportunity to critically read, consider and make wise decisions based on semantic predictions and inferences. Showing contents of the poster as separate entities as well as when it is actually integrated allow students to discover the affordances of reading text and image independently and interdependently. Some questions that may be asked during the activity would be:

• Who do you think are the audience of the text presented? Why so? (with reference to just the heading)
  
• Which genres would you find the different parts of the content in? (Demonstrate how "intertextual resources" (Luke, 1995) contribute to their understanding of the poster)
  
• What is the purpose of the actual poster? (Establish the focus of discussion)
  
• Why are there similarities/differences between your prediction and the actual poster? (Stimulate discussion and critical understanding)
  
• How do the different parts of the content contribute to the purpose of the poster? Why so? (Lead to uncovering underlying purpose of designing the poster)

Reference
Luke, A. (1995). When Basic Skills and Information Processing Just Aren't Enough: Rethinking Reading in New Times. Teachers College Record. (97)(1). Columbia University: Teachers College.

Of Hybridity and Literacy

Many a times in class discussions, teachers may find pupils bringing in their personal experiences in conjunction with the topic being discussed or even behaving and reacting in a certain way when assigned to perform tasks in class. No one child is the same. Coming from families with different socio-economic status, religious and racial background, pupils present to the class a plethora of attitudes, beliefs and values. During my contract teaching, a memorable discussion with my Primary 5 Social Studies class spurred me to relate it to the concept of hybridity. We were on the topic of Singapore's separation from Malaysia. While the facts are being laid down and discussed, one student expressed displeasingly, audible enough for the class to hear, that his parents did not like Malaysia. While this may sound like an opportunity to create a third space in learning, I did not manage to do so. Instead, I dismissed him off and well, ignored the remark signalling that the statement was of no relevance to the discussion. Clearly, this was not the best move. I should have better managed the situation and instead explore the conflicting remark further and bring the discussion to another level so that the child as well his fellow classmates could achieve a shared and deeper understanding of where the resentment comes from and how to work their way out to a more neutral stance.

This kind of teachable moment would never have the opportunity to come out in the open at a better time and thus, teachers should be better informed and trained to seize moments like those. In my opinion, exploring Gutierrez's perspective on hybridity both as a theoretical lens for understanding diversity and as a method for organising learning seem to be a reasonable concept to be applied within the Singapore educational context. Unknowingly, we might have even applied it or missed the chance to apply it in our classrooms especially during class discussion. Thus, training the teachers to identify the teachable moments is essential. Even when these moments are not abundant, teachers should be able to create conflicting views of a common fact and lead pupils to justify why certain facts are so. In view of the changing education landscape in Singapore that encourages pupils to be creative and critical thinkers and problem solvers, what better way than the third space to mediate their thought processes.

A Little Take-Away from "The Future of Literacy"

The world seen through images is nothing like the world narrated through writing. The evolving dominance of writing to the dominance of image in the various domains of the world is one that is still debatable today. Much of what is discussed by Kress in this week's reading led me to conclude that the integration of writing and image is still the best be in communicating meaning. The way writing (text in its conventional definition) and image (still and what is prevalent today, moving images/videos) support each other produces the potential for viewers/readers to make meaning. This meaning making process however situates one in the domain of their social context.

For example, the following video by National Council of Problem Gambling (Singapore) takes on the perspective a father.

Just by viewing the moving images before reading the text (writing) at the end of the video, one who lacks the social context or prior knowledge will not be able to decipher the intended meaning that the image maker is trying to communicate because the semiotic potential of images are such that it is open to interpretation and that the reader has the authority to hypothesise the content. The text at the end of the video, "Often people who suffer from problem gambling aren't the gamblers", however, demands the reader to make an epistemological commitment to it in which readers are forced to attribute those who are not gamblers as suffers of problem gambling. Independently, the text and image produce different effects on readers.

Hence, this video illustrates why I feel that integration of writing and image is the best bet when one seeks semiotic potential because when both writing and image co-exist, people are able to contextualise and make a more accurate meaning of what the image maker is trying to deliver. On a hindsight, as much as one can imagine from the text who are the ones sufferings, the affordance of an image has limited it to the daughter of a father who is in need of her piggy bank's money. Thus, here I concur that both modes, writing and image, have their strengths and limitations as mentioned in Kress (p.4) and that the meaning maker (text maker), when designing their products, will have to carefully approximate the reader's interpretation.

Dominance of image or more evidently, a visual spectrum of meaning making potential calls for an urgent restructuring of today's education system. Learning about the changes in Singapore's English curriculumn (2010) which caters to the skills of visualising and representing signals the government's recognition of the changing world. As mentioned in the NLG reading earlier this semester, we have to indeed prepare our children for tomorrow's worl where reading images is prevalent. However, cultural pessimists, the political and cultural elites, as suggested by Kress seem reluctant to make the switch. Writing seem to still be their domincant mode of communication despite the evolving dominance. Honestly, I agree with their stance to a certain extent simply because some issues in the world today are best preserved in writing. For example, Memorandum of Understandings, asset deeds and etc...However, a little thought in me was wondering would it be possible to integrate images in these "serious documents"? Will image lower the modalityof the writer's intention. Imagine a warrant of arrest or summons being integrated or designed with images that exemplifies the text maker's intention. How bizzare~

Well, at the end of the day, I believe that texts which are designed on a multimodal platform, whether aimed as fitness for purpose, shaping of knowledge, epistemological commitments or causality, are capable of affording as many potential meanings as readers possibly can interpret because mode is inseparable from cultural, social, affective and cognitive matters.

Of Semiotic Resources and Typographies

Semiotic Resources
This week's reading helped me to finally come to an understanding of what ‘affordance’ or ‘semiotic potential’ mean. It leads me to conclude that anything at all: words, objects, images and gestures, as soon as it is deemed as a semiotic resource, can be interpreted or in this case afford different kinds of interpretations or meanings and thus the semiotic potential can be described. However, one has to note that as much as an artefact’s semiotic potential can be described, it is still fixed to the context in which it is situated. For example, in the following:

Without the context, this image can be interpreted as a juggler, a person balancing many responsibilities which are equally important, a person who is about to cover protect his head from falling balls and etc...

The interpretations I have listed above are possible description of the image’s potential. My point here is that this image’s affordance is limitless and for semioticians to be able to describe all of its potential is impossible. To realise the true meaning of the image, it has to be tied to where and how this image is used in other words, the image has to be contextualised.

The inventory of semiotic potential is non-exhaustive as chances are; the potential is defined for a specific purpose in which affordance of the resource in other domains could be neglected.

In my humble opinion, the work of semioticians in building and gathering semiotic inventories is formidable and tedious. The examples cited in the readings singlehandedly emphasises the never ending affordances of semiotic resources. The notion of “framing”, categorised by its use in magazine advertisements and school and office buildings, suggest how domains dictates which affordances is highlighted or obscured.

Typographies

With reference to the image below, it is clear that typography is no longer representative of a print text that delivers information directly from the writer. Instead, it communicates one’s sense of identity and personality to a certain extent.

This advert, designed by Career Junction (Middle East), targets people to put their skills to better use. Skills here refer to possibly the ability of a designer to innovate the conventional print in grocery list to a “typographical image”. Thus, looking at it, one may observe how conventional typefaces communicates or screams out the respective denoting images that it represents. It is really interesting to note that typographies today are pretty much a form of semiotic resource with its own pool of affordances. I bet there are many conventional things out there that we may have taken for granted awaiting their turn to be innovated.