Multi-Modalities
Multi-Modal Communication |
Multiliteracies access multi-modal communication by incorporating different modes of meaning making including linguistic, visual, aural, gestural and spatial modes of meaning with language (New London Group, 1996). Later “tactile” was added to the list of modalities (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009).
|
Examples from the
|
My project included the multimodal aspects of multiliteracies. Listening to the elder’s story, students combined linguistic, audio, visual, and gestural multiliteracies. As students listened to the meaning, they took in the story in the form of words (linguistic) as they listened (aural). They watched the elder (visual) as the elder pretended she was the little boy singing to the grandmother in the story. The storyteller used gestures to communicate that the boy in the story went away, tried to squeeze through the window, and huddled close to the fire in a way that conveyed how cold he was without using additional words to explain what he did or looked like (gestural).
|
Examples From the Student Project |
When students used the elder’s oral story to create a digital story on StoryKit the project integrated written words (linguistic), pictures (visual), and their recorded voices (aural). Students typed their story (tactile) and arranged the picture, words and icons on each page in a way that made sense to them (spatial). Multiliteracies offer students more ways to access and express their current Funds of Knowledge while offering many different ways to connect with, create, and retain new meaning and knowledge.
|