CRITICAL TRANSMODAL PEDAGOGIES Getting Student Teachers to Play

CRITICAL TRANSMODAL PEDAGOGIES: Getting Student Teachers to Play with Genre Conventions Dr Navan Govender 2019 Navan. Govender@strath. ac. uk University of Strathclyde Glasgow

RE S E A RC H Q U E S T I O N 1. How could transmodality be used in initial teacher education to engage language and literacy students with multimodality? 2. What transmodal shifts do students make, in the move from linguistic to visual-linguistic texts? 3. What does CMDA reveal about the nature of the transmodal shifts students make?

Multimodality: Domain for socialsemiotic (inter)action Transmodality: Critical literacies: Practice of navigating multiple semiotic systems Commitment to socially transformative pedagogies

The concept of the transmodal moment highlights processes of migratory meaningmaking, erasures and alterations, assisting in the exploration of dialogues, oscillations and interactions across and between different ideas, meanings and experiences. (Newfield, 2014, 111)

Meaning-making as a process Meaning potentials are continuously susceptible to change across time and space Meaning-making as intertextual Meaning is made by relating texts, and ways of making texts, to other sources of meaning Meaning-making is ongoing and should be an active process of negotiating meaning in space and time. Meaning-making, then, can be located in systems of genre with the potential to traverse those systems The meanings available for readers and makers of texts are situated in particular cultural experiences Making meaning for text recipients is a process of unpacking positions, being positioned, resisting positioning. For text designers it is a process of choosing how to position oneself, others and the environment, as well as negotiating the positioning power of traditions of meaning-making (genre)

If multimodality is the domain for social-semiotic (inter)action (Kress, 2015), transmodality is an example of the process of (inter)action Multimodality: Domain for socialsemiotic (inter)action Transmodality: Practice of navigating multiple semiotic systems Multimodality as a domain for addressing issues of power, access, diversity and design (Janks, 2010) through critical reading across modes as well as critical semiotic play in textual design Critical literacies: Commitment to socially transformative pedagogies Transmodality as a critical literacy practice of negotiating powerful forms, modes, genres and processes of communication

Week 1 2 3 4 T HE C O U RS E Topic A Brief History of Comics The Vocabulary of Comics Rethinking Visual Literacy & Narrative Strategies for Using & Producing Visual Narratives Kress, G. (2015). Semiotic Work: Applied Linguistics & a Social Semiotic Account of Multimodality. AILA Review, 28, 49 -71. Mc. Cloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Collins. Newfield, D. (2014). Transformation, Transduction & the Transmodal Moment. C. Jewitt (ed. ) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. Pp. 100 -113.

Framing Colour Word-as. Spatial image organisation bstraction/ Realism Sequencing Space as a function of time Perspective Inclusion/exclusion Form (frames as conveyers of meaning) Foregrounding/backgrounding (size, proximity) Linear/open reading paths Themes: contrasting or uniform ideas Layout: items working together How does the narrative unfold? In what order is the story told? What is the pace of storytelling? From whose perspective is the story told? What lies in and out of the frame? What meanings do the shape, size, and style of the frame(s) suggest? What items occupy more/less space on the page? What is the role of negative space? Is an intended reading path evident? How do items represent contrasting or uniform meanings? How is the page, or a particular space on the page, used holistically to convey meaning? Form (shape, size, font, etc. ) How does the shape, size, and style of the words used open up or Directionality and placement anchor particular meanings? How does the placement and direction (including shape) of the wordimage contribute to meaning? Contrast What does contrast between colours suggest about intended meaning? Emphasis, foregrounding and backgrounding How is colour used to emphasise, foreground or background particular Connotations meanings across a narrative? What connotations of particular colours might be drawn on in the narrative? How is this reinforced? Specificity or universality How is the narrative represented as specific or universal? How have Combinations: realistic characters with abstract icons, photographs, realistic/abstract representations been used to settings, or abstract characters with realistic anchor this? settings.

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• • Transmodal and cross-modal assessment strategies Multimodality as culturally responsive Transmodality as critical literacy practice Foregrounding indigenous and marginalised traditions of making meaning (genre)

CRITICAL TRANSMODAL PEDAGOGIES: Getting Student Teachers to Play with Genre Conventions Dr Navan Govender 2019 University of Strathclyde Glasgow