Multiliteracies were first conceptualized in 1994 by the New London Group (NLG), a group of globa... more Multiliteracies were first conceptualized in 1994 by the New London Group (NLG), a group of global scholars who specialized in different aspects of literacy instruction including classroom discourse, multilingual teaching and learning, new technologies, critical discourse and literacy, linguistics, cultural and social educations, semiotics, and visual literacy. Published in 1996, the NLG focused on equalizing the power dynamics within education by moving away from traditional print-based literacies that privilege the cultural majority who hold the most wealth and power in the world. Their work seeks to elevate those who are traditionally marginalized by embracing literacies that leverage multiple languages, discourses, and texts. Multiliteracies have been widely adopted, expanded upon, and contested in academia, but classroom teachers have been much slower in adopting them. Although systems of accountability and standardization contribute to a slow adoption of multiliteracies practi...
In the current climate of standardization, areas such as social justice are often overlooked as t... more In the current climate of standardization, areas such as social justice are often overlooked as the pressures of covering the learning standards increase. Within today’s classrooms, it is imperative that teachers encourage curiosity, creativity, and student voice. Using a blend of both traditional literacy and new literacies, students in a rural junior high setting worked to establish a classroom environment dedicated to critical thinking and debunking social conventions related to both the prison system and gang life. This social justice exploration allowed students to be immersed in a variety of texts that empowered them to discuss and question a system that faces them currently. By providing a platform of inquiry, students cultivated their own understandings related to social justice and formulated new meanings that led to the dissemination of topic-related stereotypes.
Years ago, I (Robyn) was in the midst of changing schools and preparing to teach middle school la... more Years ago, I (Robyn) was in the midst of changing schools and preparing to teach middle school language arts. Weeks before the school year was to start, I visited my new school to gather materials, research the curriculum, and scope out my new classroom. While there, I met another language arts teacher who volunteered to show me my classroom and answer my questions. On the way to my new room, she nodded to a neighboring classroom and shared a story that has stayed with me as I have watched the changing landscape of education over the past several years. It seems that one day my new friend was beginning a lesson when she decided, as teachers sometimes do, that the lesson wasn't progressing as planned. She determined that a change of plans was needed. So while students were working, she sent a few out at a time to go to their lockers for their books. In the middle of this process, my new neighbor opened her door and asked my friend whether or not she had any WD40. Puzzled, my frie...
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2015
Background Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to d... more Background Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to develop culturally relevant curriculum for the diverse students whom they will encounter in classrooms. Though there is a significant body of research about culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher education programs have struggled with how to best reconcile the needs of students of color with the experiences and misconceptions of White teachers. Purpose/Focus of Study Using a figured world framework, we explore how social interaction made possible through digital tools shaped the actions and identities of 16 preservice teachers. Research Design: This qualitative case study focuses on three preservice teachers from Illinois to illustrate the cumulative and different process of change that each went through during his or her interactions with 10th-grade students from Los Angeles. Beginning with a holistic coding of the corpus of data, we looked at chat room transcripts, preservice teacher r...
This article provides a framework and examples for critical media literacy pedagogy. More than si... more This article provides a framework and examples for critical media literacy pedagogy. More than simply guiding how students read and interpret the texts they encounter, critical media literacy pedagogy pushes to illuminate the underlying power structures that are a part of every media text. Throughout this article, examples from working with high school youth and preservice teachers are provided. In recognizing recent shifts in media production as a result of participatory culture, this article focuses on how youth-created media products are an integral part of a 21st century critical media literacy pedagogy.
We explore how valuing Black male students’ literacies within academic contexts during multimodal... more We explore how valuing Black male students’ literacies within academic contexts during multimodal writing can position students’ ways of knowing at the center of their learning. This centering requires a repositioning of students’ cultural literacies at the core of instruction. Using multiliteracies and Critical Discourse Analysis frameworks, we analyze and share excerpts from conversations with three Black adolescent high school seniors as they composed and reflected upon authoring digital autobiographies for an assignment in their Black Literature class. These reflections illuminate how the students drew on culturally salient texts to share elements of themselves with their peer and teacher audience.
This article examines the potential for creating an alternative learning context using digital to... more This article examines the potential for creating an alternative learning context using digital tools in English classrooms to better support the identities and language practices of diverse learners. We explore the role language plays in the relationships between preservice teachers in central Illinois and their 10th-grade partners in Los Angeles. Through discourse analysis of online chatroom transcripts, we found that intertextuality and persona building through intentional language use were 2 tactics participants used to shape power dynamics in their relationships. This study provided preservice teachers with opportunities to build relationships with students different from themselves, gain a deeper understanding of the language practices of youth, and explore power structures in schools.
Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 2019
This article examines the possibilities of supplementing field experiences with digitally mediate... more This article examines the possibilities of supplementing field experiences with digitally mediated third spaces as a way to foster relationships between urban youth and middle-class teacher candidates. Pairing these experiences with a well-remembered events framework, this study explores how relationships built primarily through digital tools influence preservice teachers' understanding of teaching. Drawing upon 4 months of data, composed of preservice teachers' reflections, this study examines the experiences identified by preservice teachers as memorable and unpacks the lessons digitally mediated experiences provide. This study concludes by pointing to technology as a potential solution for helping teacher education institutions create meaningful experiences between preservice teachers and youth in urban centers.
In this discussion with literacies researcher Allan Luke, the New London Group Member reflects on... more In this discussion with literacies researcher Allan Luke, the New London Group Member reflects on the role of multiliteracies in shaping literacies research and the continuing changes to technology, capitalism, and learning. Focused on looking toward future advances in literacies research, Luke reflects on the role of multiliteracies in contemporary educational policy and how this work is shaping literacy scholarship and practice today. Luke looks pragmatically at the current political landscape and emphasizes how colonial practices of technology over the past twenty years bend literacies research away from the initial optimism expressed by the New London Group. At the same time, Luke grounds contemporary literacies interpretations of technology and learning in foundational critical theorist like Freire, Illich, and Dewey. By focusing on how technology has changed schooling, power, and literacies, Luke considers what challenges loom for the theory and practice of powerful, equitable literacies in the next two decades.
Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 2018
This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultan... more This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultaneously with spoken discussions (the front channel), as one approach to meaning-making through discussion. Using transcripts of front and backchannel discussions, we examine how undergraduate preservice teachers utilize backchannels to talk about class-assigned texts. Although previous research has suggested that backchannels can create distractions, our study found that participants within the backchannel groups were able to create meaning through their interactions. We used five types of talk (analytic, personal, intertextual, transparent, and performative) to aid in our analysis. While we found evidence of all types of talk in the transcripts, analytical talk dominated the conversations, suggesting that backchannels can indeed encourage close readings of texts. In addition, we found that the nature of the online environment created a sixth category of talk. This type of talk, which we ...
Abstract This article highlights an inquiry project in an eighth-grade ELA class in a rural middl... more Abstract This article highlights an inquiry project in an eighth-grade ELA class in a rural middle school. Using the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers, we encouraged students to form questions relating the text to the larger world. To begin the unit, students participated in three anchor activities over a three-week period. Students blogged about the book, located non-fiction articles that connected to the text, and interviewed community members who shared roles similar to the characters in the novel. Then, through Socratic Seminar discussions and teacher questioning, we guided students toward the development of questions that emerged while reading the novel. Students researched their questions, refined their questions, and developed a campaign designed to educate their school about their findings. In addition to describing the inquiry process students engaged in, we demonstrate technology’s role in the research process and in the production of texts that showcased their learning.
Literacy Enrichment and Technology Integration in Pre-Service Teacher Education
Content area teachers are often prepared to instruct with texts that are heavily grounded in writ... more Content area teachers are often prepared to instruct with texts that are heavily grounded in written language despite research that demonstrates that literacy and text expand beyond these parameters. Traditional content literacy/reading courses maintain preservice teachers' traditional understandings of text and of literacy as reading and writing, and they do not take into account broader definitions of text and literacy. This chapter describes how the authors, faculty in a medium-sized university teacher education program, redesigned their secondary content literacy course. The intention was to help preservice teachers better understand the nature of literacy in their particular disciplines and to demonstrate how to incorporate a variety of texts to effectively teach their content material. Sample lessons and assignments are described and student responses are discussed in terms of their larger implications for teacher education.
Promoting Global Literacy Skills through Technology-Infused Teaching and Learning
This chapter explores the perceptions of technology held by professionals in two distinctly diffe... more This chapter explores the perceptions of technology held by professionals in two distinctly different districts in the Midwest. Drawing upon Deanna Bogdan's work with the gap and continuum theories, as well as the influential work of Marshall McLuhan, the authors identify how the perceptions surrounding student behavior, technology, and schools' roles in society shape districts' approaches to technology access and use. Underlying all the decisions about technology access is the perception of the school's role in society. In an educational environment that has traditionally defined teachers as gatekeepers of information, technology can provide an interesting dilemma. Positioning technology as an issue of literacy may open a path that makes it easier for schools to travel (Cuban, 2001; Demetriadis, et al., 2003; Leu, O'Byrne, Zawilinski, McVerry, & Everett-Cacopardo, 2009). In doing so, teachers can provide students with navigational tools that will guide them towa...
By adopting a multiliteracies stance, educators can reach struggling and disengaged students thro... more By adopting a multiliteracies stance, educators can reach struggling and disengaged students through popular culture texts. Using the comic book hero Spiderman as a vehicle to illustrate the importance of making connections as a strategy for learning and reading, the authors highlight approaches that teach students how to identify traditional literary elements such as characterization and allusion in the non-traditional texts of cartoons, video games and film. Through an understanding of how to successfully integrate these texts, teachers can bridge popular culture to traditional texts, showing students how to make their own connections and move beyond rote memorization and recall into deeper thinking and reasoning.
Multiliteracies were first conceptualized in 1994 by the New London Group (NLG), a group of globa... more Multiliteracies were first conceptualized in 1994 by the New London Group (NLG), a group of global scholars who specialized in different aspects of literacy instruction including classroom discourse, multilingual teaching and learning, new technologies, critical discourse and literacy, linguistics, cultural and social educations, semiotics, and visual literacy. Published in 1996, the NLG focused on equalizing the power dynamics within education by moving away from traditional print-based literacies that privilege the cultural majority who hold the most wealth and power in the world. Their work seeks to elevate those who are traditionally marginalized by embracing literacies that leverage multiple languages, discourses, and texts. Multiliteracies have been widely adopted, expanded upon, and contested in academia, but classroom teachers have been much slower in adopting them. Although systems of accountability and standardization contribute to a slow adoption of multiliteracies practi...
In the current climate of standardization, areas such as social justice are often overlooked as t... more In the current climate of standardization, areas such as social justice are often overlooked as the pressures of covering the learning standards increase. Within today’s classrooms, it is imperative that teachers encourage curiosity, creativity, and student voice. Using a blend of both traditional literacy and new literacies, students in a rural junior high setting worked to establish a classroom environment dedicated to critical thinking and debunking social conventions related to both the prison system and gang life. This social justice exploration allowed students to be immersed in a variety of texts that empowered them to discuss and question a system that faces them currently. By providing a platform of inquiry, students cultivated their own understandings related to social justice and formulated new meanings that led to the dissemination of topic-related stereotypes.
Years ago, I (Robyn) was in the midst of changing schools and preparing to teach middle school la... more Years ago, I (Robyn) was in the midst of changing schools and preparing to teach middle school language arts. Weeks before the school year was to start, I visited my new school to gather materials, research the curriculum, and scope out my new classroom. While there, I met another language arts teacher who volunteered to show me my classroom and answer my questions. On the way to my new room, she nodded to a neighboring classroom and shared a story that has stayed with me as I have watched the changing landscape of education over the past several years. It seems that one day my new friend was beginning a lesson when she decided, as teachers sometimes do, that the lesson wasn't progressing as planned. She determined that a change of plans was needed. So while students were working, she sent a few out at a time to go to their lockers for their books. In the middle of this process, my new neighbor opened her door and asked my friend whether or not she had any WD40. Puzzled, my frie...
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2015
Background Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to d... more Background Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to develop culturally relevant curriculum for the diverse students whom they will encounter in classrooms. Though there is a significant body of research about culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher education programs have struggled with how to best reconcile the needs of students of color with the experiences and misconceptions of White teachers. Purpose/Focus of Study Using a figured world framework, we explore how social interaction made possible through digital tools shaped the actions and identities of 16 preservice teachers. Research Design: This qualitative case study focuses on three preservice teachers from Illinois to illustrate the cumulative and different process of change that each went through during his or her interactions with 10th-grade students from Los Angeles. Beginning with a holistic coding of the corpus of data, we looked at chat room transcripts, preservice teacher r...
This article provides a framework and examples for critical media literacy pedagogy. More than si... more This article provides a framework and examples for critical media literacy pedagogy. More than simply guiding how students read and interpret the texts they encounter, critical media literacy pedagogy pushes to illuminate the underlying power structures that are a part of every media text. Throughout this article, examples from working with high school youth and preservice teachers are provided. In recognizing recent shifts in media production as a result of participatory culture, this article focuses on how youth-created media products are an integral part of a 21st century critical media literacy pedagogy.
We explore how valuing Black male students’ literacies within academic contexts during multimodal... more We explore how valuing Black male students’ literacies within academic contexts during multimodal writing can position students’ ways of knowing at the center of their learning. This centering requires a repositioning of students’ cultural literacies at the core of instruction. Using multiliteracies and Critical Discourse Analysis frameworks, we analyze and share excerpts from conversations with three Black adolescent high school seniors as they composed and reflected upon authoring digital autobiographies for an assignment in their Black Literature class. These reflections illuminate how the students drew on culturally salient texts to share elements of themselves with their peer and teacher audience.
This article examines the potential for creating an alternative learning context using digital to... more This article examines the potential for creating an alternative learning context using digital tools in English classrooms to better support the identities and language practices of diverse learners. We explore the role language plays in the relationships between preservice teachers in central Illinois and their 10th-grade partners in Los Angeles. Through discourse analysis of online chatroom transcripts, we found that intertextuality and persona building through intentional language use were 2 tactics participants used to shape power dynamics in their relationships. This study provided preservice teachers with opportunities to build relationships with students different from themselves, gain a deeper understanding of the language practices of youth, and explore power structures in schools.
Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 2019
This article examines the possibilities of supplementing field experiences with digitally mediate... more This article examines the possibilities of supplementing field experiences with digitally mediated third spaces as a way to foster relationships between urban youth and middle-class teacher candidates. Pairing these experiences with a well-remembered events framework, this study explores how relationships built primarily through digital tools influence preservice teachers' understanding of teaching. Drawing upon 4 months of data, composed of preservice teachers' reflections, this study examines the experiences identified by preservice teachers as memorable and unpacks the lessons digitally mediated experiences provide. This study concludes by pointing to technology as a potential solution for helping teacher education institutions create meaningful experiences between preservice teachers and youth in urban centers.
In this discussion with literacies researcher Allan Luke, the New London Group Member reflects on... more In this discussion with literacies researcher Allan Luke, the New London Group Member reflects on the role of multiliteracies in shaping literacies research and the continuing changes to technology, capitalism, and learning. Focused on looking toward future advances in literacies research, Luke reflects on the role of multiliteracies in contemporary educational policy and how this work is shaping literacy scholarship and practice today. Luke looks pragmatically at the current political landscape and emphasizes how colonial practices of technology over the past twenty years bend literacies research away from the initial optimism expressed by the New London Group. At the same time, Luke grounds contemporary literacies interpretations of technology and learning in foundational critical theorist like Freire, Illich, and Dewey. By focusing on how technology has changed schooling, power, and literacies, Luke considers what challenges loom for the theory and practice of powerful, equitable literacies in the next two decades.
Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 2018
This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultan... more This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultaneously with spoken discussions (the front channel), as one approach to meaning-making through discussion. Using transcripts of front and backchannel discussions, we examine how undergraduate preservice teachers utilize backchannels to talk about class-assigned texts. Although previous research has suggested that backchannels can create distractions, our study found that participants within the backchannel groups were able to create meaning through their interactions. We used five types of talk (analytic, personal, intertextual, transparent, and performative) to aid in our analysis. While we found evidence of all types of talk in the transcripts, analytical talk dominated the conversations, suggesting that backchannels can indeed encourage close readings of texts. In addition, we found that the nature of the online environment created a sixth category of talk. This type of talk, which we ...
Abstract This article highlights an inquiry project in an eighth-grade ELA class in a rural middl... more Abstract This article highlights an inquiry project in an eighth-grade ELA class in a rural middle school. Using the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers, we encouraged students to form questions relating the text to the larger world. To begin the unit, students participated in three anchor activities over a three-week period. Students blogged about the book, located non-fiction articles that connected to the text, and interviewed community members who shared roles similar to the characters in the novel. Then, through Socratic Seminar discussions and teacher questioning, we guided students toward the development of questions that emerged while reading the novel. Students researched their questions, refined their questions, and developed a campaign designed to educate their school about their findings. In addition to describing the inquiry process students engaged in, we demonstrate technology’s role in the research process and in the production of texts that showcased their learning.
Literacy Enrichment and Technology Integration in Pre-Service Teacher Education
Content area teachers are often prepared to instruct with texts that are heavily grounded in writ... more Content area teachers are often prepared to instruct with texts that are heavily grounded in written language despite research that demonstrates that literacy and text expand beyond these parameters. Traditional content literacy/reading courses maintain preservice teachers' traditional understandings of text and of literacy as reading and writing, and they do not take into account broader definitions of text and literacy. This chapter describes how the authors, faculty in a medium-sized university teacher education program, redesigned their secondary content literacy course. The intention was to help preservice teachers better understand the nature of literacy in their particular disciplines and to demonstrate how to incorporate a variety of texts to effectively teach their content material. Sample lessons and assignments are described and student responses are discussed in terms of their larger implications for teacher education.
Promoting Global Literacy Skills through Technology-Infused Teaching and Learning
This chapter explores the perceptions of technology held by professionals in two distinctly diffe... more This chapter explores the perceptions of technology held by professionals in two distinctly different districts in the Midwest. Drawing upon Deanna Bogdan's work with the gap and continuum theories, as well as the influential work of Marshall McLuhan, the authors identify how the perceptions surrounding student behavior, technology, and schools' roles in society shape districts' approaches to technology access and use. Underlying all the decisions about technology access is the perception of the school's role in society. In an educational environment that has traditionally defined teachers as gatekeepers of information, technology can provide an interesting dilemma. Positioning technology as an issue of literacy may open a path that makes it easier for schools to travel (Cuban, 2001; Demetriadis, et al., 2003; Leu, O'Byrne, Zawilinski, McVerry, & Everett-Cacopardo, 2009). In doing so, teachers can provide students with navigational tools that will guide them towa...
By adopting a multiliteracies stance, educators can reach struggling and disengaged students thro... more By adopting a multiliteracies stance, educators can reach struggling and disengaged students through popular culture texts. Using the comic book hero Spiderman as a vehicle to illustrate the importance of making connections as a strategy for learning and reading, the authors highlight approaches that teach students how to identify traditional literary elements such as characterization and allusion in the non-traditional texts of cartoons, video games and film. Through an understanding of how to successfully integrate these texts, teachers can bridge popular culture to traditional texts, showing students how to make their own connections and move beyond rote memorization and recall into deeper thinking and reasoning.
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Papers by Robyn Seglem