Expanding Meaning-Making Possibilities: Bilingual Students’ Perspectives on Multimodal Composing

Digital multimodal composition offers opportunities for emergent bilingual (EB) students to orchestrate semiotic resources in ways that develop their identities, strengthen their understandings of language, and help them to engage with content. To better understand how EBs can participate in varied multimodal composing practices, this study systematically reviews the literature on EBs’ digital multimodal composing in secondary classrooms. More specifically, it examines types of scaffolds, or planned and responsive instructional supports, used by teachers and students, as well as functions for learning associated with these scaffolds. Through an inductive approach, the authors analyzed 74 studies situated in classrooms. Findings showed seven types of scaffolding: collaboration, direct instruction, exemplar texts, translanguaging, discussion, encouragement, and questioning. In addition, eight scaffolding functions emerged that illustrate three major themes of scaffolding identities, scaffolding resources, and scaffolding contexts. The authors then discuss implications for classroom practice, implications for translanguaging and social semiotics theories, and directions for future research.

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Multimodal Composing and Traditional Essays: Linguistic Performance and Learner Perceptions

RELC Journal ◽

10.1177/0033688220906943 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 51 (1) ◽

pp. 86-100

Author(s):

YouJin Kim ◽

Diane Belcher

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Social Practice ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Teaching Writing ◽

Small Scale ◽

Learning Context ◽

Essay Writing ◽

Multimodal Composing ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Effective Role

Over the past decade, digital multimodal composing (DMMC) in the language learning context has received growing attention. DMMC entails teaching writing as the social practice of meaning making using various semiotic tools (Siegal, 2012). Despite its potential benefits as a way to teach a meaning-making process in the current digitalized era, much concern regarding a lack of language focus has been expressed. The current small-scale exploratory study compared Korean EFL learners’ writing for DMMC and traditional essay writing in terms of syntactic complexity and accuracy as well as the learners’ perceptions of the two composing tasks. Using a within group comparisons design, 18 university students in Korea completed both DMMC and traditional writing on the same topic of their choice as a part of their required writing class. The findings revealed that traditional writing elicited syntactically more complex writing than DMMC using two measures (i.e. the number of words per T-unit, the number of clauses per T-unit). However, there was no significant difference in the accurate clause rate between the two conditions. Students had generally positive perceptions of DMMC, particularly regarding its effective role in meaning making. However, mixed perceptions were found in terms of helpfulness in improving writing skills. Pedagogical implications for English for academic purposes (EAP) contexts are discussed.

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Translingual Practice, Strategic Participation, and Meaning-Making

Journal of Literacy Research ◽

10.1177/1086296x18820642 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 51 (1) ◽

pp. 75-99 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Mark B. Pacheco ◽

Shannon M. Daniel ◽

Lisa C. Pray ◽

Robert T. Jiménez

Keyword(s):

Small Group ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Guided Reading ◽

Read Aloud ◽

Bilingual Students ◽

Buddy Reading ◽

Support Students ◽

Meaning Analysis ◽

Construct Meaning

This case study examines one third-grade teacher’s strategic participation in translingual practice and the ways that this participation shaped emerging bilingual students’ meaningful engagements with texts. Using a transliteracies perspective, we describe instances of emergence and resonance as students and their teacher leveraged resources coded in English, Arabic, and Spanish to co-construct meaning. Analysis of small-group guided reading, buddy reading, and an interactive read-aloud detail how the teacher used entextualizing, envoicing, and recontextualizing strategies to support students’ participation. Analysis of postinstruction interviews describes how resources, expertise, and emotion resonated within each literacy event and across time for this teacher. We conclude with recommendations for including translingual pedagogies in similar classroom contexts, arguing for the importance of recognizing and developing teachers’ translingual competence, as well as their emerging multilingualism.

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Performing a Metis Pedagogy in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Classroom

Disability Studies Quarterly ◽

10.18061/dsq.v40i1.7225 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hilary Selznick

Keyword(s):

Meaning Making ◽

Rhetoric And Composition ◽

Writing Studies ◽

The Body ◽

Composition Classroom ◽

Pedagogical Approach ◽

Written Discourse ◽

Multimodal Composing ◽

Traditional Approaches ◽

Disability Rhetoric

Scholars in the field of disability rhetoric (e.g. Dolmage; Price; Vidali) have long called for the denormalization of traditional approaches to the teaching of rhetoric and composition. Such approaches historically characterize rhetoric as disembodied and ask students to compose straight, linear, alphabetic texts which privilege meaning-making through written discourse and remain inaccessible to diverse users and audiences. As a response, this article recounts how I applied the concept of metis—double, divergent, crooked—as a theoretical framework for a special topics course "Disability, Rhetoric, and the Body," and as an alternative pedagogical approach to the teaching of rhetoric and composition. More specifically, this article explores the connection between my own metis-work as a teacher-scholar and my students' performance of metis through multimodal composing and analysis. As a result, the rhetoric and composition classroom becomes a non-normative space where difference is not only valued, but celebrated.

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What Meaning-Making Means Among Us: The Intercomprehending of Emergent Bilinguals in Small-Group Text Discussions

Harvard Educational Review ◽

10.17763/1943-5045-87.4.482 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 87 (4) ◽

pp. 482-511 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

MAREN AUKERMAN ◽

LORIEN CHAMBERS SCHULDT ◽

LIAM AIELLO ◽

PAOLO C. MARTIN

Keyword(s):

Small Group ◽

English Language ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Group Discussion ◽

Second Graders ◽

Classroom Teachers ◽

Bilingual Students ◽

Emergent Bilingual ◽

First Time ◽

Emergent Bilingual Students

In this study, the authors examine how emergent bilingual second graders collaboratively constructed textual understandings, a phenomenon they call intercomprehending, by building on each other's contributions and positioning their ideas in relation to peer ideas. The study traces the interrelationships of the utterances of emergent bilingual students discussing text in English for the first time in the context of a small-group discussion focused on English-language picture books. The textual ideas students shared were highly contingent on peer ideas and at the same time drew substantially on the text itself, particularly the illustrations. The authors argue that intercomprehending may serve as a fruitful way for emergent bilingual students to build on what they know as they read and learn in school and that classroom teachers may do well to build on that resource.

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Bilingual and Monolingual Students' Perceptions of the CSD Major: A Qualitative Study

Perspectives on Issues in Higher Education ◽

10.1044/ihe18.1.16 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 16-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Flora Keshishian ◽

Rebecca Wiseheart

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Critical Role ◽

School Setting ◽

The United States ◽

Bilingual Students ◽

Speech Language Pathology ◽

Diverse Environment ◽

Language Pathology ◽

Areas Of Interest

There is a growing demand for bilingual services in speech-language pathology and audiology. To meet this growing demand, and given their critical role in the recruitment of more bilingual professionals, higher education institutions need to know more about bilingual students' impression of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) as a major. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate bilingual and monolingual undergraduate students' perceptions of the CSD major. One hundred and twenty-two students from a large university located in a highly multicultural metropolitan area responded to four open-ended questions aimed at discovering students' major areas of interest (and disinterest) as well as their motivations for pursuing a degree in CSD. Consistent with similar reports conducted outside the United States, students from this culturally diverse environment indicated choosing the major for altruistic reasons. A large percentage of participants were motivated by a desire to work with children, but not in a school setting. Although 42% of the participants were bilingual, few indicated an interest in taking an additional course in bilingual studies. Implications of these findings as well as practical suggestions for the recruitment of bilingual students are discussed.

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