Pedagogical strategies for developing interpretive language about images

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-118
Author(s):  
Louise Ravelli

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on pedagogical strategies which support the teaching of critical analysis of visual and multimodal texts in a tertiary-level course for Arts students. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes strategies which focus on developing students’ abilities to express interpretive critique, as opposed to mere description. These strategies give students strong scaffolding towards success in their interpretive writing. The course in question is a tertiary-level Arts course which teaches Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) approach to “reading images” in relation to contemporary media texts. The basic structure of the course is described, along with the macro steps which underpin the pedagogy. Examples of highly successful and less successful student writing are compared to reveal the key components of effective interpretive answers. Findings In addition to the normal expectations regarding essay structure and style, and in addition to mastery of the technicality of the course, successful and less successful student writing depends on their mastery of a specific set of moves within the essay. These moves integrate textual observations with clear explanations and a strong relation to interpretation. Practical implications While the course and strategies discussed are for tertiary-level students, the strategies described are adaptable to primary and secondary levels also. Multimodal texts are an integral part of the English curriculum, and all teachers need to explore strategies for enabling their students’ critical engagement with such texts. Originality/value Visual and multimodal texts are an exciting and also challenging part of English curricula, and new analytical frameworks and pedagogical strategies are needed to tackle these texts. In particular, the gap between simply describing visual resources (applying the tools) and critical analysis (using the tools) is vast, and specific pedagogical strategies are needed to help students develop the necessary interpretive language.

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Waller

This article offers five pedagogical strategies for a history of psychology course to help students begin to discover their disciplinary worldviews or philosophies of psychology. Students write short, in-class, contemplative essays (microthemes) on polarities of psychology (e.g., empiricism vs. rationalism). The instructor presents selected student writing samples, peers debate their positions, and students respond to their peers' microthemes. Finally, in a detailed critical analysis assignment, students intensively reexamine selected microtheme polarities.


1996 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo A. de León ◽  
John A. Grant ◽  
Crystal F. Darling

✓ The case of an infant with a peculiar tumorous malformation of the cerebellum is described. The tumor apparently developed as an exophytic, hypertrophic sprout of the inferior vermis. It had a monstrous appearance resembling a crab, with a metameric body and multiple pairs of limbs attached to the folia of both cerebellar hemispheres. Histologically, the lesion was formed by poorly differentiated neuroepithelial cells without any evidence of organization into nuclei, cortex, or fascicles. Clinically, the tumor behaved in an indolent manner and did not regrow after subtotal surgical resection. Because of its gross appearance and its biological behavior, this unusual hamartoblastomatous growth is readily distinguished from medulloblastoma. The morphology of the cerebellum in Lhermitte—Duclos disease is reviewed, and a new interpretation of its basic structure is proposed. This and other known types of cerebellar hypertrophy are different from the malformation in the present case.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surya Prakash ◽  
Gunjan Soni ◽  
Ajay Pal Singh Rathore

Purpose The research on supply chain risk management (SCRM) is visibly on the rise, although its literature still lacks the state of the art that critically analyzes its content. The SCRM literature seems to require studies that utilize risk typology, sources of risk, etc. for reviewing the topic. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap by synthesizing the information obtained from 343 articles across 85 journals. This study also presents a critical analysis of the content of SCRM in a structured manner to identify the directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review (SLR) was devised and adopted, which involved the selection, classification, and evaluation of 343 research articles published over a period of 11 years (2004-2014). The content of extant SCRM literature was critically analyzed and synthesized from the perspective of the risk management process (RMP). Findings The analysis of extant literature shows that there is a marked rise in research in the SCRM area, especially after the year 2005. It was observed that not only risk but also different forms of uncertainties make supply chain (SC) operations difficult to manage. The SCRM actions yielded most benefits when their implementation was at chain or network level and managed strategically. The analysis also reveals that the manufacturing sector is most affected by risks and highly investigated by researchers. Practical implications A complete process for SCRM based on risk stratification, objectives of risk management, and RMP will be a guiding model for firms to manage risks. The research gaps identified and future directions provided here will encourage researchers and managers to devise new methods, tools, and techniques to address the risks in modern SC operations. Originality/value An SLR and risk-based content classification of SCRM literature were performed. To identify, locate, select, and analyze the SCRM literature, a structured and systematic process was adopted with some very rarely used methods such as two levels of search keywords, and strings were formulated to locate the most relevant articles in major academic databases.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Chen ◽  
Sheena Gardner

Abstract To complement earlier studies of writing development in the BAWE corpus of successful student writing (Nesi & Gardner 2012; Staples et al. 2016), we examine the Systemic Functional Linguistics notion of Theme as used by L2 writers across first- and third-year and in two distinctive discourse types: persuasive/argumentative Discursive writing of assignments in the soft disciplines and Experimental report writing of assignments in the hard sciences. Theme analysis reveals more substantial differences across the two discourse types than between first- and third-year L2 undergraduate writing. Textual Themes are consistently more frequent than interpersonal Themes, and some variance is found within subcategories of each. Significant differences in lexical density occur across third-year discourse types and between first- and third-year Experimental writing where a predominance of N+N topical Themes is also found. These findings are important as previous research has tended to focus on L1 Discursive writing.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luana Ferreira-Lopes ◽  
Iciar Elexpuru-Albizuri ◽  
María José Bezanilla

Purpose Allowing for interaction with foreign cultures without the need to travel, intercultural virtual collaboration represents a potential tool to develop business students’ intercultural competence. This study aims to explore students’ perceptions towards the implementation of a research-based task sequence in a project in which undergraduate Business students from Spain collaborated virtually with undergraduate business students from The Netherlands during a semester. More specifically, this paper investigates what intercultural competence indicators were mostly developed by the sequence implemented; how much each task from the sequence in question developed different intercultural competence indicators; and how much students enjoyed participating in each task. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through after-task reflection questionnaires. A quantitative analysis of Likert-type questions was carried out and open-ended responses were used to illustrate findings. Findings Results reveal that the task sequence developed different dimensions of students’ intercultural competence and, particularly, fostered a positive attitude towards intercultural relationships, increased students’ cultural knowledge and awareness and equipped students with skills to work in diverse teams. It also showed that as complexity grew along the sequence, the average students’ perception of their intercultural competence development tended to decrease. The majority of students’ very much liked participating in the different tasks. Originality/value Designing telecollaborative projects can be very challenging and understanding the learning potential of different pedagogical strategies for virtual collaborative environments can help teachers to take better-informed decisions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-198
Author(s):  
Julie E. Learned ◽  
Mary Jo Morgan

Purpose This paper aims to report on a study investigating how young people and teachers interpreted reading proficiency and difficulty across different tracks of English language arts in the sole high school serving a culturally diverse city. Design/methodology/approach For six months, the researchers observed in three hierarchically tracked English classes. Participants were three teachers and 15 focal youths. The researchers also conducted semi-structured and open-ended interviews and collected classroom artifacts and students’ records. Findings Despite adoption of the Common Core State Standards and a school-designed common English curriculum, both of which were to contribute to shared literacy objectives, students and teachers built highly contextualized understandings of reading proficiency, which diverged across tracks and mediated instruction. Across tracks, however, deficit discourses about reading struggle persisted, and students and teachers attributed difficulty to students’ attitudes and behaviors. Young people never described themselves in negative terms, which suggests they resisted the deficit labels tracking systems can generate. Originality/value Findings extend research by showing how literacy-related tracking contributed to exclusionary contexts through which students were unproductively positioned at odds. Findings suggest a need for renewed rigor in the examination of tracking practices, particularly how notions of reading difficulty/proficiency position youths and mediate literacy instruction. Despite deficit conceptions of “struggling readers” across the school, youths never described themselves negatively and accepted reading difficulty as normal; how youths achieved such resourceful stances can be further investigated. These research directions will support the creation of English contexts that invite all youths into inquisitive, critical and agentive interactions with texts and each other.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joohoon Kang

Purpose This paper aims to investigate adolescent English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ digitally mediated multimodal compositions across different genres of writing. Design/methodology/approach Three Korean high school students participated in the study and created multiple multimodal texts over the course of one academic semester. These texts and other materials were the basis for this study’s qualitative case studies. Multiple sources of data (e.g. class observations, demographic surveys, interviews, field notes and students’ artifacts) were collected. Drawing upon the inductive approach, a coding-oriented analysis was used for the collected data. In addition, a multimodal text analysis was conducted for the students’ multimodal texts and their storyboards. Findings The study participants’ perceptions of multimodal composing practices seemed to be positively reshaped as a result of them creating multimodal texts. Some participants created multimodal products in phases (e.g. selecting or changing a topic, constructing a storyboard and editing). Especially, although the students’ creative processes had a similarly fixed and linear flow from print-based writing to other modalities, their creative processes proved to be flexible, recursive and/or circular. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of adolescent English language learners’ multimodal composing practices in the EFL context, which has been underexplored in the literature. It also presents the students’ perspectives on these practices. In short, it provides theoretical and methodological grounds for future L2 literacy researchers to conduct empirical studies on multimodal composing practices.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Humburg ◽  
Verily Tan ◽  
Adam V. Maltese ◽  
Amber Simpson ◽  
Joshua A. Danish

Purpose This study aims to understand how graduate students in a maker education course discuss beliefs about making and implement these beliefs as pedagogy in their curricular designs. Design/methodology/approach Interview transcripts from seven students were analyzed thematically for conceptions of making and learning. Lesson plans were also coded for elements of making, and the authors compared students’ articulated ideas about making with the practical implementation of making in their designs. Findings Students reflected on the nature of making and the possible benefits and tensions surrounding the use of making for learning. Multiple students discussed benefits for their future learning and careers. Comparisons between interview and lesson plans highlight both successful alignments and key gaps in the application of making principles, including struggles that students encountered when translating their beliefs about making into real-world pedagogy. Research limitations/implications Given the limited sample size, future research should explore the extent to which educators in other contexts encounter similar or different obstacles in their development of maker-focused pedagogies. Practical implications Findings can be used to inform future maker education courses to better support students in successfully translating core principles of making from general beliefs into effective and practical pedagogical strategies. Originality/value Despite widespread interest in combining making with educational spaces, much remains to be understood about the strategies that educators use to integrate elements of making into their pedagogy. This study contributes discussions of the benefits and tensions that maker educators may encounter when blending tenets of making with the needs of formal education.


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