Students Teaching Teachers about Multimodal Literacy

As teachers, we have a need for Vygotskian communication, allowing us to lead from the zone of proximal development. Conversely many of us desire Freierian conversation whereby we are the learners simultaneous to or in concert with our role as conversational or relational leaders. As English language arts teachers, this is why we encourage life long learning through reading, viewing, thinking, and talking. And we are thrilled when we have the opportunity to maintain relationships with our students over time, or see them in some capacity long after the formal role of instruction has passed. This gives a chance to reflect on our role in facilitating their development and their role in facilitating our growth.

I revisited a few of my former students this summer. I attended Mari’s wedding as a speaker and member of the wedding party. I had a chance to see Ramonda, Mari’s Maid of Honor—or “Best Woman” as Mari refered to her immediately before the wedding—and her brother Frankie at the ceremony and later at the party. While there I saw Carlos, his mother and son, Jaquese. Of course I had the chance to visit with Mari’s and Ramonda and Frankie’s parents as well. Their life pathways and the kinds of literacy involved in their personal and professional lives was intriguing.

Eric, Mari’s husband, requested that his cousin read "The Beginning of Things" by Fatima Lim-Wilson, a Phillipina poet. I noted this beautiful piece in part because it was an affirmation of Eric’s ethnicity and because I was a multicultural literature lightening rod when I was a high school teacher. During the reception immediately following the ceremony, copies of Mari’s thesis film on DVD, submitted as part of her graduation in the MFA program at USC and copies of Eric’s CD for the Punk Rock band where he plays drums—on a recently completed European tour—accompanied photographs from Eric’s family over the years since before his birth. There were also little white pieces of paper, multiple pencils, and thumbtacks. Guests came to the table periodically to write blessings or advice for the newlyweds on the paper, folded it, and tacked it to the table.

Multimodal literacy was both suggested and enacted. Skill, Design, Production, and Content were involved in all of the different literacy modes present. And each instance of communication via film, music, photograph, and hand-written note was a meaningful expression of personhood and humanity. This was special stuff, not idle grocery lists or home movies. Although some know that seemingly idle, hand-written notes also reveal what it means to be human as well. And yet it was also common in that we all express ourselves during such times through multimodal literacies with increasingly complex and simple possibilities for extending, refining and nuancing communication.

Carlos is neither in a punk rock band nor did he attend film school. Aside from his day-job he runs an entertainment company called Soul Seductive. Carlos always used language carefully and skillfully and the title of his entertainment company is similarly intentional. The Internet enables him reach and interactivity. Currently he is planning an event with steppers during homecoming for the university students. Twenty-first century literacy is here. We don’t always fully appreciate the range of these new literacies that both change and don’t change traditional literacy. And when we do, our personal, social, economic, and political communication will have morphed, incorporating and changing what we must know and be able to do in order to interact with our world. Ideally, as teachers we will have the interest, access, and means to be both Vygotskian in that we will have a degree of knowledge sufficient to lead our students to the next step in their learning; and Freierian in that we will feel comfortable learning from them as well.