In the past few decades, there has been a growing interest in the benefits of linking the learning of a foreign language to the study of its literature. However, the incorporation of literary texts into language curriculum is not easy to tackle. As a result, it is vital to explore the latest developments in text-based teaching in which language, culture, and literature are taught as a continuum. Teaching Literature and Language Through Multimodal Texts provides innovative insights into multiple language teaching modalities for the teaching of language through literature in the context of primary, secondary, and higher education. It covers a wide range of good practice and innovative ideas and offers insights on the impact of such practice on learners, with the intention to inspire other teachers to reconsider their own teaching practices. It is a vital reference source for educators, professionals, school administrators, researchers, and practitioners interested in teaching literature and language through multimodal texts.

This edited volume provides research-based knowledge on the use, production and assessment of multimodal texts in the teaching and learning of English as an Additional Language (EAL). The book reflects growing interest in research on EAL, with increasing numbers of learners of English worldwide and the growing relevance of EAL to numerous education systems. The volume examines different aspects of English from a multimodal perspective, showcasing empirical research from across five continents and all three levels of education. Applying frameworks based on Multimodal Social Semiotics and Systemic Functional Linguistics, chapters focus on the use and affordances of multimodal texts in pedagogy, literature, culture, text production, assessment and curriculum development connected to EAL. Directing attention to the significance of modes beyond speech and writing in EAL, the volume provides a wide range of perspectives and experiences that can be applied more widely and inspire other practices in the global and diverse field of EAL teaching, learning and assessment. This collection will be of interest to scholars in multimodality, language education, and teacher education.

Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels.

While traditional writing is typically understood as a language based on the combination of words, phrases, and sentences to communicate meaning, modern technologies have led educators to reevaluate the notion that writing is restricted to this definition. Exploring Multimodal Composition and Digital Writing investigates the use of digital technologies to create multi-media documents that utilize video, audio, and web-based elements to further written communication beyond what can be accomplished by words alone. Educators, scholars, researchers, and professionals will use this critical resource to explore theoretical and empirical developments in the creation of digital and multimodal documents throughout the education system.

Multimodal Literacy challenges dominant ideas around language, learning, and representation. Using a rich variety of examples, it shows the range of representational and communicational modes involved in learning through image, animated movement, writing, speech, gesture, or gaze. The effect of these modes on learning is explored in different sites including formal learning across the curriculum in primary, secondary, and higher education classrooms, as well as learning in the home. The notion of literacy and learning as a primary linguistic accomplishment is questioned in favor of the multimodal character of learning and literacy. By illustrating how a range of modes contributes to the shaping of knowledge and what it means to be a learner, Multimodal Literacy provides a multimodal framework and conceptual tools for a fundamental rethinking of literacy and learning.

This collection critically considers the question of how learning and teaching should be conceived, understood, and approached in light of the changing nature of learning scenarios and new pedagogies in this current age of multimodal digital texts, practices, and communities. The book takes the concept of digital artifacts as being composed of multiple meaning-making semiotic resources, such as visuals, music, and design, as its point of departure to explore how diverse communities interact with these tools and develop and explore their understanding of digital practices in learning contexts. The first section of the volume examines different case studies in which involved participants learn to grapple with the introduction of digital tools for learning in children’s early years of schooling. The second section extends the focus to secondary and higher education settings as digital learning tools grow more complex as do students, parents, and teachers’ interactions with them and the subsequent need for new pedagogies to rethink these multimodal artifacts. A final section reflects on the implications of new multimodal tools, technologies, and pedagogies for teachers, such as on teacher training and community building among educators. In its in-depth look at multimodal approaches to learning as meaning-making in a digital world, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in multimodality, English language teaching, digital communication, and education.

Language and literature teaching are a keystone in the age of STEM, especially when dealing with minority communities. Practical methodologies for language learning are essential for bridging the cultural gap. Teaching Language and Literature On and Off-Canon is a critical research publication that provides a multidisciplinary, multimodal, and heterogenous perspectives on the applications of language learning and teaching practices for commonly studied languages, such as Spanish, English, and French, and less-studied languages, such as Latin, Gaelic, and ancient Semitic languages. Highlighting topics such as language acquisition, artistic literature, and minority languages, this book is essential for language teachers, linguists, academicians, curriculum designers, policymakers, administrators, researchers, and students.

This text for pre-service and in-service English education courses presents current methods of teaching literature to middle and high school students. The methods are based on social-constructivist/socio-cultural theories of literacy learning, and incorporate research on literary response conducted by the authors. Teaching Literature to Adolescents – a totally new text that draws on ideas from the best selling textbook, Teaching Literature in the Secondary School, by Beach and Marshall – reflects and builds on recent key developments in theory and practice in the field, including: the importance of providing students with a range of critical lenses for analyzing texts and interrogating the beliefs, attitudes, and ideological perspectives encountered in literature; organization of the literature curriculum around topics, themes, or issues; infusion of multicultural literature and emphasis on how writers portray race, class, and gender differences; use of drama as a tool for enhancing understanding of texts; employment of a range of different ways to write about literature; integration of critical analysis of film and media texts with the study of literature; blending of quality young adult literature into the curriculum; and attention to students who have difficulty succeeding in literature classes due to reading difficulties, disparities between school and home cultures, attitudes toward school/English, or lack of engagement with assigned texts or response activities. The interactive Web site contains recommended readings, resources, and activities; links to Web sites and PowerPoint presentations; and opportunities for readers to contribute teaching units to the Web site databases. Instructors and students in middle and high school English methods courses will appreciate the clear, engaging, useful integration of theory, methods, and pedagogical features offered in this text.

Innovation has replaced stereotypical and old methods as an attempt to make English language teaching and learning appealing, effective, and simple. However, teaching a second language through literature may be a paramount tool to consolidate not only students’ lexical and grammatical competences, but also for the development of their cultural awareness and broadening of their knowledge through interaction and collaboration that foster collective learning. Despite past difficulties, literature’s position in relation to language teaching can be revendicated and revalued. Using Literature to Teach English as a Second Language is an essential research publication that exposes the current state of this methodological approach and observes its reverberations, usefulness, strengths, and weaknesses when used in a classroom where English is taught as a second language. In this way, this book will provide updated tools to explore teaching and learning through the most creative and enriching manifestations of one language – literature. Featuring a range of topics such as diversity, language learning, and plurilingualism, this book is ideal for academicians, curriculum designers, administrators, education professionals, researchers, and students.

This state-of-the-art account of research and theorizing brings together multimodality, learning and communication through detailed analyses of signmakers and their meaning-making in museums, hospitals, schools and the home environment. By analyzing video recordings, photographs, screenshots and print materials, Jeff Bezemer and Gunther Kress go well beyond the comfortable domains of traditional sites of (social) semiotic and multimodal research. They steer away from spurious invention and naming of ever more new and exciting domains, focusing instead on fundamentals in assembling a set of tools for current tasks: namely, describing and analyzing learning and communication in the contemporary world as one integrated field. The theory outlined in the book is grounded in the findings of the authors’ wide-ranging empirical investigations. Each chapter evaluates the work that is being done and has been done, challenging accepted wisdom and standing much of it on its head. With extensive illustrations and many examples presented to show the reach and applicability of the theory, this book is essential reading for all those working in multimodality, semiotics, applied linguistics and related areas. Images from the book are also available to view online at www.routledge.com/9780415709620/