Dissertation
Untangling the bramble: establishing defining ranges of multimodal composition in three classroom studies
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2023
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007151
Abstract
What role does multimodal composition play in the modern secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom? How can we bring useful nuance to the definition of multimodal composition, in ways that can help teachers plan and support effective composition assignments that use a variety of modalities? In this dissertation, I establish three defining ranges:
1. Alphabetic: how central is alphabetic composition and oral/written language to the composition?
2. Digital: how offline or online is the composing, both in process and product?
3. Thinking Multimodally: to what degree and in how many modalities will composers need experience?
Using three studies of students composing in classrooms from secondary to graduate school, I set bounds to these ranges and discuss the breadth of composition acts that can be defined as multimodal. These studies center a theater student at an arts-focused summer camp, two pre-service secondary ELA teachers, and my own attempts at a website-based autoethnographic memoir. Each study illustrates segments of the three ranges, speaks to the variety of tasks that multimodal composition describes, and offers ways to expand the variety of modalities students and teachers can practice in their ELA classroom.
Based on a pedagogy of multiliteracies, I believe multimodal composition more accurately reflects how students are and will be composing inside and outside of school. It also provides more pathways for students to find their authentic voices, and provides opportunities for students to learn and practice a broader array of contemporary tools for communicating knowledge in an ELA classroom.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Untangling the bramble: establishing defining ranges of multimodal composition in three classroom studies
- Creators
- Michael Goldberg
- Contributors
- Bonnie Sunstein (Advisor)Amanda Haertling Thein (Committee Member)Jennifer Buckley (Committee Member)Matthew Gilchrist (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Teaching and Learning (Language, Literacy, and Culture)
- Date degree season
- Spring 2023
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007151
- Number of pages
- xii, 165 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2023 Michael Goldberg
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 04/23/2023
- Date approved
- 05/01/2023
- Description illustrations
- Illustrations, tables, graphs, charts
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 144-156).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
When we talk to each other informally, we use tools to convey our messages: words, tone, facial expression, gesture, body language. All these tools, or “modalities” come together to provide nuance to our messages. However, students in secondary English Language Arts classrooms are most often asked to show what they know in written essays, using only their written words and ignoring the other tools they might regularly use. Working with multimodal composition in the classroom offers students and teachers ways to learn and practice a broader array of tools for making meaning that are both useful in school and vital outside of school. This dissertation examines three ranges to help define multimodal composition, and illustrates them in three classroom settings.
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984424791202771
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