Multimodal, multiliteracies: texts and literacies for the 21st century

The shift from traditional definitions of literacy focused upon print, primarily reading and writing, to multiple literacies has highlighted the significance of attending to different modes of text design and multiple forms of knowledge processes. Today’s students engage with complex semiotic systems; therefore, while teaching and learning attends principally to print media, multimodality and multiliteracies have become central to effective pedagogical practice. Teachers have moved away from a singular focus on print texts to incorporating multiple design modes – linguistic, spatial, visual, gestural and aural – to enable valuable, comprehensive learning for today's multiliterate, multiskilled students. In this chapter, we discuss the Design modes proposed by the New London Group (1996; 2000), and the Learning by Design pedagogy advocated by Kalantzis and Cope (2005) to highlight effective learning based on multimodal, multiliteracies. The chapter provides a vignette of a multimodal activity in a primary class and argues for the extension of such learning through the incorporation of multiliteracies. We conclude the chapter by providing a framework for a possible multiliteracies project incorporating multiliteracies pedagogies and learning from the classroom vignette.