Multimodal Literacies and Emerging Genres by Tracey Bowen

Author:Tracey Bowen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822978046
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

CHAPTER 8

Writing, Visualizing, and Research Reports

Penny Kinnear

THIS CHAPTER EXAMINES WHAT HAPPENS when an instructor attempts to correlate two theoretical frameworks to conceptualize and practice instructional goals and activities in an undergraduate research and writing class. Literacy and writing have been theorized as multimodal design activities by the New London Group (Cope and Kalantzis 2000). Language and other signs were theorized as mediational means in learning by Lev Vygotsky and subsequent sociocultural theorists. Together these ideas could inform the development of a course to take advantage of signs and tools in addition to text to conduct and present research. This chapter focuses on a visualization activity used in a class to facilitate data analysis and research conceptualization (fig. 8.1).

Vygotsky (1978) argued that human experience is always mediated. It may be mediated by signs, tools, or experiences. Signs and tools are developed and produced by people. These can be both material and symbolic. The symbolic tools include language, symbol systems such as numbers, musical notation, formal aesthetic principles, and various writing systems and images. With regard to reading and writing, material tools can include various writing implements, computers, brushes, inks, paper, and books. This mediated activity can be the basis of learning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.