Multiliteracies as a transdisciplinary curriculum practice

This study builds on and contributes to work around Multiliteracies approaches to literacy education. Although multiliteracies has been well-theorised in recent years, few studies have researched the practical aspects of developing a curriculum of multiliteracies where students engage in transformed practice through multimodal design. This presentation demonstrates multiliteracies as a transdisciplinary curriculum practice, drawing on data from a 3-year study in an urban middle school in the United States. The data moves the field of literacy research forward by describing how students move beyond engaging in critique to multimodal design of a variety of school and media texts. Employing Bourdieusian concepts of social capital and academic field, the struggles around learning to inhabit certain school discourses are explored. The study elaborates the implications for educational research and teacher education