Learning the Disciplinary Language and Literacies of Multimedia Composition

In this chapter, the authors describe four adolescent students’ participation in a digital video summer camp. They describe the students’ acquisition of moving-image composition strategies and how these processes are connected to acquiring new vocabulary. The authors examine the camp practices through a lens of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and use this perspective to guide data analysis. Through observations, interviews, and videos, they identify the various activity systems necessary to teach filmmaking, and use examples from one group to illustrate how boundary crossings shift expertise to students. The authors describe the following: (1) the “third space” (i.e., between counselor and student motives), (2) “networked space” (i.e., among different multiliteracy systems), and (3) “shifted spaces” where boundaries are not just crossed, but actually create a shift in expertise or perspective. The authors discover a mediated learning approach that helps students effectively use filmmakers’ words as tools. The camp structure is a model of apprenticeship into a discipline through its language and multiliteracies