Gloria Jacobs

Designing Assessments: A Multiliteracies Approach.

Assessment, as defined by policy mandates such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, is a well‒established concept within education. However, assessing multiliteracies presents new challenges because multiliteracies is about ways of knowing and being in the world rather than mastery of a particular set of cognitive skills. In this article, the author reviews three approaches to multimodal assessment. The author argues that although there are differences between the assessment approaches, the core of a multiliteracies assessment is teacher observation of student engagement, a practice in which good teachers already engage. The shift inherent in a multiliteracies assessment is that a pedagogy of multiliteracies raises a different set of questions about texts and text use, which lead to a new way of envisioning assessment.

Rethinking Common Assumptions about Adolescents' Motivation to Use Technology in and out of School

Research on youth use of multiliteracies and multimodal texts often imply that youth are inherently motivated by digital technologies. In this column, I consider the nature of research into motivation and multiliteracies. I suggest that the concepts of competence, autonomy, and relatedness should be integrated with a multilayered contextual conceptualization of motivation when applied to multiliteracies. Furthermore, I argue that educators and researchers should avoid the assumptions that all youth are digitally savvy and motivated by technology. Instead, I suggest that attending to an individuals need for connection, choice, and competence can lead educators to rethink their approaches to technology integration.

Multi, Digital, or Technology?

The terms multiliteracies, multimodal literacy, digital literacies, and technology integration are often confused with one another. In this column, the author argues that understanding the differences between the concepts can help build clarity when designing instruction. Position statements by the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association are examined as representative of how the four concepts are often used interchangeably. Key aspects of each concept as well as the limitations of each concept are identified. The author argues that despite its limitations, a pedagogy of multiliteracies offers a comprehensive approach to supporting literacy learning in order to address the demands of a global, diverse information and technology based society.

The Proverbial Rock and Hard Place: The Realities and Risks of Teaching in a World of Multiliteracies, Participatory Culture, and Mandates

This column revisits the concept of multiliteracies as originally proposed by the New London Group. Particular attention is given to the saliency of multiliteracies in light of the technological and educational policy changes and pressures that have occurred since the mid 1990s. The relationship of multiliteracies to participatory culture and the ethos of Web 2.0 is considered. and a brief review of four recent studies provide insight into how teachers can use multiliteracies to prepare students for critical engagement in the world while supporting literacy development. It is suggested that despite political pressures to narrow curriculum to meet accountability measures, ignoring the promise of multiliteracies places students at high risk for further marginalization.