Susan A. O’Neill

Why Multimodal Literacy Matters

Literacy research has focused increasingly on the social, cultural, and material remaking of human communication. Such research has generated new knowledge about the diverse and interconnected modes and media through which people can and do make meaning and opened up definitions of literacy to include image, gaze, gesture, print, speech, and music. And yet, despite all of the attention to multimodality, questions remain that are fundamental to why multimodal literacy might matter to people and their communities. How, for instance, might multimodal literacy be implicated in wellbeing? And what of the little-researched sonic in multimodal ensembles? For centuries singing, as a basic form of human communication and tool for teaching and learning, has been used to share knowledge and pass on understandings of the world from one generation to another. What, however, are the implications of singing and its effects on people’s prospects for learning and making meaning together? In this thought-provoking book, the authors explore notions of wellbeing and what is created when skipped generations are brought together through singing-infused multimodal, intergenerational curricula. They argue for the import of singing as a multimodal literacy practice and unite theoretical ideas, practical tools, and empirical research findings from a ground-breaking seven-year study of intergenerational singing in multimodal curricula. Educators and researchers alike will find in the pages of this interdisciplinary book responses to the question of why multimodal literacy might matter and a sample curriculum designed to foster the expansion of people’s literacy and identity options across the lifespan.

Complicated Conversation: Creating Opportunities for Transformative Practice in Higher Education Music Performance Research and Pedagogy

Longstanding traditions in research methodologies and disciplinary approaches actively communicate singular and situated visions that ‘polarize’ heterogeneous practice-based approaches that attempt to step outside these traditions. Too often, polarization is equated with controversy when researchers with different perspectives attempt a conversation. However, as William Pinar (2012. What is curriculum theory? (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge) reminds us, ‘complicated conversation’ is an ethical, political and intellectual undertaking, as well as a form of curriculum that ‘enables educational experience.’ This chapter discusses these ideas, drawing on an illustrative ‘provocation’ for exploring some of the challenges and constraints that doctoral students, supervisors, committee members, course instructors and examiners encounter when negotiating the current research terrain in music performance and pedagogy (incorporating both the conservatoire and university schools of music and education). Although research paradigms and methods may be incommensurable, understanding different research intentions is reconcilable provided we place collaborative transformative practice as the principled grounding for teaching-learning and research activities. In exploring these ideas, I put forth the notion that the knowledge revealed through transformative practice in higher education music performance research and pedagogy is inextricably linked with revealing paradoxes and relational understandings, and striving for the ideal of academic integrity in any research endeavour.

OPEART: Music Theatre Productions Within Teacher Education: Enhancing Communal Engaged Learning

The Finnish school produces good results; however, reports by teachers and students suggest a lack of enjoyment in schools with an atmosphere described as unapproachable. This atmosphere has resulted in school enjoyment problems in Finnish schools. To implement changes in schools, it is necessary to address changes in teacher education. We describe an innovative teacher education program that provides opportunities for enhancing communal engaged learning. The program includes music theatre as a basic element and focuses on expression, cooperative learning and experiential learning. The program is called OpeArt, which started in Savonlinna, Finland, in 2014. In this program, students encounter elements supporting their growth as teachers in and through theatre/drama and expressive processes and elements. The program contributes to the development of personality, creativity, courage, self-expression, collaboration and project execution. The basic elements of the OpeArt program are phenomenon based, with project-, cooperative- and inquiry-based learning. Students are encouraged to expand outside their comfort zones and explore their limits and possibilities by experiencing new personal and artistic horizons.

Children, Elders, and Multimodal Arts Curricula: Semiotic Possibilities and the Imperative of Relationship

This chapter explores the affordances of multimodal curricula and pedagogy within intergenerational learning programs. The aim is to provide an understanding of how semiotic possibilities can be promoted within children’s meaning making and the reciprocity of intergenerational relationships. Drawing on findings from our intergenerational multimodal arts research, we discuss how intergenerational learning programs can provide skipped generations (e.g., young children and elders) with collaborative, systematic, and shared learning opportunities through multimodal arts practice. These opportunities are co-constitutive of multimodal literacies and communal agency, which are of fundamental significance for fostering intergenerational relationships and children’s expansive literacy options (i.e., the ways they have for making meaning of and representing the world) and identity options (i.e., the ways they have for seeing themselves in the world). We present new tools for thinking about and planning multimodal arts and literacy curricula in early childhood education that are responsive to the fast-paced changes in communication technology and capable of promoting literacy practices across the life span in mono- and intergenerational settings.

Arts Education in Canada and the United States

In this chapter, O’Neill and Schmidt consider some contemporary issues facing arts education in schools across Canada and the USA. It is important to avoid oversimplifying across these two vast countries as arts education curricula and policy fall under the different jurisdictions of provinces and territories in Canada and states and counties in the USA. Nevertheless, there are shared concerns about the concept of “schooling” in the twenty-first century: what this means for the arts in public education can be gleaned from different curricula and policies. Within both countries, the idea that the arts are of fundamental significance to public education is not widely shared. Arts education programs have continued to decline over the past decade, creating a need for arts educators to spend more time defending the importance of the arts in schools and less time addressing much needed educational reforms. In particular, arts education has been slow to adapt to the rapid pace of change in today’s digital and globalized world. What is needed is a better understanding of what arts engagement looks like within models of twenty-first century learning and how to best harness the potential of arts education within the changing cultures of schools. An understanding of diverse arts learning ecologies, particularly through students’ and teachers’ own accounts of their experiences, is also needed to provide insights into new possibilities for curricula and policy. This chapter also explores the role of cross-curricular and multimodal arts practices, as well as current trends in personalized learning in schools and the potential they hold for creating more inclusive educational opportunities in and through the arts.

Intergenerational Multimodal Singing-Infused Curriculum

This chapter focuses on the curriculum-making of the singing-infused intergenerational multimodal program. Why Multimodal Literacy Matters is designed to make a contribution to knowledge and understanding in relation to multimodal literacy, wellbeing, and singing. Given the socio-cultural approach to literacy in the book, the situation in which we explored these notions is of concern.

Towards a (Re)conceptualization of Wellbeing through Singing-Infused Multimodal, Intergenerational Curriculum

In the opening of this book, we motion towards the visceral, social, and special (read unique) nature of intergenerational singing in the multimodal curriculum: The singing fills the space in the body and the room with something that is weighted and certain; it is an embrace in the here and now—a warm glowing that resonates the word, together.