This book examines the experiences of adult ESL (English as a Second Language) learners in New York, paying particular attention to the relationship between their professional identities and multimodal composing practices in English classroom. The author uses an (auto-)ethnographic framework to investigate how previously-constructed identities of a professional nature aided the students in the design of multimodal texts including photographs and written material in English. This small-scale study is contextualised in relation to current research in the fields of multimodality, identity construction and teaching methodology, and the author also draws on Kress' theory of visual semiotics. Finally, the book provides detailed descriptions and suggestions for multimodal lessons which could be delivered in ESL classrooms in other settings, including multimodal roleplays, theatre games, and model discussion questions and answers. This book will be of interest to ESL/EFL and TESOL researchers and practitioners, as well as pre-service teachers and MA TESOL students.

This book examines the experiences of adult ESL (English as a Second Language) learners in New York, paying particular attention to the relationship between their professional identities and multimodal composing practices in English classroom. The author uses an (auto-)ethnographic framework to investigate how previously-constructed identities of a professional nature aided the students in the design of multimodal texts including photographs and written material in English. This small-scale study is contextualised in relation to current research in the fields of multimodality, identity construction and teaching methodology, and the author also draws on Kress' theory of visual semiotics. Finally, the book provides detailed descriptions and suggestions for multimodal lessons which could be delivered in ESL classrooms in other settings, including multimodal roleplays, theatre games, and model discussion questions and answers. This book will be of interest to ESL/EFL and TESOL researchers and practitioners, as well as pre-service teachers and MA TESOL students. Beata Dolina is an English as a Second Language (ESL) Instructor at Kaplan School of English, USA. She received her doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2015. Her research interests include identity mediations and language learning. .

This book brings together the voices of leading English Education researchers who work to offer views into the changing landscape of English as a result of the use of digital media in classrooms, out of school settings, universities and other contexts in which readers and writers work. But, as in most useful texts, the purpose is more nuanced and far reaching than simply offering a glimpse into where we currently find ourselves as a field. In sum, the collection brings together and interweaves what we are coming to know and understand about teaching English within a shifting digital landscape as well as the implications for teacher education and the discipline of English Education specifically. The intended audience for this particular book is English educators, doctoral candidates in the field of English education, researchers and scholars in the field, and English language arts teachers – especially those interested in the impact digital technologies can have in our field.

“What any body is—and is able to do—cannot be disentangled from the media we use to consume and produce texts.” ---from the Introduction. Kristin Arola and Anne Wysocki argue that composing in new media is composing the body—is embodiment. In Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment), they have brought together a powerful set of essays that agree on the need for compositionists—and their students—to engage with a wide range of new media texts. These chapters explore how texts of all varieties mediate and thereby contribute to the human experiences of communication, of self, the body, and composing. Sample assignments and activities exemplify how this exploration might proceed in the writing classroom. Contributors here articulate ways to understand how writing enables the experience of our bodies as selves, and at the same time to see the work of (our) writing in mediating selves to make them accessible to institutional perceptions and constraints. These writers argue that what a body does, and can do, cannot be disentangled from the media we use, nor from the times and cultures and technologies with which we engage. To the discipline of composition, this is an important discussion because it clarifies the impact/s of literacy on citizens, freedoms, and societies. To the classroom, it is important because it helps compositionists to support their students as they enact, learn, and reflect upon their own embodied and embodying writing.

Exploring Digital Design takes a multi-disciplinary look at digital design research where digital design is embedded in a larger socio-cultural context. Working from socio-technical research areas such as Participatory Design (PD), Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the book explores how humanities offer new insights into digital design, and discusses a variety of digital design research practices, methods, and theoretical approaches spanning established disciplinary borders. The aim of the book is to explore the diversity of contemporary digital design practices in which commonly shared aspects are interpreted and integrated into different disciplinary and interdisciplinary conversations. It is the conversations and explorations with humanities that further distinguish this book within digital design research. Illustrated with real examples from digital design research practices from a variety of research projects and from a broad range of contexts Exploring Digital Design offers a basis for understanding the disciplinary roots as well as the interdisciplinary dialogues in digital design research, providing theoretical, empirical, and methodological sources for understanding digital design research. The first half of the book Exploring Digital Design is authored as a multi-disciplinary approach to digital design research, and represents novel perspectives and analyses in this research. The contributors are Gunnar Liestøl, Andrew Morrison and Christina Mörtberg in addition to the editors. Although primarily written for researchers and graduate students, digital design practioners will also find the book useful. Overall, Exploring Digital Design provides an excellent introduction to, and resource for, research into digital design.

Children’s curiosity about their lives and worlds motivates many interests. Yet, adults often have fixed ideas about what children’s interests are and have been criticised for trivialising children’s interests. This book offers a critical and accessible engagement with research on children’s interests that challenges us to move beyond surface-level understandings. Children’s Interests, Inquiries and Identities argues that the powerful relationship between interests and informal learning has been under-recognised and undervalued. The book proposes new principles for understanding children’s learning. It provides evidence that we need to look beyond the activities or topics children may currently be selecting to find out who and what has stimulated their interests, how we might identify and interpret interests more analytically and deeply, and how we might respond and engage with these in ways that take children’s interests seriously. Moving beyond play-based activities, Helen Hedges explains and illustrates a number of ways by which children’s interests can be interpreted and understood, to get to the heart of what really matters to, and for, children. The book draws on examples from research with children aged under 5 years, and young adults aged 18-25. It also includes a chapter on teachers’ interests. It presents new and original models for interests-based curriculum and sociocultural curriculum and pedagogy for future examination in research and practice. This book demonstrates that leaving behind long-standing, taken-for-granted practices that have influenced understandings of curriculum, pedagogy, learning, and outcomes allows a new perspective of children’s interests to emerge. It will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate students, and practitioners in the early years, parents, and other professionals who work with young children.

Taking a close look at multimodal composing as an essential new literacy in schools, this volume draws from contextualized case studies across educational contexts to provide detailed portraits of teachers and students at work in classrooms. Authors elaborate key issues in transforming classrooms with student multimodal composing, including changes in teachers, teaching, and learning. Six action principles for teaching for embodied learning through multimodal composing are presented and explained. The rich illustrations of practice encourage both discussion of practical challenges and dilemmas and conceptualization beyond the specific cases. Historically, issues in New Literacy Studies, multimodality, new literacies, and multiliteracies have primarily been addressed theoretically, promoting a shift in educators’ thinking about what constitutes literacy teaching and learning in a world no longer bounded by print text only. Such theory is necessary (and beneficial for re-thinking practices). What Multimodal Composing in Classrooms contributes to this scholarship are the voices of teachers and students talking about changing practices in real classrooms.