Green, Caroline Teresa Anne (2021) Getting the colours to ‘sing’: exploring pupils’ creative engagement with contemporary text-making in a literacy classroom. PhD thesis, University of Greenwich.

Preview

PDF Caroline Green 2021.pdf - Published Version Download (6MB) | Preview

Abstract

Through an exploration of their creative contemporary text-making, the aim of this study was to gain insight into the nature of a group of 11 and 12-year-old pupils’ textual construction processes when they had access to mobile digital devices during their schooled literacy lessons.

A qualitative multiple case study design was developed which comprised of a pupil questionnaire, pupil discussions and digital text production. This study implemented a constructivist interpretivist theoretical approach in its exploration of the meaning constructed by the pupils in their digital texts, and was underpinned by a multimodal multiliteracies theoretical framework which guided the design of the collection and coding of the data from the pupil discussions. Its potential to recognise the sophisticated text-making that happens when writing is no longer central to the text-maker’s mode of communication was revealed through a comparative analysis of the data collected in which key findings were identified and insights formed.

This study has focused on three key areas of interest. Firstly, it has sought to develop an understanding of the nature of multimodal text construction that is integral to contemporary text-making. Through a coded analysis of the digital texts produced by a group of 11 and 12-year-old pupils in their literacy lesson using 1:1 iPad devices, this study has exposed not only the range of modes they were using, but also a knowledge of text-making that was not taught in school. Through uncovering these pupils’ sophisticated responses to their meaning-making and revealing their spontaneous conceptual knowledge, this study has made visible their skills as both users and producers of digital texts.

Secondly, as the pupils voiced their own interpretations of their meaning-making recorded during digitextual discussions, this study was able to expose the richness of the pupils’ meaning-making choices and home-grown skills they were drawing on as they expressed their ideas using a metalanguage that was familiar to them. Through detailed descriptions obtained from the pupil discussions, this study was able to identify explicitly where there were gaps in the pupils’ knowledge of the metalanguage of contemporary text-making.

The final area of interest, although not the primary focus, centred on the potential conflict of interests between a formal education initiative to deploy 1:1 iPads and established literacy practices. This was considered principally in relation to the school in this study and its context. However, in terms of the wider issues facing formal education’s approaches to teaching literacy, through highlighting the tensions that exist between the formal written assessments in the school in this study and the multiple modes available in contemporary meaning-making practices, this study has drawn attention to a need to review established literacy curricula and pedagogy.

With digital devices now a ubiquitous part of young people’s everyday textual experiences and increasingly deployed in educational contexts, through its exploration into the nature contemporary text-making, this study has implications not only for classroom digital text-making, but also for formal education approaches to teaching literacy.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Text construction, literacy, digital text making, digital literacy,
Subjects:	L Education > LC Special aspects of education
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Education (EDU)
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2022 12:41
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/38251

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads