Twenty-sixth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Learning to make a social difference for young children requires instructional practices that allow all students to participate in their sociopolitical contexts. The United States has focused intently on the use of standardized tests to measure young children’s reading abilities. Broader views of literacy’s role in social access call for critical views of literacy that promote social justice. In this qualitative case study of elementary students, multimodal design was used to teach the concepts of civic virtue and engagement. Data from all class activities including lesson videos, student drawings, writings, and video creations were examined to understand how students expressed their understandings of civic virtue and engagement. Students demonstrated their understanding by creating a Public Service Announcement video. Students selected a scenario, created dialogue and gestures, with a narrative depicting how to stand up for the homeless and how to stand up to bullying. Findings indicate that multimodal instructional design coupled with critical democratic literacy concepts creates a means for students of all reading and writing abilities to surpass simplistic views of literacy to create critical meaningful expressions relevant to their own sociopolitical contexts. Young children understand concepts related to social justice and their engagement in topics related to democratic values related to social justice can be facilitated by multimodal learning. Instructional responses to individual differences as they relate to students’ literacy abilities (e.g., reading level, vocabulary knowledge, and writing abilities) can be expanded by relying on multimodal design, via oral story reading, class discussion, photos, illustrations, and video excerpts.