ql-align-justify"> One curriculum practice that stand-out to me the most that connects audio/oral meanings to reading and writing is when our teacher asked us to do a one-act play that we did last year for our final milestone. This activity does not only focus on performance and the way we present it to the audience but also it incorporates reading and writing, a process we did as we make and practice the play.

In this approach, us students will make our own script that is related to our assigned theme or topic which we will also read and memorize when we’re practicing. As we read through dialogues, and scripts, we had some realizations and suggestions so we actually do a lot of revisions before we finalized it, and I think it was a meaningful experience to actually make a whole story and internalize the characters and bring them to life because I believe that there is still a big difference between reading it to actually seeing it and hearing it with your own eyes.I believe that this practice really integrates multiple modes of meaning-making and clearly illustrates the principles of multimodal literacies pedagogy. Gunther Kress supports this and argues that meaning is shaped through the interaction of different modes, including linguistic, audio, gestural, and spatial forms. A one-act play naturally activates these modes. The written script represents the linguistic mode, while performance brings in audio that includes voice, tone, pacing. Gestural that involves body language, facial expressions, and spatial that includes stage positioning elements. Thus us students had come to understand that meaning is not fixed in the written text but is dynamically constructed through a performance. This practice also highlights mode shifting between oral and written meanings. Students first begin to write, and read scripts, next would be interpreting the dialogue and what emotions and characteristics should be shown to fully convey the meaning of the story, and lastly the stage directions. Then, they will shift to oral performance, where the actual meaning making happens and students should transform written dialogues and scripts into spoken language, with their own emotion, and interpretation of it. Performances often lead to new insights like when punctuation signals pauses and how word choices affect how it is delivered. After practicing, they go again with reading and revising the script and composing alternate scenes to enhance the performance. This actually goes back and forth to oral and written which deeply highlights how meaning changes across modes.

To conclude, engaging in a practice such as a one-act play opens us to a rich multimodal literacy practice that integrates reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Through continuous mode shifting between oral and written forms, it helps us students to develop a deeper awareness of how meaning is constructed, performed, and reimagined across different communicative modes which makes our learning experiences be more creative, meaningful, and engaging.

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication.

Routledge.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780203970034/multimodality-gunther-kress

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). The five modes of multimodality. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/englishcomp1/chapter/the-five-modes/

Multimodal Key Terms. (n.d.). Mode. https://multimodalkeyterms.wordpress.com/mode/

Lim, S. (n.d.). Elements of theater. SlideShare. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/elements-of-theater/64551552

Mina, A. (n.d.). The elements of one-act play. SlideShare. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-following-are-the-elements-of-oneact-play/266758944

One-Act Play: Meaning Across Modes