Moving Beyond The Page in Content Area Literacy: Comprehension Instruction For Multimodal Texts in Science
Moving Beyond The Page in Content Area Literacy: Comprehension Instruction For Multimodal Texts in Science
Moving Beyond The Page in Content Area Literacy: Comprehension Instruction For Multimodal Texts in Science
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oon after they observed and drew the moon in Ms. Thompson’s lesson was exemplary for many
its different phases for a month, the sixth-grade reasons. It demonstrated her high degree of expertise
students sat huddled together on the floor in in using pedagogical content knowledge to make po-
the main atrium of their U.S. middle school. Their tentially difficult concepts understandable to students
teacher Ms. Thompson (pseudonym) held up a black (Shulman, 1987). As Shulman explained, excellent
and yellow foam ball, stating, “This is the moon.” A content area teachers comprehend difficult concepts
student explained to the class that the bright half of and can then “transform” them into multiple “repre-
the ball represented the part of the moon that was lit sentations” such as “analogies, metaphors, examples,
by the sun, while the dark half represented the side of demonstrations, explanations, and so forth” (p. 15)
the moon that was not lit by the sun. Ms. Thompson that meet the unique educational needs of particu-
pointed down a long hallway, at the end of which the lar classrooms. Indeed, Ms. Thompson transformed
sun’s rays shone brightly through glass doors. “That her content knowledge “into forms that [were] peda-
is the sun,” she said, making sure she stood so that gogically powerful” (p. 15), and many students came
the sun’s rays hit the side of the moon that was yel- away with an understanding of the phases of the
low. Ms. Thompson then informed her students, “You moon, as evidenced by their subsequent writings.
are the earth.” With the moon held high, she revolved Yet when one student returned to the classroom
around her students in a circle, asking them each to without writing and finally asked Ms. Thompson to
record what they saw of the moon as she stood in explain the phases of the moon to him, he revealed
different positions. Her students told her when it was the potential limitations of simply transforming con-
a full moon, a new moon, and a quarter moon, de- tent from one type of representation (e.g., a textbook)
pending on where she was standing. into another (e.g., a demonstration) to make concepts
Intrigued by what would happen next, Ms. understandable to some students. Nonprint forms of
Thompson’s students followed her into a dark stor- representation—such as demonstrations, videos,
age closet. This time, they stood in a circle, survey- and diagrams—are themselves texts. Moreover, just
ing the room with no windows, lit only by a lamp in as students deserve explicit instruction on how to
the center that represented the sun. Each student’s access the content in texts with words, they also de-
head was now the earth, and the moon was a poly- serve explicit instruction on how to access the con-
styrene ball stuck onto a pencil in each student’s tent in other types of texts. Furthermore, they deserve
hand. Leading students through a series of turns, explicit instruction on how to represent content in a
Ms. Thompson demonstrated again how the moon’s variety of textual forms themselves.
revolution around the earth caused different lunar These textual forms are at the ver y heart of
phases. Students returned to their assigned tables science (Lemke, 1998). For instance, students
in their classrooms as they began their responses must “read” and be able to make sense of a three-
to the prompt, “Explain what causes the phases of dimensional model of the digestive system, just as
the moon.” As they sat and discussed this prompt in they must be able to make sense of any accompany-
cooperative groups, Ms. Thompson walked around ing explanatory written text. Ms. Thompson under-
the room to field questions and to help students write stood this principle and supplemented her unit with
their explanations. models, demonstrations, and videos of the earth in
The Reading Teacher, 62(2), pp. 153–156 © 2008 International Reading Association
DOI:10.1598/RT.62.2.7 ISSN: 0034-0561 print / 1936-2714 online 153
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154 The Reading Teacher Vol. 62, No. 2 October 2008
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Students should apply comprehension n In a demonstration or lab, ask students to identify the
strategies as they read, view, and listen to one or two most important factors that caused the
multimodal texts. phenomenon to occur and to justify why they chose that
factor.
n Ask students to explicitly connect a demonstration, a
taking available preexisting designs and transform- photographs of the moon, or a scientist’s journal en-
ing them into a redesigned text. According to this tries) to convey content.
theory, the creators of texts choose from a variety of Furthermore, they could subsequently discuss
available templates (charts, diagrams, gestures, writ- the affordances and limitations of their selected tex-
ten texts, websites, photographs, computer graphics, tual forms when they shared their proposed designs
videos, comics, any combination of these, and more) in groups or with the class. According to Pauwels
to make a redesigned text using the templates of pre- (2006), “The issue of representation touches upon the
existing texts. very essence of all scientific activity. What is known
When the principle of design is applied to this and passed on as science is the result of a series of
particular lesson, students could be asked to imagine representational practices” (p. vii). Other scientists
they were creating their own website in which they have echoed his assertion as well (e.g., Lemke, 1998),
would explain the causes of lunar phases. Ideally, af- underscoring the importance of explicitly teaching
ter the modeling and discussing of several example students how to read and write different types of rep-
texts, students would be able to design a digital text. resentations as a key component of scientific literacy.
Alternatively, due to some classes’ limited access to As a result, teachers cannot be content to encourage
up-to-date computer labs, students might complete students to apply comprehension strategies as they
this activity without a computer as well, simply by read words on a printed page, no matter how impor-
imagining what they would do in a website. In ei- tant and useful those strategies might be. Instead
ther case, students would have to explain why they teachers can open up conversations about the mode
chose different forms of representation (e.g., moving of the text itself—about how the designer of the text
images, expository text with headings, labeled still is conveying, omitting, and creating certain aspects
156 The Reading Teacher Vol. 62, No. 2 October 2008