Comic heroes or saviours? Constructing alternative identities in a social critical approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language.
Published:
Mar 15, 2016
Keywords:
EFL teaching popular culture social identity visual grammar multimodal texts
Abstract
Current educational systems primarily focus on the verbal and logico-mathematical aptitude of students, thus neglecting the cultivation of visual literacy and critical literacy skills, although the ubiquity of images in school textbooks necessitates the inclusion of a ‘visual grammar’ metalanguage in educational practices. The aim of the present paper is to present and analyse how a group of eighteen sixth grade students of an EFL classroom in a state primary school in Thessaloniki managed to ‘deconstruct’ the depiction of superheroes/heroines in comic books or action movies, in an effort to represent them in a more humane and mundane way, where their super powers are summoned to the advantage of a society in need. The overall organization of the instructional intervention is built on an introductory phase, a main phase and a follow-up phase. The analysis of the students’ compositions relies on the application of the principles of critical visual literacy and the results display that through the process of scaffolding, the students can reject dominant representations of power and reconstruct cliché identities by re-exploring pre-existing roles. The end result, that is the classroom calendar compiled by twelve multimodal texts, manifests the students’ skilful utilization of both visual and verbal semiotic resources in a balanced way, with a view to transmitting their social messages taking into account the broader social, cultural and political context within which power relations and social roles constantly evolve and are constructed.
Article Details
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Emmanouilidou, M. D., Emmanouilidou, S. D., & Papademetriou, E. (2016). Comic heroes or saviours? Constructing alternative identities in a social critical approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Preschool and Primary Education, 4(1), 182–195. https://doi.org/10.12681/ppej.190
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References
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Street, B. (Ed.) (1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Van Leeuwen, T. (2011). The Language of colour: An introduction. London & New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
Vasquez, V. (2004). Negotiating critical literacies with young children. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Whitley, D. (1996). Reality in boxes: Children’s perception of television narratives. In M. Hilton (Ed.), Potent fictions: Children’s literacy and the challenge of popular culture, (pp.47-67). London: Routledge.
Baynham, M. (1995). Literacy practices: Investigating literacy in social contexts. London & New York: Longman.
Berlin, J.A. (1993). Literacy, pedagogy, and English studies: Postmodern connections. In C. Lankshear & P. L. McLaren (Eds.), Critical Literacy: Politics, praxis and the postmodern (pp. 247-269). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Dyson, A. H. (1997). Writing superheroes: Contemporary childhood, popular culture, and classroom literacy. New York: Teachers College Press.
Evans, J. (2004). Introduction: The changing nature of literacy in the twenty-first century. In J. Evans (Ed.), Literacy moves on: Using popular culture, new technologies and critical literacy in the primary classroom (pp. 6-13). London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.
Gee, J.P. (2009). Literacy, video games, and popular culture. In D.R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy (pp. 313-325). Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gee, J. P., Hull, G. & Lankshear, C. (1996). The New York order: Behind the language of the New York capitalism. Sydney and Boulder, CO: Allen and Unwin and Westview Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Hannon, P.(2000). Reflecting on literacy in education. London: Routledge Falmer.
Hilton, M. (1996). Introduction: The children of this world. In M. Hilton (Ed.) Potent fictions: Children’s literacy and the challenge of popular culture, (pp. 1-16). London: Routledge.
Kress, G. (1994- 2nd ed.). Learning to write. London & New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Kress, G. (1995). Writing the future: English and the making of a culture of innovation. Sheffield: NATE.
Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2), 337-340. Retrieved October 2013 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3587959?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: A grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Colour as a semiotic mode: Notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication (1)3, 343-369, DOI: 10.1177/147035720200100306. Retrieved October 2013 from http://vcj.sagepub.com/content/1/3/343
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006-2nd ed.). Reading images: A grammar of visual design London: Routledge.
Lankshear, C. & McLaren, P. L. (Eds.) (1993). Critical literacy: Politics, praxis and the postmodern. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Millard, E. (2003). Towards a literacy of fusion: New times, new teaching and learning? Reading: Literacy and Learning, 37(1), 3-8, DOI: 10.1111/1467-9345.3701002
Millard, E. (2004). Writing about heroes and villains: Fusing children’s knowledge about popular fantasy texts with school-based literacy requirements. In J. Evans (Ed.), Literacy moves on: Using popular culture, new technologies and critical literacy in the primary classroom (pp. 144-164). London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
Molden, K. (2007). Critical literacy, the right answer for the reading classroom: Strategies to move beyond comprehension for reading improvement. Reading Improvement, 44 (1), 50-56. Retrieved June 2014 from https://resources.oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/mikuleck/Filemanager_Public_Files/L501/English%20and%20Literature/Molden%202007%20Critical%20Literacy%20Teaching%20Strategies.pdf
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.
Nodelman, P. (1988). Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
O’Brien, J. (2001).Children reading critically: A local history. In B. Comber & A. Simpson (Eds.), Negotiating critical literacies in classrooms. (pp. 37-54). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Pahl, K., & Rowsell, J. (2005). Literacy and education: Understanding the new literacy studies in the classroom. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Royce, T. (1998). Synergy on the page: Exploring intersemiotic complementarity in page-based multimodal text. Japan Association Systemic Functional Linguistics Occasional Papers, 1(1), 25-50.
Royce, T. (2002). Multimodality in the TESOL classroom: Exploring visual-verbal synergy. TESOL Quarterly, 36 (2), 191- 205, DOI: 10.2307/3588330
Stenglin, M., & Iedema, R. (2001). How to analyse visual images: A guide for TESOL teachers. In A. Burns & C. Coffin (Eds.), Analysing English in a global context: A reader (pp. 194-208). London and New York in association with Macquarie University and the Open University: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Stotsky, S., & Mall, C. (2003).Understanding research on teaching the English language arts: An introduction for teachers. In J. Flood, D. Lapp, J.R. Squire & J. M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (2nd ed.) (pp. 133-142). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.
Street, B. (Ed.) (1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Street, B. (2009). Ethnography of writing and reading. In D.R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy (pp. 329-345). Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Street, B., & Street, J. (1991). The schooling of literacy. In D. Barton & R. Ivanic (Eds.), Writing in the community, (pp.143-166). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Unsworth, L. (2006). Towards a metalanguage for multiliteracies education: Describing the meaning making resources of language-image interaction. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5 (1), 55-76. Retrieved July 2013 from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2006v5n1art4.pdf
Van Leeuwen, T. (2011). The Language of colour: An introduction. London & New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
Vasquez, V. (2004). Negotiating critical literacies with young children. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Whitley, D. (1996). Reality in boxes: Children’s perception of television narratives. In M. Hilton (Ed.), Potent fictions: Children’s literacy and the challenge of popular culture, (pp.47-67). London: Routledge.
