Social Diversity within Multiliteracies Complexity in Teaching and Learning

Using a multiliteracies theoretical framework highlighting social diversity and multimodality as central in the process of meaning making, this book examines literacy teaching and learning as embedded in cultural, linguistic, racial, sexual, and gendered contexts and explores ways to foster learning and achievement for diverse students in various settings. Attending simultaneously to topics around two overarching and interrelated themes?languages and language variations, and cultures, ethnicities, and identities?the chapter authors examine the roles that multiliteracies play in students? lives in and out of classrooms. In Part I, readers are asked to examine beliefs and dispositions as related to different languages, language varieties, cultures, ethnicities, and identities. Part II engages readers in examining classroom and community practices related to different languages and language varieties, cultures, ethnicities, and identities.

Preface

Chapter 1: Reflections on the Past, Working within the "Future": Advancing a Multiliteracies Theory and Pedagogy Fenice B. Boyd and Cynthia H. Brock

PART I: Exploring Languages, Language Varieties, Culture, Ethnicity, and Identities

Chapter 2: Language Study in Teacher Education: Cultivating Teachers’ Understandings of Language Variation Debra Goodman

Chapter 3: "Deadly Ways to Learn:" Language Variation, Ideology, and Learning Literacies Cynthia H. Brock, Jenni Carter, and Fenice B. Boyd

Chapter 4: My Life in Stories, My World in Pictures: A View of Multiliteracies from the Outside In Rachel G. Salas and Julie L. Pennington

Chapter 5: White Male Teachers Exploring Language, Literacy, and Diversity: A Self-Study of Perceptions of Diversity(ies) Mary B. McVee, David Fronzack, Jay Stainsby, and Chad White

Chapter 6: Embracing Sexual Diversity in Classroom Teaching Lynda R. Wiest

Chapter 7: Designing Safe Places to Talk about Contentious Topics Fenice B. Boyd and Andrea L. Tochelli

PART II: Exploring Languages, Language Varieties, Culture, Ethnicity, and Identities in Classrooms and Communities

Chapter 8: Code-switching and Contrastive Analysis: Tools of Language and Culture Transform the Dialectally Diverse Classroom Rebecca Wheeler and Rachel Swords

Chapter 9:Tangled in Charlotte’s Web: Lessons Learned from English Learners Claudia Christensen Haag and Margaret Compton

Chapter 10: Culture and Identity: Promoting the Literacies of a Sudanese Father and Son Doris Walker-Dalhouse and A. Derick Dalhouse

Chapter 11: Social Equity Teaching in Action: My Community IS My Classroom Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon and David Benjamin McMillon

Chapter 12: Transforming Locked Doors: Using Multiliteracies to Recontextualize Identities and Learning for Youth Living on the Margins Sean Turner

Chapter 13: "That Teacher Just Uses Her Mouth": Inviting Linguistically Diverse Students to Learn Zaline M. Roy-Campbell

PART III: Lessons Learned about Social Diversities within Multiliteracies

Chapter 14: Transforming Practice in Action Cynthia H. Brock and Fenice B. Boyd

Fenice B. Boyd is Associate Professor, Literacy Education, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA.

Cynthia H. Brock is Lecturer, Literacy Studies, School of Education, University of South Australia, Australia.