| CODE | PRE4510 | ||||||
| TITLE | Multimodal Meaning-making in the Early Years | ||||||
| UM LEVEL | 04 - Years 4, 5 in Modular UG or PG Cert Course | ||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Early Childhood and Primary Education | ||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Children are regarded as competent and practiced sign-makers in the use of semiotic modes. Representing their understandings effectively and skilfully, children use whatever channels of communication are available – modes, media and materials - to create complex representations that are laden with multiple layers of meaning. It is therefore crucial for early years’ teachers to understand children’s signs and meaning-making from their perspective. This study-unit provides an in-depth exploration of the current understandings of multimodality that stem from a theory of social semiotics. The study unit provides an analysis of the different modes (play, images, movement, gestures, talk, etc.), media and material children use to communicate and make meaning. The concept of the image (and subsequently any text) and its analysis at the detonation and connotation levels as theorised by Barthes will be discussed. A theory of social semiotics, defined as the study of signs, will be presented as a way of thinking, understanding and interpreting meanings and texts that emanate from interaction and communication through the use and interplay of a variety of signs and modes. The unit also provides a deliberation on the notion of the sign as an amalgamation of form and meaning in a process of transformation based on the sign-maker’s interest. Various social semiotics theorists such as Saussaure, Peirce, Halliday, Kress, Jewitt and Van Leeuwen, will be introduced and their positions and perspectives will be discussed and analysed. Recent studies that address the notion of how young children make meaning in today’s classrooms, the pedagogical implications, and curricula that developed or an inspired from a theory of multimodality will be discussed and supported with examples from practice. An insight into ways of assessing young children’s processes of meaning-making, and presenting them with an environment that is rich of modes that cater for the children’s different interests, cultures and abilities will also provided. Study-unit Aims: The overall aim of the study-unit is to introduce students to a theory of multimodal semiotics while sensitising them to understand the different ways children create, interpret and communicate meaning. Another aim is to help students understand that systems of language and literacy are limiting for children and need to be embedded with other modes to meet the potentials, abilities of all children’s multimodal semiotic dispositions and interests. Another aims is to equip students with ways of assessing children’s multimodal ways of communicating and learning and subsequently to provide for the multimodal ways for children to make meaning and learn in their class. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Comprehend a theory of multimodality; - Discuss the different perspectives of social semiotics; - Comprehend that children make meaning through different (multimodal) ways; - Comprehend that different children use different modes to communicate; - Comprehend how different signs convey different meanings and how same signs can be interpreted differently by different sign-readers; - Discuss the different modes, media and material children use to make and communicate meaning; - Analyse and reflect upon the different meanings children communicate; - Be informed about the outside factors that influence children’s meaning-making processes; - Demonstrate and understanding of their role as adults in acknowledging, appreciating and assessing children’s multimodal ways of communication. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Use different semiotic theories to inform their current thinking and practice; - Be sensitive to the different modes that children use to communicate; - Allow children to choose and combine the modes they prefer in their text-making rather than impinge and dictate to them which modes to use; - Create contexts that value and provide children’s multimodal ways of meaning-making by presenting a context that is rich of multimodal materials, resources and experiences to meet the children’s interests, choices of communication, learning aptitudes, cultures and abilities; - Observe, analyse and reflect children’s multimodal experiences and use them as a way to enrich learning; - Adopt, integrate and develop a theory of multimodal semiotics in their everyday practice; - Act as role models, by engaging in different multimodal practices themselves. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Readings: - Kress, G. (1997). Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. London: Routledge. - Pahl, K. & Rowsell, J. (2012). Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom. (2nd Ed.) London: Sage. - Mavers, D. (2011). Children’s Drawing and Writing: The Remarkable in the Unremarkable. London:Routledge. Supplementary Readings: - Jewitt, K., & Kress, G. (2003). Multimodal Literacy. London: Routledge. - Jewitt, K. (2009). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. (Ed.). London: Routledge. - Narey, M. (2009). Making Meaning: Constructing Multimodal Perspectives of Language, Literacy and Learning through Arts-based Early Childhood Education. PA, USA:Springer. - Stein, P. (2008). Multimodal Pedagogies in Diverse Classrooms: Representation, Rights and Resources. London: Routledge. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Independent Study | ||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Josephine Deguara |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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