Professional text on Writing: semiotic implications

1. Professional text on Writing:semiotic implications Emma CooperMT Literacy

2. I would like to begin…. • By introducing you to Semiotics  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOxciHMKA-s • And to remind you the video shown below talks about email/ whiteboards in the classroom (assessment for learning). Unfortunately, due to time, I can’t show it.  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0R4xeIFaCg • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkpbbu4QC3M&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV2sJpUcB0M

3. Technology • Smartboard • Visual, oral and aural • As many learners and intelligences as possible • Practicum experience

4. Practical Strategies Teachers Can Use • #1: individual whiteboards-motion of “writing” in every subject-experience- started in UK • #2: Email in the classroom

5. Articles: • Semiotic Resourcefulness: An Email Exchange by Diane Mavers, University of London • Multimodal Texts: A Social Semiotic Account of Designs for Learning by Jeff Bezemer and Gunther Kress, Institute for Education, Centre for Multimodal Research • Semiotic Import in Early Composing Processes by Diane Mavers, Institute of Education- University of London

6. These Three Articles Cover: • In the classroom • Outside of the classroom • Theoretical background

7. Main Ideas-Article 1: Mavers(2007) • Is resourcefulness seen during play also evident in writing for children? • Conceptualizing writing as a process of design • Analyses email exchange between six year old and uncle and compares to classroom • Email analysed according to spacing, punctuation, grammar, opening and closing and spelling • Writing as part of a social context

8. Main Ideas- Article 2: Bezemer and Kress (2008) • Writing is no longer the central mode of representation • Uses and forms of writing have undergone profound changes over the last decades • Digital media and text- design and principles of composition • The principles underlying the design of multimodal ensembles and the potential epistemological and pedagogic effects of multimodal designs • textbooks (1930s,1980s, 2000)

9. Main Points- Article 3: Mavers(2009) • Semiotic work of school based learning • entails interpretation and expression framed by the curriculum and social practices of the classroom • Must be realized multimodally (whiteboards) in diverse pedagogic interactions and activities • Students need to learn to make texts apt to different discourses and genres • Speed produces image and writing

10. Main Ideas/Key Concepts Overall • Definition of Writing has changed • Implications for Curriculum- technology’s use needs to be changed • Redesigning Writing/Composition- multimodal classroom

11. What I Learned • I must be mindful of practices outside of the classroom (particularly in writing) so that students are able to transfer skills learned in the classroom, and show their resourcefulness in the classroom. • This strategy would work for my students (i.e. blog, IEP students on computers). They also used macbooks. • Management of Practical Techniques- technology as multimodality instead of electronic • Assessment for learning- Whiteboards • How to prepare students to use writing in diverse discourses and genres • Writing is subject to its medium

12. Research Base/Experience • Semiotic Inquiry • Practicum: Grade 6 student blog, media literacy program, macbooks, whiteboards • Course Work: learner engagement, multiple intelligences , multimodal practices in the classroom- article completed for professional text on reading • MTRP • “ email exchange”-Mavers • Whiteboards- Mavers • “sign, mode, medium frame and site of display” – Bezemer and Kress • Mavers page 149/151 • Bezemer and Kress throughout

13. Limitations of the Articles • “Kathleen’s settling on the lexical choice ‘hey’ was not accidental.” • Email not in classroom setting • Computers and hypertexts • Mavers (2007) • Bezemer and Kress (2008)

14. Questions for the author • Mavers ( 2007) “Kathleen’s resourcefulness is apparent in her decision to contact her uncle in the first place and in her initial resolution with regard to mode and medium.” ( p.162) • Is this the individual or societal embedded ideal. If it were not for resourcefulness, would the girl still be able to design writing apt to the social context?

15. Questions for the author • Mavers (2007) “ …resourcesfulness in writing must be understood in relation to what people do with the resources available to them. The notion of design provides a means of understanding sign-making as the choice and combination of semiotic resources. From all the possible alternatives available to an individual and within the potentialities and constraints of those permitted by the social context, the mode and the medium, decision must be made about how particular meanings will be realized and how they will be interrelated.” (p.158) • Question: So then, is it technique or the individual? For example, ESL students, would have the resources from their previous language.

16. Questions for the author • Mavers (2009) • Based upon your description on page 145 of your article detailing using finger gestures to making meaning in the classroom, does this change your definition of writing? For example, when thinking of the ASL language?

17. Strengths of the Articles • P.159- hypertextual literacy • Analysis of emails • Mavers (2007)

18. Strengths of the Articles • page 168- look at representational changes in learning resources between 1930 and 2005 to create new potentials for learning • Page 173- recognize the necessity tobring culture into writingand its devices to better reflect the classroom • Bezemer and Kress (2008)

19. Strengths of Articles • Writing format changed- face-to-face • Mavers (2009)

20. A Connection to What I Have Learned in the MT Academic Program • In the MT program, I have learned the value of being responsible for student’s learning. If a child does not understand a concept, you need to find a way so that they do understand the concept. • All three articles: • Value of inquiry for varying discourses and genres • Recognition of writing changing allows us for multimodality- teaches to multiple intelligences and learning styles

21. Thanks! • FIN.

22. Definition of Writing: • Writing is language, but to regard it as language alone is only a partial understanding of what it is. Lexical choices and syntactic options provide infinite opportunities for variations of meaning. Yet the understanding of writing that I wish to put forward here includes graphic aspects not really present in linguistic accounts. In this approach, writing is language realized materially as marks on a surface. Which substance(s) and tool(s) were used to make these marks and what the surface is are significant for meaning. As written words appear visibly, they are sign complexes that consist of semiotic choices realized materially. How words are made to look – how lettering is formed, letter case and how graphic components are presented – are ways of making meaning. The mode of writing also consists of symbols beyond letters. Which punctuation marks are chosen and where they are positioned provide semiotic possibilities. Layout – how graphic components are set out in the space of the graphic surface and how they are positioned in relation to other graphic items – is an essential constituent of what the mode of writing is. In other words, writing consists of a whole array of semiotic resources. It is a mode of representation/communication consisting of resources beyond those recognized in linguistic analysis alone.