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Journal of Language and Literacy Education Vol. 16 Issue 1—Spring 2020

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Intro

Abstract: This interpretive study examined how eighth-grade students responded to a multimodal short story

introduced to them by their English Language Arts teacher as part of a multimodal literacies curriculum unit.

By analyzing fieldnotes constructed from observations, the classroom teacher’s voice-recorded reflections,

and the students’ work, the author investigated how students articulated and described the relationships

between words and images in multimodal texts. This study showed how students were open to multiple

interpretive possibilities when reading images. However, when reading a text comprised of both words and

images, students looked to written language as the most significant mode of representation and

communication. Furthermore, most students in the class sought word-image coherence and alignment. The

discussion suggests that multimodal literacies instruction might benefit from further alignment with critical

literacy pedagogy, enabling students to question and challenge texts produced through any modal

combination. Literacy education researchers and classroom practitioners have the potential to ensure that

students are supported in becoming critical thinkers able to explore issues of representation within the

multimodal texts that saturate their social worlds.

Keywords: Critical Literacy, Multimodality, Multimodal Literacies, Visual Literacy

Stephanie F. Reid is a PhD Candidate in the Learning, Literacies, and Technologies program in the

Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Previously, Stephanie taught

secondary students English Language Arts for 15 years. Stephanie’s research interests include

multimodal literacies pedagogy and multimodal text analysis. Her work has appeared in The Journal

of Children’s Literature, Voices from the Middle, The Reading Teacher, and Visual Communication.

Contact the author at Stephanie.Reid@asu.edu

Stephanie F. Reid

Playful Images and Truthful Words: Eighth-Graders Respond

to Shaun Tan’s Stick Figures

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Journal of Language and Literacy Education Vol. 16 Issue 1—Spring 2020

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Introduction1

losure will definitely be provided by the

words. I want to know which ideas we had

yesterday are closest. Which one was the

true story. We might have gone past the

true meaning of the story.

Mako, Eighth-Grade Student

Scholarship in multimodality (Jewitt, 2017; Kress,

2010) has suggested that all modes of representation

and communication have “distinct potential to

contribute equally” to meaning-making activity

(Kress, 2010, p. 96). Therefore, while modes such as

written and spoken language are deemed significant,

so, too, are other modes, such as images and design

features. More than one mode of representation and

communication comprise multimodal texts (Kress &

van Leeuwen, 2001), and text-users should consider

paying attention to how combined modes interact

with each other to offer interpretive possibilities

(Unsworth & Cléirigh, 2017). Each mode has the

potential to modify the meanings offered by

different modes (Lemke, 1998). The meaning

potential of any given multimodal text is not located

in one single mode. Instead, readers construct

meaning across the modes available to them within

a text (Serafini, 2015). Thus, when interpreting an

illustrated short story, readers can construct their

interpretations using both image and written

language.

The purpose of this article is to share the findings of

a four-day interpretive study that investigated how

22 eighth-grade students responded to Shaun Tan’s

Stick Figures (2009), a short multimodal narrative

text. Six images and five written language

paragraphs occupy the six pages of Tan’s illustrated

short story. Tan’s story does not follow a typical

1

I acknowledge that there is a gender spectrum and that

myriad pronouns exist that I can use when referring to

individuals in this report. Throughout this article I use

story arc. To interpret this story, readers must draw

upon the interconnected contribution of the words

and images that comprise this narrative. I wished to

understand how students made meaning using

modes of representation and communication and

how students navigated the different perspectives on

the storyworld offered by the images and words. The

following overarching research question guided this

study: How did eighth-grade students respond to

Shaun Tan’s multimodal short story? Sub-questions

included: (a) How did students talk or write about

the words and images during meaning-making

activities? and (b) How did students describe and

understand the relationship between words and

images in multimodal texts?

This article documents students’ modal preference

(Smith, 2017) for written language due to their

equation of language with truth. My study shows

how, even though Tan’s (2009) text disrupts the

notion that image serves written language in visual

narrative texts, students defaulted to a preferred

understanding of word-image relationships as

complementary (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2000). My work

is relevant to researchers and educators interested in

the exploration of multimodal texts and multimodal

concepts in secondary English Language Arts

contexts because it suggests that interpreting

multimodal texts is a complex process that is further

complicated when modal components do not

cohere.

Research Context

To ensure attention to both modalities, the class

teacher, Ms. Scarlett (all student and teacher names

are pseudonyms), presented her students with only

the images from Tan’s (2009) story on the first day

of the study. The images show a suburban town

devoid of people. No humans are visually

pronouns to refer to individuals that correspond with the

pronouns that they use to refer to themselves.

C