;
Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
8
This is a question that has certainly weighed heavily upon me.
Like Harste (2010), I conceptualize literacy as broad and all
encompassing- "as all of the ways that humankind has for
mediating their world" (p. 29). Because of this, I've always made
ample room in my classroom for multimodal expression. Even so,
I'd feel inexplicably guilty after assigning a project in which students
were required to write and film a commercial, for instance, only to
discover another teacher had assigned a lengthy, conventional
research paper down the hall. I was always afraid my students were
missing some of the rigor and real-world
preparedness a more
traditional approach affords. After some consideration though, I
think that both my conservative counterparts and I missed the mark.
In each instance, both the form and content were dictated for
students rather than by
students. My multimodal assignments,
(although generally flashy in the sense that I incorporated new
media and technology), were still tightly controlled, teacher-driven
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