Transforming Literacies and Language: Multimodality and Literacy in the New Media Age 9781474212014, 9781441123916

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Foreword John G. Hedberg Professor, Millennium Innovations Chair of ICT and Education Macquarie University

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are talking about many forms of literacy and paramount is the role of language and its representational forms. Over the past 20 years, we have increasingly gained individual access to technologies that enable us to represent our ideas in more that the traditional scripts of the worlds languages, today we can convert discourses to concept maps, narratives to video clips, and create our own stories as we interact in real time with friends and strangers at other points over a digital network. This book explores a variety of contexts in which these capabilities are transforming communication and learning. The chapters provide a unique collection of evidence and scholarship that explore the interplay between digital technologies and literacies in the broadest sense. Zammit begins the narrative with some of the traditional challenges for the technologies as they are employed in learning to change the curriculum and the pedagogies through which learners come to experience their world. Zammit situates the challenge in a planning framework that seeks to use the modalities of representation, authentic tasks, and the development of new skill sets with learners who are operating in a world where the texts are represented in synchronous and asynchronous forms using visual and aural displays. She suggests the pedagogical translation requires the teacher to be adept at scaffolding learning, encouraging collaborative learning to achieve independent learning for students as they employ their newly acquired skills. De Souza and Towndrow extend the starting points by suggesting a task design mechanism that will be useful as teachers design learning activities for their students. While specifically focusing upon the language arts, they seek to encourage teachers to explore some of the options available with both technologies and pedagogical strategies as they more effectively employ ICT in language teaching. Taken together with the Chapter 1 by Zammit there are a range of considerations that practicing teachers need to

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balance to be effective users of the technology and good modelers of how their learners can understand and produce texts in multiple forms. Malinowski and Nelson explore an instance of digital storytelling in the classroom and Guo and his colleagues take the next step into a narrative that includes the visual, by providing a framework for the analysis of multimedia texts. They promptly provide examples based on real school experiences such as designing a brochure and a multimedia presentation. To this point in the narrative we have focused more on the tools and the texts; this is further elaborated by considering in the next part three chapters about interaction and the development of argumentation using online learning contexts. Sivell takes an intercultural perspective and seeks to foster active language-intensive online interactions. He emphasizes the differences in discourse moves between a face-to-face classroom and online exchanges. Online discourse is not simply a matter of initiation, response, and follow-up, but by contrast with the real-world classroom, initiation and follow-up are no longer the predominate prerogative of the teacher, as students can actively participate in all moves of the exchange. Not all student groups find these new roles easy and he emphasizes the importance of scaffolding to gain their active contribution. He notes that online learning interactions require students to make the moves of discourse and establish their viewpoints as they negotiate and contribute to their learning outcomes. The next two chapters explore the structuring of texts to create meaning through develop argumentation structures. Tan and Tan emphasize the importance of the technology in assisting students to develop an argument structure. They in effect discuss a new form of literacy—dialogic literacy, which has been given to the lexicon by Bereiter and Scardamalia in several of their recent writings. If the text is going to generate meaning then students need to develop both formal and informal arguments that create the impression of evidence-supported justifications. They provide examples of pedagogies and computer tools that specifically support the generation of an argument structure. In doing so the computer tool assists the student to create linkages for a Toulmin structure. This in effect can visually structure a potential text highlighting the links between claims, evidence and a warrant that the evidence “supports” the claim. Ho and Chee also recognize the importance of argumentation in developing a structured text in response and again employ similar conceptual structures to support argumentation but they explore the detailed complexities of language in providing the range of functions to support the claims. A strong point in this chapter is that the students generated mostly claims and rebuttals, they

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did not invest heavily in generating evidence, and this has implications if we are to develop effective argumentative texts. The following two chapters explore the more technical aspects of using digital corpora of texts. Doyle explores how web interfaces might provide some rich learning materials for advanced language learning. In particular, he muses on some more sophisticated data visualization technologies that might be explored to make what would otherwise be a dense texture of words. Oakey also explores how the computerization of some of the language tools enable dynamic manipulation of the data that is literally unable to be undertaken in any other way. Thus we end on the role of the technology as a tool to assist in the visualization of texts and their inherent patterns. The bulk of Oakey’s discussion is a dissection of an English for Academic Purposes course but it provides a clear example of the indispensability of the technology in enabling all of us to transform the language and create learning opportunities. In the final part, the focus shifts into some specific technology considerations. Blogs have been eagerly adopted in several language contexts. The arguments for blogging include the requirement to produce texts and to easily include visual and dynamic components as part of the narrative. One of the main challenges is to overcome any fear of posting or the reverse of posting of inappropriate materials. Blackstone and Wilkinson suggest that concerns can be managed with clear directions for the learning task; they also indicate the challenge to read the volume of materials generated using this medium. However, as has been noted by others blogs do allow for other groups to review the materials and to make comment. In an earlier study by Griffiths (2005), he has suggested that for creative writing the need for an audience can sometimes be met by blogging, however, he does suggest that the blog should be outside the individual educational institution and this may conflict with a duty of care for younger learners. Tan suggests that Wikis might fill the need to generate collaborative tasks and to support shared meaning development. Rather importantly he suggests that the better choice of wiki would have a rich text editor to enable easy modification and the generation of well-designed communications. The choice of tool will define the types of literacies that can be supported and wikis unlike blogs have addressed the need to have some feedback and error correction in ways that are simply and constructive. A wiki entry can be edited by another, then accepted or rejected, a blog entry can be commented upon but unless the blog owner makes the change to the original text it will stay uncorrected. This may be an important affordance of the learning task that in part addresses the issue of overload on the

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teacher and the tools itself will provide the history of editing of the text, but in choosing this tool, the teacher needs to take a position about the wisdom of crowds. In the next chapter about the tools, Tagg explores text messaging and the unique challenges of electronic language. She notes the creativity that people exhibit in their spelling and in their everyday use of text messaging, and she reminds us as we might think about using text messaging that it is a hybrid between written and spoken texts. The sms text is made richer with the addition of multimodal examples and the digital narrative. This book provides an evidence-driven journey of the interplay between digital tools and how they can support and analyze representations of language that will in turn lead into meaningful language experiences. I congratulate Caroline, Kate, and Alvin on their determination to collect such a useful contribution to our understanding of literacies.

References Griffiths, M. (2005). WebCT with LiveJournal: 5 C’s: Community, collaboration, connection, creativity, cohesion. Paper delivered to 6th Annual WebCT Users Conference, Cairns, QLD, September 18 to 20, 2005.

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Acknowledgments

We deeply appreciate the support and interest from the following without which this volume would not have been possible: Professor David Hung, Associate Dean, Education Research, Office of Education Research; Professor Looi Chee Kit, former Head, Learning Sciences Laboratory and current Head, Centre of Excellence for Learning Innovation; and Associate Professor Lubna Alsagoff, Head, English Language and Literature Academic Group, all from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. We are grateful to the original publishers for permission to reprint the images in this volume. Original publication details are provided below. Zammit, K. and Downes, T. (2002). New learning environments and the multiliterate individual: A framework for educators. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 25 (2): 24–36. One illustration is reproduced with permission from Zammit & Downes. One illustration of Recruitment poster, IWM PST 0414, reproduced with permission from the Imperial War Museum, London. Four illustrations from Voices of Reason are reproduced with permission from Learning Sciences Laboratory, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. COBUILD corpus http://www.collins.co.uk/corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx One illustration from the corpus is reproduced with permission from Collins Publishers. Scott, M. (2007). WordSmith Tools (version 5.0). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Two illustrations are reproduced with permission from Mike Scott. Davies, M. (2007–).TIME Magazine Corpus (100 million words, 1920s–2000s). Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/time. One illustration is

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reproduced with permission from Professor Mark Davies for the use of screenshots of his interface. Bank of English (2008). HarperCollins Publishers and the University of Birmingham (UK). One illustration is reproduced with permission from HarperCollins Publishers and the University of Birmingham (UK) which jointly own the Bank of English corpus. One illustration of a screenshot from the wiki page “Welcome to Room 15!” http://mrlindsay.pbworks.com is reproduced with permission from the owner David Lindsay and PBWorks collaboration. One illustration of a screenshot from the wiki page is reproduced with permission from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Creative_Writing.

Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to contact the copyright holders; however, they welcome correspondence from any copyright holders they have been unable to trace. We thank K. Krishnakumar for his help with the index.

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About the Contributors

Kate T. Anderson is Assistant Professor in the Learning Sciences and Technologies Academic Group and Faculty Researcher in the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She received her PhD (The University of Georgia) in Sociolinguistics along with an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Studies. Her research interests include positioning, identity, ideologies of language and learning, and problematizing designs for learning from a sociocultural perspective. Siti Azlinda Amasha is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore. She obtained her MA in Applied Linguistics from National University of Singapore and is currently pursuing her PhD in Education with University of Nottingham. Her research interests include classroom discourse and multimodality in teaching and learning. Brad Blackstone is Lecturer in the Centre for English Language Communication at the National University of Singapore. He has taught and done research in universities in the US, Portugal, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore, and conducted training programs for over 25 years. His research interests include CALL, EFL/ESL composition, and task-based learning. Yam San Chee is Associate Professor in the Learning Sciences and Technologies Academic Group and the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He obtained his BSc (Econ) Hons from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, and his PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia. Prof Chee’s current research focuses on new literacies and new media in education, with a special emphasis on serious games and game-based learning. Denise E. De Souza holds a Master of Education in English Language Education from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests include understanding the development and changes in

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teachers’ and students’ use of ICT and digital media in the language classroom. Paul Doyle is Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. His research interests include the impact of corpus-based descriptions of language on lexicography, text linguistics, and pedagogy. Libo Guo holds a PhD (National University of Singapore) in English Language Studies. His research has been on language, language education, and multimodality. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Singapore. Caroline M. L. Ho is Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests include design research in new media, computer-mediated communication, writing and argumentation pedagogy. Her work has appeared in Computers and Education, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Journal of Applied Linguistics, and Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching among other publications. Alvin P. Leong lectures at the Language & Communication Centre at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests are in systemic functional grammar, discourse studies, and hypertext theory. He is the author of Theme and Rheme (Peter Lang, 2004), and has published in journals such as Text, Language Sciences and Discourse Studies. David Malinowski is a doctoral candidate in Education in Language Literacy and Culture at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in the areas of multimodal literacies and pedagogies, distance and blended learning in foreign language education, and semiotic landscapes. Publications include “Authorship in the linguistic landscape: A multimodal-performative view” (Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery, 2008) and “Identity and hegemony in multimodal discourse” (with Mark Evan Nelson; Identity and Second Language Learning: Culture, Inquiry and Dialogic Activity in Educational Contexts, 2007). Mark Evan Nelson is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. His present research investigates the social and semiotic implications of multimodal communication in educational contexts. Recent publications on the subject include

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“Locating the semiotic power of multimodality” (with Glynda Hull; Written Communication, 2005), “Mode, meaning, and synaesthesia in multimedia L2 writing”(Language Learning & Technology, 2006),and “Multimodal synthesis and the voice of the multimedia author in a Japanese EFL context” (Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 2008). David Oakey is an Assistant Professor in the Applied Linguistics Program at Iowa State University, USA. He has taught at schools and universities in Japan, Korea, Turkey, and the UK. His research interests include the use of computer corpora to investigate phraseological aspects of written academic English. John Sivell, Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Brock University, Canada is the founding director of the university’s Centre for Intercultural Studies. He also serves as the editor of TESL Canada Journal. Caroline Tagg is Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the Open University. She has a background in English language teaching and has taught in Spain, Vietnam, and Birmingham. She has an MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, and a PhD in English from the University of Birmingham (UK) for which she compiled and investigated a corpus of text messages. Her current research interests are in the application of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis tools to the investigation of electronic communication. Aik-Ling Tan is an academic staff of the Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her research interests include interaction in science classrooms and science laboratories, teacher professional development, and science literacy. She is the co-editor of a book entitled Science Education at the Nexus of Theory and Practice (Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008). Ashley Tan holds a PhD in Instructional Systems and Technology. He is a teacher educator in the Learning Sciences and Technologies Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. His research interests include the educational affordances of Web 2.0. He has been a wiki user since 2005 and maintains more than 10 education and researchrelated wikis. Lynde Tan is Lecturer in the Learning Sciences and Technologies Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Lancaster University, UK. Her PhD research lies in literacy research, focusing on adolescents’ digital literacy practices in and out of school.

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Seng-Chee Tan is Head of the Learning Sciences and Technologies Academic Group in the National Institute of Education, Singapore. He has been active in educational research, especially in the area of science education and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. He studied the use of Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation for problem solving in his PhD thesis. His recent research includes knowledge building and questioning literacy in Singaporean K-12 classrooms. Phillip A. Towndrow is Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group, at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. He holds a doctorate from Durham University, UK and has published extensively in the field of ICT use in language education and teacher professional development and learning. Mark Wilkinson is Lecturer in the English Language and Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has taught in the USA, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore. His research interests include CALL, EAP/EFL, digital literacy skills, communication skills, and project-based learning. Katina Zammit works in the School of Education at the University of Western Sydney. Her research, papers, and publications are focused on the teaching and learning of multiliteracies with an emphasis on the intersection of literacy and technology. She works closely with teachers in schools in co-researching projects to better meet the literacy needs of students. She earned her doctorate in Education with a thesis using a semiotic approach to analyze the construction of student hypertext pathways when they were searching for information.

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Introduction Caroline M. L. Ho, Kate T. Anderson and Alvin P. Leong

The only constant, as the saying goes, is change. And how true this is, when one considers the pace at which computers and related technologies have developed over the years. It was only in the 1950s that commercial computers, which were large and bulky, were first made available to corporations to perform calculations and manipulate large amounts of information. Microcomputers made their appearance in 1975, followed by the launch of IBM’s personal computer six years later. Rapid improvements in research and manufacturing since then have led to smaller and more versatile computers. Today, they are known by a host of names— netbooks and smart phones, among others—all of which were unheard of a mere decade ago (and which will no doubt sound hokey and laughable in another ten years from now, or less). The terms used to describe digital technologies for communication are themselves also products of change. Information and communication technology (ICT), an expansion of information technology (first used by Leavitt and Whistler [1958]), for example, was a hot term in educational research over the last two decades—smaller and lighter computers empowered users to rely on them not merely for storing and retrieving information, but for communicating and networking with others. Increasingly, we now use digital technologies not only to process information and communicate, but also to participate in meaning-making communities as producers and not just consumers—to shape the landscapes in which we participate. This participatory slant is encapsulated in the idea of interactive digital media (IDM), which goes beyond the information processing view of ICT to take on a truly productive view of digital technologies. IDM presents a twofold challenge to educators—how to exploit the available technologies to teach and also how to exploit digital media to foster the critique and creation of texts. In a sense, it is the new ways of being with texts that are afforded by IDM that are the most powerful and intriguing for education.

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Being literate now means more than just being able to read and write the printed word. Students engage in a wide range of literacy practices in and out of school, which include the use of IDM to create and recreate meaning, participate in communities, and develop identities as learners, individuals, and producers. Because of students’ constant exposure to and varied uses of technology outside of the classroom, many educators reason that IDM should be incorporated into curricula. A challenge for teachers is how to plan for this integration while maintaining literacy practices that have formed the foundation of their pedagogy and practice. Approaching the transformative role that IDM play in educational research, this volume aims to provide models for consideration that are rooted in both theory and practice. As Lankshear and Knobel noted in their plenary address at the 2004 National Reading Conference in San Antonio: We would like to see a moratorium on research that “delivers” activities and modules and professional development “tricks” designed for classroom application. In place of this we would prefer to see research that provides rich and theorized accounts of cultural practices that enable and encourage educators to experience them from the inside, as participants. We take up this call in the present volume by examining how educational contexts are shaped by the transformation of literacies by technologies. Scholars have long been calling for radical reconceptualizations of the role of language—and the nature of language pedagogy—within what Kress (2003) termed the New Media Age. The multimodal social and cultural practices of young people liberate youth to creatively fashion themselves in multiple modes as various kinds of individuals in the “New Times” (Luke and Elkins, 1998). In combining available semiotic resources (Kress, 2003), students create new, emergent genres that tap on the multimodal affordances of new media (Lemke, 2003). The mixing of modes reinforces Kress’s (2003) view on the multimodal which is not merely a melting together of the modes, but rather an interaction, with one or other of the modes occupying a dominant position. Within modes there can be transformation as links are established within a mode and transduction as a message is re-configured in a different mode, from image to writing for example. Given that language plays a critical role in how we communicate with each other, and thus constitutes our social

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worlds, the myriad systems of technology-mediated communication that predominate learners’ lifeworlds inevitably inform how they use language in different contexts for specific purposes. This view parallels the New Literacy Studies tradition (e.g., New London Group, 1996), which extends views of literacy beyond static and canonical skills sets related to reading and writing to be acquired, to multiplicitous and emergent ways of being sense makers in continually redefined and re-mediated ways. However, with myriad digital technologies on the market, it is easy enough to be swept up by the latest gadgets or software. We should guard against this. It is a mistake to use IDM in the classroom for the sake of using IDM. Technologies become useful only if they can be shown to enhance the learning process or learners’ experiences. New technologies and applications offer new opportunities, but they also present new challenges. In this volume, contributors examine the place of language use amidst the diverse modalities that constitute the digitally supported fabric of twenty-first century literacies and ways of being with texts (defined as broadly as possible). Through contributions from a range of scholars working within technologically mediated contexts where language plays a key communicative and/or pedagogical role, this volume presents a broader view of how language and literacies function differently across a range of educational interventions. Spanning secondary and tertiary levels, this volume represents various “scapes” (Appadurai, 1996)—“fluid, irregular shapes” of flows in practice—that are of interest to academic researchers, both beginning and veteran. These chapters provide complementary views into the dynamic processes through which digital media transform literacies, both as they are theorized in research and lived in practice. This volume offers critical perspectives framed within relevant theoretical and pedagogical constructs by confronting challenges and opportunities associated with reframing literacy practices and communication itself across international crossings. At the heart of the volume is the notion of transformation, which we frame according to various forms of meaning making. Contributions to this volume focus on the ways that learners’ interactions with technologies avail new trajectories and pathways for meaning making and illuminate how experiences with technologies enable being and doing, not just knowing or remembering, as we cannot use a technology without also experiencing it (Heidegger, 1962). We organized the book according to the following five strands, each forming a part in this volume, which speak to salient aspects of

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transformation of literacies and language through technologically mediated interventions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Implementation and task design Multimodality and digital narratives Computer-supported collaborative learning Corpora and data-driven language learning Web 2.0 and mobile technologies

Each contribution carries specific theoretical orientations that inform and direct the investigation and perspectives therein, with consideration given to the broader pedagogical implications or challenges that analysis raises. All five of these parts speak to the theme of transformation in distinct but inter-related ways. Part I, Implementation and task design, discusses challenges surrounding the planning and implementation of technologymediated pedagogical initiatives. Transformation here relates to the process of pedagogical design. The next part, Multimodality and digital narratives, questions the privileged place language has in literacy education and theory. Transformation in this part is the view of language’s role in communication. Part III, Computer-supported collaborative discussion, highlights how online interactions redistribute classroom discourse and, thus, transform classroom relationships. Part IV, Corpora and data-driven learning, documents developments in the area of corpus- and interface-driven technologies to structure and define pedagogy. These chapters call for a transformation in how cognitive and social divisions of labor are theorized in information processing. The final part, Web 2.0 and mobile technologies, in some ways most clearly embodies the idea of IDM and participatory approaches to literacies, because the notion of transformation here includes that of learners’ identities as authors in terms of audience and authorial voice. Thus, the theme of transformation crosses the five parts at the intersections of pedagogy, view of language, classroom roles, theories of communication, and learner voice. Together the proposed transformations align under a view of IDM in literacies research and practice that connect learners, teachers, designers, and scholars in crucial ways. This connection, too, underscores the integrated experiences of and from the process of transformation. The changes inherent in such a process are bound to evoke reactions as they affect not just students, but educators, curriculum planners and researchers. To be sure, there is no perfect formula regarding how digitally mediated technologies should best

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be used in the language classroom as the needs of different communities of learners may be vastly different. But it is through trialing and refining—and the valuable lessons learnt from each experience—that some headway can at least be made. The chapters in this volume, then, not merely address the transformations that are needed, but capture as well the integrated experiences gained from the contributors’ work in each of the five strands. The experiences are integrated in the sense that the recommendations and arguments in the chapters are shaped by the contributors’ work with learners, or with the needs of learners as the priority. More crucially, perhaps, the experience can remain an integrated one for the reader. We trust that this volume will shape his/her views about IDMs, literacy and language education, and so enrich the collective experience. And, in line with the notion of transformation, we are naturally hopeful that the work in this present volume will serve as a springboard for further research in this area. Because of the broad range of impact and developments in the field demonstrated in the various chapters, this volume is targeted at various groups of readers, including undergraduate and graduate students specializing in literacy and language/Applied Linguistics studies related to technology, scholars in the field of technology and education, researchers who are especially interested in scholarly work with international (Asian and Western) perspectives, and other scholars with a vested interest in advances in literacies and language studies mediated through technology. As the volume draws on work from various parts of the world (Singapore, Japan, Australia, UK, US, Canada), the findings and implications will appeal to a broader international audience with an interest in development in literacies and language as shaped by current technological advances and development.

References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press. Hiedegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, trans.) New York: Harper and Row (original work published in 1927). Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2004). “New literacies”: Research and social practice. Plenary address, Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference, San Antonio.

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Leavitt, H. J. and Whistler, T. L. (1958). Management in the 1980’s. Harvard Business Review, November–December, 41–48. Lemke, J. (2006). Towards critical multimedia literacy: Technology, research, and politics. In M. McKenna, D. Reinking, L. Labbo, and R. Kieffer (eds), International Handbook of Literacy & Technology, v2.0 (pp. 3–14). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Luke, A. and Elkins, J. (1998). Reinventing literacy in “new times.” The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 42 (1), 4–7. New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60–92.

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Chapter 1

Charting a Pathway: Embedding ICT and New Literacies into the Curriculum Katina Zammit University of Western Sydney

Introduction Think about the technology with which today’s students engage when they walk out of the classroom to do their homework, complete educational projects, and keep in contact with friends and people with the same interests—on their way home, at the library, and, definitely, at home. Many of you will be familiar with the anecdote of the student who leaves school and when she gets home connects with her friends online to make decisions about what they will do, share their experiences, and comment about others. All of these forms of technology have associated with them new literacy practices. The use of the internet as both a source of information and communication has increased exponentially in many countries. It is used for education, recreation, and socializing. If this is students’ new learning environment, then how can we, as teachers and researchers, assist all students to make the most out of their use of today’s technologies as well as those of tomorrow? One of the challenges for teachers is to plan and integrate technology/ies and their accompanying literate practices into the classroom curriculum in an authentic and meaningful way. A parallel challenge for researchers and curriculum designers is to consider the impact of technology/ies on the literacy development of students and to integrate technology/ies in an authentic manner. Today, being literate is more than just being able to read and write the printed word (Downes and Zammit, 2001; Kellner, 2000; Kellner and Share, 2005; Snyder et al., 2004). The students in our classrooms are comfortable with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) of various kinds. ICT is embedded in their daily lives—their personal, social, and academic lives. Our students have grown up surrounded by ICT. Because of their constant exposure to technology and students’ varied uses of technology outside of the classroom, educationalists reason that ICTs should

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be incorporated into the classroom curriculum in meaningful ways (e.g., Dowdall, 2006). They believe that these technological tools (whatever they may be) can enhance the curriculum and make learning more engaging and relevant for the “millenials” in our classrooms (Vardy and Kervin, 2007). They also warn that these same students will disengage with education if they perceive it as increasingly out of step with their life worlds (Kalantzis, 2006). So the premise of including new technologies in classrooms is based on making connections between students’ outside-of-school literacies and those employed in school, thus providing a more engaging, interesting, and relevant curriculum. Achieving this in schools is more complex than simply having the technology available to students, because “home and school, offline and online worlds connect in and through the everyday practices of young people in complex and rich ways” (Bulfin and North, 2007, 260). However, not all students have this access; not all students are effective users of technology. So there is an educational imperative to ensure that all students have access to the new literacies required for effective use of new technologies in order for all students to participate fully in society. But it is not just the inclusion of ICT tools in a classroom that makes the difference to students’ educational outcomes; it is also the ways that they are included and how the teacher incorporates them into the classroom that makes the difference. It is not simply quantity of access (how much) but also the quality of access (how good) that is important (Livingstone and Bober, 2004; Snyder et al., 2004). Pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment are as important as the tools of ICT in engaging students in education and providing authentic use of the technology beyond merely using them as a pen and paper alternative (Vardy and Kervin, 2007). In this chapter I will explore the use of the New Learning Environments (NLE) curriculum framework as a means to assist teachers in integrating a range of (new) literate practices into their classrooms. The premise upon which the framework was developed focuses on the small changes that teachers can make to their pedagogy and curriculum to ensure their students are exposed to a range of literate practices (multiliteracies). I have begun by considering why teachers need to incorporate new technologies and new literacies in their classroom. The next section will describe the NLE curriculum framework in detail. In this section I will also discuss the importance of considering how to embed new literacies into classroom curriculum content in authentic, purposeful ways. I will then present a (hypothetical) classroom example that links the learning of new literacies with new technologies via the electronic medium of the internet. Finally, the last section of the chapter will consider some pedagogical models for multiliteracies/new literacies, which I compare with the pedagogical

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process adopted in the NLE framework. I conclude by challenging teachers to move away from considering “types” of literacies, such as visual literacy and critical literacy, and instead encourage investigating the function and purpose of the educational tasks teachers set for students or the problems they want to solve. This emphasizes the social aspect of new literacies and new technologies and de-emphasizes a skills-based focus.

The New Learning Environment Curriculum Framework The NLE curriculum framework (Figure 1.1) was developed as a model to assist teachers in planning teaching and learning experiences for students within a content area. In addition, it was designed to explicitly assist teachers in integrating technology into the classroom curriculum. The NLE attempts to acknowledge the learning processes, texts, and media that teachers and students currently employ in developing conceptual understandings while providing a means for them to consider incorporating other learning processes, texts, and media. By focusing on changing practices in the classroom in one area, teachers can feel more confident in authentically integrating technology as well as providing a curriculum that covers diverse experiences. The NLE curriculum framework encourages teacher selfreflection on practice, curriculum content, and practices (pedagogy).

Figure 1.1 New Learning Environments curriculum framework (Downes and Zammit 2001).

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Before I make links to the pedagogy associated with the NLE curriculum framework, I will first explain the underlying concept for each of the concentric circles. The inner circle labeled “Developing and demonstrating understanding” acknowledges that literacy learning is contextualized and used to develop and demonstrate students’ understanding of concepts in other learning areas as well as English. The teaching of literacy(ies) is in the service of a deeper engagement with concepts and understanding in other subject areas. The next layer of the circle focuses on the processes of teaching and learning, within the class, as teachers and students work to develop their understandings and engage with a range of texts. Equal emphasis is placed on the three sets of processes: “locate, comprehend and use,” “critique,” and “create.” For many years the emphasis has mainly been on the comprehension and use of texts. Locating texts has become a more strategic skill with the advent of new technologies and is intertwined with “comprehending and using” as learners move from accessing limited, moderated, and ordered collections such as those found in school libraries to accessing the chaotic, anarchic, and almost boundless collection of texts in the internet. Critiquing texts has been a common feature of particular subjects (e.g., literary and media studies in secondary schools for many years and to some extent has occurred in media-based topics in primary schools, such as Mass Media Communication. However, the process of critiquing texts is still not a common practice in relation to factual texts. In the past, teachers and students assumed that published and approved textbooks and reference material in school libraries were both authoritative and accurate. No such claims can be made about many of the factual texts found on the internet (Burbules, 1997). More importantly, the controversies surrounding some of the materials that can be found on the internet have re-focused interest on the investigation of ideological stances within historical or scientific texts, in any medium. Similarly the creation of anything other than written texts has not been common in classrooms. Even with the increased use of Microsoft’s PowerPoint® program in classrooms, the emphasis has been on the way information is conveyed in the writing, with the images taking the role of illustrating. Students need to develop the skills to create texts in different modes and mediums using different technologies.1 For example, students need to construct speeches, radio interviews, videos, films, and multimedia texts such as web pages, blogs, wikis, games, and virtual environments. They need to move beyond the viewing and critiquing of such texts and their production to the creation of their own texts for particular educational

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purposes and audiences, beyond their Facebook or Bebo page. This assumes, as a given, a level of competence in the use of the media, their technologies and tools, and in the conventions and patterns used in these different types of texts. Students, and teachers, also need to monitor and evaluate the most appropriate media and text types for organizing and presenting their ideas and experiences in a variety of contexts. The purpose of their task should guide the selection of the most appropriate technology and the selection of modes to meet that purpose. Negotiation of the relevant texts and mediums can assist students to move beyond mere reproduction and into creation of their own spaces. The next two layers represent the range of texts and mediums with which students need to work as they engage in the processes of learning. The texts that students work with in classrooms need to cover all modes, including visual, aural, and written. The outermost circle represents the medium through which the texts can be presented, the channel of communication. These mediums are live (as in speeches and dramatic performances), paper-based, or electronic. Through these mediums students read/engage with a range of texts and need to be able to gain proficiency in all three processes across these mediums. The next section offers an example of a Geography unit of work on “Desert regions and their peoples.” This unit has been developed using the NLE framework, beginning with the content and the curriculum with which the teachers would already be working, but integrating the new element of creating multimodal information reports in the electronic medium into the unit. As you read through the section consider: How have the teacher/s integrated new technologies of the internet into their classrooms? What processes, modes, and mediums have been integrated into the curriculum? How has/ have the teacher/s supported students’ learning of the content, new literacies, and the processes, modes, and mediums they employ in their classrooms?

A Geography Unit of Work: Desert Regions and their Peoples A class of 12–13 year olds were studying deserts to deepen their understanding of the interactions between physical environments and their related human communities.2 As part of the assessment of this work, students worked in pairs or in small groups of three to locate information about a particular desert and its human community and to create a multimodal report on their desert that would become part of a large hypertext on “Desert regions and their peoples.”

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In order to share information they found on the internet with each other, a class wiki was set up on Wetpaint: Free wiki websites (www.wetpaint.com) entitled, “Desert regions and their peoples.” Students were encouraged to add the desert they were investigating to the navigation menu. Any student could add information about a desert to that section of the site for their peers to use or edit. Students were encouraged to comment on contrasting information that was contributed, compare and critique the information located in books and on internet sites, and to ask questions of each other and the information.3 A number of teachers—the Geography teacher, teacher-librarian, Design and Technology teacher, and the English teacher—worked cooperatively to improve the students’ skills and understandings throughout the unit and to develop their literacy skills in the context of this work. The teacher-librarian worked with the students on information literacy in terms of searching the library using the online catalog, searching the internet using subject-based sites, and taking notes related to key questions generated in their Geography lessons. The English teacher and teacher-librarian worked with students on the issue of citing information sources and seeking permission from website owners to use images, sounds, and graphics in their work. They also devised a model email in the English classroom for students to use when writing for such permission. In addition the teacher-librarian and Geography teachers questioned students about the authenticity, credibility, and reliability of the information they were gathering from books and internet sites during their search sessions. The Design and Technology teacher introduced all of the students to the features of a wiki and how to set up sections on the class site; enter information in written, visual, or audio format to the site; and edit, add comments, ask questions, and track changes. Students were also introduced to Second Life (www.secondlife.com) as a second option to use in creating their multimodal information text. Here, groups could collaborate to design a 3D model of a desert and its unique vegetation and then lead tours through their model with the other groups. This process would demonstrate their research of the desert. Links back to the class wiki could be inserted on parts of the desert terrain; for example clicking on a cactus could link back to the wiki section on cacti. In this option students could use the hypertext to take other groups in and out of the wiki and Second Life.4 Student groups could choose one of these options or take up both. In the Design and Technology classroom the students also looked at a range of factual multimedia texts and discussed design issues that made such texts easy to comprehend and use. A key issue to emerge was the function and relationship of the written and visual modes. As part of the design

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process the students discussed criteria for evaluating the design of their final multimodal report, which would also be located on the class Desert Regions wiki with each group’s desert report hyperlinked from a map and/ or linked to the group’s virtual desert located in Second Life. The students used computer laboratory time from their Design and Technology, English, and Geography classes to work on their reports. They could also log on to the wiki at home to work with their group or individually on their report. As part of this process, the English teacher explicitly taught the students how to generate information reports that have particular forms and features that work in screen-based environments. As a class, they compared the construction of written reports on rainforests in books; for example, they considered reports that were similar in layout to the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness books (cf. Dorling Kindersley, 2003, 2004) and to generic internetbased reports. They then critiqued these paper-based and electronic texts. The English teacher provided an avenue for students to articulate the purpose of their report and consider design options that they might employ in a multimodal electronic environment. The Geography teacher used one of the existing online project networks to generate communication between the class and students who lived in many of the world’s desert communities being studied. Email communication with these students was used not only to collect further information but also to seek feedback on the final report. Again, the English teacher worked with the students to learn about the form and features of email messages for different audiences—their friends, family, and unknown people. This hopefully ensured that students felt confident in introducing themselves to students in other countries, outlining their project, and asking questions. The Geography teacher used Google Earth with the class, and they conducted a study of the desert areas in the world to look at how certain types of visual images are captured and broadcast for geography. These could be used as models for the construction of a group’s virtual desert if they chose that option. In addition, the Geography teacher concentrated on working with the students to organize and analyze the information they collected in ways that led them to further understand the interaction of the environment and its peoples as well as to present their findings in ways that highlighted this interaction. As part of this work, the class had a discussion about the overall structure of the hypertext that would result as the outcome of their projects, its key organizing features (e.g., would it be organized around regions of the world, types of deserts, or developing and developed communities?), and the ways that links could be used to highlight commonalties and differences within the physical elements of the environments, lifestyles of the communities, and their apparent interaction. As part of these discussions,

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the teachers and students developed criteria for evaluating the content of each pair’s work on a particular desert/community. The actual construction of the final wiki-based hypertext was completed by a group of interested students outside of normal class time, as access to the Desert regions wiki was possible from a home or public computer (e.g., the local library). The group completed this segment under the guidance of the Design and Technology teacher but based it on a design brief developed by the whole class and the Geography teacher with feedback from the whole group. This approach took account of the limited timeframe of the unit of work and the general skill level of the students. Each pair/group of students created a wiki page with links that demonstrated their understandings, while the design of the Desert regions wiki, with its more complex features, reinforced the broader interrelationship of environments and their human communities. For teachers to implement this unit, attention also must be paid to both pedagogical practices and changes to curriculum. These will be discussed in tandem in the next section.

The Place of Pedagogy and the NLE Framework Pedagogically, the genre-based approach to teaching and learning, called the Curriculum Cycle (Callaghan and Rothery, 1988; Hammond, 2001; Martin, 1999; Murray and Zammit, 1992) and the work of the New London Group (NLG) (1996, 2000) have been significant in developing approaches that involve systematic and explicit teaching of texts. The teaching about texts occurs within a curriculum context linking the focus of the content with the learning of an appropriate text or genre. Researchers in the pedagogy of multiliteracies/new literacies include the NLG (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000), Unsworth (Unsworth, 2001), Zammit and Downes (Downes and Zammit, 2001; Zammit and Downes, 2002), and the Learning by Design group (Healy, 2008; Kalantzis and Cope, 2005).5 All of these approaches have an emphasis on explicit teaching, involving scaffolded learning of any mode of representation for students within a meaningful context. All of these models also emphasize the need to teach the metalanguages associated with each mode and medium (affordances) to provide the labels and tools with which teachers and students can explicitly describe and talk about the various texts. Each of these researchers has developed pedagogical models to help teachers plan for the integration of texts, using any mode, into the curriculum through a staged approach (see Table 1.1). One of the motivating factors

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Table 1.1 Comparison of stages in multiliteracies/new literacies pedagogical models Genre approach to literacy (Hammond, 2001; Murray and Zammit, 1992)

Unsworth (Unsworth, 2001)

Negotiating the field

The New London Group (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000; The New London Group, 1996)

Learning by Design (Healy, 2008; Kalantzis and Cope, 2005)

Situated practice

Experiencing the known the new

Zammit and Downes (Downes and Zammit, 2001; Zammit and Downes, 2002)

Deconstruction

Modeled practice

Overt instruction

Conceptualizing by naming with theory

Scaffolded working and learning

Building the field, joint construction

Guided practice

Critical framing

Analyzing functionally critically

Collaborative working and learning

Independent construction

Independent practice

Transformed practice

Applying appropriately creatively

Independent working and learning

for these models is the continued advances in technologies and the range of literacies associated with students being able to competently engage them. The “stages” are not necessarily sequential and can be revisited at any time during the teaching cycle of a unit of work. Each has the consistent elements of: 1. teaching students about the text’s construction (its design principles)— deconstruction of a text, developing metalanguage/s, learning how a text is put together, scaffolding the processes, textual and medium knowledge development; 2. jointly working together—building up knowledge of the content area, constructing a similar text together, working together on a text, scaffolding the learners’ actions; 3. independent work (designing their own)—working without an expert’s assistance, drawing on their new knowledge. These consistent elements of pedagogy for the approaches mentioned in Table 1.1 provide support for the pedagogical stages of scaffolded, collaborative, and independent working and learning to be chosen. The pedagogical component was thus added to the NLE curriculum framework (Zammit, 2002). The NLE Curriculum and Pedagogy Framework (Figure 1.2)

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Figure 1.2 New Learning Environments Curriculum and Pedagogy Framework.

attempts to meld both an explicit and systematic pedagogy with the learning processes associated with a range of texts across diverse mediums. The terms scaffolded learning and collaborative learning were used in the pedagogical component of the NLE curriculum framework to reinforce the need for teachers to provide support for students’ learning and explicit teaching of the processes, different texts, and mediums. The term “scaffolding” as used by Bruner (1978, 1985) is a metaphor for “effective intervention by a ‘learned’ person in the learning of another person” (Maybin et al., 1992, 186). Scaffolding emphasizes to teachers the need to intervene in the learning of their students (e.g., to teach the metalanguage and design features of multimodal texts, wikis, and virtual environments like Second Life) and assist students in working with the new texts, new literacies, and new technologies. Learning experiences in both the scaffolded learning and collaborative learning stages in the NLE curriculum framework contribute to the scaffolding of student learning. Both require the teacher or expert peer to support learners to go beyond what they could do by themselves. The teacher takes a more direct teaching role in the scaffolded stage and more of a guiding role during the collaborative stage.

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Within the scaffolded learning stage, the teacher explicitly teaches students about: the processes of locating, comprehending, and using a text; critiquing or creating a text; or how a text in a specific mode is constructed within a particular medium. Teaching involves showing students the parts, the components, the tools, and the construction of texts and technology with a focus on developing a shared language—a “grammar” to talk about these aspects. It also involves the teacher demonstrating how the processes work with a particular mode in the chosen medium, which is the focus of learning for the unit. The learning can be with small groups, or the teacher can work with the whole class, depending on the needs of the students, their skills, knowledge, and understandings. For example, the teacher-librarian taught students about searching for, locating, selecting, and critiquing information from paper-based and electronic environments. Within the collaborative working and learning stage, the teacher and the learners work together as the learners practice the processes with a particular mode in a specified medium. These processes include joint skills, knowledge, and development of understandings, with the expert and learner working together to achieve the outcome. The variation in students’ skills, knowledge, and understandings can be taken into account here as well in order to provide experiences that are more tailored to learners’ needs. The expert assists the learners in a whole class, a small group, or even a one-to-one situation. For example, the Design and Technology teacher worked with students on creating examples of wiki pages and Second Life landforms. During the Independent learning stage, the students work with their “new” skills, knowledge, and understandings to demonstrate and practice what was scaffolded in a new context. They work by themselves, with a partner, or in small groups. The new context may be within the same unit of work or may be part of another task or unit of work. For example, in the Geography unit, students moved in and out of this stage as they worked together to create their multimodal desert region report. Technology can then be integrated in a meaningful, authentic manner, where it is seen by students as a resource and tool that can enable them to locate information, collaborate on projects, and create multimodal texts, not as a set of separate, decontextualized skills to be learnt (Lankshear et al., 2000; Snyder, 2002). A teacher can plan her/his program around learning about processes, working with texts in an electronic medium using new technologies, and learning about new literacies. These can be scaffolded more frequently to complement the processes and texts of the paperbased medium.

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Conclusions Embedding new literacies and new technologies into the classroom presents real challenges to teachers, many of whom have limited knowledge of the new technologies and who fear losing control over content delivery when experimenting with new texts, processes, and technologies. However, one of the results of connecting students’ out of school literacies and technology use with in school practices is the development of a learning community. The possibilities are enormous when you make schooling more relevant and engaging for students—linking their offline and online learning, home and school spaces. It is a practice that our students feel comfortable with, even if connectivity appears to be ubiquitous. The employment of the NLE curriculum and pedagogy framework to develop a program of work or unit is one approach that can result in authentic integration of new technologies and new literacies into the learning processes, modes (texts), and mediums present in a teacher’s program. Whatever technology we decide to incorporate, whatever process, medium, or mode is to be the focus of learning, we must always ensure that we consider the purpose of using the technology/ies we have available (Zammit, 2008). We should use them to meet our communication needs not because they happen to be available, but because they are the best tools with which to complete our task. Then we can consider the new literacies associated with these new technologies and the explicit scaffolding of students as they learn to use them for educational purposes.

Acknowledgments I would like to gratefully acknowledge the feedback on the Geography unit from Dr Toni Downes and Dr Angela Thomas.

Notes 1

2

3

I use the term “mediums” to emphasize more than one medium and to not confuse “media” with the content area of “media” or “media” literacy. This is a hypothetical unit of work and has not been trialed in classrooms, but feedback suggests it is realistic and a definite possibility in secondary schools. For examples of a school/grade/subject wiki, see the education wikis in www. wetpaint.com—a free wiki site. For information on educational benefits and uses of wikis see Duffy and Bruns (2006).

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I would like to thank Angela Thomas for suggesting the Second Life option in this unit. I encourage readers to look into each of these pedagogical approaches in order to make a considered decision about your own teaching/design practices.

References Bruner, Jerome (1978). The role of dialogue in language acquisition. In A. Sinclair, R. Jarvella, and W. J. M. Levelt (eds.), The Child’s Conception of Language (pp. 241–256). New York: Springer-Verlag. —(1985). Vygotsky: A historical and conceptual perspective. In J. Wertsch (ed.), Culture, Communication and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives (pp. 21–34). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bulfin, Scott and North, S. (2007). Negotiating digital literacy practices across school and home: Case studies of young people in Australia. Language and Education 21, 247–263. Burbules, Nicholas (1997). Misinformation, malinformation, messed-up information, and mostly useless information: How to avoid getting tangled up in the ‘Net’. In Australian Department of Employment Education Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) (ed.), Digital Rhetorics: Literacies and Technologies in Education: Current Practices and Future Directions, vol. 3 (pp. 109–120). Red Hill: Queensland University of Technology. Callaghan, Michael and Rothery, J. (1988). Teaching Factual Writing: A Genre Based Approach. Marrickville, NSW: DSP Literacy Project Metropolitan East Region. Cope, Bill and Kalantzis, M. (eds.) (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. Dorling Kindersley (2003). Eyewitness: Jungle. London: Dorling Kindersley. —(2004). Eyewonder: Ocean. London: Dorling Kindersley. Dowdall, Claire (2006). Dissonance between the digitally created worlds of school and home. Literacy 40, 153–163. Downes, Toni and Zammit, K. (2001). New literacies for connected learning in global classrooms: A framework for the future. In P. Hogenbirk and H. Taylor (eds.), The Bookmark of the School of the Future (pp. 113–128). Boston: Kluwer. Duffy, Peter and Bruns, A. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: A conversation of possibilities. Paper presented at the Online Learning and Teaching Conference, September 26, in Brisbane, Australia. Hammond, Jennifer (2001). Scaffolding and language. In J. Hammond (ed.), Scaffolding: Teaching and Learning in Language and Literacy (pp. 15–30). Newtown: Primary English Teaching Association (PETA). Healy, Annah (ed.) (2008). Multiliteracies and Diversity in Education: New Pedagogies for Expanding Landscapes. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Kalantzis, Mary (2006). Changing subjectivities, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal 1 (1), 7–12. Kalantzis, Mary and Cope, B. (2005). Learning by Design. Melbourne: Victorian Schools Innovation Commission and Common Ground Publishing.

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Kellner, Douglas (2000). New technologies/New literacies: Reconstructing education for the new millennium. Teaching Education 11, 245–265. Kellner, Douglas and Share, J. (2005). Towards critical media literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 26, 369–386. Lankshear, Colin, Snyder, I., and Green, B. (2000). Teachers and Technoliteracy: Managing Literacy, Technology and Learning in Schools. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Livingstone, Sonia and Bober, M. (2004). Taking up online opportunities? Children’s use of the Internet for education, communication and participation. E-Learning 1, 395–419. Martin, James, R. (1999). Mentoring semogenesis: ‘Genre-based’ literacy pedagogy. In F. Christie (ed.), Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and Social Processes (pp. 123–155). London: Cassell. Maybin, Janet, Mercer, N., and Stierer, B. (1992). ‘Scaffolding’ learning in the classroom. In K. Norman (ed.), Thinking Voices: The Work of the National Oracy Project (pp. 186–195). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Murray, Nerida and Zammit, K. (1992). The Action Pack-Animals: Teaching Factual Writing K-6. Sydney: Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program. The New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60–92. —(2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy and the Design of Social Futures (pp. 9–37). London: Routledge. Snyder, Ilana (ed.) (2002). Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age. London: Routledge. Snyder, Ilana, Angus, L., and Sutherland-Smith, W. (2004). ‘They’re the future and they’re going to take over everywhere’: ICTs, literacy and disadvantage. In I. Snyder and C. Beavis (eds.), Doing Literacy Online: Teaching, Learning, and Playing in an Electronic World (pp. 225–244). Creskill, NJ: Hampton Pres. Unsworth, Len (2001). Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Vardy, Jeff and Kervin, L. (2007). Using iPod technology to engage primary students with deconstruction and reconstruction of audio. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years 15, 36–42. Zammit, Katina (2002). Apprenticing the learner: Scaffolding young children’s learning of, with and about ICT. Paper presented at the working conference on Learning with Technologies in School, Home and Community, June 30– July 5, in Manchester, UK. —(2008). Under construction: A world without walls. Paper presented at the Australian School Librarians Association Online III Virtual Conference, May 5–26. http://www.asla.org.au/pd/online2008/program.htm. Zammit, Katina and Downes, T. (2002). New learning environments and the multiliterate individual: A framework for educators. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 25 (2), 24–36.

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Chapter 2

The Generative Use of ICT in the Language Arts: Strategies in Learning Task Design and Implementation Denise E. De Souza and Phillip A. Towndrow National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction Within the context of rapid modernization and unabating globalization, the high-speed flow of information across increasingly porous boundaries (Appadurai, 1996) is creating a world characterized by heterogeneity, complexity, and unpredictability (Eliasson, 1998). Arguably, making sense of the contemporary world and functioning well within it requires individuals to move beyond the mastery of narrowly defined skills and toward the development of richer competencies that are often technology-based. Conceptually, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) through its Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) project has proposed a framework for key competencies that includes, but is not restricted to, using tools interactively. DeSeCo explains that: Using tools interactively requires more than having access to the tool and the technical skills required to handle it (e.g. read a text, use software). Individuals also need to create and adapt knowledge and skills. This requires a familiarity with the tool itself as well as an understanding of how it changes the way one can interact with the world and how it can be used to accomplish broader goals. In this sense, a tool is not just a passive mediator, but an instrument in an active dialogue between the individual and his or her environment. (OECD, 2005, 10) At the broadest institutional level, the forces of globalization and modernity are shaping educational landscapes. In response, teachers who are keen to keep abreast of developments need to recruit and justify the use of new media and digital technologies in ways that add value to instructional

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interactions, both in and beyond the confines of their classrooms. When used generatively (Foo et al., 2005) ICT supports meaning-making by students, which in turn facilitates thinking and knowledge construction. But, in order to enjoy these benefits, a systematic approach to learning task design and implementation is required. Unfortunately, at present, much of the existing advice for teachers in using ICT provides, in our opinion, recipe-like exemplars (e.g., Conrad and Donaldson, 2004; Feyton et al., 2002; Teeler and Gray, 2000) or showcase ideas (e.g., Jones, 2007). Materials of this kind might satisfy short-term needs in terms of finding out what teachers could do if they wished to conduct lessons using ICT. However, they may fail to address deeper concerns about how things may actually take place in an ICT-enabled classroom with teachers, students, and computers or explain why such action is vital. What is required, therefore, is a theory-based, systematic approach to learning task design and implementation that is grounded in experience and responsive to students’ real needs and interests. In addressing these shortcomings, we present a novel guide to assist teachers in thinking differently about their adopted pedagogic approaches with ICT. The utility and usefulness of our learning task design mechanism is demonstrated through the specific context of language arts education in Singapore. The chapter will be of particular interest to teachers who want to further their professional development and learn about designing ICTincorporated lessons that motivate, challenge, and inspire students without losing focus on particular aspects of language learning. The chapter may also be relevant to researchers interested in tracing the development and changes in teachers’ and students’ use of ICT in language education. In what follows, we provide a series of recommendations in response to three questions relating to ICT use in the language arts: 1. What alternative pedagogical approaches are available when incorporating the use of ICT in a language arts lesson? 2. At which points of a language arts lesson can ICT be used? 3. What language skills can be focused on or assessed at each of these points?

Problematizing Language Arts Education and ICT Use In order to understand the claims, concerns, and issues that language teachers have about incorporating ICT in their classrooms, a small-scale

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study involving five teachers from four different Singaporean secondary schools was conducted. These teachers participated in face-to-face interviews with the first author, and the feedback they provided was used to establish a baseline view of how teachers were incorporating the use of ICT and the kind of guidelines they were using to help them design language lessons. Subsequently, two of the teachers—one specializing in English language and the other in English language and literature—worked in collaboration with the first author to discuss their individual lesson plans and how they planned to incorporate the use of ICT. The Task Designer’s Mixing Desk (TDMD) (Towndrow, 2007) was then introduced as a tool to help them describe and evaluate their lessons. The TDMD (refer to Figure 2.5, 46) is a descriptive, evaluative, design tool that comprises elements of classroom interactions that language teachers can manipulate to produce desired instructional effects or outputs. The theoretical underpinnings of the TDMD and how it works will be elaborated further in later portions of this chapter. The teachers (with some assistance from the first author) utilized the TDMD to rework their lessons so that they incorporated a generative use of ICT in various meetings that followed the discussions of their individual lesson plans. Having already conducted the lessons, the teachers were then asked to reflect on how the lessons worked out and what they would do differently in future lessons. The inquiry process spanned two units of work carried out by each teacher. The profile that follows provides an authentic, empirical context for understanding how teachers working within the existing Singapore secondary school system sometimes struggle to reconcile the transmissionist pedagogy they are accustomed to with the need to meet the changing language and literacy needs of their students, which encompass possessing technologyrelated skills and digital literacy (Towndrow and Vallance, 2004). Singapore secondary school context In their essay on education reform in Singapore, Tan and Gopinathan (2000) argued that the growing marketization of education in Singapore has intensified competition among secondary schools. Since 1992, secondary schools have been publicly ranked. Two of the three main criteria used to rank schools focus on examination scores. So even though teachers are encouraged to be receptive and responsive to change, practical constraints such as school ranking, the need to produce or maintain a certain standard of results, and the knowledge that “performance in competitive examinations

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is still a major determinant of educational and social mobility” (Tan and Gopinathan, 2000, 9), often limit the extent to which teachers can experiment and be innovative in their use of New Media in the classroom. Profile Miss Lee (all names of people and places are pseudonyms) is a senior teacher with 26 years experience teaching English language and literature and is a focal participant in the case we present here. Miss Lee was an interesting participant because she had successfully seen batches of students through English Language and Literature examinations using established methods that produced results. Not surprisingly, she questioned the necessity of incorporating the use of ICT in her teaching, especially since the paper and pen format of these examinations remained unchanged. While she recognized that technology had a significant effect on the daily lives of her students that in turn affected what they came into class with and their levels of interest, Miss Lee expressed apprehension about her own technological knowledge and skills and how she could use them to address the changing interests of her students. Miss Lee works at Foxhill High School in Singapore, which strongly promotes the use of ICT in education. Teachers and students at Foxhill receive regular training in the use of hardware and software from an international computer/software company. At the time of data collection, Miss Lee, along with a number of her colleagues, taught two secondary one classes (aged 13–14) and were involved in a pilot study initiated by the school where each student had access to a laptop computer during school time. Laptops could be used as syllabus needs dictated, and school managers did not expect them to be used in every lesson. Indeed, the flexibility surrounding computer use in these pilot classes was such that teachers were purposely not supplied with any guidance about designing learning tasks incorporating ICT. In terms of making pedagogical decisions, Miss Lee and her colleagues were given the freedom to decide “how to teach” in the pilot classes. They were also instrumental in deciding “what to teach.” Thus, in order to cater to each semester’s planned curriculum as well as students’ needs, the language teachers at Foxhill developed their own teaching materials. As such, they did not find it necessary to follow or use a particular textbook. In terms of teaching literature, Miss Lee shared that the teachers devised their own framework whereby they reached a consensus to cover an agreed number of short stories, poems, and so on within a specified period of time.

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As a departmental leader, Miss Lee would usually come up with master copies of worksheets for her teammates to use. Subsequently, each teacher would then be left to decide which pedagogic strategies to employ. How the teachers eventually went about covering the short stories or poems and whether they incorporated ICT or not was up to each teacher. As an experienced teacher familiar with the local education system, its competitiveness, and the demands and importance it places on attaining quantifiable results, Miss Lee described her own attitude toward incorporating the use of ICT as follows: I find that I started off as a very non-IT person in terms of skill, in terms of mentality also. I won’t say I’m totally resistant, but I’m skeptical. I was. Very. And I always say at the end of it all, laugh, laugh, laugh, fun, fun, fun but at the end of it all, what do you get out of it? . . . and I used to think . . . in what way does it link up [to what the students are eventually tested and examined on]?1 What is noteworthy about Miss Lee’s situation is her difficulty linking language learning and ICT: essentially she asks the questions of “why use it?” and “how is it useful?”. At different points in the research collaboration, Miss Lee shared and expressed her reservations and the concerns she had with incorporating ICT in her language and literature lesson. For example: Initially . . . [I felt] there were more opportunities to explore ICT with other subject areas. But language I always find it is very limited . . . my problem is how to make it fit my lesson . . . I want to use a blog, at which point? Do I use it at the start to trigger off? Do I use it in the middle? Another big problem is time . . . because we are juggling so many things . . . I have certain ideas . . . then because of time factor . . . either I don’t have the time to source for it, or I have the material there but I don’t have the time to incorporate it, to plan . . . because you can’t just take it wholesale, you need to . . . gear it towards what you want to do. Sometimes . . . these two cannot be done . . . I need to get on with the syllabus so let’s do it the old traditional, relied on method and wait for another opportunity and the problem is if it comes. It [incorporating ICT] mustn’t be just for show. . . . [for example] a student will comment that teacher X’s lessons are conducted in the [computer] lab most of the time . . . going into websites, to do language

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related activities . . . but I ask, “Isn’t that what you enjoy?” and the students will say, “Yes, but we also want to learn the skills . . . how to really do the comprehension and so on.” They know and we know they have to use these skills for the ‘O’ Levels. You can do all sorts of beautiful things [with ICT] but at the end of the day, it’s down to paper and pen, answering that question in that comprehension, doing that summary or writing that report for that piece of essay. Arguably, the origins of Miss Lee’s difficulties arise partly because the most evident approach by which teachers can adopt ICT in their teaching is to make minor enhancements or extensions to traditional methods of teaching. What results is a presentational use of ICT. Here, ICT is utilized as an add-on or a vehicle to deliver lessons where rule-based knowledge is transferred from textbooks and worksheets to students through the use of technology. In sum, Miss Lee’s experiences help us understand how some language teachers may be struggling to integrate ICT into their various teaching contexts. Her situation also underscores the need for principled decisionmaking and new pedagogical practices (Cox et al., 2004) so that the best can be derived from the digital resources at teachers’ and students’ disposal.

Suggestions We now return to our first research question: What alternative pedagogical approaches are available when incorporating the use of ICT in a language arts lesson? We believe that social constructivist learning theories are the most effective, informed, and useful regarding instructional design and learning and teaching with technology. Windschitl (1999, 752) highlighted that, “Constructivism is premised on the belief that learners actively create, interpret, and reorganize knowledge in individual ways.” The implication of this belief on instructional strategies is that classroom experiences should allow for this kind of learning to occur. The experiences outlined include “problembased learning, inquiry activities, dialogues with peers and teachers that encourage making sense of the subject matter, exposure to multiple sources of information, and opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding in different ways” (Windschitl, 1999, 752). To fulfill these changing demands in the field of education, two traditional facets of pedagogical practices—teachers’ instructional methods and

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organization of pupil experiences (Alexander, 1992)—need modification. This is because they do not encompass the complexities of task design that incorporate the use of ICT as a whole nor of creating opportunities for students to actively construct knowledge. Using ICT as a whole entails tapping its full potential as a source of information—a mode of communicating ideas through sound, video, graphics, and text and for collaborative work amongst students. Traditional pedagogical practices also do not require teachers to consider the flexibility needed in giving instructional support, especially in a classroom context involving ICT. Jonassen (2000, 64) stated that “instruction to support problem solving learning outcomes should differ from that used to support, for instance, concept learning or rule learning.” In the light of this assertion, we suggest that teachers use the TDMD as an organizing principle for planning and designing language tasks that incorporate a generative use of ICT. A generative use of ICT includes using technology to facilitate thinking and knowledge construction (Foo et al., 2005), a shared construction of knowledge in classroom interactions, and lessons that are learner-centered and allow for active creation of varied representations of understanding. When ICT is used in this manner, the realization of constructivist learning principles discussed above is more likely. The elements of the TDMD model can be used to help teachers consider instructional methods and support, pupil factors, and the organization of tools and media in an ICT-enabled classroom.

The task designers’ mixing desk The TDMD (refer to Figure 2.5, 46) consists of five scales relating to classroom interactions that language teachers can consider and manipulate to produce desired instructional outputs. These are: (1) Choice of Task; (2) Media and Tool Use; (3) Outcomes; (4) Strategies; and (5) Learning Support. Resembling a disc jockey’s mixing desk with individual controls or a combination of controls that work in relation to and are dependent on one or all of the other controls. In explaining the essence of each of these scales below, we highlight its importance in the Digital Age and how it is linked not only to students’ interests but also to their learning and life experiences. Amidst the many key decisions teachers have to make about what their students eventually might learn, the main objective here is to offer a convincing argument as to why teachers should incorporate the use of ICT in their language arts lessons.

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Choice of task The first scale concerns who bears the responsibility for deciding which tasks are undertaken in class. Bednar et al. (1992) pointed out that constructivist designers assume every learner has a unique perspective, so the concept of the global “average” learner is rejected. Empowering students to choose what and how they will learn results in a shift from having all learners learning the same things to allowing different learners to learn different things. The Choice of Task scale is a continuum running left to right from Teacherinitiated to Student-initiated. It leaves room for student-centered tasks and learning to be planned for without complete rejection of instruction based on the facts, laws, principles, and theories that make up a discipline’s content. It allows task designers to conduct teacher-initiated, instruction-based lessons when there is a practical need to do so; for example, when the teacher is introducing a new topic where students have little background knowledge. The Choice of Task scale also recognizes that language activities can be student-initiated, as constructivist learning principles advocate. Increasingly, many ICT activities that youth engage in outside school are actually self-initiated language and communication exchanges. For example, a recent newspaper survey of 60 youth in Singapore between the ages of 12 and 19 reported that most started communicating to friends online by the age of 10 through email accounts, blogs, and instant messaging (Lim, 2007). We suggest that ways need to be found to harness such interest in online communication and use them to help students see how new media can be used in educational contexts to support their learning, rather than only in social contexts.

Media and tool use The second scale considers media and tool use along a continuum from Teacher-selected to Student-selected. Warschauer and Healey (1998, 8) highlighted the need to “find ways to teach our students to combine a variety of media (texts, images, sounds, video) without diluting the attention we give to language.” Additionally, the group known as the Autonomous Language Learning in Art and Design using Interactive Networks [ALLADIN] (2001, 27) reported the current use of ICT for language learning as being “integrative” and define it as a “perspective which seeks both to integrate various skills and also integrate technology more fully into the

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language learning process. In integrative approaches, students learn to use a variety of technological tools as an ongoing process of language learning.” In both of these instances, the conscious selection of technological media and tools to carry out language learning goals is integral to students’ learning experiences. The implications of these considerations in designing tasks are that students will learn and gain exposure to information presented in multiple formats and from a range of sources. In addition, they will learn the literacy skills they need to retrieve, understand, organize, evaluate, and present whatever they read or view in a context that is authentic and relevant to their present and future lives. In fact, if these aspects of education are not looked into and teachers do not help develop their students’ multimedia literacy, students will be in a disadvantaged position, because an individual “lacking in technology related skills . . . cannot really be regarded as being equipped to function successfully in life” (Towndrow and Vallance, 2004, 151–152). Thus, students will not have the sufficient or appropriate literacies to meet the demands of twenty-first century life and communication. In alignment with the constructivist learning paradigm, the TDMD allows students to select their own media and tool use. This scale encourages teachers to consider providing opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding in different ways.

Outcomes The third scale on the TDMD runs from Single to Multiple Outcomes. According to constructivist principles, meaningful understanding occurs when students develop effective ways to resolve problematic situations. In this view, knowledge is not transmitted but is constructed. Constructivists recommend that task designers set problems that may be solved in different ways (to allow multiple outcomes) and allow students to struggle with the problems of their own choice. Papert (1998) argued that there were two wings to digital technology: “One is the technology as an informational medium, and the other is the technology as a constructional medium . . .” (The constructive power of digital media, para. 10). He maintained that one part of learning comprises getting information and the other part comprises doing, making, and constructing things. According to Papert, constructing something meaningful requires that there are multiple and various outcomes based on each individual’s personal understanding.

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Strategies The fourth scale in the TDMD runs from Single to Multiple Strategies. Setting more open tasks that allow a given problem to be solved using varied and multiple strategies enables students to construct their own problem space (rather than have their teacher construct it for them). There is a greater likelihood that this will require students not only to be physically engaged but more cognitively engaged in tasks as well. In Papert’s (1990) study, students in a science class of a computer-enabled school were challenged to construct devices to measure time. Using whatever was available in the room, “. . . one group worked with sand running out of a plastic container, several constructed some kind of pendulum device . . . and some made “clocks” in the form of LOGO programs” (Papert, 1990, An example of LOGO as a cultural building material, para. 3). In line with constructivist, problem-based learning, each strategy required students to define a different problem space. For the group constructing the hourglass, students had to consider the amount of sand to use, the size of the hole, and its affect on the speed of the trickling sand. Students working on pendulums, in comparison, had to think about the length of the pendulum, the gravitational forces acting on the weight of the object used, and the resulting effect on momentum. Allowing students to adopt multiple strategies in completing a task enables them to make sense of the subject matter and invariably leads to multiple outcomes, which students can justify and share with their classmates.

Learning support In an argument against a minimal instruction approach, Kirschner et al. (2006, 79) stated that “a number of reviews of empirical studies have established a solid research-based case against the use of instruction with minimal guidance.” Mayer (2004) argued that, since the 1950s, empirical studies have provided strong evidence that unguided instruction has not worked. The latest unguided approach in prominence, he pointed out, is constructivist instructional techniques. In response to this valid concern, the final scale addresses Learning Support and runs from Predetermined and Fixed to Flexible and Contextual. The continuum takes into account cognitive load theory, which argues that the focus on authentic whole tasks in approaches like Jonassen’s (1999) theory of constructive learning environments may risk learners facing “difficulties learning because they are overwhelmed by task complexity”

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(van Merriënboer et al., 2002, 5). The learning support scale allows the teacher to decide what kind of support learners need when carrying out a task. Predetermined and fixed learning support can be anticipated and planned for in advance based on the teacher’s own knowledge of the typical problems and difficulties students usually have when doing a task. Flexible and contextual learning support requires the teacher to constantly check on students’ understanding and give timely assistance based on their questions and responses as they carry out a task. In sum, the TDMD has the potential to work holistically as a tool for teachers in designing language arts learning tasks that are meaningful and productive. The model, in its unthreatening simplicity, addresses the complexity of what teachers have to do differently in the Digital Age— evolve from being a transmitter of information to being a designer and collaborator of learning environments that help students become active synthesizers, problem solvers, and producers of information as opposed to being passive receivers of information.

The Task Designer’s Mixing Desk in Use This section illustrates how Miss Lee worked on a lesson focused on the short story, “Charles,” by Shirley Jackson (1949). Through a series of conversational exchanges, the first author assisted Miss Lee in designing a task that incorporated a generative use of ICT. In particular, we prompted her to think about giving her students’ choices. As she worked through her task, Miss Lee utilized the five scales of the TDMD as a framework for making strategic learning task decisions. Having made decisions about her task design, she plotted where she thought each slider would rest along its respective scale. We note that while the TDMD can describe a generative use of ICT in terms of its five scales and in consideration of the personal, contextual, and pedagogical factors mentioned, it is not possible to offer general prescriptions about what the appropriate balance among the different scales should be. The objective of Miss Lee’s literature task was to focus on the themes in the short story text, “Charles.” The task was a group activity, and students were instructed to pick one of the following themes found in the short story: 1. The relationship between parents and their children and their communication gap 2. Growing up/adolescence

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Additionally, the following three instructions were given as guidelines: 1. Based on what you have learnt from the short story “Charles,” as well as your own thoughts and feelings, discuss the theme you have selected. 2. Share your views and understanding of the theme selected. All content should be original and not extracted from “Charles.” 3. You may choose any mode of presentation. Although she did not plan to grade the task, the main objective was for students to show: z z

indications that they understood the themes of the story in relation to the text indications that they understood the themes of the story beyond the text

Prior to carrying out their tasks, students were asked to submit a proposal of what they planned to do and how they would address their selected theme and the guidelines outlined. This proposal was initiated because it would require the groups to discuss their ideas, which may raise doubts and questions that could then be addressed when each group discussed their proposal with Miss Lee. The task gave students space to initiate the angle that they would take to address their selected theme. As such, Miss Lee mapped the task as being partially student-initiated. This was evident in the various ways her students eventually chose to approach the task, which ranged from role-play of interviews, inviting a “specialist” guest speaker on family relationships to do a radio talk show, to students representing their ideas of the theme using PowerPoint presentations or a comic strip software program. The task enabled students to select the media and tool they would use to represent their varied understandings and interpretations of the theme. For example, the group that chose to role-play an interview video-recorded their presentation, whereas the students recording a radio talk show used podcasts to broadcast their show. Other students used print media in the form of static images and text in their PowerPoint presentations and comic strips. Measured along the scale for Media and Tool Use, this variety resulted in a largely student-selected task. Invariably, the openness in the choice of task enabled students to achieve varied and multiple outcomes depending on how they approached their selected theme, media, and tools. Rather than having all groups submitting

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uniform pieces of work, the outcome or product of a video-recorded roleplay of an interview was a speech genre with visual-auditory cues, while the outcome of a radio talk show was a speech genre with auditory cues only. The final product of the PowerPoint presentations and comic strips was a written genre with images. Overall, Miss Lee’s task provided opportunities for her students to work toward the achievement of multiple outcomes. Although Miss Lee did not focus explicitly on students’ strategies, they had to employ a variety of strategies based on how they approached their task. In a video-recorded representation, students would have to coordinate their speech, body language, the setting, and any other visual cues to the topic they wished to address. They could reflect on how the visual cues could be used to enhance or hinder what was being said. The strategies used in creating a comic strip representation, on the other hand, would differ considerably. Students would have to select appropriate images and include concise written information to address the topic. It is evident from the task description given so far that it would be appropriate for Miss Lee to provide flexible and contextual learning support to her students. The kind of learning support needed for this particular task may be technical support in the form of helping students as they work with the technology, content support in terms of answering the questions students raised about the theme they selected as they worked through the task, or support in how to use language to communicate their ideas effectively when using visual information, speech, written text, and static images. The learning support Miss Lee provided would depend on the questions students raised and checking their understanding as they worked through their task.

Discussion In terms of helping Miss Lee to think about and design an ICT-incorporated language task, the TDMD worked as a tool to heighten her awareness of elements of classroom interactions and how these might be affected by the use of ICT. Having become more aware of these elements, Miss Lee realized that a number of task-implementation strategies were available to her. This enabled her to manipulate them purposefully in her task design decisions. Having arrived at a task that incorporated a generative use of ICT, the sliders of each scale rest toward the right-side of the TDMD where the classroom roles and responsibilities are more learner-centered and learner-controlled. Miss Lee subsequently shared with us certain beneficial outcomes she

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observed in her students’ work as they consolidated their information using ICT. Specifically, the design of her task facilitated thinking and knowledge construction in three areas: meaning making, creativity, and resource building for future lessons. As far as meaning-making was concerned, Miss Lee considered that her students were able go beyond classroom-based discussions and explore their own ideas further. She explained: . . . they were capable of thinking of things that we never talked about in the classroom or they could have taken up an idea . . . and then they took it further . . . Like . . . Charles . . . one of them said, “my parents don’t give me attention, I don’t see my parents, we don’t talk at all, and the only time we get to meet is at meal time and nobody talks so . . . I came up with this story of this person called Charles in my class and I got their attention” . . . that is not shown in the text itself but they were able to see . . . coming up with the rationale for his actions . . . Second, the task supported creativity in terms of the media and tools the students chose to use. This second one on “Charles” varied in the mode of presentation . . . some were using Comic Life and some were using PowerPoint and . . . they used some kind of stick drawing . . . but it was presented just as clearly. So it sort of really reinforced the point that there was no one way of doing a certain thing, and I saw them exploring different ways of doing it . . . Third, as Miss Lee viewed the students’ work, rather than struggle with the lack of time and ideas for tasks or the need to plan for every lesson, she realized that their work could be used as resources for follow-up lessons where students’ different interpretations and understandings could be shared, discussed, clarified, and challenged. This somewhat alleviated the problem of time constraints that teachers are always struggling with. It’s also a chance for another lesson, so it’s like a deeper analysis or . . . level of dealing with the text . . . what they have produced could be my resource for another extension of the lesson . . . think what would be interesting would be for them to see the differences in ways of looking at things . . . we all have different ideas and another thing is it might be the same idea but we all can present it differently. That will be a learning point for them as well.

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Reflecting on how the research collaboration and using the TDMD has helped in her professional development as a teacher, Miss Lee commented: I’ve always known that my style has been rather teacher-centered but never knew precisely in which way. [Evaluating lessons using] The TDMD confirms that my method is teacher-centered and also lets me know in what way, and this knowing in what way allows me to explore where I can release the domination. It has been an insightful experience . . . Having to answer some of the questions . . . “forced”/gave me the opportunity to think about some pertinent issues that would have never have been addressed otherwise . . . also sparked off ideas about what could be done/incorporated into future lessons. Miss Lee’s sharing indicated an awareness of her generally teachercentered approach. While she expressed willingness to change this approach and explore new pedagogies as a result of the emergence and ever-changing nature of new media and literacies, she seemed hindered by her lack of knowledge about what she could change or how to do so. In terms of affecting a change process in the use of ICT in language education, collaborative work focusing on educational issues as they are perceived and experienced by teachers may provide the necessary support and be helpful in getting teachers to think through their teaching practice as they prepare their students to meet the literacy demands of the twentyfirst century.

Recommendations Having discussed an alternative pedagogical approach available to teachers who incorporate ICT in language arts lessons, this section addresses the second and third research questions that we raised earlier. We then offer recommendations for the points at which ICT might be incorporated in lessons in order to enhance language learning and the language skills that may be focused on or assessed at these points in a lesson. We make the following recommendations with the understanding that Singapore’s secondary school system is at the beginning stages of a process of change—encouraging teachers to incorporate new media, new literacies, and new pedagogies in their language classes. However, what remains is the written format of high stakes examinations and the fact that a large number of

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the current generation of teachers and students are accustomed to teachercentered pedagogies. In order to facilitate the transition process, we aim these recommendations toward being achievable, manageable, and practical and to fit within existing school practices and the overall demands of the Singapore education system. It is important to mention that while we accept that other educational systems may have different priorities and interests, our intention is to present workable pedagogic principles which we hope have wider application.

At which points of a language arts lesson can ICT be used? ICT-mediated strategies that we found to enhance language arts education in this case study may be categorized according to four areas of students’ usage: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Critical consumption (receptive language skills) Reflexive synthesis (productive language skills) Collaborative construction (receptive and productive language skills) Audience awareness/recipient design (productive language skills)

In making her task design decisions, Miss Lee decided to have the students incorporate ICT when they had to consolidate the information and content they had covered from the short story “Charles.” Although Miss Lee did not intend to assess this task, there are specific language, communication, and thinking skills that could be linked to these four areas of students’ ICT use. In the following figures and interpolated discussion, we identify aspects of students’ literacies that relate to each of these aspects of ICT use, which were inspired by a variety of sources (e.g., Goh, 2007; Ministry of Education, 2007; Reading Instruction Competence Assessment [RICA], 2008). These aspects of literacies are meant as a general guideline for relating ICT use to existing and new literacies. Our main objective is to address how teachers can meet the twenty-first century literacy and language needs of students while working within the frameworks of the existing education system and examinations that are invariably slower in their responses to change.

What literacies can be focused on or assessed at each of these points? Considering the high-stakes, pen-and-paper examinations for which teachers feel entrusted to prepare students, and contrary to what is often believed,

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the literacies that students use when employing ICT-mediated strategies in a language task do not exclude the language skills that they must display in examinations or their everyday interactions. These language skills include critically assessing text, graphic, audio, or video information online; thinking about, articulating, and representing ideas in various formats to show relationships and links between ideas; fostering language patterns that will facilitate discussions and collaborations; and highlighting the role of audience awareness in communication.

Critical consumption (receptive language skills) When students use ICT for research a variety of receptive language skills may be focused on. If, for example, a literature task were to focus on how an author’s writing was influenced by his/her family, the community, and society in a particular place and at a particular time, students would have to source for relevant texts, pictures from that time period, newspaper articles, photographs, interviews, video, and so on. In the process of sourcing for information and making meaning of it, students would need to be critical in their selection of information and to employ comprehension skills. This would encompass literal comprehension skills, for example, identifying main ideas, supporting ideas, and the sequence of events in an article; inferential comprehension skills for information suggested but not explicitly stated; and evaluative skills to assess the quality of information and its source. It is worth mentioning again that the task should be a “problem” that needs to be solved. Instead of asking students to write a biography of the author (information that students can easily copy and paste from websites), a task requiring investigative work and piecing together of information from a variety of sources requires more cognitive engagement on the part of the students and would result in a more generative use of ICT. According to Stoney and Oliver (1999), “Effective cognitive engagement involves selectivity, task-specific planning, drawing on previous experiences, and transferring new knowledge to the world outside the classroom” (Cognitive engagement section, para. 3). A task requiring investigative work and some form of problem solving that taps on the above behaviors would therefore require more cognitive engagement than one that requires students to reproduce information that is already available. Our suggestions for using ICT for critical consumption (receptive language skills) are summarized in Figure 2.1.

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Critical Consumption involves Receptive Language Skills

EXAMPLES • Reading information • Listening to information • Looking at still and moving objects to get information

LITERAL COMPREHENSION SKILLS e.g., identifying explicitly stated main ideas, details, sequence, cause-effect relationships, and patterns INFERENTIAL COMPREHENSION SKILLS e.g., inferring main ideas, details, comparisons, cause-effect relationships not explicitly stated; drawing conclusions or generalizations from a text; predicting outcomes EVALUATIVE COMPREHENSION SKILLS e.g., recognizing instances of bias and unsupported inferences in texts; detecting propaganda and faulty reasoning; distinguishing between facts and opinions; reacting to a text's content, characters, and use of language

Figure 2.1 Suggestions for using ICT for critical consumption (receptive language skills).

CONNECTIONS TO EXISTING EXAM REQUIREMENTS • Exposure to different genres • Practice literal, inferential, evaluative comprehension skills and summarising

CONNECTIONS TO TWENTYFIRST CENTURY LITERACY • Interpret layers of meaning in multimodal information in the form of text, sound, music, still and moving objects

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While the above language and literacy skills tend to highlight what students need to produce in existing examinations, literacies needed for the twenty-first century are multimodal (New Media Consortium, 2005). By incorporating ICT in lessons, students will also gain exposure to new literacies, as they will use these same skills for interpreting and assessing multimodal forms of communication, possibly find the different layers of meaning that can result from multimodal representations, and discuss how these may enhance and influence overall communication. Teachers may also want to consider the prior skills, experiences, and understandings that students may need to critically source for, sift through, and assess the value of information. Namely, students may need to discuss the best way to do searches, to assess websites, to understand the use of images and multimedia, and how reading pathways in books differ from reading pathways in websites and multimedia resources (Towndrow, 2007; Towndrow and Vallance, 2004; Zammit, 1999). Reflexive synthesis (productive language skills) To continue from the previous example, having gathered and evaluated information about the influence of an author’s family, community, and society, students will have to interpret this information and then relate it to various pieces of the author’s written work, indicating the way in which these three factors each played an influential role. Students can utilize ICT to synthesize this information in a coherent manner. The advantage of using ICT to synthesize information is that users can organize, edit, and reorganize information quickly and conveniently. It also allows information to be represented in various ways and with different audiences in mind (e.g., story boards, mind maps, flow charts, sound or visual clips, typed out text). For the purpose of clarification, we draw a distinction between reflexive synthesis and audience awareness/recipient design, because the former is used to bring clarity to one’s own understanding while the latter is used specifically with an audience in mind. Our suggestions for using ICT for reflexive synthesis (productive language skills) are summarized in Figure 2.2. Collaborative construction (receptive and productive language skills) Using ICT for collaborative construction allows a student’s ideas to be viewed and commented on by others. We suggest that, at this point, the communicative aspect of ICT can be drawn upon to give explanations, share ideas, and challenge students through online discussions and forums that can take place in real-time and continue long after a lesson has ended.

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Figure 2.2

Reflexive Synthesis involves Productive Language Skills

EXAMPLES • Formulating coherent arguments • Anticipating arguments • Considering pros and cons • Considering different perspectives • Relating information • Linking Information

CONNECTIONS TO EXISTING EXAM REQUIREMENTS • Organizing ideas and information • Practice language skills related to argumentative, discursive, expository writing

CONNECTIONS TO TWENTYFIRST CENTURY LITERACY • Acquire the ability to articulate and create ideas in new forms

Suggestions for using ICT for reflexive synthesis (productive language skills).

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The sharing and critiquing of ideas include both receptive and productive aspects of literacies, such as asking for clarification, giving opinions, agreeing, or disagreeing—skills students can use when doing group project work, and writing argumentative essays and critical reviews. Prior to engaging students in online discussions, students may want to come to an agreement as to what kind of online language is acceptable and appropriate and collaborate to help each other monitor their use of language online. Our suggestions for using ICT for collaborative construction (receptive and productive language skills) are summarized in Figure 2.3. Audience awareness/recipient design (productive language skills) The fourth area in which students can use ICT-mediated strategies to enhance language learning is in their presentation of information for specific audiences. ICT allows students to present information in a variety of ways, including podcasts, vodcasts, movies, typed text, and a combination of these. Based on the audience profile and the desired emotional response, students would have to consider the appropriate language, tone, and register to use in their presentation of visual information so that it is visually appealing and understandable to their target audience. For example, if students were to present their research of how Charles Dickens’ writing was influenced by English society in the 1830s, photographs and music from that era would enable an audience today to have a better understanding of what it was like to live in that specific context and to better identify with the feelings and ideas of the author. We summarize some of the language, communication, and thinking skills that students might employ when doing presentations for a target audience along with our suggestions for using ICT to foster audience awareness/recipient design in Figure 2.4. Utilizing ICT in the language classroom does not require a new set of different skills divorced from the kind of language learning skills that are already honed and used in schools. ICT offers students a variety of opportunities to be critical users and producers of information. It perhaps falls on the teacher to notice and make explicit to students how the skills they use when incorporating ICT are directly related to their language learning and applications in off-line realms as well (cf. Warschauer, 2006).

Concluding Remarks We hope that this chapter helps language teachers see the value and accessibility of incorporating ICT into their lessons. The TDMD that

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Collaborative Construction involves Receptive and Productive Language Skills

EXAMPLES • Asking for clarifications • Clarify or restating your view • Paraphrasing • Asking for an opinion • Giving an opinion • Expressing reservations • Agreeing or disagreeing • Stating priorities • Taking turns • Negotiating meanings

CONNECTIONS TO EXISTING EXAM REQUIREMENTS • Practice language skills related to argumentative writing • Practice language skills related to group work/group discussions

CONNECTIONS TO TWENTYFIRST CENTURY LITERACY • Encourages real-time interactive communication

Figure 2.3 Suggestions for using ICT for collaborative construction (receptive and productive language skills).

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Figure 2.4

Suggestions for using ICT to foster audience awareness/recipient design.

EXAMPLES • Target audience, tone, register • Most effective medium to present information to get desired emotional response content • Best way to present information – text, still or considerations moving images, sound, or combination based on audience needs • Sequencing information effectively

Audience Awareness/ Recipient Design involves Productive Language Skills

speech

EXAMPLES • Pronunciation • Fluency • Coherence and cohesion • Clarity • Confidence • Accuracy

CONNECTIONS TO TWENTYFIRST CENTURY LITERACY • Develop the ability to use media to evoke emotional responses

CONNECTIONS TO EXISTING EXAM REQUIREMENTS • Practice language skills related to oral examination • Develop audience awareness and practice use of appropriate tone and register in speaking, which may carry over to writing

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we presented offers a theory-based, systematic approach to learning task design and implementation that is grounded in experience and is responsive to students’ needs and interests. To ensure that teachers do not feel they must dilute their attention to language learning, we set out to show how specific language, communication, and thinking skills are already closely related to the ICT-mediated strategies that students might employ in a language activity. We also discussed how these various literacies and skills can be drawn on in examinations and in students’ daily lives to meet the literacy demands of the twenty-first century. A teacher in the Digital Age has to evolve from being a transmitter of information to being a designer and collaborator of learning environments that help students to become active processors, problem solvers, and producers of information as opposed to being passive receivers of information. This chapter makes a contribution in helping teachers understand how they can achieve this through the interactive use of tools and digital media.

StudentInitiated

TeacherInitiated Choice of Task

StudentSelected

TeacherSelected Media and Tool Use

Single

Multiple Outcomes

Single

Multiple Strategies Flexible and Contextual

Predetermined and Fixed Learning Support

FIGURE 2.5 The Task Designer’s Mixing Desk (TDMD).

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Note 1

Ellipses indicate that words have been omitted from the verbatim exchanges quoted from our five conversations with Miss Lee. Notes added for clarity are in square brackets ([note]).

References Alexander, Robin (1992). Policy and Practice in Primary Education. London: Routledge. Appadurai, Arjun (1996). Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Autonomous Language Learning in Art and Design using Interactive Networks (ALLADIN) (2001). Elements of Course Design: A Practical Guide to Integrating ICT into Languages for Specific Purposes in Higher Education. Farnham, UK: Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Bednar, Anne, Cunningham, D., Duffy, T., and Perry, J. D. (1992). Theory into Practice: How do we link? In T. Duffy and D. Jonassen (eds.), Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conversation (pp. 17–34). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Conrad, Rita-Marie and Donaldson, A. J. (2004). Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cox, Margaret, Webb, M., Abbott, C., Blakeley, B., Beauchamp, T., and Rhodes, V. (2004). ICT and pedagogy: A review of the research literature. British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA). http://publications. becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=25813&page=1835. Eliasson, Gunnar (1998). The nature of economic change and the management in the information based knowledge economy. Paper presented at the DRUID summer conference, June 9–11, in Bornholm, Denmark. Feyton, Carine, Macy, M., Ducher, J., Yoshii, M., Park, E., Calandra, B., and Meros, J. (2002). Teaching ESL/EFL with the Internet: Catching the Wave. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. Foo, Seau Yoon, Ho, J., and Hedberg, J. (2005). Teacher understandings of technology affordances and their impact on the design of engaging learning experiences. Educational Media International 42, 297–316. Goh, Christine (2007). Teaching Speaking in the Language Classroom. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Jackson, Shirley (1949). The Lottery and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Jonassen, David (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. Reigeluth (ed.), Instructional-design Theories and Models (pp. 215–240). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. —(2000). Toward a design theory of problem solving. Educational Technology Research and Development 48 (4), 63–85. Jones, Anthony (2007). ICT, language, media: Essential literacies for today. In C. Shegar and R. Abdul Rahim (eds.), Redesigning Pedagogy: Voices of Practitioners (pp. 101–114). Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia.

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Kirschner, Paul, Sweller, J., and Clark, R. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist 41, 75–86. Lim, Jessica (2007). Speakers of the new digital language. The Straits Times, January 1, H7. Mayer, Richard (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning?: The case for guided methods of instruction. American Psychologist 59, 14–19. Ministry of Education, Singapore (2007). edu.MALL, http://www.edumall.sg. New Media Consortium (2005). A global imperative: The report of the 21st century literacy summit. http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/globalimperative.pdf. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2005). The definition and selection of key competencies: Executive summary. http://www. oecd.org/dataoecd/47/61/35070367.pdf. Papert, Seymour (1990). Computer criticism vs. technocentric thinking. http:// www.papert.org/articles/ComputerCriticismVsTechnocentric.html. —(1998). Child power: Keys to the new learning of the digital century. http://www. papert.org/articles/Childpower.html. Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) (2008). Content specifications. http://www.rica.nesinc.com/PDFs/RC_content_specs.pdf. Stoney, Sue and Oliver, R. (1999). Can higher order thinking and cognitive engagement be enhanced with multimedia? Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer-Enhanced Learning. http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/1999/2/07/ printver.asp. Tan, Jason and Gopinathan, S. (2000). Education reform in Singapore: Towards greater creativity and innovation? http://www.apecknowledgebank.org/ resources/downloads/SingaporeCurriculumReformCreativity.pdf. Teeler, Dede and Gray, P. (2000). How to Use the Internet in ELT. Harlow: Longman. Towndrow, Phillip (2007). Task Design, Implementation, and Assessment: Integrating Information and Communication Technology in English Language Teaching and Learning. Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Towndrow, Phillip and Vallance, M. (2004). Using IT in the Language Classroom: A Guide for Teachers and Students in Asia (3rd edn). Singapore: Longman. van Merriënboer, Jeroen, J. G., Schuurman, J., de Croock, M., and Paas, F. (2002). Redirecting learners’ attention during training: Effects on cognitive load, transfer test performance, and training. Learning and Instruction 12, 11–39. Warschauer, Mark (2006). Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Warschauer, Mark and Healey, D. (1998). Computers and language learning: An overview. Language Teaching 31, 57–71. Windschitl, Mark (1999). The challenges of sustaining a constructivist classroom culture. Phi Delta Kappan 80, 751–755. Zammit, Katina (1999). Click. Click. Reading and viewing CD-ROMS. In J. Callow (ed.), Image Matters: Visual Texts in the Classroom (pp. 85–94). Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association (PETA).

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Chapter 3

What Now for Language in a Multimedial World? David Malinowski University of California, Berkeley

Mark Evan Nelson National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction In an era in which communication, within and without school settings, is suffused with image-intensive books, icon-laden screens, and streaming videos, the ground that underlies the role of language in education would seem to be shifting. One notable bellwether is a 2006 European Commission report on principles and best practices in Early Language Learning (ELL) in the European Union, which presents the finding that “a visual approach in combination with multi-sensory learning” was one of two “Important Methodological Transformations” in ELL pedagogy across a variety of EU contexts (Edelenbos et al., 2006, 133). Similarly, Singapore’s 2010 English Language Syllabus by the Ministry of Education, which calls for “a strong foundation and rich language for all,” recognizes the importance of understanding English in texts that offer their readers and listeners much more than a linguistic code: it prioritizes “Enriching the EL Curriculum through infusion of authentic, rich texts at all levels,” with “extensive opportunities to engage in creative and sustained writing and integration of information and media literacies at all levels” (Ministry of Education, 2008, 9). Meanwhile, at the university level in the United States, the Modern Language Association’s recent and influential report, “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World,” acknowledges the embeddedness of language in rich multimedia texts—whether one is considering the gestural and spatial layerings that co-constitute spoken interaction, or the video and music that often accompany language online. In defining the operative construct of “translingual and transcultural competence,” the report calls for the cultivation of “historical and political consciousness, social sensibility, and aesthetic perception,” among other

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capacities, and underlines the importance of students’ acquiring “a basic knowledge of the history, geography, culture, and literature of the society or societies whose language they are learning; [and] the ability to understand and interpret its radio, television, and print media” (Modern Language Association, 2007, 4). Increasingly, then, language—from the perspective of those around the world who have long imagined themselves as more or less purely “language educators”—may be seen to be in something of an existential crisis, as it finds itself increasingly in the company of other, nonlinguistic modes of communication. Of course, this is no news to scholars of literacy, media, and communication who might be loosely assembled under the traditions of the New Literacy Studies (cf. Gee, 1996; Lankshear and Knobel, 2003; Street, 1995) and Multiliteracies (cf. Cope and Kalantzis, 2000; Kress, 2003; New London Group, 1996; Unsworth, 2002). The New London Group is well-known for urging literacy scholars and pedagogical practitioners to think of their object of concern in the plural: literacies are multiple, mobilizing linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial design elements for meaning-making, as well as multimodal patterns of meaning that account for interrelations among these others (New London Group, 1996). Gunther Kress, a prominent figure in studies of multimodality in the Hallidayan social semiotic tradition, notes that even studies of alphabetic writing in the current day and age must take into account a host of social, economic, communicational, and technological changes that are “inverting” the semiotic power of writing (Kress, 2003, 9). The place of language is relativized, envisioned as (just) one among other modes of communication—a fact that calls for a fundamental refiguring of theories of communication. Kress (2000) writes, The semiotic changes that characterise the present and which are likely to characterise the near future cannot be adequately described and understood with currently existing theories of meaning and communication. These are based on language, and so quite obviously if language is no longer the only or even the central semiotic mode, then theories of language can at best offer explanations for one part of the communicational landscape only. (153) Even the contemporary school of linguistics that calls itself “Integrational Linguistics” (e.g., Davis and Taylor, 2003; Harris, 1998; Harris, 2002) arguing against the “segregation” of synchronic from diachronic aspects of linguistic description, does not recognize a fundamental difference

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between “language”, “image”, and “music” (for example). Roy Harris, a translator of Ferdinand de Saussure’s foundational Course in General Linguistics (1972/1983), subsequent critic of the Saussurian linguistic tradition (cf. Harris, 1981; Harris, 2001; Harris, 2002), and a leading voice among integrational linguists, writes, Integrational linguistics . . . rejects any a priori attempt to circumscribe the phenomena of language or to draw a distinction between language and non-language which will be valid in each and every case. Instead, it delimits its own sphere of investigation by reference to dimensions of communicative relevance which apply to all forms of sign behavior in human communities. (Harris, 2003, 50–51) We present these views on the fate of language in the multimodal present, and foreground theorists of language and literacy who yet deny language its primacy among other communicative modes, in order to cast light upon what we contend is an unresolved, foundational dilemma of language. On the one hand, language, as a preeminent mode of signification in human society, as an object of study, and as a metaphorical lens through which nonlinguistic forms of communication continue to be understood, is certainly not about to disappear. On the other, mention can easily be made of convergences between new literacy studies and fields such as film studies, media and new media studies, and visual cultural studies, that give ample evidence of a “visual turn” in modern schooling and communication at large. Indeed, the chapters of this volume attest to the fundamentally mixed media that present today’s learners with opportunities and imperatives to communicate multimodally and by design. It is our ongoing project to explore the shifting grounds of this debate in more detail; in the present chapter, we feel it imperative to look afresh at foundational problems of semiosis that continue to define the division between language and literacy and which, we think, remain unresolved in the writing of Kress, Harris, and others. To this end, we take up two foundational concepts of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1972/1983) notions of “arbitrariness” and “value,” as conceptual tools for understanding meaning-making processes both within and beyond the confines of language. In mobilizing these constructs, however, we aim to understand the “system” of language as systemic in a way not imagined by Saussure: we draw inspiration from what has recently been termed in applied linguistics an “ecological perspective” in language acquisition and learning (cf. Larsen-Freeman, 1997; Lemke, 2002a; Kramsch, 2002;

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van Lier, 2002), wherein systems are open and the fractal, multi-scalar, and emergent relationality of their constitutive elements is paramount.1 In multimodal, multimedia environments, language is seen to exist in a complex and interdependent dynamic with nonlinguistic modes of communication—each mode bearing its own particular modal logic, but within a larger whole in which the meaning making potentials of different modes may be constrained, expanded, redistributed, and transformed. Substance for this formulation, presented to follow, derives from a case study conducted within a four-month study of digital storytelling in a Japanese university context.

On Arbitrariness and Value In our view, any delineation of “language” from “non-language,” or characterization of one communicative mode from another, must necessarily deal with our understandings of the very stuff of communicative practice—that is, the underlying logics of the “organized, regular means of representation and communication” that are known as “modes” (Jewitt, 2004, 184). Indeed, it is precisely on the basis of the “stuff” (Kress, 2003) of communication that scholars of multiliteracies have struggled to unseat dominant conceptions of the linguistic sign as normative for semiosis in all modes (including the different modes of speaking and writing). In particular, Kress has long pointed to Saussure’s notion of the arbitrariness of the sign as the root of misunderstandings about human semiotic activity (Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress, 1993; Kress, 2003).2 So, what precisely is Saussure’s notion of the “arbitrariness of the sign,” and why is it so contested? First, it must be noted that the signs that Saussure was concerned with were linguistic signs and not images, elements of music, physical gestures or the like. In fact, in the process of defining the object of his study, Saussure explicitly raised the example of iconic pictorial representations, like scales as a symbol of justice, writing that they “are never entirely arbitrary” (Saussure, 1972/1983, 68). Arbitrariness, then, is a defining characteristic of the relationship between the linguistic sign’s signifier (the mental representation of its form) and its associated concept (also a mental representation). In Saussure’s words, there is “no natural connexion in reality” (Ibid., 69) between form and meaning; the correspondence between, say, the sound-image /skwεər/ and the idea of the four-sided geometric shape with four right angles is fixed by social convention, and is not, in Saussure’s view, changeable by the sign-user. That is to

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say, as speakers of a certain language, we accept as given the basic contours of the phonetic form for a word every time we want to mean it in speech. Understandably, the idea that humans are passive recipients of a system of fixed correspondences between given forms and preexisting meanings sounds especially deterministic in a world characterized by hybrid cultural flows and textual practices, the increasing permeability of national discourse communities, and the “fast capitalist” transformation of valued work competencies (cf. Castells, 2001; Cope and Kalantzis, 2000; Gee et al., 1996). And yet critiques of “arbitrariness” are not new; the linguist Emile Benveniste—one of many who have taken Saussure to task—is one who accepts the notion of arbitrariness but argues that it resides at the level of mappings between language and the actual world, and not between mental forms and concepts; to say that the sound for “square” is arbitrarily associated with its meaning makes no sense to the language user. He writes, “What is arbitrary is that one certain sign and no other is applied to a certain element of reality, and not to any other . . . The domain of the arbitrary is thus left outside the extension of the linguistic sign” (Benveniste, 1971, 46). Kress (2003) echoes this critique, but in more assertive terms: according to him, Saussure’s “arbitrary” linkage “between sound and concept” is one that “embodies a fundamental error, a confusion which has gone unrecognised by and large, and endlessly repeated” (Kress, 2003, 41). He illustrates this with the example of a three-year-old child drawing a picture of a “car” by inscribing only circular shapes, intended to represent the “wheel-ness” of the car’s wheels and steering wheel. A kind of organic circularity, then, serves as the criterion for establishing “car-ness” most suitable to the meaningmaking interests of the child at a particular moment. Kress then takes this as the paradigmatic example of the “motivated” correspondences that always exist between forms and meanings in semiotic activity, writing, I assume that the relation between the signifier and signified is always motivated, that is, that the shape of the signifier, its “form,” materially or abstractly considered, is chosen because of its aptness for expressing that which is to be signified. That is, the shape of the signifier offers itself in its material “shape” as an apt expression for that which is to be signified. (ibid., 42) In our view, the Saussurian perspective of arbitrariness as a core principle of the linguistic system, and the standpoint of Kress and others involved in multiliteracies and social semiotics research who espouse similar opinions, seem in large part to be speaking past each other. That is, when

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Theo van Leeuwen—another key contributor to the study of multimodality— writes in his helpful introduction to social semiotics, “Arbitrary signs (‘symbols’) do exist . . . But in most cases we choose signifiers because we see them as apt for our purposes of the moment” (2005, 49), Saussure might retort that “speech” in language and other semiotic modes entails the choice of signs and not signifiers—most available forms (and all elements of the system of language, langue) have an associated meaning or meanings with which the sign-user must engage at some level, or for which she may be held responsible. Yet, closer inspection does reveal flexibility in each of these seemingly contradictory positions. In point of fact, Saussure himself recognizes a degree of nonarbitrariness of linguistic signs, in that they often relate to each other in predictable ways. He writes, The fundamental principle of the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign does not prevent us from distinguishing in any language between what is intrinsically arbitrary—that is, unmotivated—and what is only relatively arbitrary. Not all signs are absolutely arbitrary. In some cases, there are factors which allow us to recognize different degrees of arbitrariness, although never to discard the notion entirely: the sign may be motivated to a certain extent. (Saussure 1972/1983, 130) Hodge and Kress (1988), in their earlier, foundational work in the field of social semiotics, also concede that the situation is not black and white; they write, “Looking at the full range of sign types, it seems incontrovertible that there is a continuum in signs, from more to less ‘arbitrary’ or ‘motivated’ ” (22). With these concessions, however, we may still seem far from reconciling the fundamental divide in understanding the level at which arbitrariness operates, and the consequences of this concept in light of other of Saussure’s fundamental semiotic notions. Clearly, in theorizing mechanisms of multimodal semiosis, we cannot consider only prototypical examples of signs from the “linguistic system,” where we might accept that the German word “Baum” and the French “arbre” are equally valid phonic representations of a concept of “tree-ness.” By the same token, we argue, when we want to illustrate the motivation of form-meaning correspondences, we should not place too much explanatory weight on highly iconic drawings by very young children that show little evidence of the conventions for drawing (even drawing circles) that these children will have been socialized into within a few years. If every sign is realized in speech, writing, drawing, and other multimodal syntheses through means of iconic relations,

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as Kress argues3 (2003, 42), then the very same signs must also bear elements of arbitrariness—socially conventional form-meaning correspondences that are beyond the power of the individual to control (cf. Iedema, 2003; Nelson and Malinowski 2007). Indeed, as more “ecological” theories of language and symbolic behavior suggest (cf. Deacon, 1997; Scollon and Scollon, 2003; Van Lier, 2002), signs in use are unstable collusions (and collisions) of intentionality, convention, and, sometimes, happenstance. Iconic, indexical, and symbolic relations between signifiers and signifieds are regularly present all at once. The take-away lesson from this discussion might be, on one level, to pay even more careful attention to Kress’ own dictum that “The world told is a different world to the world shown” (Kress, 2003, 1). We must note how the meaning-making logics of each semiotic mode constrain, afford, and transform meanings in multimodal texts (cf. Lemke, 2002; Hull and Nelson, 2005; Nelson, 2006, 2008). On another level, we must question common assumptions about arbitrariness and motivation as they attend to signifying practices that appear to be more or less iconic or symbolic. For example, in exploring the supposedly “arbitrary” linkage of form and meaning in the linguistic sign, we might point out the multiple functions of language (cf. Jakobson, 1960; Sapir, 1934/1949) that often lead words to be chosen on the basis of such factors as aesthetic value or iconic resemblance to other words (Kramsch, 2009). And in analyzing “motivation” in visual signs selected or created for their iconic resemblance to forms in the world (e.g., the drawn circle standing in for the wheel), we must expose the conventionality and even ideologies underlying the color palettes, templates, rulers, clip-art-style assemblages, etc. that increasingly offer themselves as ready-made options for individual expression. In processes of human semiosis, arbitrariness and motivation would seem to be co-present at every turn, each explaining different aspects of correspondences between form and meaning. For these reasons, we feel it important to borrow again from Saussure’s inventory of concepts about the linguistic sign and assert its importance to the multimodal, multimedial literacy practices of today. “Value,” in Saussure’s Course, is the aspect of a sign’s meaning that is determined through its opposition to other, related signs in the same system. Saussure writes, “In a given language, all the words which express neighbouring ideas help define one another’s meaning”; and, later, “No word has a value that can be identified independently of what else there is in its vicinity” (Saussure 1972/1983, 114). In understanding multimodal meaning-making as design, we might ask not just how a particular juxtaposition of image, speech, and

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music is fashioned to create a certain meaning at a turning point in, for example, a digital story,4 but in what ways a particular multimodal assemblage itself can be understood to stand apart from other possible assemblages that could have been invoked in its place by a speaker/animator/composer/ designer. Indeed, there is likely little resistance to the notion that signs derive their meaning through opposition with other signs, given the precedence of the idea of what might be called “interested selection,” discussed above. Yet our provocation here in revisiting Saussure is that “value” forces us to pay attention to the life of the sign itself in relation to the intentions of those who use, make, and re-make signs. Next, we move to a presentation of data on the multimodal composing practice of digital storytelling in order to ground the above preliminary claims about the place of language in a multimedial world.

Yayoi’s “Door” The case described below derives from a four-month qualitative study of the multimedia narrative composing (i.e., digital storytelling) processes of nine Japanese undergraduate English majors conducted in 2005–6 at a private university in the suburbs of Tokyo. In the context of an Englishlanguage elective course, participants were involved in creating personal stories, from five to nine minutes in length, that integrated still and video imagery, music, recorded spoken language, and text.5 This research aimed to address the following the questions: z

z z

In multimedia communicative practice, how might meaning designed in one mode affect meaning designed in the multimodal composite as a whole? How might one recognize and describe multimodal meaning that is ‘multiplicative’6? What aspects of awareness and knowledge on the part of the multimedia author may have an impact on or issue from the effort to produce multiplicative meaning in multimedia composition?

Data collected throughout this composing process included observational field notes, participant profile surveys, participants’ reflective journals, project-related artifacts (e.g., story drafts, photographs), three periodic semi-structured interviews, video-recorded work-in-progress presentations and group critiques, and the completed digital stories themselves. These data were analyzed and coded according to thematic content (e.g., see Miles and

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Huberman, 1994) and multimodal text analytic methods (Hull and Nelson, 2005; Nelson et al., 2008; cf. Baldry and Thibault, 2006). For present illustrative purposes, we highlight the case of “Yayoi,”7 a daughter of Shizuoka prefecture, one of several prefectures southwest of Tokyo that gird Mount Fuji. She was an outgoing and self-described creative person, who related that even as a small child she loved to make toys and sculptures from the pieces of discarded wood that her father, a professional carpenter, would give her. In her young adult life, Yayoi also sought outlets for experiences and interactions involving the creative arts, including maintaining an active interest in photography and doing volunteer work for an opera company. Yayoi seemed also to be a deeply introspective person, explaining in her profile at the outset of the project term that she was interested in the course “because I wanted to know what kind of person I am and how to tell and show people about me . . . I want to think about myself more deeply.” Yayoi’s multimedia piece, enigmatically titled “My Door,” is the residual evidence of these processes of thought and expression, a narrative that retraces important steps taken in her life to that point: growing up, traveling internationally, college life, and, most prominently, a year spent studying English at a community college in Seattle, Washington. The original title that Yayoi had given her piece was “Spread Out,” an idiosyncratic phrase conceived by her boyfriend, a native of Seattle, who Yoyoi explained was fond of formulating novel, cryptic sayings. “Spread Out,” as Yayoi explained in her journal, meant “to relax, have an open mind, be open to everything,” which is very much reflective of her intended theme. Yet, upon further consideration, she felt her “boyfriend’s word” to be an inappropriate, inauthentic label for her piece, however fitting its significance. “I just wanted to use a different word which has the same meaning, but for me,” she said in the second of three in-process interviews.8 Ruminating on her intended meaning, she imagined a promising conceptual vehicle: a door. In her journal, she explains her reasoning thus: “Maybe the door is a symbol. Just open up and look at different things.” At this point, Yayoi performed what Kress (2000, 2003, 2005) terms “transduction”—the purposive movement of semiotic material across communicative modes, and a crucial operation in all multimodal meaningmaking—as she refigured the word-sign “door” into a complementary image-sign. She then co-deployed this newly formed image-sign in a composite form with the written-text title “My Door” at the opening of her digital story, producing the result below (Figure 3.1). Though, close inspection of this image reveals evidence of a curious authorial choice.

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Figure 3.1 Yayoi’s “door”.

The door image that Yayoi ultimately used was no door at all, but a window, an emergent outcome seemingly eventuated by interactions among several, diverse contingencies, which may be categorized as practical, nostalgic, conceptual, affective, and aesthetic. Articulating in the second interview the circumstances and rationales that attended her choice, Yayoi explains: Yayoi: Interviewer: Yayoi:

I tried to find a door, like a door’s picture, but I couldn’t find, like, a good one. You couldn’t find anything that satisfied you? Yeah. So I found a picture of the window. It’s kind of, it’s clearly a window, it’s not a door at all. But it also has a good meaning for me. Just open it and look at many things, different each second, so that’s kind of my door.

Revisiting the topic in Interview Three, at the point when her multimedia piece had tentatively been completed, Yayoi qualifies the kind of “good” door she had originally had in mind: I was looking for a picture of a door. And my favorite door is my host family’s door in the States. But I believe I haven’t taken any picture of only a door. Some people besides the door. Here’s one, but it just overlaps with people. Here! [Yayoi shows a photograph, saved on her computer, which depicts Yayoi and her host family cheerfully gathered on and around the

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Figure 3.2 Yayoi’s host family’s door. (referring to the slice of door trimmed in white at the right edge of the photo)

living room sofa, posing for a photograph. A dark wooden door with white trim is laterally bisected by the left boundary of the photo. (see Figure 3.2)] This door is really cool, and this clock is also really cute. I really wanted to focus on that, but I haven’t taken any picture of only these things. The ideally suitable door image for Yayoi’s purposes was one very much like, if not exactly like, the one in her host family’s home, which she remembered fondly. The realization of this expressive intention, however, was impeded by the fact that she possessed no clear, complete image (in material, photographic form) of “only” this door. Compellingly, recalling Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) “grammar of visual design,” it appears that Yayoi had an implicit sense that the serviceability of an image, for present purposes, was contingent upon prominent visual placement of the key semiotic element, that is, the door, in the picture plane, with prominent placement evidently understood by Yayoi as requiring central positioning in the composition and primary, or perhaps exclusive, focus. Furthermore, since the door that Yayoi imagined for her story was so particular to this one door from her past experience, she was unable to find an acceptable “stand-in” via image searching on the World Wide Web. We note here, too, that the distinguishing features of her host family’s door seem especially difficult to explicitly nominate, in English at least. Presumably when faced

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with this task even a highly articulate person, clutching at all of the low-frequency door-related vocabulary she could summon from memory (Architrave? Jamb? Transom?), would find it quite challenging to produce an adequate conventional label for this door’s most distinctive characteristic: that rounded top. Consequently, Yayoi had considerable difficulty finding imagery of this type on the internet, access to which is mediated in the main by English-language search terms. Yet, notwithstanding the difficulty of finding the right door, why opt for a window? Yayoi attributes this inspiration to three imbricating factors. First was her exasperation with the door search; she felt impelled to seek alternatives. Second, she remembered that while she was living in Seattle in a basement-level flat, a friend, when he visited, would on occasion slip into the apartment through the window instead of the door. As Yayoi reveals in Interview Two, “It’s a nice memory that I have. One of my friends came into the apartment through that door [the window], so it was a door for him.” Lastly, with this narrative sketch of her friend’s “door” in mind, Yayoi was struck by what might be called the “criterial affinity” of windows and doors, to wit the partial sameness of these in particular relation to her expressive purposes: “just open it and look at many things, different each second,” as she says above. Windows and doors are perfectly interchangeable as referents of “it” in this statement. What is more, we might say that Yayoi is not only trading semiotically on the recognizable sameness of windows and doors, but also on their differences, whether consciously or not. Similarities aside, windows and doors are commonly understood to metaphorically operate in incongruous ways. It is posited by cognitive scientists that schema-based conceptual metaphors structure human thought, understanding, and by implication language, and that root these metaphors themselves in embodied experience (Fauconnier, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Turner, 1996). In this line, Turner (1996, 16) writes, “Our image schemas for interacting with an object or event must be consistent with our image schemas for perceiving it if perception is to provide a basis for action.” Yayoi’s innovation lies precisely in the crossmanipulation of these two schematic modalities: the window is likely more closely associated with the visual sense than is the door, the most typical function of which is as a portal, an intangible membrane through which to pass from one space to another. Thus, Yayoi’s window-door hybrid serves the meaning making purposes of her story better than would either a window or a door: as regards the culture- and communication-related themes of Yayoi’s story, the windoor, to coin a neologism, metaphorically emblematizes both the “outward looking” and “threshold crossing” aspects.

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Discussion When one invokes the English word “door” in an instance of communication, what does one mean? Plumbing the intricacies of such a seemingly simple question, we may recognize that we are not warranted to answer it. The reliability of the word “door” as a vehicle for any expressive intention is a function of the “lowest common criterial denominator,” so to speak. When we say or write “door,” our expectation is that our interlocutor or reader will recognize some manifestation of the referent, but, without context or other elaboration, we can only reasonably trust that she will “get” the most essential qualities of “door-ness”: an opening between defined spaces and/or a barrier that separates these spaces, but that can also conceivably be traversed. Strictly speaking, other details cannot be taken for granted. This predictable core of meaning is the provision of Saussure’s twin concepts of “signification” and “value,” a form-concept correspondence given specificity through the defining power of difference. Still, as we see in Yayoi’s case, these criteria are also necessary, although not sufficient, for establishing window-ness. A window is prototypically a visual aperture, even when closed, whereas a door need not be. Then, what of semiotically laminating window-ness onto door-ness, as Yayoi does? And how do we understand the way that this conjunctive design for meaning is achieved multimodally? First, again recalling the prior discussion of arbitrariness and value, we note that Yayoi’s choice of the words “My Door” as the title of her piece seems both arbitrary (or unmotivated) in form and motivated in use. The English word “door” along with the possessive determiner “my” presented the most obvious conventional inroad to realizing her expressive intention. While she could have elected for a more-or-less synonymous title like “The Portal to Yayoi’s Life,” the sparer “My Door” seems a “minimal unit” of sorts, a consolidation of the most basic and recognizable lexical means for encoding an abstraction of one object in the world (i.e., ‘door’) and the association of the object with herself. In this sense, this choice seems to realize the principle of arbitrariness: the selection of a relatively conventional, given form to suit a communicative intent. However, in and through the multimodal composing process a highly motivated dimension of intended meaning emerged in this title. By a process of seeking to express “My Door” in an image, by testing available resources, and through trial and (perceived) error, Yayoi recognized a meaning in the title—a meaning rooted in her own experience—which the printed words of the title could not predictably contain or reliably express: the “outward looking” quality, or “window-ness,”

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of “door-ness.” Interestingly, too, this recognition of the window-ness of door-ness was actually precipitated in a reciprocal way, by a recollection of the door-ness of window-ness as physically demonstrated by her friend in Seattle. What Yayoi’s experience may be interpreted to reveal is that it is most helpful to acknowledge the relative arbitrariness that underpins the linguistic sign, which is the necessary conventional mechanism by which intended meanings may be fairly accurately, if also rather generally, actualized. Indeed, we argue, it is precisely within the gap created in the conventional pairing of the material “stuff” of the signifier with the conceptual “stuff” of the signified that work in other modes can realize its transformative effects. Kramsch (2009), in her exploration of the very conditions of multilingual subjectivity, argues that the boundedness and internal spacings that characterize linguistic form-meaning correspondences are in fact indispensable for language learners. She writes, “It is the crucial experience of the gap between form and meaning, between signifier and signified that [. . .] is essential to the formation of the multilingual subject, and to the aesthetic experience” (ibid., 183). Meanwhile, Lemke (2002a), also addressing questions of identity, offers a vision of how this gap can—and, indeed, must—be exploited multimodally, by emphasizing how verbal categorical logic in effect needs its visual (or other nonverbal) counterpart: Logocentric cultures and modes of academic analysis bias us to classify identity options too categorically, to marginalize the normal hybridity of identities across our artificial categories, and to pay too much attention to the verbal-typological construction and performance of identity, and not enough to the integral nonverbal-continuous modes by which we make meaning and meaningful identity. (78) Through multimodal composing, and in the multimodal composite, linguistic value (again in the Saussurian sense) is brought into a state of multidimensional flux. In Yayoi’s case, “door” is semantically shaped by its syntagmatic association with the word “my” as well as through paradigmatic relations and oppositions with other lexical entities within the English language system. The meaning potential of “door” is also influenced, produced, and revised through motivated (viz. non-arbitrary) conceptual and semiotic relationship building on Yayoi’s part, principally the association of “door” with the window. Language here is a conventional platform upon which elaborated, motivated complexes of meaning may be constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed in a situated yet dynamic manner.

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But, one may ask, doesn’t this broadly define the well-theorized relationship between langue and parole, language-as-system and language-in-use? Isn’t it the natural function of context and communicative interaction to disambiguate and particularize meaning in language? In general terms, the answer is yes on both counts. However, as regards multimedia text forms like the “My Door” image, there is at least one very important difference. The co-presentation of different modes in many multimedia texts, even simple static ones like Yayoi’s title frame, offers the potential for a kind of reflexive meta-commentary by each mode on the others, to the effect that authorial motivation itself is indexed and becomes qualitatively evident in the text. In Yayoi’s story, the conceptual kinship between the door and window is not explicitly explored beyond the title frame; it is a significant, but rather oblique orientation to what follows. Whether or not her readerviewer may fully apprehend its intended significance, the windoor hybrid provides evidence of sophisticated semiotic work done with and around language, of a path of motivated meaning making, of creative adaptation of available resources, and of a productive awareness of conceptual and semantic change.

Conclusion Against the backdrop drawn thus far, we ultimately ask, “What now for language in a multimedial world?” Despite futuristic calls to the contrary, it seems obvious that the centrality of language in human communication will endure. Moreover, we submit that, despite the existence of myriad other communication resources and choices, language is more consequential than ever. What Yayoi’s case limitedly suggests, we believe, is that language can be understood and learned and taught as a substrate of other forms of textual meaning making. Just as ones and zeros constitute the arbitrary code that undergirds all of the digital magic in which we are immersed, language provides a relatively predictable, formally arbitrary core of meaning upon which elaborate multimodal constructions of meaning be can configured and reconfigured. This is not at all to say that language itself is not an apt medium for creative expression, but multimedial meaning making, in both the receptive and productive senses, is increasingly part and parcel of the lives of an increasing number of us. As a consequence, language learning and pedagogy must involve mastery of the fundamentals of intralinguistic systemic relations. But these must necessarily be attended by deliberate attention to the fields of value that surround both linguistic

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entities and nonlinguistic entities, and the varied parameters according to which these fields may differ, overlap, expand, and contract in actual communicative practice.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7 8

We recall, too, that Bakhtin (1981) and his followers present a view of semiosis that is largely congruous with these principles of language ecology: utterances derive meaning only in relation to anticipated “answer-words,” such that answerability itself might be seen as a constituent dynamic element of semiotic design. Kress’s notions of meaning-making as the situated, contingent, and always motivated fashioning of semiotic material (cf. Kress, 2003, Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001) are echoed in the work of many others who adopt social semiotic, multimodal approaches to literacy and learning (e.g., Jewitt, 2006, 2008; Stein, 2008; Unsworth, 2002, 2006). Here Kress references C. S. Peirce’s (1940/1955) tripartite distinction between iconic, indexical, and symbolic relations. Digital storytelling, as described by Hull and Nelson (2005, 231), is “a form of multimedia composing that consists of images and segments of video combined with background music and a voice-over narrative” (see also Lambert, 2002). This study received the full approval of the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects at the University of California, Berkeley. “Multiplicative” here refers to Jay Lemke’s (1998, 2002b) concept of “multiplying meaning” in multimedia communication, according to which “meanings made with each functional resource in each semiotic modality can modulate meanings of each kind in each other semiotic modality, thus multiplying the set of possible meanings that can be made (and so also the specificity of any particular meaning made against the background of this larger set of possibilities.)” (Lemke, 1998, 92: parentheses and italics in original). The name “Yayoi” is a pseudonym. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at three junctures in the multimedia composition process: the point at which ideas for the story were being simultaneously generated by means of manipulating language, imagery, sound, etc.; the point at which the rough correspondences of image and language had been tentatively arranged; and the point at which the piece was more-or-less complete.

References Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Baldry, A. and Thibault, P. J. (2006). Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis. London: Equinox. Benveniste, E. (1971). Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press.

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Castells, M. (2001). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. Davis, H. G. and Taylor, T. J. (eds) (2003). Rethinking Linguistics. London: Routledge. Deacon. T. (1997). The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. New York: W.W. Norton. Edelenbos, P., Johnstone, R., and Kubanek, A. (2006). The main pedagogical principles underlying the teaching of languages to very young learners. Final report of the EAC 89/04, Lot 1 study at http://ec.europa.eu/education/ policies/lang/doc/young_en.pdf (accessed on January 11, 2009). Fauconnier, G. (1997). Mappings in Thought and Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Gee, J. (1996). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourse. London: Taylor & Francis. Gee, J., Hull, G., and Lankshear, C. (1996). The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism. New York: Westview Press. Harris, R. (1981). The Language Myth. London: Duckworth. —(1998). Rethinking Writing. London: Athlone. —(2001). Saussure and His Interpreters. New York: New York University Press. —(2002). The role of the language myth in the Western cultural tradition. In R. Harris (ed.) The Language Myth in Western Culture (pp. 1–24). Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Harris, R. (ed.) (2002). The Language Myth in Western Culture. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Hodge, R. and Kress, G. (1988). Social Semiotics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hull, G. A. and Nelson, M. E. (2005). Locating the semiotic power of multimodality. Written Communication 22 (2), 224–261. Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication 2 (1), 29–57. Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language (pp. 350–377). New York: Wiley. Jewitt, C. (2004). Multimodality and new communication technologies. In P. Levine and R. Scollon (eds) Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (pp. 184–195). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. —(2006). Technology, Literacy, Learning: A Multimodal Approach. London: Routledge. —(2008). Multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. Review of Research in Education 32, 241–267. Kramsch, C. (2002). Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives. London: Continuum. —(2009). The Multilingual Subject: What Foreign Language Learners Say about Their Experience and Why It Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kress, G. (1993). Against arbitrariness: The social production of the sign as a foundational issue. Discourse & Society 4, 169–191. —(2000). Design and transformation. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (pp. 153–161). London: Routledge.

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—(2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. —(2005). Gains and losses: New forms of text, knowledge and learning. Computers and Composition 22, 5–22. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. —(2001). Multimodal Discourse. London: Routledge. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —(1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Lambert, J. (2002). Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community. Berkeley, CA: Digital Diner. Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997). Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics 18, 141–165. Lemke, J. (1998). Multiplying meaning: Visual and verbal semiotics in scientific text. In J. R. Martin and R. Veel (eds) Reading Science (pp. 87–113). London: Routledge. —(2002a). Language development and identity: Multiple timescales in the social ecology of learning. In C. Kramsch (ed.) Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives (pp. 68–87). London: Continuum. —(2002b). Travels in hypermodality. Visual Communication 1 (3), 299–325. Miles, M. B. and Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ministry of Education (2008). English Language Syllabus 2010: Primary and Secondary. Singapore: Ministry of Education, Curriculum Planning & Development Division. Modern Language Association Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages (2007). Foreign languages and higher education: New structures for a changed world. Profession 2007, 234–245. Nelson, M. E. (2006). Mode, meaning, and synaesthesia: Multimedia L2 writing. Language Learning and Technology 10 (2), 56–76. —(2008). Multimodal synthesis and the “voice” of the multimedia author in a Japanese EFL context. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 2 (1), 65–82. Nelson, M. E. and Malinowski, D. (2007). Identity and hegemony in multimodal discourse. In M. Mantero (ed.), Identity and Second Language Learning: Culture, Inquiry, and Dialogic Activity in Educational Contexts (pp. 159–187). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Nelson, M. E., Hull, G. A., and Roche-Smith, J. (2008). Taking, and mistaking, the show on the road: Multimedia self-presentation and social interaction. Written Communication 25 (4), 415–440. New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60–92. Peirce, C. S. (1940/1955). Philosophical Writings of Peirce. New York: Dover Publications.

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Sapir, E. (1934/1949). Language. In D. G. Mandelbaum (ed.) Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality (pp. 1–20). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Saussure, F. de. (1972/1983). Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. Stein, P. (2008). Multimodal Pedagogies in Diverse Classrooms: Representation, Rights and Resources. London: Routledge. Street, B. (1995). Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography, and Education. London: Longman. Turner, M. (1996).The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language. New York: Oxford University Press. Unsworth, L. (2002). Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum: Changing Contexts of Text and Image in Classroom Practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. —(2006). E-literature for Children. London and New York: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing Social Semiotics. Oxford and New York: Routledge Van Lier, L. (2002). An ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics. In Kramsch, C (ed.) Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives (pp. 140–164). London: Continuum.

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Chapter 4

Multimodal Literacy in Extended Learning Activities Libo Guo, Siti Azlinda Amasha, and Lynde Tan National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction This chapter explores the intersection of two recent shifts in education— integrating informal learning in formal learning settings, and a focus on language as one of many communicative forms, or modes. We first identify the gap between pedagogic practices in classrooms and their initial curricular visions. We then suggest that multimodal pedagogy shows considerable promise for twenty-first century literacy education. This is followed by a description of a framework for the analysis of multimodal texts and an example illustrating multimodal pedagogy. The chapter concludes with some recommendations for research and practice.

The Gap between the English Language Syllabus and its Implementation As part of the Singapore government initiative to optimize the educational provisions for its young citizens, the English Language Syllabus (Ministry of Education, 2001, 2) has stated that: The English Language curriculum in school will help pupils become independent lifelong learners, creative thinkers, and problem solvers who can communicate effectively in English. To achieve this, there will be many curricular and co-curricular activities for pupils to use English in a variety of situations and contexts. Pupils will read widely, learn how to analyse and evaluate language and the media, and respond creatively to problems and new technology.

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In other words, the syllabus requires that pupils appreciate that language use varies from one social context to another and that they participate in a variety of activities in order to become “independent lifelong learners, creative thinkers, and problem solvers” using the Ministry’s language (Ministry of Education, 2001). The syllabus also states that nonlinguistic forms of communication should also be part of the curriculum. Nine years down the road, we ask: how far has the syllabus been successfully implemented in the classrooms? Or, how is English Language typically taught and learned in Singapore schools? A detailed answer to such questions is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, we offer a start to exploring this issue based on research into pedagogic practices in Singapore schools conducted at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. At the Primary 3 level, Wong (2007, 106) adapted Freebody and Luke’s (2003) “four resources” model and found that “the focus of the reading lessons revolves mainly around decoding and comprehension,” with practically no attention given to teaching about functional use of texts and critical analysis. At the Primary 5 and Secondary 3 levels, Sam et al. (2007) found that while the syllabus recommends a broad range of knowledges and skills, classroom pedagogy has largely focused on basic facts and reproducing textbook knowledge with very little connection between subject English and other school subjects and pupils’ everyday lives. At the Secondary 2 level, Kramer-Dahl (2007, 49) notes that there is “a clear gap between the kind of curriculum envisioned by the English language syllabus and the way teachers construct their subject day by day.” Rather than focus on fostering higher-order critical reading and effective writing and making connections to students’ lives, as the syllabus recommends, the teacher in Kramer-Dahl’s study described her main responsibility as to “help more students pass their examinations” (2007, 52). “Indeed, ‘exams,’ ‘practice,’ ‘back to basics’ were keywords reiterated over and over in our interviews” (ibid.). An overall picture that emerges from these studies is that pedagogic attention has been paid to decoding and reproduction rather than critical reading and effective writing; typical pedagogy does not attempt to relate to students’ lives, and it does not give sufficient treatment to forms of communication other than language—a far cry from what the Singapore English syllabus has envisioned. The scenario presented above may be hardly surprising given that, in general, “literacy studies is perhaps least likely to change very much within formal schooling” (Lapp et al., 2009, 10). First, the syllabus itself is lacking in detail as to how classroom teachers are to integrate a range of literacies,

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knowledges, and skills into classroom activities. For example, there is some mention of communicative forms other than language, such as digital media and diagrams, but no suggestion as to how these forms work together with language. Nor is there any guidance given regarding how to go about teaching these forms of communication. Secondly, the current high stakes examinations in subject English (Primary School Leaving Examination and Ordinary Level examination) are based on a narrow notion of literacy. Teachers are therefore not motivated to move beyond their comfort zone (i.e., teaching pupils the basic skills). The potential drawbacks of this syllabus and prevailing pedagogic practices in the classroom were clearly recognized by the Ministry of Education when it pointed out that, while the education on offer is solid and deep, not enough people have left their schools and institutes of higher learning who are “good at blue sky ideas,” who can find “solutions to non-technical problems,” who are good at “communication and persuasion,” and who “can be leaders in each field” (Tharman, 2003). Nor will this syllabus and its attendant pedagogies likely produce citizens who can thrive in an increasingly globalized world in terms of new working life, new civic life, and new personal life (Lapp et al., 2009; New London Group, 2000). In this chapter we seek to propose an alternative pedagogy, one that bears upon and extends children’s lifeworlds and that integrates a range of modes of communication.

Multimodal Pedagogies The communication landscape in the last two decades has fundamentally changed. The age of the book is now the age of the computer screen with multiple forms of communication (Kress, 2003). Multimodality, or a multimodal approach to communication, is concerned with the observation that visual images, gesture, sound, and action have evolved into articulated or partially articulated meaning making systems in the same way that language has. In this view, to communicate in a given context means to select the most apt and plausible form for the expression of the intended meaning, be it in words, images, gestures, action, or a mixture of these forms. This theory is distinct from the theory that takes spoken or written language as the sole or dominant form of meaning and highlights the interdependence, interaction, and integration of various forms of communication. For example, on the Evian mineral water bottle, we see the label and treat it as a written text (the content “Evian, Natural Mineral Water” as well as how it is presented, for

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example, in two different colors and fonts) and image (the icy summit of the Alps in France). We notice that the bottle is made of bluish clear plastic and is elongated with decorative moldings. We also see its size and feel its tactile quality, and so forth. In holding the bottle in our hands, we experience and read it as a multimodal text. Without the particular combination of words, images, tactile quality, and so forth, our experience would be very different. From this multimodal perspective, teachers and students make motivated choices from among the meaning-making resources available in a particular situation at a given moment; thus teaching and learning involve a special kind of communication. This view has implications for how teaching is conducted. First, the curriculum, or the content of the teaching and learning, may be analyzed in terms of the modality, or its form(s) of representation. For example, what topics, concepts, or problems are best expressed in words alone, images alone, other forms of communication, or a combination of more than one mode? Second, in actual classroom pedagogy, a teacher may need to decide how to select an appropriate blend of modes in order for most pupils to be able to effectively access the content presented. In teaching English tenses in the primary school, for example, some teachers make use of visual aids such as a timeline (marked with now, past, future, etc.). Multimodal pedagogies have been shown to “broaden the base for representation in classrooms” and “have the power to produce learning through the unleashing of creativity, intelligence, and agency” (Stein and Newfield, 2006, 921). Such pedagogies also encourage the incorporation of pupils’ out of school experiences to the classroom, given that today’s youth are exposed to a variety of media texts such as film, music, and the internet, although their knowledge and use of them are reported to “be at a literal, often superficial, level with little evidence of inferring, evaluating or critical reading” (Walsh et al., 2007, 51).

A Framework for the Analysis of Multimodal Texts Drawing on Halliday’s (1994) systemic-functional theory of language and its extension to other meaning making resources (e.g., Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006; O’Toole, 1994; Unsworth, 2001), we suggest the following framework for the analysis of multimodal texts. First, when we communicate with each other, we maintain some social relationships; we are strangers, friends, colleagues, family members, etc. Following Halliday (1994), this is

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called the interpersonal meaning. Just as we use words to build up social relations, we may also employ images, music, and so forth. Second, in communicating with one other, we share our view of what is happening—the nature of events, objects, and participants involved, and the circumstances in which they occur. This aspect of meaning making is called the ideational meaning (Halliday, 1994). This kind of meaning is also believed to be made in both words and other forms of communication, such as images. Third, in order for text to make the above two types of meaning, it has to hang together, to be a coherent text. For example, in using language we might present some elements as new information and others as given. This aspect of meaning, that of text making or text composition, is called the textual meaning (Halliday, 1994). Some scholars also contend that textual meaning also applies to non-linguistic forms of communication as well (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006; O’Toole, 1994; Unsworth, 2001). Fourth, in positing that the above three types of meaning exist in many forms of communication, we do not mean to say that each form of communication is equivalent to the other. On the contrary, while various forms of communication (various modes) share some general meanings, they also differ in important ways in their potential to mean. In a given historical moment and space, one mode may be further developed or differently specified in a certain culture’s context than another mode and hence may be more useful for some tasks than for others. So in analyzing multimodal texts, apart from considering the three broad types of meanings, we may also need to account for how each mode complements, interacts with, and depends upon other modes.1 We now briefly illustrate the framework for analyzing multimodal texts through an analysis of a war time recruitment poster from the First World War in Britain, shown in Figure 4.1. Our analysis of the central image is summarized in Table 4.1. As we can see from the analysis summary in Table 4.1, the designer of the poster made effective use of linguistic and visual resources to appeal to the general public to join and support the army. First, in terms of interpersonal meaning, the designer made a careful selection of words and image to grab the attention of the general viewer and reader. The direct gaze of Lord Kitchener, his pointing finger, and the enlarged “YOU” demand attention from the audience. Second, in terms of ideational meaning, a sense of a severe crisis is produced through the stern facial expression and a sentence highlighting the urgent need of the country. Third, the recruitment poster comprises a coherent text. Various elements are laid out in a manner that serves to foreground significant features.

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Figure 4.1 Recruitment poster, IWM PST 0414. Reproduced by permission of the Imperial War Museum.

Finally, the words and image complement and reinforce each other in the poster. Having presented our framework for the analysis of multimodal communication, we now present an example of how a teacher and her class worked with a variety of forms of communication to showcase their school and their language arts program to potential new students and their parents.

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Function • All words are capitalized. • Urgency, directness, involvement expressed through “YOU,” the word itself, its unusual size and shading. • The statement is presented as a fact through the use of the present tense, as opposed to a modalized version such as “Your country may need you.”

Words

• The image depicts Lord Kitchener, and his gaze and pointing finger are directed at the viewer.

• The direct eye contact demands our visual engagement. • The pointing finger sets up direct relationship with the viewer. Very close shot to maximize involvement with the viewer.

Image

• Without the words, we would not know what Lord Kitchener is asking for. • Without the image, the viewers would not know what he looks like and how he is making his demand.

• The direct gaze and the pointing finger reinforce the message in words.

Interaction

Table 4.1 Sample analysis of the central image of a recruitment poster

Interpersonal: nature of relationships among speakers/ listeners, writers/ readers, viewers/ what is viewed

• The words are in quotation marks and represent a thinking process or statement. • “Your country needs you” describes the state of the country.

Ideational: nature of events, objects, participants involved, the circumstances in which they occur

• “Your country” is the point of departure of the message, while “needs you” is what develops from there. The specific typographic features around “YOU” serve to give it salience.

• Salience is placed on the gaze and the pointing figure.

Textual: coherence and ordering through information value, salience, and framing of elements

• The words are below the more salient visual of Lord Kitchener. The facial expression and gesture of the top section set the tone (the urgency and seriousness of the situation), and the words below represent the practical issue, what viewers must attend to. • There is no clear framing between the visual and words. This serves to reinforce their unity. • The salience is placed on the gaze, the pointing finger and the large “YOU.”

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Multimodality and Teaching and Learning: An Example from a Secondary English Classroom Today’s adolescents are said to be digital natives (Prensky, 2001) who grew up in an environment that is digitally rich in speech, written words, visual images, and sound. Through the use of technology they have diversified experiences with multiple modes of representation. Teachers can draw upon and extend youths’ existing multimodal repertoire in curricular tasks by providing them with opportunities to become producers of multimodal texts through creating PowerPoint slides, diagrams, mind maps, and information posters. In the discussion that follows, we use examples from a Singapore school to show how 14-year-old students (Secondary 2) employed different modes to achieve their communicative objectives in project work, or extended learning activities.2 As part of their efforts to reform the curriculum, our partner school sought the guidance of the third author to introduce multiliteracies into their English curriculum. In a series of lessons on multiliteracies, the students had undergone one year of lessons that integrated Freebody and Luke’s (2003) “four resources” model and a pedagogy that examined the modes of representation for meaning making and communication (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000). For the Secondary 2 cohort, the English teacher explicitly designed literacy activities that provided students with learning opportunities to embrace the four roles of a reader—code breakers, text participants, text users, and text analysts (Freebody and Luke, 2003). These class discussions about multimodal texts centered on topical knowledge—what a particular text was about. Hence, students, as readers and viewers, took up the role of the code breaker (Freebody and Luke, 2003) by encoding and decoding a sign, such as the grapheme/phoneme relationship and different camera shots and angles. They also took on the role of text participant by engaging the meaning systems of the text itself. These roles drew on students’ prior knowledge to construct meaning from multimodal texts, allowed students to compare their experiences with those described in the multimodal texts, asked students to interpret and use literal and inferential significance of various meaning making systems and the interplay between different modalities, and led to their interpretations of authors’ and characters’ assumptions and perspectives in the multimodal text. These students’ roles as readers and viewers expanded from code breakers and text participants to text users who know the purpose of a multimodal text and text analysts who read critically to elicit the techniques used to construct a particular ideology in a text (Freebody and Luke, 2003). Lessons

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engaged them with reading print-based and web-based advertisements and were followed by designing tasks that required them to apply their knowledge of the different meaning making systems to produce multimodal texts (e.g., brochures and multimedia presentations to promote their school programs using a range of technologies like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Flash Macromedia). The examples presented below show how these students applied their knowledge of meaning making systems beyond written or spoken language alone to design two multimodal productions. They designed a print-based brochure to promote their school program to parents and their children (about 12–13 years of age) and a multimedia presentation to promote their school’s language arts curriculum, targeted at potential students on Open House Day. These examples also illustrate how students drew upon their lifeworlds for resources in designing their multimodal productions. Designing a brochure The targeted audience and purpose for the brochure influenced how students deployed modalities in its design. In the printed brochure (see Figure 4.2), the main message to the parents and their children was to inform them about the school and their programs.3 There were written descriptions about the academic programs, achievements, and co-curricular activities. These descriptions provided the ideational meaning of what the students wanted their targeted audience to know about the school and its programs. Interpersonally, the students constructed an interplay of both the visual images and the written text to convey their intended message. For instance, in their written account of how they made their design choices, the students said that they had decided to use a formal tone in writing in order to provide a clear picture of what the school could offer students. This tone would assure prospective students that the school was serious about its students’ achievements. As the brochure was for both the parents and their children, the language used was widely accessible and simple; the genre adopted was that of an informational text with little persuasive language. It signaled that these were public facts about their school. The emphasis on the school’s excellent achievements was also visually accomplished when the students included a page of logos with the different awards that the school had won over the year. Both the ideational and interpersonal meanings were facilitated textually. In the written account of their design choices, one group of students said,

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Figure 4.2

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A print screen of one side of the printed brochure.

“Our group decided to make a tri-fold brochure because when the reader opens the brochure, the main point will immediately be seen, as it is the centre of the three sections.” The students directed the targeted audience’s reading path through the use of a tri-fold layout for the brochure. Figure 4.2 shows how the center of visual impact was placed in the list of logos of the awards the school had won over the year. The students weaved the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings predominantly using the visual images and written text in the printed brochure and were able to account for their deliberate design choices in their report. When asked how they went about making such design choices in an in-depth group interview, one of the students commented that they “just cross-reference with the other brochures.” To elaborate further based on the group interview, this student meant that they learned how to design a brochure by studying the brochures they came across in their daily lives. Intertextuality from the students’ out-of-school lifeworld was apparent not only in the way they weaved the meaning making systems together but also in their source of pictures and verbiage for the brochure. When a comparison was done between the students’ brochure and the school webpage, it was notable that the pictures were taken from the school webpage, and the style of writing as well as the emphasis on the school achievement was also adopted in the brochure.

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Designing a multimedia presentation How the targeted audience and purposes influenced the design of the multimodal text becomes more apparent when students designed a multimedia presentation to promote the school’s language arts programs. For the multimedia presentation, the students were asked to use Flash Macromedia to design a multimedia presentation to attract potential students (12–13 years of age) to join the school. If their presentation was effectively done, it might be used for the school’s Open House Day. Figure 4.3 shows a screen shot of the students’ work at one point in the project. While the goals of the printed and multimedia brochures differed in their audience and intent, the students foregrounded facts in both. In response to the multimedia task, the students presented information about the language arts curriculum and the syllabus. The ideational meaning was suitable, straight forward, and relevant according to the task requirement. The notable change occurred in the range of modalities used to convey the school’s language arts curriculum. First, there were more semiotic resources used for the multimedia presentation. This could be afforded by the technology, Flash Macromedia. Second, it was a deliberate design because of the change in the target audience. Unlike the printed brochure,

Figure 4.3 A screen shot of the multimedia presentation.

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the audience was restricted to young or early-teens. As a result, it was not surprising to find the students’ multimedia presentation to be more reader inclusive. The interpersonal meaning was realized through: z

z

z

Language use that was informal and easy to understand for the young audience. The use of “we” and the childish drawing style increased reader inclusiveness and appeal. The dialogue between the male and female characters also represents a conversation between a current student and a potential student who attended the Open House. More emphasis on the visual mode than in the printed brochure, especially the inclusion of animated characters and speech bubbles in the presentation. These design choices made the presentation more interactive for the young audience, as did the inclusion of videos and pictures of daily language arts activities in the school. Embedded sound clips throughout the presentation. At the beginning of the presentation the theme song from “Barney, the Dinosaur” was played in the background. As the presentation progressed, there was a drastic change to a contemporary pop song, “Bring me to Life” by Evanescence. What first seemed an inappropriate clash of genres was actually explained in the group interview with the students as a conscious design decision; the change of songs from “Barney” to “Bring me to Life” was intended to tell the potential students that they would mature after they joined the school.

Textually, the students spent a good deal of time (re)designing each screen for the multimedia presentation. Each series of screens had to be coordinated and sequenced so that they would appear in the right order. The transition of the video, picture, and music files had to be timed and located at the appropriate parts of the presentation. The correlation between the video images, graphic, title page, and content had to be judiciously planned for each screen. Unlike the printed brochure, the reading path was less structured in the multimedia presentation. As shown in Figure 4.3, there were many doors (choice of information) for the targeted audience to choose; they could choose what to read and in which order. The semiotic resources were thus coordinated to engage the targeted audience more interactively. Resources from the students’ out-of-school lifeworlds were again used to design their production. For the multimedia presentation, students used pictures from the school webpage and video that recorded their language arts lessons and interactions using English in other school contexts. They

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also used emoticons and instant messaging language in some of the screens. These were social languages (Gee, 2005) that they used in out-of-school communication among peers, which they used here to communicate to the targeted teens for the presentation.

Concluding Remarks We began this chapter by noting the gap between curricular visions and their classroom implementations. We suggested that education needs an expansion of the notion of literacy to include multimodal literacies and that integrating informal learning into classroom pedagogy may better prepare students for their future work in the twenty-first century. This argument is in line with recent calls from educational researchers (e.g., Jewitt, 2006, 2008; Kress, 2003; Lapp et al., 2009) for educational reform to move away from the traditional thinking of “literacy solely as a linguistic accomplishment” (Jewitt, 2008, 241) to a view that recognizes the contribution of a variety of meaning making resources of which language is but one part. In the example featured here, multimodal pedagogy in an extended learning activity enabled students to articulate, construct, and imagine their versions of the world for an authentic audience more powerfully and more effectively than if they were requested to learn and practice the basic skills of reading and writing for the purpose of passing their exams. Basic skills in literacy, for example, knowledge about vocabulary and pronunciation, are clearly important. But they should not monopolize the English curriculum or teachers’ and students’ activities therein. Rather, authentic, extended activities such as participating in the school’s Open House Day and in other community-based projects and drawing upon students’ lifeworlds should be given more emphasis in the curriculum. We can see from the example above that given sufficient time, guidance, and resources, students have the capacity to produce engaging multimodal texts. Clearly, teachers and students can and should engage in more activities of this kind, not for one week per academic year but for many more.

Notes 1

2

For more detailed work on image-text relations, interested readers may refer to Royce (2007) and Unsworth and Cléirigh (2009). The work represented in this section is funded by a Learning Sciences Lab research grant, number R59801120. We wish to thank the Principal, the Head of the English Department, the collaborating teacher, and students of the school involved in the project.

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Information about the school mentioned in this chapter has been removed from the students’ brochure to protect the identification of the school.

References Cope, Bill, and Kalantzis, M. (eds) (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. Freebody, Peter, and Luke, A. (2003). Literacy as engaging with new forms of life: The “Four Resources” model. In G. Bull and M. Anstey (eds), The Literacy Lexicon (pp. 51–65). Sydney: Pearson Education Australia. Gee, James (2005). Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Arnold. Jewitt, Carey (2006). Technology, Literacy and Learning: A Multimodal Approach. London: Routledge. —(2008). Multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. Review of Research in Education 32, 241–267. Kramer-Dahl, Anneliese (2007). Teaching English language in Singapore after 2001: A case study of change in progress. In V. Vaish, S. Gopinathan, and Y. Liu (eds), Language, Capital, Culture: Critical Studies of Language and Education in Singapore (pp. 47–71). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kress, Gunther (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther and van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd edn). London: Routledge. Lapp, Diane, Flood, J., Brice Heath, S., and Langer, J. (2009). The communicative, visual and performative arts: Core components of literacy education. In J. Hoffman and Y. Goodman (eds), Changing Literacies for Changing Times: An Historical Perspective on the Future of Reading Research, Public Policy, and Classroom Practices (pp. 3–16). London: Routledge. Ministry of Education (2001). English Language Syllabus 2001 for Primary and Secondary Schools. Singapore: Author. The New London Group (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (pp. 9–37). London: Routledge. O’Toole, Michael (1994). The Language of Displayed Art. London: Leicester University Press. Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9 (5), 1–2. Royce, Terry (2007). Intersemiotic complementarity: A framework for multimodal discourse analysis. In T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63–109). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sam, C., Ridzuan, R., Teng, P., Guo, L., and Luke, A. (2007). Classification and framing in English language pedagogy in Singapore: A large-scale sociological analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 9–13, in Chicago, IL.

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Stein, Pippa and Newfield, D. (2006). Multimodal pedagogies, representation and identity: Perspectives from post-apartheid South Africa. In J. Cummins and C. Davison (eds), International Handbook of English Language Teaching (pp. 919–930). New York: Springer. Tharman, Shanmugaratnam (2003). The next phase in education: Innovation and enterprise. Speech presented for the Ministry of Education’s Work Plan Seminar, Singapore. Unsworth, Len (2001). Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Unsworth, Len, and Cléirigh, C. (2009). Multimodality and reading: The construction of meaning through image-text interaction. In C. Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (pp. 151–163). London: Routledge. Walsh, Maureen, Asha, J., and Sprainger, N. (2007). Reading digital texts. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 30, 40–53. Wong, Ruth (2007). ‘Reading is usually a passage followed by a set of questions for the kids’: Primary 3 reading lessons in Singapore. In V. Vaish, S. Gopinathan, and Y. Liu (eds), Language, Capital, Culture: Critical Studies of Language and Education in Singapore (pp. 103–115). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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Chapter 5

Fostering Active, Language-intensive Online Interaction: An Intercultural Communication Perspective John Sivell Brock University, Canada

Introduction: Online Academic Interaction as a Form of Intercultural Communication Online education aims to promote goals that are valued across all pedagogical environments: the discovery and exchange of information, opinions and judgments, and the development of individual academic capacities including sophisticated language skills. In that connection, fostering fluent and creative online interaction is a step toward avoiding overly-narrow concentration on merely memorizing facts or drilling mechanical operations, one of the fatal limitations that condemned old-fashioned programmed instruction and that—if not averted—might similarly undermine more modern forms of electronically mediated education (McDonald et al., 2005). Especially when asynchronous, and if designed in a way that combines reassuring general guidance with a substantial measure of flexibility—so as to allow for “creativity, freedom, and responsibility” (ibid., 92)—online interaction can significantly increase the richness and accessibility of learning opportunities. However, achieving truly comfortable and energetic interaction within an online academic discussion group depends on taking careful account of the circumstances in which such communication occurs. At first glance, we are liable to be impressed by how commonplace online communication has become for many teenagers and young adults. Teachers, with their more traditional communication preferences, may in this respect seem to lag far behind their students! Notwithstanding, research suggests that learners themselves can experience electronically mediated conversation as something considerably less familiar and inviting when they encounter it in the context of academic work (e.g., Yelland, 2008, 5). And if the medium of online communication is a subsequent language, that challenge may be

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even greater. Thus, it seems fair to expect that not only many teachers but also numerous students will find adjustment to the online academic environment somewhat (or even very) daunting. As Hedberg asserts, “new skill sets are required of both student and teacher” (2008, 33). Because of this perhaps daunting newness, an online academic discussion group may be viewed as a kind of small culture with characteristic rules of its own, so that interaction within it can in a sense be understood as an instance of intercultural communication: communication requiring the management of communicative forms, conventions, and expectations that differ in various ways from participants’ usual, confident repertoire. This potentially inhibiting unfamiliarity is central, for example, to Gudykunst’s influential observation that intercultural communication tends to create uncertainty about how exchanges may unfold, so that participants typically feel more or less “uneasy, tense, worried, or apprehensive about what might happen” (2005, 287). And since uncertainty and resulting anxiety are features generally encountered in all intercultural communication, they are likely to be experienced by both learners and instructors who are adjusting to the demands of online academic interaction; consequently, when reflecting on ways to reduce initial hesitation and to encourage fruitful conversation, it will be profitable to seek steps that may benefit both groups.

Background to This Chapter Five years’ experience with one year-long blended—face-to-face lectures, plus all-online seminars—course for first-year university students, along with three years’ experience (concurrently) with a one-term totally online course for the same constituency, has provided a strong basis for making recommendations about how to maximize the possibility for lively, enthusiastic online discussions. Both courses are offered in English for a combination of Canadian and international students, a sizable minority of whom are subsequent-language speakers of English. As first-year offerings, both courses are designed to emphasize the development of language-related skills for university tasks: for instance, essay writing, online seminar participation, and critical reading through guided library research. In these courses, native and nonnative speakers alike are significantly challenged by the need to master the conventions of academic language use. And while there may be some differences in terms of vocabulary and grammar, both first- and subsequent-language speakers tend to ask the same questions, confront the same difficulties, and benefit from the same support structures with respect to improving their grasp of academically appropriate English discourse.

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Because it is a two-term course, which moreover I have been teaching for a longer period of time, I will draw my examples and recommendations entirely from experience with online seminar discussions (using WebCT) in the Foundations of Intercultural Studies (INTC 1F90) course. Although the academic content of that course focuses mainly on inter-regional or international aspects of intercultural communication, small-culture phenomena do receive attention and, over the years, it has proven very helpful to draw students’ attention to the fact that they are indeed “doing intercultural communication” when they make the transition from high school (in Canada or abroad) to university, as well as when they negotiate the adjustment from casual email or online chat to participation in online academic discussions. First- and subsequent-language English speakers work side-by-side in INTC 1F90 online seminars, participating as regular members of the discussion every week and taking turns to lead the conversation at least twice per year. Reading hundreds of lively and interesting online discussion-posts every year confirms that, with the appropriate scaffolding—which is definitely necessary for both groups—all students are very similarly able to become confident and capable participants in the process. Throughout this chapter, I will use examples from INTC 1F90 as real-life illustrations of such key elements as instructional guidelines, grading rubrics, typical discourse contributions by students at various stages in the discussions, and practical indicators that teachers can monitor when following and evaluating the progress of their students’ online discussions.

Altered Expectations about Conversational Roles for Students and Teachers One of the most noticeable features of online academic interaction is a shift in the distribution of communication roles. Traditional classroom interactions have long been viewed as almost inevitably structured around three central discourse moves, which may be termed initiation, response, and follow-up (e.g., Sinclair and Brazil, 1982). Commonly, the initiation and follow-up moves are reserved for the teacher (questioning and evaluating responses, respectively), with the response move as the responsibility of learners (answering questions). However, as Clifton observes, such a distribution not only allocates greater communication time overall to teachers, but also discourages student engagement in the more creative/critical initiation and follow-up contributions, so that current educational practice tends to recommend that this pattern should be altered in the direction of assigning

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a facilitator role to the teacher, which can in turn allow students to “self-select” for any of the three initiation, response or follow-up moves, so that “who says what to whom and when is not solely in the hands of the instructor” and so that learners “take a greater share of the responsibility for directing the lesson” (2006, 148). Just as in the face-to-face classroom setting described by Clifton, lively online academic communication with a structure provided by a teacher-facilitator tends to embody a very significant change of roles and responsibilities: certainly, in neither context do the resulting discussions have any “one fixed . . . pattern of interaction” (Clifton, 2006, 148), which means that participants must learn to extend their awareness and use of discussion-related discourse moves. From the perspective of adjusting to new norms of communication, we must recognize that such a re-assignment of responsibilities, leading to a novel distribution of access to discourse moves—especially salient in lively online academic interaction—may well succeed best with “motivated, mature relatively advanced learners working in an environment in which having more responsibility for learning is culturally acceptable” (Clifton, 2006, 148). Those descriptors certainly do apply to my students in INTC 1F90; even so, it is noticeable that these learners require carefully-designed scaffolding in order for them to become “both willing and able to take on more responsibility” in this communication environment (Clifton, 2006, 149). The new demands of such online interaction definitely have a potential to increase uncertainty and anxiety. Actually, there are challenges not only for learners, who need to develop confidence with playing an unfamiliarly active and responsible role in academic exchanges, but also for teachers, who will be most comfortable when they realize that—even as facilitators—they still have a very important, although somewhat altered, role to play. Thus, recognition of the need for thoughtful scaffolding, designed to reduce discomfort at the prospect of communication in this new and unfamiliar context, can in fact benefit learners and teachers alike.

Particular Consideration of Subsequent-language Speakers of English The argument that follows will emphasize that certain types of scaffolding can benefit all learners, whatever their cultural/linguistic affiliation. Nevertheless, it is well worth noting that subsequent-language speakers of English certainly are drawn to select INTC 1F90 in significant numbers, and that they tend to stay in the course and to contribute well. Office-hours

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interaction with members of that constituency within the course—either newcomers to Canada or international students—consistently foregrounds three key themes: z

z

z

a well-structured overall course with clear, closely integrated expectations is welcomed by students as a setting in which macro-level forward planning is facilitated; asynchronous online discussion further extends students’ opportunity for planning and preparation—on the micro-level—by permitting ample time for reflection before taking a turn in the conversation; since the online discussion experience is at first somewhat unfamiliar for all students, the shared need for communicative adjustment is often perceived as “leveling the playing field” for native- and nonnative speakers alike.

These factors clearly help meet the needs of subsequent-language speakers in INTC 1F90, as those students adapt not only to the specific demands of online communication but also to academic communication in English in general. Thus, these elements are very important for subsequent-language speakers, but we should also recognize that the learning situation is complex: first- and subsequent-language speakers are studying together in one big class, and neither group would be comfortable with the feeling that they were receiving any form of “special treatment.” Fortunately, there is little risk of that. Although different students may gain in different ways from the scaffolding recommended here, in keeping with the principles of Universal Design for Learning it may be anticipated that such basic structures “will ultimately benefit all students” in the course (Rose et al., 2008, 150); thus, scaffolding of this nature would be advisable even if the class were homogenously composed of all native or all nonnative speakers. As well it may be observed that, in these online discussions, longestablished Canadians, newcomers and international students encounter an academic discourse through which—in terms of the cultural content of the conversations—they can explore, negotiate, and share their similarities and differences, while—in terms of developing online communication skills—they are engaged in a process that will likewise be most enjoyable and successful when all are patient, supportive, and collaborative. In this respect, such an online communication environment has the potential to meet a key criterion for effective intercultural contact: in order to promote harmonious intergroup relations, contact experience must be not only frequent but also positive (Spencer-Rodgers and McGovern, 2002).

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Scaffolding from the Perspective of Intercultural Communication Theory For all groups, appropriate scaffolding is essential. Experience suggests that students often “need to develop various skills of online interaction,” which cannot be assured through “online exposure alone” (O’Dowd, 2007, 149, 150); instead, a certain amount of “explicit attention” by the teacher is required (150). But attention to what? With respect to preparing for intercultural communication, Gudykunst (2005) argues that moderate levels of uncertainty and anxiety can be positive, although the likelihood of effective communication declines severely either when uncertainty and anxiety are entirely absent, which may promote the impression that there is nothing to talk about, or when they are too high, which may simply be debilitating. This suggests that, with respect to online interaction, scaffolding should focus on features of the new communication context in such a way as to identify the challenge realistically: as genuinely ambitious but not unmanageable. In designing strategies and materials for scaffolding in INTC 1F90, I have found it helpful to bear in mind three specific perceptions that, according to Gudykunst (2005, 286), can motivate people to engage actively in reducing their own uncertainty about a situation: z z z

noting that the situation is indeed new and at least partly unknown, but not impossibly mysterious feeling that rewards will result from reducing uncertainty expecting that the new situation may well be encountered repeatedly

These three foci may be enacted through such scaffolding initiatives as discussed in the following sections. Noticeable but not impossible novelty As wittily expressed by Carey, asynchronous online interaction “permits communication requirements to be met in slow motion” (2001, 136). Apart from allowing for attention to specific issues around syntax or vocabulary—of special value for subsequent-language speakers—this measured pace provides participants with ample time to consult and apply relatively detailed procedural examples and advice, which can be invaluable for scaffolding to support challenging new discourse demands. In the case of INTC 1F90, students face the demands of three academic roles: ordinary participant in two academic discussions per week, plus leadership of one Online Presentation and One Reflective Post activity over the course

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of the year. These rather complicated requirements are of course explained face-to-face in class, as well as on paper (as shown in Figure 5.1). However, because these demands tend to be so unfamiliar, explicit formal explanations—although invaluable for reference once the basic concepts are clear—are far from adequate in themselves, which is where time considerations enter the picture in another way: it is essential to allow time for initial (ungraded) try-out experience of the different discussion types, In the weeks when you are the DISCUSSION LEADER . . . Online presentation

Reflective post

Focus

• a fiction or nonfiction passage

• a discussion question

Source

• listed weekly on the Course Outline; actual readings either on WebCT (electronic) or in the library reserve (paper)

• listed weekly on the Course Outline; actual questions given in the textbook

Substance

• anchor the discussion especially to specific features/details of the passage • for ideas, check the week-byweek file of Presentation Ideas (on WebCT) • passage themes relate to lectures, too

• anchor the discussion especially to specific examples, experiences, news events etc • for ideas, review the textbook chapter after which your question is given (plus the related lecture notes)

Ending

• leader should introduce an overview-type question at the outset and structure discussion of it over the following week, leading to an answer that is elicited from participants as a conclusion at the end of the week

• leader should follow the various twists and turns of the discussion and, at the end of the week, offer a summary-type conclusion re. main points that various participants have raised over the course of the week

On WebCT, see: • Instructions for Online Presentations • Online Presentation Grading and Feedback Sheet

On WebCT, see: • Instructions for Reflective Posts • Reflective Post Grading and Feedback Sheet

More Advice

For both, on WebCT, see General Advice for Leading Online Presentations and Reflective Posts In the weeks when you are a PARTICIPANT in discussions led by others . . . Participation

For both, see Evaluation of Online Seminar Participation on (WebCT)

Figure 5.1 Online presentations vs reflective posts: What’s the difference?

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during which the instructor leads the activities and models effective practices. For example, INTC has a total of 24 teaching weeks, of which the first four are reserved for that purpose. In week 1 there is a simple introduceyourself activity; in week two, a Reflective Post led by the teacher, with student participants; in Week 3, another Reflective Post led by the teacher, with student participants; and in Week 4 an Online Presentation led by the teacher, with student participants. From Week 5 on, students lead both of the Online Presentation and the Reflective Post every week, having signed up via an online tool during Weeks 3 and 4. In conjunction with the outline above, students are offered 1-Week Planners for each of the Online Presentation (illustrated in Figure 5.2) and the Reflective Post. The great advantage of such Planners is that they help students conceptualize the potential structure of an in-depth, wide-participation conversation unfolding over seven full days rather than within the space of a single class: in that respect, they identify these online academic discussions as a form of interaction that is distinctly unlike anything they have attempted before, but that is ultimately comprehensible and manageable. For that reason, students have greeted the Planners with considerable enthusiasm, and they have definitely improved the volume and quality of discussion. Nevertheless, it is possible that the Planners could be followed too rigidly. The four initial weeks of non-graded work provide a valuable opportunity for the teacher to combat that risk by modeling their flexible use, benefiting from the overall structure while also introducing variations. Moreover, the Planners have been designed to stress basic organizational principles—dividing the week-long discussion into segments, clearly indicating content expectations for participation at each stage, and fostering movement toward a conclusion— in a way that consciously relies on proscribing undesirable features—such as unfocused generalizations, irrelevant comments, and premature closure—that should be avoided, rather than attempting to prescribe restrictive criteria for specific elements that must be included (in keeping with Bopry, 1999). Probability of rewards The challenge of something new, combined with clear explanations and examples, can be an especially strong motivator for adult and young adult learners; so, the issue of noticeable but not hopelessly mysterious difference deserved to be mentioned first. Still, rewards—in the form not just of success, but also of actual grades—have their importance, too. Consequently, scaffolding for these online academic interactions should include provision

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As a concrete demonstration, this outline uses examples based on the topic of the first student-led seminar, about the passage by Georg Simmel on the Stranger. Please bear in mind that the examples below are just that: simply EXAMPLES, not a rigid outline of what you must say in this or any other Presentation! Start of Seminar Week: by the evening of Day 1

Prepare well in advance and have ready to post: 1) A thesis, to let the group understand where you are going Example: perhaps begin with, We can use the Simmel passage to work towards an answer to the Focal Question by homing in on the idea that the Stranger arouses tensions because he/she is both near and yet remote, as we see in the first sentence of the second paragraph (or whatever specific sentence/section you choose) . . . leading into your own short explanation of exactly how the Stranger idea is reflected in the sentence just mentioned, to model ways of using support from: • lectures; • the textbook; • other parts of the Simmel passage itself. 2) A Focal Question to be answered by the end of the week’s discussion Example: How can Simmel’s concept of the Stranger help us understand intercultural communication? . . . adding, Please don’t answer this question now; just bear it in mind over the course of the week, and I’ll ask people to suggest answers starting on Day 6. 3) Initial instructions Example: maybe something like, Now, please look at the following other two sentences: ‘The fundamentally mobile person comes into contact, at one time or another, with every individual, but is not organically connected . . . with any single one’ (end of paragraph 4), and ‘The freedom . . . which allows the stranger to experience and treat even his close relationships as if from a bird’s eye view, contains many dangerous possibilities’ (2nd sentence, 7th paragraph). On Days 2 and 3, post your comments on what each of those sentences means in terms of the near/remote tension. Support your points by referring to various different sources of information. 4) A longer-term work plan for the whole week You need to show them what will happen, and when; for instance, you could say, Please use Days 2 and 3 for your posts regarding the above two sentences from the passage. On the evening of Day 3, I will post further instructions, which will work best if everyone has already completed the first step by then. Finally, I will return to the Focal Question (above) on the evening of the Day 5. By then the whole group will be ready to help answer it collectively.

Figure 5.2 Generic 1-week planner for online presentations.

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96 With a Discussion that Unfolds on Days 2 and 3

Participants make posts in response to the initial instructions given as per item (3) above. The leader monitors the discussion, without responding to every post but stepping in to highlight and praise posts that are especially effective. Also, the leader watches for posts that miss the point or try to answer the Focal Question right away: in either case, use individual (private) WebCT email to suggest that they can edit their post in order to make it more relevant to this stage of the process.

Days 4 and 5

Prepare well in advance and have ready to post (on the evening of Day 3 or early on Day 4): 1) Additional instructions that will move the discussion ahead; at this point, you should guide participants towards something a little more demanding, so as to promote a more ambitious understanding of the theme. For example: you could suggest something like, On Days 4 and 5, I would like you to find in the Simmel passage your own example of a phrase or sentence that seems to reflect the near/ remote tension that you discussed on Days 2 and 3. Post your own quotations from the passage, along with your explanations of their importance. Also, feel free to post your own reactions to quotations and explanations posted by others. 2) And be prepared to do additional monitoring. As on Days 2 and 3, don’t respond to everything, but continue to watch for and reward especially effective posts, and also—as before— discourage people who try to respond to the Focal Question before Day 6.

Final Stage: Days 6 and 7

Return to the Focal Question on the evening of Day 5 or early on Day 6, so as to: 1) Recall and invite responses to the Focal Question. The goal is for the participants to provide the answer (or parts of the answer), with you—as the leader—at most suggesting connections etc, but absolutely not giving the entire conclusion yourself. You might say something like, Now it’s time to tackle the Focal Question, announced on Day 1. Based on our discussion over the week, how can Simmel’s concept of the Stranger help us understand intercultural communication? 2) Continue directing the process by monitoring responses, praising especially good posts and encouraging comments back and forth on others’ posts; also, suggest possible syntheses of separate posts in order to facilitate a group answer made possible by the expertise of all participants.

Figure 5.2

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(Continued).

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of grading rubrics that mesh closely with the instructions for each type of discussion. For example, turning to the Reflective Post activity, the Instructions (Figure 5.3) are presented under five main headings—Establishment of Viewpoint, Invitation of Responses, Development of Supporting Arguments, Analysis of Strong/Weak Points, and Follow-up—that indicate the grade allocation for each element and offer standards by which students can evaluate their own work before posting. Advice on early preparation of a rough draft is also included, along with an invitation to share a preliminary version with the teacher or a teaching assistant. In addition, students know from the outset that their score will be calculated and comments will be returned on a Grading and Feedback Sheet that transparently reflects not only the categories but also, to quite an extent, the actual wording of the Instructions. That sheet takes the form of a table with five rows, each identifying one focus of attention with a standard rubric and space for individual comments by the marker: Establishment of Viewpoint (/5), Development of Supporting Arguments (/10), Analysis of Strong/Weak Points (/10), Invitation of Responses (/5), and Follow-up (/10). For instance, the Grading and Feedback Sheet directly summarizes the Instructions regarding Establishment of Viewpoint—“Explicitly announce your basic position on the issue(s) that you will discuss, plus a very brief overview of the main points (usually about 3) that you plan to make (to serve as a guide to facilitate reading the rest of the post).”—in the parallel wording of the Grading rubric, “A Reflective viewpoint regarding theme announced explicitly on Day 1; basic position on issue(s) plus very brief overview of main points (usually about 3) to be made (i.e. content guide for rest of post).” Moreover, the criterion for this section of the Grading and Feedback Sheet—“Generally satisfactory work scored 3.2/5; higher or lower scores as explained.”—encourages reference to these evaluation guidelines by students and graders alike, in order to underline respect for accountability. Since there is an online record of all posts, which is easy to consult (as emphasized by Carey, 1999), student presenters can for example monitor their own ongoing performance in relation to both the Instructions and the Grading criteria not only before posting but also over time as their week-long effort evolves. And they can feel secure that, if their work embodies the criteria presented in the rubrics, they have objective reasons to expect a good score. Similarly, as the instructor monitors each on-going discussion, there is a useful framework within which to contact a presenter along the way, offering positive or negative formative advice in order to favor the best possible overall result.

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Establishment of Viewpoint (/5): Explicitly announce your basic position on the issue(s) that you will discuss, plus a very brief overview of the main points (usually about 3) that you plan to make (to serve as a guide to facilitate reading the rest of the post).

Invitation of Responses (/5): You will be graded not only on the qualities of your own reflection, but also on your ability to engage others in discussion of the issues that you raise. You can do this at the beginning by • asking questions; • suggesting areas of possible disagreement. Then, follow the discussion over the week. Whenever the debate seems to be stalling or getting off-track, intervene briefly in order to encourage, praise, question, or briefly explain in such as way as to keep the responses coming.

Analysis of Strong/Weak Points (/10): Be self-critical. Reflective Posts are always somewhat subjective; so, you should briefly but clearly indicate your own assessment of the weak/strong points of the arguments that you put forth in your reflection.

Weekly questions for Reflective Posts focus on themes from the textbook, introducing them a week or so after the lecture on that area, so that students will have a chance to think about them before leading (or participating in) each Reflective Post. When you lead the Reflective Post discussion, your statement on Day 1 of the seminar week should not be less than about 300 words long, and probably not more than 500. You should revise it carefully (length, content, tone) before you post it; so, start devising your Reflective Post several days or even a week ahead. A well-crafted Reflective Post must be grammatical, easy to read, interesting, and substantial: it needs to combine your own opinion (your reflection on the theme) with specific and convincing details that will stimulate others to respond. Also, a strong Reflective Post will show that you are aware of background information from the textbook and the lectures. You would be wise to email an early draft to the teacher or your TA — or discuss it at a face-to-face meeting — so as to receive advice that may help you make improvements. But in order to take advantage of that assistance, be sure to allow sufficient time for an email response or an appointment! Reflective Posts will be graded /40. Consult the General Advice for Leading Online Presentations and Reflective Posts (on WebCT) and the Generic 1-Week Planner for Reflective Posts; evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

Development of Supporting Arguments (/10): Develop your reflection by providing supporting arguments that are sufficiently concrete for participants to agree or disagree on the basis of particular reasons. Supporting evidence can include your interpretation of • meaningful personal experiences; • current news items; • points from the textbook and/or lectures; • insights from a current or past Online Presentation reading; • or other similarly specific content.

Follow-up (/10): Monitor the discussion throughout the week. Near the end of the seminar week, make a brief post to draw together the various issues raised by participants in the form of a few useful concluding generalizations about the topic, based on your own thoughts plus the input of others in the seminar group. Be sure to • refer back to specific points that participants have raised; • comment on one or more of the strengths/weaknesses that you identified early in the week.

NOTE: Language issues (e.g., spelling, vocabulary, grammar) are not as important for online work as for essay-type submissions, but good language skills can contribute to the effectiveness of posts by making them clear and understandable. Weak language skills that interfere with the communication of meaning will result in lower scores.

Figure 5.3 Instructions for reflective posts.

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Expectation of repeated encounters Over the course of the year, each student in INTC 1F90 will be not only a regular online seminar participant but also a presenter. Effective scaffolding therefore should make learners aware of the encouraging fact that, whether as a presenter or as an ordinary participant, each week there will be rich and repeated opportunities to develop proficient online interaction skills because the underlying strategies for both roles are so similar. Once again, then, it is crucial to assure that the supporting materials mesh closely. For example, the General Advice for Leading Online Presentations and Reflective Posts (Figure 5.4) underlines three key elements—substance, constructiveness, and frequency—that are each defined in terms of how they can contribute to effective management of an online academic discussion.

Be sure to take account of the file called Evaluation of Online Seminar Participation, where you will find an overview of the kind of contributions that online discussion participants are encouraged to provide. You can use that information as a guideline when thinking about how to plan and lead your Online Presentation and your Reflective Post. For guidelines on day-to-day structure, consult as well the Generic 1-Week Planners. In terms of substance, try to: • build in concrete details (particular facts, examples, or viewpoints) to which participants can respond with equal concreteness; • introduce specific questions or quotations that invite substantial responses; • focus on exact themes with clear importance that will make participants want to get into the discussion. In terms of constructiveness, promote lively discussion by asking open-ended (i.e., not yes/no) questions about specific issues, and by inviting participants to justify their comments with explanations or examples. Once the discussion gets going, you can and should jump into the conversation yourself from time to time, in order to: • respond to points that are being made; • direct attention to anything that you think is being neglected; • challenge a consensus if you feel that an alternative view should also be considered; • propose a final question to the group (perhaps a couple of days from the end of the discussion week) that may facilitate participants’ own suggestions of what the concluding outlook should be. In terms of frequency, bear in mind that you should not limit your own involvement only to the initial exposition, questions and so on that you raise at the very beginning of the week; as noted above, you can and should re-enter the discussion occasionally at later points in the week (in keeping with the Planners), always being careful to do so only often enough to enrich the conversation without dominating it, but at the same time clearly demonstrating that you are following and facilitating the discussion throughout the week. NOTE: Language issues (e.g., spelling, vocabulary, grammar) are not as important for online work as for essay-type submissions, but good language skills can contribute to the effectiveness of posts by making them clear and understandable. Weak language skills that interfere with the communication of meaning will result in lower scores.

Figure 5.4 General advice for leading online presentations and reflective posts.

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You will sign up to lead only one Online Presentation and one Reflective Post, but every week you will also participate in online discussions led by others. Participation scores will be calculated in terms of three criteria:

Frequency (/4): Posting a total of four or more substantive contributions per week can earn up to 4 points per term for frequency, particularly if the posts are • spaced over the week (very important!); • close in time to the posting(s) to which they refer; • not more numerous than a total of four at most per Online Presentation or Reflective Post in a given week, so as to avoid the trap of ‘hogging the stage’.

The Main Criterion is Substance (/20): Refer specifically, relevantly and in detail to particular aspects of the ongoing discussion; try to connect your posts to: • a comment by the discussion leader; • or by another participant. With a total of at least three substantial posts each week (once or twice re. the week’s Online Presentation, plus once or twice re. the week’s Reflective Post), you can expect a score of at least 13/20 each term. Each post should be about 200 words long (typically within the range of 160–250 words). Additional credit will be given if one (or more) of your posts each week makes more ambitious connections between, for example: • particular points in two (or more) posts by others on the topic; • an exact detail in the current topic and a specific point raised in an earlier Reflective Post; • a clearly identified issue in the current discussion and a precise point in a lecture, the textbook, or an Online Presentation reading. Constructiveness (/4): Posts that move the discussion ahead in a very useful way can attract up to 4 additional points per term for constructiveness; such posts might for instance: • present a helpful synopsis of themes or issues up to that point in the discussion, with a convincing explanation of how this adds to the conversation; • offer a valuable definition or an effective example to clarify a disagreement or a confusion in the discussion.

Grade Reductions: Grades may be reduced if participants undermine the quality of the discussion through posts with such negative features as • unjustified repetition; • emptiness (e.g., very brief ‘me too!’ contributions that add nothing to the ongoing conversation); • irrelevance (no clear explanation of how the comment relates to what is being discussed); • poor Internet manners – posts that are impolite, racist, sexist, insulting, bullying, demeaning or similarly inappropriate will be removed by the teacher or teaching assistant (offenders will receive an explanation the first time and grade reductions for repeat offences); • hogging the stage – a total of more than seven posts per week will be too numerous; posts much in excess of 250 words are likewise over-long and should be edited down before posting (offenders will be warned the first time, but will receive reduced grades after that).

Overall, PLEASE RECALL that, when you are leading your own Online Presentation and your Reflective Post, you will be counting on others to participate actively (which will help improve your own score for those activities); likewise, you have a responsibility to return the favor by participating well in your classmates’ sessions.

NOTE: Language issues (e.g., spelling, vocabulary, grammar) are not as important for online work as for essay-type submissions, but good language skills can contribute to the effectiveness of posts by making them clear and understandable. Weak language skills that interfere with the communication of meaning will result in lower scores.

Figure 5.5 Evaluation of online participation.

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And these elements are evidently worth mastering because they will be relevant far beyond the two weeks when each student leads the conversation; in fact, the General Advice specifically recommends consulting as well the file on Evaluation of Online Participation (Figure 5.5), in order to align the discussion-leading process with “the kind of contributions that online discussion participants are encouraged to provide.” Accordingly, Evaluation of Online Participation describes the impact of substance, constructiveness, and frequency in the context of engaging profitably in discussions led by other students. Students are specifically reminded that “when you are leading your own Online Presentation and your Reflective Post, you will be counting on others to participate actively (which will help improve your own score for those activities); likewise, you have a responsibility to return the favour by participating well in your classmates’ sessions.” In that way, the demand for substance, constructiveness, and frequency is represented as a challenge that will always be raised by engagement in academic discussions. Although these criteria seem at first to be relatively unfamiliar to most INTC 1F90 students, such scaffolding as is illustrated here can make it apparent that, in the new environment of university-level online interaction, they will be encountered so consistently that becoming expert in them will be not only necessary but also entirely feasible.

What We Are Looking For When monitoring students’ growing mastery of online academic interaction, it is gratifying to note the emergence of not only response but also initiation and follow-up moves. Confident willingness to take responsibility in all three of those ways, and acquisition of the language skills to formulate the related discourse moves, are among the educational outcomes targeted by the scaffolding efforts that have been described above. In that respect, oversight of INTC 1F90 online seminars for several years has revealed some clear patterns. Representative instances of each category of discourse move—visible linguistic evidence of students’ growing capacity and readiness to accept responsibility for engagement in academic discussion—can be suggested as follows: Initiations: Naturally, when serving as the leader of an Online Presentation or Reflective Post discussion, students necessarily perform the initiation move. Thus, teachers following academic online interactions will be looking for times when the presenter sets up the conversation with such moves as,

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To begin the discussion for this week, I’ll ask you to answer a question: What are the advantages/ disadvantages of a society in which all people speak the same language? Please give examples or experiences, or The reading asks, “Why do some black youth constantly deny their ‘Canadian’ identity, even though they were born in Canada?” (last sentence, first paragraph), and so my first question will be, What defines your culture and heritage? This should be posted by Day 3 or the morning of Day 4. However, even when not officially serving as the leader, students still sometimes enact initiation moves, such as when one participant asks others in the group, You say, when everybody speaks the same language, they also use the same forms of nonverbal communication. Actually, do all English speakers use the same nonverbal communication? Responses: Of course, ordinary seminar participants are the ones who most often perform the response move, by reacting to questions or tasks initiated by the leader. Thus, teachers monitoring the discussion will be watching for such participant moves as, I definitely favor a bilingual community because two cultures can interact to produce a fusion instead of two separate cultures, in response to the first leader initiation given above. Additionally, teachers will no doubt encounter instances when the leader him- or herself in fact responds to something initiated by a regular participant in the discussion. For example, a participant might ask, Do we have a right to feel frustrated by difficulties with cross-language communication? with the leader responding along the lines of, There are always ways to work around language barriers . . . And not infrequently, one participant will respond to an initiation by another, as is exemplified by such a move as, I agree with Joanne [pseudonym, as in all illustrations], about the way your culture can relate to the country your ancestors came from because my ancestors were from Greece and that really affects the way I feel about certain holidays, such as Easter, in response to Joanne’s question, Do others feel the same way about this as me? Follow-ups: Because of its evaluative aspect, the follow-up move is especially important for discussion leaders, in that it can contribute to management of the ongoing conversation. Commonly, leaders will be noticed making such broad-focus follow-up moves as, Wow, you guys are doing a great job on these posts, or more individualized moves, such as, Good point, Alan. What you said about the effect of age on cultural change really made me think. But quite often leaders will also use follow-up moves specifically to influence the quality or flow of the discussion, as would be noted with moves like, That was a very good example, Marie, because it related closely to the reading, or The discussion so far is good, but could we hear from others? Equally, however, skilful and active ordinary participants in the discussion will at times also inject a follow-up move, for instance encouraging their

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discussion-mates through such a post as, I agree with the previous comment emphasizing that, since Canada is a multicultural nation, we must raise our children to accept those who are “different” from them. Overall, when teachers observe that the online academic interaction is characterized by a rich web of such initiations, responses, and follow-ups, it will be clear that communication is progressing well. Discussion leaders and other participants whose contributions effectively ring the changes on such moves will be doing their part to help create a fertile educational environment in which all members can thrive; moreover, such features of productive online interaction can serve as convincing examples for other students from whom their teacher may wish to encourage more frequent, voluminous and coherent involvement.

Conclusion Carey accurately identifies “animated exchanges” as “the life-blood of learning” (1999, 373), noting that asynchronous online academic discussion definitely has the potential to offer that opportunity, particularly for subsequent-language speakers. However, such lively and stimulating interaction requires suitable support. Based on lengthy experience with online seminars in a year-one university course, and working from principles established for the promotion of intercultural communication, this chapter has proposed a scaffolding system designed to encourage students’ development of the confidence and capacity to participate in online interaction through the performance of three crucial discourse moves: initiation, response, and follow-up. Central to this chapter is the view that online academic discussion is a form of interaction that is likely to be unfamiliar to learners and instructors alike. Consequently, the key first step is to recognize the nature of the challenge, so as to design an approach to scaffolding that will serve not only students—by providing them with experience, models, examples, and advice—but also teachers, by identifying constructive ways in which their creation of scaffolding mechanisms will allow them to continue playing a crucial role in the educational process as skillful facilitators of novel online discussion and learning activities. This emphasis on careful, thorough scaffolding is but one dimension of a far wider theme, which is applicable to all online education initiatives although it is often overlooked: as Dudeney and Hockly bluntly remind us, “distance training and teaching is not the ‘cheap’ alternative that many people consider it to be” (2007, 153–154). That reality holds true across the

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field; students, teachers, courses, and educational contexts do vary, and certainly not all circumstances will call for scaffolding of precisely the sort illustrated in this chapter but, in whatever form may be appropriate for a given setting, a well-integrated scaffolding system will always be a necessary part of the overall package. And that system will be time-consuming to develop and perfect. However, without such support, the goal of fostering active, language-intensive online interaction will remain a chimera.

References Bopry, Jeanette (1999). The warrant for constructivist practice within educational technology. Educational Technology Research and Development 47 (4), 5–26. Carey, Stephen (1999). The use of WebCT for a highly interactive virtual graduate seminar. Computer Assisted Language Learning 12 (4), 371–380. —(2001). How can we use WebCT technology to improve the minority Francophone and French immersion experience in western Canada? Distance 5 (2), 129–142. Clifton, Jonathon (2006). Facilitator talk. ELT Journal 60 (2), 142–150. Dudeney, Gavin and Hockly, N. (2007). How to Teach English with Technology. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education. Gudykunst, William (2005). An anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory of effective communication: Making the mesh of the net finer. In William Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication (pp. 281–322). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hedberg, John (2008). Framing learning activities for effective use of ICT. In Nicola Yelland, Greg Neal, and Eva Dakich (eds), Rethinking Education with ICT (pp. 31–44). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. McDonald, Jason, Yanchar, S., and Osguthorpe, R. (2005). Learning from programmed instruction: Examining implications for modern instructional technology. Educational Technology Research & Development 53 (2), 84–98. O’Dowd, Robert (2007). Evaluating the outcomes of online intercultural exchange. ELT Journal 61 (2), 144–152. Rose, David, Harbour, W., Johnson, C., Daley, S., and Abarbanell, L. (2008). Universal design for learning in postsecondary education: Reflections on principles and their application. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 19 (2), 135–151. Sinclair, John and Brazil, D. (1982). Teacher Talk. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spencer-Rodgers, Julie and McGovern, T. (2002). Attitudes toward the culturally different: The role of intercultural communication barriers, affective responses, consensual stereotypes, and perceived threat. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 26 (6), 609–631. Yelland, Nicola (2008). New times, new learning, new pedagogies. In Nicola Yelland, Greg Neal and Eva Dakich (eds), Rethinking Education with ICT (pp. 1–10). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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Chapter 6

Developing Students’ New Literacies with Computer-supported Collaborative Argumentation Seng-Chee Tan and Aik-Ling Tan National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

We’ve had the same technology for 500 years. We have basically been reading books. Who knew about wikis or blogs just five years ago? (Donald Leu, co-director New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut, quoted in Miners and Pascopella, 2007)

Introduction Traditionally, literacy refers to the ability to read and write with printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. In the twenty-first century, this familiar notion of literacy is being questioned and new paradigms are being explored (e.g., Coiro et al., 2008; Lankshear and Knobel, 2003). Conceptions of new literacies have also begun to emerge within the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Leu et al. (2004) proposed a definition of new literacies associated with ICT: The new literacies of the Internet and other ICTs include the skills, strategies, and dispositions necessary to successfully use and adapt to the rapidly changing information and communication technologies and contexts that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal and professional lives. These new literacies allow us to use the Internet and other ICTs to identify important questions, locate information, critically evaluate the usefulness of that information, synthesize information to answer those questions, and then communicate the answers to others. (2004, 1570)

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Two key forces underlying this shift toward new literacies are the unprecedented rate of advancement in technology and the fundamental transformation in global economies (Leu et al., 2004). Rapid advancement in technology has dramatically transformed the ways people interact with one another in society. The youths of today, sometimes referred to as the digital natives (e.g., Prensky, 2001), are using new communication tools like short messaging system (SMS), blogs, wikis, social networking sites, video sharing sites, and the like—tools that baffle many of the “older generation.” These new means and modes of communication enable information to be shared and accessed easily and at faster speeds when compared to pre-internet days. With the permeation of these new technologies into many aspects of our lives, there is an urgent need to develop new media literacies, such as the ability to critically evaluate the information made available, presented, and exchanged. Just as science and technology determined the progress of society and economic growth in the twentieth century (Halliday and Martin, 1993), access to knowledge and social equity in the twenty-first century will depend on the development of new literacies. It is interesting to note that as early as the mid-1980s, Drucker (1985) argued that knowledge workers should be the dominant group of the workforce in any competitive economy, and creativity and innovation should be pervasive among the masses in society rather than restricted to the privileged elite. Today, the advancement in technology and the advent of a knowledge economy has made Drucker’s argument a prophetic truth. For example, computer networking technologies like the internet have “flattened” the world such that a knowledge product can be created in any part of the world and be made available to many within a short time, thus producing a more level playing field in terms of accessibility and privileges to knowledge (Friedman, 2005). As we shift from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age where knowledge and expertise, rather than products, are valuable economic assets (Trilling and Hood, 1999), knowledge has become a key asset for the survival of societies in the global economy. Knowledge weaves together with the evolution of technologies and modes of communication, resulting in the health and wealth of societies being increasingly dependent upon the capacity of people to innovate (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2002). Thus, it is not sufficient simply to be able to identify, interpret, evaluate, and use information; demands are placed on the development of better ideas based on synthesis of validated information, which Scardamalia and Bereiter (2002) referred to as knowledge building. Education plays an important role in the improvement of societies, and it is fundamental to question the implications of changes in technologies,

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knowledge, and new literacies for K-12 education, as is the charge of this volume. As suggested by reports on K-12 education such as “enGauge®21st Century Skills: Literacy in the Digital Age” (Lemke, 2002) and “Results that matter: 21st Century skills and high school reform” (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2006), students need to develop the capacity for knowledge innovation. Such capacity includes learning new skills and dispositions, like critical thinking skills and digital literacy, in order for the survival and growth of individuals, societies, and their contributions to the new economies (Anderson, 2008). Against the backdrop of these new demands for education in the twentyfirst century, we propose the use of computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) in K-12 classrooms as one way to help students develop new literacies. We argue that CSCA allows for: (1) understanding the rhetoric of written arguments, which helps students critically evaluate information; and (2) collaborative argumentation, which engages students in critical thinking through the process of collaborative learning. As students learn to participate in CSCA, they necessarily learn new media literacies. In the following sections, we discuss the significance of argumentation skills in the learning process as they relate to engagement with twenty-first century new media and new literacies. We then discuss instructional approaches to argumentation literacy and present the use of CSCA as an approach. We also examine the affordances of CSCA tools and suggest considerations for using CSCA tools in classrooms. Lastly, we conclude by presenting implications of CSCA for research and pedagogy.

Argumentation: Rhetoric, Thinking, and Learning From a rhetorical perspective, the goal of argumentation is to persuade an audience with competitive or opposing views, often in a social or a political context (Inch and Warnick, 1994). Most English language teachers are familiar with the teaching of persuasive writing, which focuses on establishing the credibility of claims (ethos) and appealing to the emotion of the audience (pathos). Persuasive writing in language classes usually focuses on text structure such as propositions, oppositions, refutations, and conclusions (Couzijn and Rijlaarsdam, 1996) and linguistic features of arguments such as use of questions, phrases, and modal auxiliaries (Teng, 2002). In the context of K-12 classrooms, the significance of learning argumentation skills extends beyond development of persuasive writing skills; it also engages students in critical thinking that is vital for evaluation of information.

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In addition, collaborative argumentation can be a mediating process for the social construction of knowledge. The logical perspective of argumentation, both formal and informal, focuses on the validity of an argument (Inch and Warnick, 1994). Formal logic is deductive and relies either on formal or artificial languages. Informal logic, on the other hand, is inductive and is commonly used in everyday life reasoning using natural language (Secor, 1987). For instance, if we claim that smoking causes cancer then we need to gather data to support our claim, which can be collected through experiments (perhaps replicated in various locations and under different conditions so as to reach a generalization). The conclusion, however, is anything but certain, for it can be refuted if some contrasting results are obtained in the future. Argumentation can be seen as a chain of reasoning, and the soundness of an argument can be established through empirical results as well as theoretical justifications. In the same vein, argumentation has also been associated with critical thinking (Marttunen, 1994; Zeidler et al., 1992), which involves the evaluation of various propositions’ worth, accuracy, or authenticity. Inch and Warnick (1994) claimed that to fully develop our critical thinking skills, we should acquire both receptive skills and justification skills—receptive skills to evaluate the arguments of others and justification skills to assess our own arguments. We need to select the best evidence to support our position and employ sound reasoning to anticipate and counter objections to our views. Inch and Warnick’s claims about receptive and justification skills is related to a research study by McMillan (1987) that distinguished between novice and expert thinkers. Novice thinkers tend to look for quick solutions, neglect audience interests, and have limited argument strategies. Expert thinkers, on the other hand, are better able to analyze problems before suggesting solutions, monitor their own solutions, anticipate audience objections, and employ the most suitable argument strategies. Since argumentation engages our logical and critical thinking faculties, seen from an epistemic perspective, argumentation can be used for the social construction of knowledge (Scott 1967, 1977). The social constructivist perspective of learning is strongly influenced by Vygotsky’s (1978) view that development and learning are a process of social interaction between people and their social environments, which includes other people and cultural artifacts. Vygotsky (1986) held that language is an important cultural artifact appropriated through social interactions and language that also mediates the appropriation of other meaning-making tools. Language is thus both a means for social interaction and for pursuing inquiry in a social context. Scott’s (1967, 1977) view is also consonant with social

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constructivism. He suggests rhetoric as a way of knowing, though not the only way. In his view, the arguer should regard his or her knowledge as contingent, embrace the knowledge of others as equally worthwhile, seek to persuade and be persuaded, and commit to the norms of the community. Thus, argumentation becomes a process of collaborative critical inquiry that aims to construct knowledge that is accepted by the community that uses and owns the knowledge.

Argumentation: Literacy and Instructional Approaches Arguably, knowledge construction is an important goal in students’ learning as schools move toward equipping their students with twentyfirst century skills like critical thinking and knowledge innovation. The traditional notion of knowledge acquisition and repetition are becoming obsolete in today’s knowledge-based society. However, views of learning as knowledge acquisition still predominate in many schools; the extent of knowledge construction in schools remains a contentious reality. Students often do not adequately develop collaborative critical inquiry skills. For example, a study conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the U.S. (NAEP) (Salahu-Din et al., 2008) reported that 40% of the 27,900 twelfth-graders who participated in the study performed below the “sufficient” level in the persuasive writing task. A recent study that involved about 380 secondary school students in Finland, France, and England found that these students possessed the prerequisites for persuasive reasoning and writing, but they had difficulties recognizing main claims in an expository text and in commenting analytically on an argumentative text (Marttunen et al., 2005). One possible explanation for the inability to identify main claims is that many students lack the schema for written arguments, as students’ knowledge of persuasive writing is usually much less developed than that of narrative writing (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1986). This is because children can transfer the textual structure of speech to narrative writing readily. However learning of persuasive structures depends on having a conversation partner, and transfer of persuasive strategies from oral dialogue to written monologue is more complex. Two common approaches to teaching argumentation skills are direct instruction and scaffolding strategies. Sanders et al. (1994) conducted a study with 357 students who were enrolled in general education courses in two universities. The treatment group received instruction in argumentation, and the control group received instruction in introductory interpersonal

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communication. Their results showed that students who received argumentation instruction demonstrated a greater ability to discern weak examples and causal arguments, increased perceived arguing effectiveness, and decreased verbal aggressiveness. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986) used a scaffolding strategy, which involves providing just enough sufficient support to learners so that they can internalize the processes when they are being supported and will still be able to perform the tasks when the support is removed. The process is much like the scaffolding that provides support to a new structure under construction and is removed when the new structure is completed (Pressley and McCormick, 1995). Scaffolding is deeply rooted in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky contended that critical cognitive interaction occurs within the child’s zone of proximal development, which refers to the behaviors that are beyond the child’s capability to perform independently but that the child is able to perform with support. With the notion that scaffolding can facilitate learning, we will elaborate in the next section how CSCA tools can work to fulfill the function of learning through scaffolding.

Computer-supported Collaborative Argumentation Tools CSCA provides scaffolding through technology-based cognitive tools, which enhance the thinking power of humans during their problem solving or learning process (Jonassen and Reeves, 1996). Cognitive tools provide scaffolding by assuming the role of intellectual partners, relieving the learners of unproductive tasks but engaging them to think more critically (Perkins, 1993; Salomon, 1993). Cognitive tools are not “fingertip tools” (Perkins, 1993) that learners can use effortlessly; rather, they provide essential components of a learning environment that engage learners in thinking more critically than they would without that support. They encourage learners to exert greater cognitive effort in constructing their own knowledge (Salomon and Globerson, 1987). The scaffolding function of cognitive tools is clarified by looking at two aspects of the cognitive effects of these tools: the effects with and effects of learning with technology (Salomon et al., 1991). The effects with technology arise from the intellectual partnership with the technology that engages the learner in critical thinking, as explained earlier. The effects of the cognitive tools refer to better mastery of skills and strategies as a result of using the tools. In short, the technology provides support to a learner, empowering him or her to perform more complex tasks and engaging him

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or her in thinking (effects with technology) such that he or she would develop skills and be able to perform the tasks independently (effects of technology). Specifically, CSCA tools scaffold students’ argumentation by providing metacognitive cues, or structural constraints. Metacognitive cues can be in the form of text tags that require the students to identify the elements of argumentation before forming their arguments. For example, one of the earliest CSCA tools is a text-based system called Issue Based Information System (IBIS) developed by Rittel (1984). IBIS contains three cues: Issues, Positions, and Arguments. These elements can be linked by relationships such as supports, objects-to, replaces, temporal-successor-of, more-general-than, and their converses. With machine prompted tags like Issues, Position, or Arguments, users have to think about whether they are identifying the issues, declaring their positions, or debating their arguments. Knowledge Forum (see Figure 6.1) is another online collaborative tool that allows a teacher to set customizable metacognitive cues for students (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1996). Begeman and Conklin (1988) first enhanced IBIS with a graphical user interface in hypertext format, which they called gIBIS (graphical IBIS),

Figure 6.1 Customizable metacognitive cues in Knowledge Forum.* * Figure 6.1 is a screen capture of possible customizable argumentation cues created by the authors using Knowledge Forum.

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Figure 6.2 2000).

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Adapting QuestMap for Toulmin’s model of argumentation (Tan,

which eventually led to the development of QuestMap. QuestMap is a CSCA system that includes hypertext and groupware features, and it departs from the early IBIS system in that the basic elements were changed from Issues, Position, and Argument to Question, Idea, Pro, and Con. Besides metacognitive cues, QuestMap has added elements of structural constraints. These structural constraints allow some items to be linked to others in one direction but not the reverse. For example, it can be used to model a simplified version of Toulmin’s model of argument (Toulmin et al., 1984), as shown in Figure 6.2. Each of these icons represents a note, and a structural constraint is imposed through the directions in which the notes are linked. For example, a warrant is used to explain the claim but not vice versa. CSCA provides an argument structure and notations that support learners in their zone of proximal development, thus enabling them to perform what they cannot without the framework provided by the tool. The main assumption is that by making the structure of arguments explicit, learners can more rigorously construct and communicate their arguments (Brown, 1986). Restricting learners to certain argumentation structures helps to clarify reasoning by encouraging them to make explicit important assumptions, distinctions, and relationships (Buckingham Shum et al., 1997). Graphical CSCA tools like QuestMap have added advantages. Suthers (1998) argued that visual representations can provide both cognitive and collaborative support. By representing abstract arguments in concrete graphical forms, CSCA tools turn conceptual tasks into perceptual tasks. Graphical representations allow users to visualize mental abstractions and make the deliberation process explicit in such a way that participants can view the steps that lead to the creation of an argument. They also make apparent alternate interpretations and points of view that would otherwise be difficult to see in the linear form of text.

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In terms of collaborative support, CSCA helps to reify abstract ideas by providing a record of the arguments as referent objects that the students can revisit and review. In the case of face-to-face argumentation, good arguments could be lost in conversation, which is ephemeral. Once out of the classroom, learners could easily forget aspects of their reasoning before they have a chance to continue with the arguments in subsequent lessons. In CSCA, notes serve as referent objects and status reminders, coordinating group work by allowing participants to keep track of and refer to ideas under discussion. CSCA may also help to promote thinking by “slowing down” the process so that learners can better understand the reasoning inherent to a specific argument (Leeman, 1987). Gordon et al. (1999) contended that CSCA not only supports learning of domain knowledge, but also promotes reflective and critical thinking through the process of argumentation. This is because the argumentation environment prompts students to question the arguments put forth by their teachers or fellow students instead of accepting them at face value. In a nutshell, CSCA tools, as a cognitive tool or an intellectual partner of the students, scaffold collaborative argumentation and thinking (1) in the form of metacognitive cues; (2) by imposing structural constraints; (3) by facilitating visualization of abstract argument in graphical forms; (4) by allowing a permanent record of the arguments that can be revisited, revised, and counteracted; and (5) by encouraging students to think critically through “slowing down” the process of argumentation due to its asynchronous nature. Implementation of CSCA in classrooms should take into consideration the five affordances of these CSCA tools as highlighted above. Besides Knowledge Forum and QuestMap discussed above, other CSCA tools that have similar affordances include Sensemaker (Bell, 1997) and Belvédère (Suthers, 1998).

Using CSCA Tools in Classrooms In this section, we suggest some examples and ideas pertaining to the application of CSCA tools in terms of supporting two broad categories of learning related to argumentation—persuasive writing and collaborative learning. Embracing the idea of social constructivism, where learning takes place through social interaction, students work as a community within a classroom context. In order for students to construct knowledge that is acceptable within the classroom community and also recognized as

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orthodox within the expert community (e.g., scientists, writer, teachers, assessment boards), students need to be able to discuss their ideas in public spaces with their peers and be able to defend and persuade their peers to agree with their ideas. While it may sound logical, persuasive writing, discussion, and collaborative learning are not easily translated into actual practices due to constraints on time, students’ maturity level, teacher experience, and so on. We would like to propose some ideas that could be useful for introducing persuasive writing and collaborative learning in classrooms. These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive; rather, they aim to provide educators with some ideas that can be adapted for teaching. Researchers interested in argumentation, persuasive writing, and collaborative learning can also examine the effects of these ideas on students’ and teachers’ ideas about learning using CSCA tools.

CSCA for scaffolding persuasive writing We propose the use of CSCA to support persuasive writing in the following ways: (1) developing propositions and opposing views through discussion or debate in CSCA during the planning process; (2) scaffolding the text structure of arguments in the translating process; and (3) commenting on linguistic features of argumentation in the reviewing process. To help students develop their arguments prior to writing, a discussion or debate via CSCA could be conducted. CSCA provides a platform for various perspectives to be heard. Through metacognitive cues, or structural constraints, provided by CSCA the students deliberate on various claims, question warrants, propose rebuttals, or propose counter-claims. These metacognitive cues or structural constraints work as scaffolds, helping the students to build up their argumentative skills as they engage in collaborative argumentation. CSCA also provides a record of the ideas presented so that they can be revisited even after class. For this reason, it is more productive to provide sufficient time for discussion in an asynchronous way. For example, a teacher could start a face-to-face discussion on the issues of genetically modified food, asking the students to enter a group note in Knowledge Forum. The students then continue the discussion after class before the next face-to-face meeting. When the students are ready to compose their persuasive essay by translating their propositions into writing, CSCA can assist them in this process as well. In this case, a CSCA that provides metacognitive cues would be more appropriate. For example, using Knowledge Forum, the following

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structural cues can be provided: Introduction, Proposition, Support, Opposing View, and Conclusion. For the reviewing process, students could be paired up or put into groups. Individual students would first construct their draft essays. Using Build On or Annotate features in the Knowledge Forum, other students in the group could then provide feedback on the essay, after which students could review and revise their essays. In Knowledge Forum, a teacher can provide and set different groups of scaffolds. This means scaffolds can be built in for the process of reviewing as well. For example, “This proposition is not convincing because;” “This supporting evidence is not appropriate because;” and “Have you considered this alternative view?”. In addition to reviewing the strengths of arguments, students could also review the linguistic features of their writing. Teng (2002) summarizes the argumentative linguistic features according to the following categories: phrases of belief and knowledge (e.g., I propose . . .); modal auxiliaries (e.g., it can be . . .); relationship words (e.g., as a result of . . .); exemplication words or phrases (e.g., a case in point is . . .); summarizing phrases (e.g., in short . . .); and use of rhetorical or direct questions (e.g., what will happen if . . .). In this section, we discussed the role of scaffolds in providing the structure required for students to (1) develop propositions and opposing views through discussion or debate during planning; (2) understand the text structure required for argument in the translating process; and (3) comment on linguistic features of argumentation in the reviewing process. In the next section, we examine how these skills in persuasive writing can be applied to enhance collaborative learning. CSCA for collaborative learning Tan (2000) studied the use of QuestMap in supporting university students who are solving real-life turf grass problems using Toulmin’s model of argumentation. A complex real-life problem related to turf grass maintenance was given to the students. In groups, the students conducted online problem solving through collaborative argumentation. An example of the discussion about a turf grass problem is shown in Figure 6.3. A student initiated the process by creating the problem statement (denoted by the “?” icon). The text could then be read by clicking on the “?” icon. The other student put forth his claim (denoted by a bulb icon) of a possible solution to the problem. The student supported his or her claim with ground or evidence (the note icon). The warrant (the “+” icon) was used to explain

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Figure 6.3 An example of a QuestMap argumentation on turf grass problem (Tan 2000).

why the ground was an evidence to support the claim. Rebuttal (denoted by “–” icon) could be used to present an exceptional case in which the ground is not relevant. Secondary elements of argument like backing and qualifier are not explicitly represented in QuestMap but can be incorporated in the notes embedded in the icons. Osborne et al. (2004) reported nine generic frameworks for supporting and facilitating argumentation in the science classroom. For example, students are provided with two or more competing theories in the form of a cartoon and are asked to indicate which one they agree with and present an argument to support their view. In another example, students are given another student’s report of an experiment with some information left out intentionally. The students are asked to provide their arguments about the experiment or improve the inferential process. CSCA could be an appropriate tool to complement the face-to-face discussion. Using a similar approach but following knowledge building scaffolding (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2002), Ow and Tan (2005) asked elementary students to conduct science experiments and use Knowledge Forum to discuss their findings. The students use metacognitive cues like “My theory is;” “I need to understand;” “A better theory is;” and “Putting our knowledge together;” to discuss and explain what they observed in the experiments.

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For example, in one class, the students made observations when a paper spiral was placed above a lighted candle. Subsequently, they used the Knowledge Forum to conduct collaborative inquiry into the causes that led to the movement of the paper spiral. Adapting this approach, one could offer students several alternative theories, and they could conduct argumentation to discuss which theories they believe and the reasons for their choices.

Considerations for Using CSCA Tools in the Classroom When using CSCA tools in a classroom, we need to first clarify the learning objectives. As discussed earlier, the importance of argumentation lies in how it can facilitate knowledge construction processes that engage students in logical and critical thinking; argumentation can be seen from a persuasive writing perspective or as a form of critical thinking for collaborative learning. For persuasive writing, forming a cogent and coherent argument is an objective. On the other hand, for collaborative learning, argumentation becomes a mediating critical thinking process for knowledge building. Without clarifying the learning objectives, we would not be able to design the appropriate learning activities and assessment. When choosing a CSCA tool, one must assess the affordances of the tool. As discussed, CSCA tools provide scaffolding in several ways: providing metacognitive cues, imposing structural constraints, concretizing ideas with graphical representations, and encouraging critical thinking by “slowing down” the process of discussion. If we adopt a model of argumentation that has structural characteristics (e.g., Toulmin’s model of argumentation), then a CSCA with structural constraints will be appropriate. On the other hand, tools like Knowledge Forum allow teachers to set the appropriate metacognitive cues and hence will be more appropriate in helping students concretize their thinking process. Despite the potential of CSCA tools for enabling learning, it is necessary to bear in mind that CSCA should work as a cognitive tool, allowing students to focus on critical aspects of thinking while relieving them of noncritical tasks like learning how to navigate the software. We should allow sufficient time for the teacher and students to become comfortable with the CSCA tools before launching into intensive argumentation so as to minimize the interference of technical issues on the valuable learning process. Failing to address the technicalities of CSCA tools could potentially

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be counterproductive as it constrains participants’ flow of ideas and results in frustration. Buckingham Shum et al. (1997) found that users need to manage several cognitive tasks when using a CSCA tool, including: (1) identification of the structural elements of the argument; (2) choice of a meaningful and succinct label for the new element; and (3) linkages of new elements to other ideas. Also related to usability of the CSCA tool is the issue of students’ media literacy. Many CSCA tools like QuestMap and Knowledge Forum use a graphical and interactive interface, which necessitates developing new literacies to decipher, interpret, and communicate using visual imagery, such as icons, and to be cognizant of the significance of the structural constraints as they are more than linear, textonly representations.

Conclusions In this chapter, we proposed the use of CSCA tools as one means to support the development of new literacies for students in the twenty-first century. New literacy skills require that students not only are able to read and write but also be able to decipher information presented by others, interpret different forms of information, and be able to communicate and present their own views in response to what is presented. The learning of these literacy skills can be facilitated through the use of CSCA tools, as they have embedded within them elements like scaffolds, cues, a tracking system of ideas, and an open platform to help develop the metacognitive processes for argumentation. The complexities of demands made on twenty-first century learners (e.g., media literacy, critical thinking, and multimodal communication skills) have resulted in the need for teachers and schools to become critically aware of the resources and strategies available to enhance learning. Teachers and schools must not only catch up to the wave of technological advancements, they must also be able to map the literacy skills that have worked so well in the last century and recognize the role and position they now play in developing new literacies. Unless we are aware of the tools that have been and are being developed at an astonishing pace to enhance learning of new literacy skills, schools will always be left behind. The ideals of producing innovative and creative knowledge workers will require teachers and schools to be proficient users and innovators of existing CSCA tools (as well as CSCA tools in the future) to help students develop these skills. In this chapter, we have provided justification for anchoring learning through

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argumentation and also suggested ways in which students’ argumentation skills can be developed through the use of CSCA tools, particularly Knowledge Forum. The ideas presented here can serve as a primer for teachers and researchers alike to experiment with CSCA in their classrooms.

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Lankshear, Colin and Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Leeman, Richard (1987). Taking perspectives: Teaching critical thinking in the argumentation course. ERIC document. (ED292147). Lemke, Cheryl (2002). EnGauge 21st Century skills: Literacy in the digital age. Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Washington, DC. ERIC document. (ED463753). Leu, Donald, Kinzer, C., Coiro, J., and Cammack, D. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the Internet and other information and communication technologies. In R. B. Ruddell and N. Unrau (eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (pp. 1570–1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Marttunen, Miika (1994). Assessing argumentation skills among Finnish University students. Learning and Instruction 4, 175–191. Marttunen, Miika, Laurinena, L., Litosselitib, L., and Lundc, K. (2005). Argumentation skills as prerequisites for collaborative learning among Finnish, French, and English secondary school students. Educational Research and Evaluation 11, 365–384. McMillan, James (1987). Enhancing college students’ critical thinking: A review of studies. Research in Higher Education 26, 3–29. Miners, Zach and Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, October. http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1292. Osborne, Jonathan, Erduran, S. and Simon, S. (2004). Enhancing the quality of argumentation in school science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41, 994–1020. Ow, E. G. J. and Tan, S. (2005). Learning science in an elementary classroom through knowledge building. Paper presented at the annual Summer Institute on Knowledge Building, August 9–12, in Toronto, Canada. Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2006). Results that matter: 21st Century skills and high school reform. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/ RTM2006.pdf. Perkins, D. N. (1993). Person-plus: A distributed view of thinking and learning. In G. Salomon (ed.), Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, (pp. 88–110). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9 (5), 2–17. Pressley, Michael and McCormick, C. (1995). Cognition, Teaching, and Assessment. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers. Rittel, H. W. J. (1984). Second generation design methods. In N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology (pp. 317–327). New York: John Wiley. Salahu-Din, Deborah, Persky, H., and Miller, J. (2008). The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2007 (NCES 2008–468). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Salomon, Gavriel (1993). On the nature of pedagogic computer tools: The case of the writing partner. In S. P. Lajoie and S. J. Derry (eds.), Computers as Cognitive Tools (pp. 179–196). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Chapter 7

Unpacking Students’ “Voices of Reason”: The Case of Web-based Scaffolding for Teaching Argumentation Caroline M. L. Ho and Yam San Chee National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction Argumentation carries different interpretations for individuals and serves a range of purposes in various contexts. Indeed, as Ho (2007, 29) observes, “At all levels of education, critical thinking and logical argumentation are arguably more challenging for students than any other basic skills.” At postsecondary level in higher education, argumentation is even more critical. Its central place in education at the tertiary level has been acknowledged (Coffin et al., 2005), particularly as it is recognized to pose difficulty for students (Chandrasegaran et al., 2005). In this chapter, argumentation is perceived as “the ability to present well supported and reasoned arguments as well as to engage with alternative points of view” (Coffin et al., 2005, 465). The interest is in the process of students crafting, challenging, critiquing, supporting or reinforcing opinions and perspectives put forth with regard to specific topics in discussion. Traditional approaches to teaching argumentation have largely focused on face-to-face, classroom instruction on macro-rhetorical text structure and language features, and the composing of written argumentative texts on an individual basis. This chapter draws on a larger design research study (Ho et al., 2009) of enhancing pre-university students’ critical thinking and argumentation skills through a technologically mediated learning environment in the context of the General Paper (GP), a subject offered at the pre-university level (Grade 12) in Singapore which emphasizes argumentation and critical thinking. Specifically, it focuses on the design and implementation of a web-based, structured argumentation tool, Voices of Reason (VoR),

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for teaching the construction and analysis of argumentation in a regular pre-university college curriculum. VoR was aimed at guiding students systematically with appropriate web-based scaffolding in the construction of well-formed arguments based on an existing model for argument structure. The chapter provides background information to the context of the study before it reviews studies in the field. The theoretical underpinnings and pedagogical principles informing the design of the study are spelt out. Information on research design and methodology is then presented. The specifics involved in the construction, development and implementation of VoR in a classroom context for teaching argumentation are made explicit in a systematic, step-by-step approach in the use of VoR within a computersupported, collaborative learning student community. The examination also extended to peer analysis of the arguments generated through the analytical tool developed. This was aimed at enabling students to enhance their understanding of the nature and process of constructing and evaluating arguments. The benefits and problems arising from the use of VoR are discussed with feedback from teachers and student participants considered. Pedagogical implications are discussed with recommendations for future research in the field proposed.

Background The GP is termed a Knowledge Skills subject at Higher 1 (H1) level for broadening purposes for tertiary level studies (Ministry of Education, UCLES, 2005) in Singapore where English has been the medium of instruction in school for all subjects since 1987. It is a critical component of the pre-university curriculum where a pass in the subject is mandatory to obtain a full Advanced (‘A’) Level certificate. Students are expected to “draw on their knowledge from across disciplines as well as to show an awareness of current, global, and significant local or national issues” (Ho, 2006, 3) in writing a 500–800 word argumentative essay within one and a half hours. The essay topic is drawn from a wide range of topics— comprising history, economics, politics and philosophy, science and technology, literature and the arts, topics of local interest and national concern. The focus is on the “ability to convey a sustained and well thought–out argument” (Ho, 2006, 3), displaying skills involving primarily logical and intellectual argument. The GP is thus regarded as an indicator of a candidate’s level of preparedness for university study as it involves critical skills required in higher education.

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Literature Review Previous research in argumentation, particularly at pre-university levels, examined students’ performance in the GP from various perspectives. Skuja’s (1983) study highlighted Singaporean students’ specific weakness in GP by identifying and quantifying organizational features of GP essays with comparisons made to students and graduate English teachers from England and New Zealand. Seng (1990) focused on selected variables that influenced variance in writing attainment of GP students, namely, language proficiency, rhetorical cognitive ability, background information, exposure to English, and the stream of students. These studies have largely centered on macro organizational features and factors affecting students’ argumentative writing performance. However, attention given to internal structuring and analysis of arguments has not, to date, received comparable attention. An earlier study which informed this present investigation was Ho’s (1995) work on argumentative discourse features characterizing the GP essay, based on a rhetorical approach using the Toulmin (1958/2003) framework (the model will be elaborated in a later section). Students’ macro rhetorical structures and weaknesses in argument were identified and analyzed. The data, however, was drawn primarily from students’ written argumentative essays. Students were not involved in the process of collaborative learning to develop their understanding of argument structure through peer interaction, critique, and analysis of each other’s arguments. Studies on students’ argumentation mediated through technology, on the other hand, have involved largely computer conferencing for various purposes. These have generally reported overall gains for students, highlighting the positive affordances of the educational technology. Computer conferencing has provided a means for students to “rehearse academic debates and arguments which can then be drawn on in their written assignments” (Coffin and Hewings, 2005, 32). Coffin and Hewings (2005) examined students’ argumentation skills in electronic conference discussions and written essays to determine the role of computer conferencing in the negotiation of ideas and attitudes in an online environment. Ho’s (2005) study of young people’s electronic discussions focused on the nature of computer-mediated agreement and disagreement among participants within the asynchronous online environment. Discourse features and strategies which realized the construction of different levels of assent and dissent, and which shaped the dynamics of asynchronous argumentation were identified. Chandrasegaran’s (2005) work on “stance taking” and “stance support” features evident in students’ postings to an online discussion forum highlighted various strategies and lexico-grammatical structures

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for “realising expression of attitudinal meaning, hypothesising outcomes and other discourse acts in arguing support” (374). Likewise, interaction analysis as in Marttunen’s (1998) work examined the nature of relationship among students from email messages exchanged in terms of agreement or disagreement. While these studies surfaced the potential of technologically mediated environments for the development of students’ argumentation skills, they remained predominantly within the textual mode of the traditional realm of asynchronous computer-mediated environments, namely, online forums, bulletin boards, and electronic conferences. Further, these asynchronous studies did not specifically involve custom designing particular electronic conferencing environments for targeting specific students’ needs in argumentation in order to fulfill curricular goals. Technologically mediated studies in computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) have indicated support for social negotiation and the explication of informal reasoning in the form of argumentation (Jonassen and Remidez, 2002). CSCA can be used to embed the learning opportunities provided by argumentation, for example, through specific discursive processes in learning to model in Science (Baker, 2002), and integrating simulation and argumentation to enhance organizational decision making (Karacapilidis and Adamides, 2003). These studies were predominantly based beyond Asian contexts and involved primarily computer-supported collaborative tools for group learning in argumentation in specific disciplines. Available eletronic instructional packages related to writing skills were noted to target writing assessment and feedback. For example, IntelliMetric® (Vantage learning, 2008) offers an automated essay scoring system which has been used for both low and high stakes assessment environments, particularly in the area of writing instruction. It provides students the ability to have numerous attempts at writing assignments with detailed, instant feedback. Creative Technology’s (2000–2009) Markin software is a Windows program for electronic marking which runs on the teacher’s computer. As a computer-based tools for marking students’ work in online learning environments, Markin allows for the import of a student’s text for marking by pasting from the clipboard, or directly from a document file. Once the text has been imported, online tools enable teachers to mark and annotate their students’ texts. In this region, Chandrasegaran et al. (2005) adopted a socio-cognitive model of writing in the development of Essay Assist, a self-accessed computer program for guiding students toward appropriate decisions in argumentative essay writing process. The focus was primarily on directing thinking along “the lines of macro rhetorical goal setting, audience awareness, and the use of macro rhetorical goal as a reference point in decision-making” (Chandrasegaran et al., 2005, 143). Students essentially

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worked individually on their own, guided by instructions from the software. There was no collaborative discussion with their peers in the process of developing their arguments. This study within the context of the subject GP fills a critical gap in current educational research in this region for fostering collaborative learning through integrating web-based scaffolding for structured argumentation in the development and analysis of students’ critical thinking and argumentation skills at the pre-university level.

Theoretical Underpinnings Argumentation in collaborative learning contexts has been acknowledged to broaden participants’ understanding of their position as they “re-evaluate it in the broader, fleshed out information space of counterarguments, rebuttals, and alternative assessments of evidence” (Hong et al., 2006, 133). It also facilitates “collaborative meaning making and the co-construction of knowledge” (Hong et al., 2006, 133) as groups of students debate over specific issues. The Toulmin (1958/2003) framework offers an argumentation structure comprising different elements. These are claims, grounds, warrants, backing, qualifiers, and rebuttals. According to the Toulmin (1958/2003) model, a claim is the assertion that an individual makes and grounds are the facts that a person explicitly appeals to as a foundation for his claim. Warrants are used by individuals to justify why data is relevant to the claim. The strength of the warrant is indicated by including language features such as modal qualifiers. The backings of an argument are the comments that are used to establish the general conditions that strengthen the acceptability of the warrants through reinforcing the link between the data and the claims. Finally, a rebuttal indicates the “circumstances in which the general authority of the warrant would have to be set aside” (101). From this perspective, the strength of an argument is based on the presence or absence of these different structural components. Stronger arguments contain more of these different components than weaker arguments. The Toulmin (1958/2003) model of argumentation has been applied as a methodological tool for the analysis of argumentation skills in a wide range of school subjects such as English (Mitchell, 1996), Science (Jim´enezAleixandre et al., 2000; Zohar and Nemet, 2002), and History (Pontecorvo and Girardet, 1993). It has also been used as a heuristic for assessment of student work (Hart, 1998). Mitchell (1996) successfully adapted the model as a heuristic to scaffold university students’ writing (Erduran et al., 2004).

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In Singapore, the Toulmin (1958/2003) model had earlier elicited critical discourse features in argumentation structure and students’ fallacies in argumentation (Ho, 1995), and facilitated argument analysis to develop critical thinking (Ng, 1999) at the pre-university level. The Toulmin (1958/ 2003) model was also recognized to facilitate instruction in providing “tools for students to evaluate the persuasiveness of texts that they both read and wrote” (Varghese and Abraham, 1998, 290) at the tertiary level.

Voices of Reason Voices of Reason (VoR), was a web-based structured argumentation tool (Figure 7.1) developed in a separate, complementary research project (Brudvik et al., 2006; Hong et al., 2006) at the secondary level. It was built upon for this study at the pre-university level to facilitate students’ development and analysis of argumentation skills through cooperative and collaborative, dialogical group argumentation and analysis. VoR was designed based on Toulmin’s model of argumentation which comprised

Figure 7.1 tory, NIE)

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Screen shot of VoR interface. (Source: Learning Sciences Labora-

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the elements as earlier stated—claim, grounds, qualifier, warrant, backing, and rebuttal (Toulmin 1958/2003; Toulmin et al., 1984). Students learnt to (i) formulate claims of their own, (ii) support their claims with reasons, (iii) provide evidence for their reasons, and (iv) develop rebuttals against another student’s claim. The postings were categorized according to the specific elements of the Toulmin (1958/2003) model and indicated the student’s name, date, and time of posting. A screenshot of the VoR interface with its threaded discussion functionality is captured in Figure 7.2. Appropriate sentence openers for each element in the Toulmin (1958/2003) model were provided as scaffolding for the development of arguments (Figure 7.3). Teacher modeling of the argumentation process at each stage enabled students to understand the role of each element of the argument structure based on the Toulmin (1958/2003) framework. Figure 7.3 shows the sentence openers for the various categories of rebuttal from a general rebuttal to those questioning specific aspects such as correlation data, facts/testimony, personal experiences, and hypothetical scenarios.

Figure 7.2 VoR threaded discussion functionality. (Source: Learning Sciences Laboratory, NIE)

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Figure 7.3 VoR built-in sentence openers as scaffolds. (Source: Learning Sciences Laboratory, NIE)

The development of a further analytical feature to the original VoR (Brudvik et al., 2006; Hong et al., 2006) in this study aimed at facilitating students’ self and peer analysis of the internal structure of arguments generated. Specifically, the scaffolding questions (Figure 7.4) of the analytical feature designed by the Co-Principal Investigator focused on the common fallacies made by students in argumentation identified from an earlier study (Ho, 1995). These comprised: (i) omission of stating claims explicitly, (ii) difficulties with identifying underlying beliefs and shared assumptions behind claims, (iii) missing grounds, (iv) irrelevant grounds, (v) insufficient grounds, (vi) defective grounds, and (vii) logical leaps or breakdown in logical reasoning. These areas of difficulty identified in the earlier research (Ho, 1995) guided the formulation of specific questions as scaffolding prompts for the analysis of students’ arguments as seen in Table 7.1.

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Figure 7.4 Analytical feature in VoR for evaluating argumentation structure. (Source: Learning Sciences Laboratory, NIE)

Table 7.1 Fallacies in students’ argumentation with corresponding Question scaffolds in VoR for argument analysis Fallacies in students’ argumentation (Ho, 1995)

Question scaffolds in VoR to guide argument analysis

Omission of stating claims explicitly

Is there a claim clearly stated?

Difficulties with identifying underlying beliefs and shared assumptions behind claims

Is there an underlying/common assumption/ shared belief which links grounds to claim?

Missing grounds

Are grounds really advanced in support of the claim?

Irrelevant grounds

Are grounds advanced in support of the claim directly relevant to substance of claim?

Insufficient grounds

Do grounds advanced present enough evidence to justify the assertion?

Defective grounds

Are presumptions on which argument rests justifiable?

Logical leaps or breakdown in logical reasoning

Are there any ambiguous elements in the argument?

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There is provision for students using the tool to provide exemplars from postings of their peers to exemplify the specific areas of evaluation identified. This encourages close reading of earlier postings and fosters collaborative learning through peer critique of arguments. Technical support from the administrator was provided through specific instructions for students experiencing difficulty in using VoR: Students who are experiencing difficulties in using the “Evaluate Topic” function, please copy and paste the template and post your evaluation here.

Research Design The study is an instantiation of “design experiment” (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992) or “design research” (Cobb, 2001) involving “close collaboration between designers and practitioners” (Bereiter, 2005/2006, 17) with the project team fully involved in designing and examining processes, tasks and activities carried out, and in attempting to account for effective pedagogical practices through innovative technologically mediated learning environments.

Subjects The subjects comprised a class of 22 (drawn from the larger project group of 45) 17 to 18-year-old final-year, pre-university male and female students from the Science stream with average to low ability in the GP subject (mean of standardized test scores was 51%). The majority of the students were from families with a predominantly middle- to low-income background residing in a typical public housing neighborhood estate in Singapore. Students and parents were informed of the project and provided written consent for their participation. The study adhered to the ethics guidelines for educational research established by the research laboratory of the university. Student’s extracts from VoR and interviews cited in this paper are quoted verbatim with no revisions made. The focus was essentially on students’ argumentation, not grammar, and their personal perspectives captured in as authentic a manner as possible. To preserve students’ identity, students have been re-named as Student A, B, C etc.

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Implementation structure This study draws on a larger research project involving two cycles of a design experiment. A pre-test GP essay on globalization was administered in Week 1 of the six week intervention. Students then went through a series of face-to-face in-class sessions on explicit instruction of the elements of the Toulmin’s (1958/2003) model of argumentation. Exercises on applying the Toulmin (1958/2003) model to analyzing various types of arguments provided students with the exposure and practice required for internalizing critical elements of the targeted argumentation model (Appendix A). In order to reinforce understanding on the Toulmin (1958/2003) elements of argumentation structure, a Toulmin Rap1 (Ho and Mirza, 2006) with appropriate lyrics designed by the Co-Principal Investigator and music composed and recorded by music students from the university, provided a creative and engaging learning resource for students to enable them to internalize understanding of the structuring of argumentation (Appendix B). The lyrics unpacked the essence of the nature of each element in the Toulmin (1958/2003) model. Students then participated in two cycles of technology-facilitated learning in a cyclic, interwoven fashion, alternating back and forth between argument and enaction on the topic of globalization. In the first cycle (VoR1), students participated in online argumentation through VoR, discussing the qualities of a global citizen. Subsequently, they participated in the first round of enactment (VR1), where students were randomly assigned to one of the five interest groups—native peasants, women’s peasants, International Monetary Fund, a nongovernmental organization, and a multinational corporation of the fictitious Waga Waga Island (WW). The island was seeking to join the community of regional and international democracies after decades of totalitarian government. Members from the five different parties sought to establish an alliance, raised questions about resolutions offered by other alliances, and addressed questions concerning their own resolutions. In the second cycle (VoR2), students argued through VoR, discussing the problems of globalization and how society should deal with these problems. They then participated in the second round of enactment (VR2) where their drafted resolution was submitted for members of opposing alliance(s) to question or critique, after which the original resolution was amended. Each VoR and VR session lasted approximately 70 minutes. A post-test GP essay was administered at the end of the intervention to assess the development of students’ skills in argumentative writing. The results from the pre- and post-test essays were contrasted with similar topic

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essays from students of the control group. The control group of students did not participate in the technology-facilitated learning but went through a series of face-to-face classroom lessons on argumentative writing, according to the regular college GP curriculum.

Findings and Discussion Findings relating to the construction of arguments are presented first before the analysis of students’ argument evaluation. Construction of arguments Students’ entries to VoR were collated. The frequency of occurrence (Table 7.2) of the elements of the Toulmin (1958/2003) model reflected students’ realization of the Toulmin (1958/2003) model in framing the construction of their arguments. In responding to the given question “How should society deal with the problems of globalization?” for discussion, 33% of entries represented Claims students made for their arguments. The following offered an example which began with a definition of the concept of globalization: Globalization is the opening up of the different countries so that it becomes a borderless world with people understanding and knowing each other better. followed by the claim of the problems it brings about: It might seem that globalization brings the world to greater heights but in actual fact, there are some problems induced from this. The claim is exemplified with illustrations drawn from individuals living in other parts of the world and the environment: For example, the increase in discrepancy between the people in different parts of the world and the increasing pollution level that is now endangering the many species of animals and Earth itself. Table 7.2

Frequency of occurrence of elements of Toulmin (1958/2003) model Claims

Grounds

Total (N=72)

24

Percentage %

33

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Warrants

Backing

Rebuttal

14

8

5

21

19

11

7

30

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A lower incidence of Grounds for Claims made was registered at 19%. This indicated that students’ arguments were not always substantiated by supporting evidence providing concrete grounds for claims asserted. In response to the earlier point over the environmental problem of pollution, the following cited specific policy measures to deal with the problem: Another is to set a rule or regulate the traffic hoping that there will be lesser traffic and hence lesser pollution; one of these examples is in Singapore. In Singapore, we have the Electronic Road Pricing system to regulate the traffic so that the pollution is low. To add to it, there are also regular checks on the cars, both private and public to make sure that the exhaust does not contain more than a certain amount of pollutants. It was noted that 30% of features comprised Rebuttal moves which challenged arguments presented. Students showed attempts at critiquing, questioning, and countering viewpoints and perspectives presented in the process of argumentation. In response to grounds provided in the case of countries agreeing on specific measures to control pollution level: That is only the part on the country itself, on the whole world basis, countries have set agreements on controlling the pollution levels and measures have been taken to reduce and correct these pollutions, such as the banning of the usage of chlorofluorocarbon products that was commonly used in the past. the limitations of these were pointed out in the form of rebuttals which highlighted the constraints evident and supported by specific illustrations: However, these contributions are only in some countries; A country like the USA has refused to sign the contract on reducing the pollution in its country and even though the government has imposed tax and regulation on traffic to reduce pollution, it is not significant enough. For example, in London, even though the traffic has become better than before, there is no proof that the pollution level has decreased. The underlying assumptions and beliefs which linked grounds to claims in the form of warrants were not consistently evident in all entries posted, occurring at 11% of features. An example from a student’s “warrant” entry follows: The warrant between the claim and the ground is that the government will do something to improve the problem due to globalization.

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The student here highlighted an underlying assumption of what the government was expected to do in relation to an identified problem. Not all entries accurately realized warrants for what they were, reflecting the students’ general lack of understanding of the nature and purpose of warrants. Still less was realized in the form of Backing at 7% in supporting warrants. The student in the following attempted to unpack the Backing required to support the warrant in establishing the link between the claim and grounds presented with regard to taxation measures for pollution control: The government is the only party which has the authority to impose taxes on the producers of the pollution. Taxations can increase the incentive for producers to reduce as much pollution produced as possible, so as to reduce the amount of taxes they need to pay. With this added incentive, pollution will be reduced. Admittedly, the elements of Warrant and Backing in the Toulmin (1958/2003) model were not comparably given as much attention in the explicit instruction sessions by teachers in class as the other key elements in the model.

Analysis of arguments Where the analytical tool in examining the structure of arguments presented by their peers was concerned, students encountered off-campus intermittent problems in connectivity to the VoR when they attempted to access the argumentation board from home. This affected students’ participation in this area. Of the entries available from VoR, 36% (8 out of 22) of the students contributed to analyzing their peers’ arguments. Students generally showed an ability to identify claims and to determine if grounds were advanced in support of the claim. This is evident in the following claim posted: It is an undeniable reality that globalization has brought about many advantages as well as negative consequences. In fact, there are numerous instances whereby the cons of globalization outweigh its pros. It is therefore, imperative that global citizens shoulder the responsibility of the negative externalities that globalization causes and try to rectify pressing problems of globalization such as pollution, deforestation, and growing poverty. The ideal global citizen should thus display great concern about global problems and also care enough about the world to attempt addressing it.

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A student noted this claim failed to advance any grounds: It does not clearly explain how a global citizen is linked to pollution. For another entry where a student pointed out the need for self-discipline as a fundamental quality required of a global citizen: Well, a fundamental quality of a global citizen is that they have the ability to change from the inside out, expand their horizons, and know for sure where they are going with their life. By having this self discipline, Global citizen strife to enforce to improve their quality and standard of living hence aims to improve the world’s standard. This then contributes to the objectives of working to make the world a better place. another student was prompted to comment on the quality of this point and showed awareness in highlighting the positive quality of the grounds provided: Very clear and succinct. By having this self discipline, Global citizen strives to enforce to improve their quality and standard of living hence aims to improve the world’s standard. On a finer level of distinction, students made use of the analytical tool in assessing the quality of the grounds offered in terms of its insufficiency in presenting evidence to justify the assertion. This was evident in the following: The backing, although shows that there are many people in poverty, is not enough to show the widening development gap. Data, for instance on the income of the average individual in a developed country has to be given. in response to the entry for grounds: Another problem caused by globalization is the problem where the gap between the rich and the poor widens. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer. In another example, the following evaluative comment highlighted the biased nature of the source given as grounds: I feel that the source Iris has quoted is somewhat biased as despite its benefits, WTO membership has also brought challenges to Shenzhen. In the past five years, more than half of the trade conflicts between China and other countries involved Shenzhen companies. High-profile anti-dumping cases included those for Shenzhen’s car windshields and color TV sets, suggestion that the region is not keeping in mind of the

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environment and has been abusing it. The city’s exports of garments and other textile products, which exceeded US$3 billion each year over the past several years, also face increasing protectionist measures in the United States, EU and other countries. to the following grounds of Shenzhen as a case of China opening up its policies: For example, look at China, Shenzhen. It is one of the first batch of cities exercising China’s opening-up policies in the early 1980s and it is making accessible its service sector to foreign investors one or two years earlier than the pace set in China’s WTO commitment, according to the Beijing-based China Business Times. The Shenzhen government has laid down an index of 20 lines of the service sector to be opened, which, the newspaper said, has got the central government’s nod. By opening up, Shenzhen is opening up to countries and keeping up with the ever-changing society, this is one clear indication that Shenzhen are determined to upgrade themselves, by inviting investors to their country to step up their technology, keeping in mind the welfare of the people and environment around them. for the claim of globalization broadening the geographical boundaries of citizenship: With globalization, citizenships are not defined through their geographical boundaries anymore.

Impact on argumentation in written essays Findings on the impact of the technologically mediated intervention on students’ argumentative writing are beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, there were encouraging signs in the general increase in the mean scores of the four categories of analysis, namely, quality of claims, quality of grounds, quality of warrants, and argumentation stance (Jamaludin et al., 2007).

Feedback from students Face-to-face interviews with students elicited responses on the benefits and problems encountered in the use of VoR. Students indicated that they valued the scaffolding afforded by the VoR in terms of argument

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structuring as well as the ability to develop multiple perspectives and to identify closely with the character whose roles they had earlier enacted within the virtual environment. Sample responses follow: Using the VoR, I find the argument is more structured and I feel more confident in writing—Student A This project has allowed me to literally put myself in one’s shoes so that I can fully understand and respond to the scenario thus I would be better able to prove better and stronger examples to justify my stand— Student B It helps me to formulate my arguments for GP essay and allow me to look at wide spectrum of views that others may have. It gives me the chance to identify the reasons that different people have in supporting their views.—Student C Overall, the systematic, step-by-step build up of argument development with appropriate scaffolding provided in VoR gave students confidence in their formulation of arguments, provided structure, and enabled them to “fully understand and respond to the scenario”. They learnt to construct evidence as justification for their stance taken and were exposed to a “wide spectrum of views” with underlying reasons provided from their own peers.

Problems Encountered With regard to the problems encountered, a number pointed out the technical difficulties as with the stability of the system and access to VoR outside their college campus. Intermittent connectivity problems made it difficult for some students to access VoR wherever and whenever they wanted to. This area would have to be looked into before further work in developing the VoR for use in other contexts can be considered. For students initially unfamiliar with working with such a tool in a web-based, learning environment, they resorted to typing their responses in Microsoft Word documents and then uploaded their contributions to discussions in separate file attachments to the VoR site. This defeated the purpose of having a site for students to directly upload their contributions. More time for orientation and navigation around the site before

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commencement of their discussions online may help to overcome these initial hurdles for some students. Where the teacher’s role was concerned, tighter monitoring and prompt feedback from teachers to students’ responses was acknowledged to be critical. This would be a plus point over the more distant role of administration and providing just-in-time help only when necessary as was the case with the implementation in this study. As a result, there were sporadic teacher contributions to VoR on students’ entries which did not help in student monitoring and reinforcing learning. Further, the basic problem with grasping understanding of the concepts of the terms “warrant” and “backing” in the Tolumin (1958/2003) model would need to be addressed earlier in the instructional process in order to maximize student participation and facilitate construction of well-developed arguments using the Toulmin features built into VoR.

Pedagogical Implications and Recommendations A thorough orientation for all students in the VoR environment right at the outset complemented by explicit teacher modeling in generating and analyzing arguments, and verbalizing the specific steps involved for students would be invaluable. More proactive, trouble-shooting was recommended to promptly address difficulties raised and to pre-empt further or related problems, particularly in the initial stages of use. This would prevent initial difficulties from escalating further. Providing assistance to users of VoR as with an online Help tool or introductory tutorial on the VoR site for self-access would facilitate the dissemination of necessary information critical for effective navigating and use of tools and features provided. A glossary or self-referencing tool of terms for students to refer to while using VoR would also be helpful to novice VoR users. To enhance quality of students’ argumentation, more informed guidance, incisive questioning and explicit teacher instruction through regular monitoring of students’ participation in VoR could be built into the curriculum. Teachers have to be prepared to be more involved and play an active role in providing regular and consistently quality feedback for students to benefit from participating in VoR. In particular, as noted earlier, students’ grasp and understanding of the notions of Warrant and Backing were not widely and consistently manifested in students’ argumentation.

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Conclusion This chapter outlined the implementation procedure and steps involved in the use of VoR with a group of pre-university students in learning argumentation and critical thinking in Singapore. It is acknowledged that this investigation was done on a small scale with a focus on the use of the web-based, structured argumentation board involving a class of student participants. Although the study was, at this stage, exploratory in nature, the main findings are invaluable for design research of argumentative writing pedagogy in new media. This is a field which is gradually emerging and attracting interest, particularly in the research context in this region. The findings from this study provide a starting point for more extensive studies in the field of technologically-mediated learning environments for argumentation pedagogy. Case studies of strong and weak students in learning the intricacies of argumentation through these new learning environments, and further argumentation studies at various levels—secondary and elementary—in different institutions and with other disciplines (such as Science, Humanities) would provide invaluable input as to the efficacy of technologically meditated interventions in argumentation pedagogy in a wide range of contexts. The study has highlighted the complex technicalities involved in the design and implementation of innovative, technologically mediated, learning environments to develop students’ argumentation skills within a given curriculum. At the same time, it has also reinforced the critical role of the teacher in such an intervention. The importance of explicit, face-to-face instruction, modeling, scaffolding and close, regular monitoring at critical phases of the learning process are not to be overlooked. The nature of design research must take into account both technological and nontechnological components of the intervention, if indeed it seeks to develop and unpack students’ “Voices of Reason” meaningfully and effectively. Ultimately, the aim is toward providing an intellectually stimulating and actively engaging experience for students beyond the confines of traditional language classrooms. This reminder is critical for classroom practitioners and researchers genuinely interested in raising the level of critical thinking and enhancing the quality of students’ argumentation.

Appendix A Toulmin exercise Read the statements below and decide where each fits in the reasoning process. Write the number of each statement in the box where it belongs.

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Under “Comment,” tell whether this is a sound or weak argument; if it is weak, explain where the weakness lies.

Set A I. Siew Ling’s mother put chocolate muffins and carrot sticks in her lunchbox. When Siew Ling came home after school, the carrot sticks were still there. II. Siew Ling prefers chocolate muffins over carrot sticks. III. People usually eat what they like and leave what they don’t like. IV. Sarah ate only the chocolate muffins because she likes them better. Claim Grounds Warrant Backing Comment: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Adapted from http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Writing_Fellows/el195/docs/ toulmin.pdf

Appendix B Rapping about argument—The Toulmin way Verse 1 Claim is the issue in a controversy The position that is argued for, that is the law It’s whatcha trying to prove, you see The assertion made, it’s the case you draw. Grounds are the data to back up a claim To prove your point, to support your aim

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Facts, figures, examples and stats They couldn’t come, as clearer as that. Chorus Why do you not want to let me know Now these words I hear from you sound shallow So why don’t you tell me now so I’ll know And if you don’t then I’ll be your shadow Verse 2 What’s the link between claim and grounds? Underlying beliefs, let’s make them count This is where Warrant our friend steps in Shows if the grounds are genuine. Then comes what supports the warrant Backing justifies and gives all the reasons Presupposed by the warrant - a key device To back up, support, or you’ll pay the price. Bridge So now you know what makes an argument Modelled after Stephen Toulmin Claim, grounds, warrant, backing Practice hard, your credits are waiting. —A Wormsounds Production— Mohamed Mirza bin Abdul Amir (NIE, BSc Year 1, Math/ Music) Performers: Members of purplepaige —shadypaige —marypaige —isapaige Lyrics: Dr Caroline Ho (NIE), 2006 Music:

Acknowledgments The work reported in this chapter is funded by a research grant, R59801118, from the Learning Sciences Laboratory (LSL), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Appreciation

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is extended to Hong Khai Seng and Azilawati Jamaludin from the LSL for their contribution. The author is immensely grateful to teacher collaborators Natasha Tang, Baey Shi Chen and Daniel Yip, and all students who were involved in the study. The Ministry of Education, Singapore is acknowledged for the Lenovo Innovation Award (Merit) to the participating school for recognizing innovative ICT-mediated pedagogic initiatives.

Note 1

Information on the not-for-profit CD of the Toulmin Rap is available upon request from the first author and Voices of Reason from the Learning Sciences Laboratory, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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Collins, A. (1992). Toward a design science of education. In E. Scanlon and T. O’Shea (eds), New Directions in Educational Technology (pp. 15–22). New York: Springer-Verlag. Creative Technology (2000-2009). Markin software. Retrieved on 23 June 2010 from http://www.cict.co.uk/software/markin4/index.htm. Erduran, S., Simon, S. and Osborne, J. (2004). TAPping into argumentation: Developments in the use of Toulmin’s Argument Pattern in studying science discourse. Science Education 88 (6), 915–933. Hart, C. (1998). Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage. Ho, M. L. C. (1995). Discourse features and strategies in students’ writing at junior college level. Unpublished MA (Applied Linguistics) thesis. Singapore: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. —(2005). Using electronic discussions to develop skills in the language classroom. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching 15, 43–67. —(2006). Introduction. In C. Ho, P. Teo, and M. Y. Tay (eds) Teaching the General Paper: Strategies That Work (pp. 1–4). Singapore: Pearson Longman. —(2007). Globalization in the language classroom: The case of the Waga Waga Islands. Modern English Teacher 16 (3), 29–35. Ho, M. L. C. and Mirza, M. B. A. (2006). Rapping about Argument—The Toulmin way. Unpublished CD. Singapore: English Language and Literature, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Ho, M. L. C., Rappa, N. A. and Chee, Y. S. (2009). Designing and implementing virtual enactive role-play and structured argumentation: Promises and pitfalls. Computer-Assisted Language Learning 22 (5), 323–350. Hong, K. S., Brudvik, O. C., and Chee, Y. S. (2006). The impact of structured discussion on students’ attitudes and dispositions toward argumentation. In R. Mizoguchi, P. Dillenbour, and Z. Zhu (eds), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computers in Education (pp. 133–140). Amsterdam: IOS Press. Jamaludin, A., Ho, M. L. C., and Chee, Y. S. (2007). The impact of structured argumentation and enactive role play on students’ argumentative writing skills. In R. J. Atkinson, C. McBeath, S. K. A. Soong, and C. Cheers (eds), Proceedings of ASCILITE 2007—ICT: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning (pp. 430–439). Singapore: Centre for Educational Development, NTU. Australasian Society for Computers in Learning, 2–5 December 2007 Conference, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Jim´enez-Aleixandre, M., Rodr´ıguez, A., and Duschl, R. (2000). “Doing the lesson” or “doing science”: Argument in high school genetics. Science Education 84 (6), 757–792. Jonassen, D. and Remidez, H. (2002). Mapping alternative discourse structures onto computer conferences. In G. Stahl (ed.), Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a CSCL Community (pp. 237–244). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Karacapilidis, N. and Adamides, E. (2003). Integrating simulation and argumentation in organizational decision making. Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Knowledgebased Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems, 2774, 107–114. Berlin/ Heidelberg: Springer.

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Marttunen, M. (1998). Electronic mail as a forum for argumentative interaction in higher education studies. Journal of Educational Computing Research 18 (4), 387–405. Ministry of Education (MOE) (2004). Framework for the new 2006 “A” Level curriculum. Accessed on August 20, 2007 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/corporate/preu_ 01.htm Ministry of Education (MOE), University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). (2005). General Paper 8005 GCE “AO” Level (2005) examination syllabus. Accessed on March 14, 2005 from http://www.seab.gov.sg/GCE%20A/ GCE%20A.htm Mitchell, S. (1996). Improving the Quality of Argument in Higher Education Interim Report. London: Middlesex University, School of Education. Ng, S. P. (1999). Using argument analysis to develop critical thinking in the General Paper. Unpublished MA (English Studies) thesis. Singapore: Dept. of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. Pontecorvo, C. and Girardet, H. (1993). Arguing and reasoning in understanding historical topics. Cognition and Instruction 11 (3/4), 365–395. Seng, S H. (1990). Factors influencing the writing attainment of junior college students in the General Paper. Unpublished MA (Applied Linguistics) thesis. Singapore: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Singapore Department of Statistics (2005). General Household Survey 2005 Statistical Release 1—Socio-demographic and Economic Characteristics. Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics. Skuja, R. (1983). Organizational features of argumentative composition: A Singapore study. Unpublished MA dissertation. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. Toulmin, S. (1958/2003). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R, and Janik, A. (1984). An Introduction to Reasoning. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Varghese, S. A. and Abraham, S. A. (1998). Undergraduates arguing a case. Journal of Second Language Writing 7 (3), 287–306. Vantage Learning (2008). IntelliMetric. Retrieved on 23 June 2010 from http://www. vantagelearning.com/school/products/intellimetric/. Zohar, A. and Nemet, F. (2002). Fostering students’ knowledge and argumentation skills through dilemmas in human genetics. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 39 (1), 35–62.

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Chapter 8

Viewing Language Patterns: Data Visualization for Data-driven Language Learning Paul Doyle National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction Methods for presenting language patterns in a visual way have been used arguably since languages were first taught. In the last century, the tabulation of cases and genders became familiar to learners of romance languages such as Latin, French, Italian, and the use of substitution tables for English grammatical structures were popularized by the work of A. S. Hornby, amongst others, when structuralist approaches to teaching language were in vogue in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, ever resourceful language teachers have exploited visual media such as blackboards, whiteboards, felt boards, and flip charts, and subsequently overhead projectors, television, and video, in their efforts to present and exemplify the linguistic forms of a foreign or second language. Nevertheless, it is only with the innovations of computer technology that entirely new ways of presenting language data have become possible. Specifically, digital encoding of text and images for representation on a screen of some sort, and techniques for visualizing information or data (Spence, 2007), have become increasingly important for scientific research and the dissemination of knowledge. Visualization techniques are desirable, I will argue here, for current research in corpus linguistics and the applications of that research to language teaching. One part of my argument, therefore, will be concerned with matching an approach to language teaching known as “data-driven learning” (Johns, 1988; 1991; 1994) with developments in data visualization technology. Another part of the argument will be focused on the pedagogical affordances in the use of visualization techniques such as mapping and textual animation in the classroom. Before entering that discussion, I will briefly define what

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is meant by “data visualization” and then review some of the key concepts of “data-driven learning.”

Data Visualization The term “data visualization,” or “information visualization,” refers to the process “whereby vast amounts of data or complex flows of information are mapped and represented visually” (Austin and Doust, 2007, 47), so that a user can understand data more readily and quickly, or otherwise discover insights in the data that would not be apparent in purely numeric or textual formats. The term “information visualization” is attributed to computer scientists at Xerox PARC in the 1980s (Mazza, 2009, 8), but the process itself is not new or exclusive to computer technology. Tufte (1983, 1990) shows that information was being visualized very effectively in 1885, while Friendly and Denis (2009) provide a comprehensive history of data visualization milestones from the sixteenth century. Tufte’s discussion of a diagram mapping Napoleon’s losses when invading and retreating from Russia in 1812–13 (Tufte, 1983, 40–41) highlights an important visualization concept, that of “mapping” information: Just like traditional maps, information visualizations aim to give you a way into complex information sets that, at first sight, might seem daunting or incomprehensible and reveal more of the world than you could possible experience by yourself. The word “map” immediately brings to mind the image of a miniature pictorial representation of mountains, seas, roads and towns, but it should be remembered that maps are in fact navigational devices that indicate boundaries, changes, nodes and continuity, and that anything can be mapped: bodies, beliefs, histories, ecologies or data sets. (Austin and Doust, 2007, 47) In a later section, I will discuss visual representations of corpus data such as collocation, but first we need a clearer idea of what “data” can be found in a corpus and how this might relate to language learning.

Data-driven Learning The term “data-driven learning” (Johns, 1988) was coined to emphasize the importance of the “data” being discovered by early corpus linguists, principally the COBUILD team around John Sinclair at the University of

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Birmingham (UK), who explored word frequency and patterns of collocation in English texts. The essential feature of a data-driven learning approach is the learner’s inspection of language data on a printed handout or a computer screen in a concordance. This is a method, previously known only to literary and theological scholars, for displaying all the occurrences of a word or phrase in a collection of texts. Concordances and concordance software enable learners to “research” the language, according to Johns (1988), much as the COBUILD lexicographers were doing when they compiled an advanced learner’s dictionary based on their corpus data. Johns (1988) used the term “data-driven learning” to reflect an emphasis on multiple examples of the behavior of language items in their textual environments afforded by the concordancer. A concordance display shows each example of a search word or sequence of words in the centre of the page or screen. The lines of context for the search item can be sorted and re-sorted according to various criteria, for example, one word to the right of the search term, or by first word on left and then first word on right. This “key word in context” (KWIC) display, combined with the affordances of the computer in sorting text quickly in complex ways, creates visual patterns that represent language patterning in a corpus of texts (see Figure 8.1). Few language users (including native speakers) are conscious of these regularities or able to articulate them when asked. Thus, the real value of the concordance revolves around the issue of visibility: it makes the “invisible visible” (Tribble, 1991). The concordancer can bring to our attention language phenomena that are difficult or impossible to recognize and therefore easily overlooked

be close friends. Mao's Communists, Service decided, must be dancing. " In the Night. It was a childhood to be that America's first appointed President is a world figure to be as well as he did. He emerged as a force to be 24 in the upper house, Komeito has become a force to be the hemisphere, the little groups have become a force to be built a membership of 400,000 and is becoming a force to be can work and that the people's lobby is a force to be to uphold those traditions that make the military a force to be to New York with his mother the next year - is a force to be to stand independent of Allen as a delightful comic force to be but he is still a great American presence, an icon to be , and Howard Jarvis June 19 has proved himself a leader to be (see box page 48) as a Hemisphere states man to be intelligence and healthy ambition. It is an American marriage to be - the resulting North African nation would become a power to be will be born, leaving West Pakistan but a minor power to be

reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with reckoned with

. Davies later replaced Service in Yenan and reached the same . " I think I went to 14 schools in all, " says Liza . It was all the more dismaying, then, that Congress sent him on . But it also gives us an issue: all the things he stands for . Says Yoshiaki Masaki, the party policy board chairman: " We . Last February at the Conference of Latin American Bishops . As Italy plunges deeper and deeper into a turmoil of strikes an . Larry Bauer Cleveland. For his display of statesmanship, which . MANUEL KRAMER Commander, U.S.N.R. (Inactive) Lincoln, . He has next to no public face, for he prefers the quiet of . . The blond, blue-eyed Hill blends the spirit of a devilish boy with . I nominate him to lead a crusade for constitutional fiscal restrai . Now 52, Prez began his political career at the age of 23 as . Some in New York's Social Register set believe that the marria . It would be the world's 15th largest nation in population (50.5 . In this way, India will also strengthen her position against Chin

Figure 8.1 Concordance of the search query “reckoned with” using COBUILD sample corpus online. (http://www.collins.co.uk/corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx)

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in language teaching curricula and classrooms: phenomena such as collocation (Sinclair, 1991) and the related area of what is known as “phraseology” (Cowie, 1998). In the example shown in Figure 8.1, the phrase “reckoned with” in the left-sorted lines of the KWIC concordance format reveals evidence of patterning (here highlighted in bold) that involves a preceding use of the verb “be” mostly in the non-finite form and this is preceded by a collocating noun phrase, typically represented by “a force” (but also “power”), with three lines suggesting that this, in turn, is usually preceded by a form of the verb “become.” What is less obvious is that “reckon with” as in all cases shown here takes sentence final position. For Johns, the main innovation of data-driven learning derives from his earlier theorizing on the nature of teaching itself, in the context of discussions on computer-assisted language learning (Higgins and Johns, 1984). These discussions warrant revisiting in detail, because they make assumptions about the capability of language learners that are critical to the success of the data-driven learning approach. In this pioneering work, the authors challenged the dominant metaphor of the teacher as “magister,” the all-knowing master, and suggested an alternative one of the teacher as “informant,” an indefatigable servant. They applied this alternative metaphor to the role of the computer in language learning, seeing the latter as not replacing the teacher but providing a new way of looking at pedagogy. The outcome of this was that the pedagogy was transformed from a transmission oriented one, where the teacher/computer typically asks a question (the answer already known) to check that learning has taken place, the learner then attempts to answer that question, and the teacher/computer finally gives some feedback on whether the question has been successfully dealt with, to a collaborative pedagogy with the teacher/computer as a co-explorer of language questions. Johns’ approach is thus: “the task of the learner is to ‘discover’ the foreign language . . . the task of the teacher is to provide a context in which the learner can develop strategies for discovery” (Johns, 1991, 4). In this scenario, the “informant” is passive and silent until the learner asks a question. The informant then responds to the learner’s question as best they can, and the learner tries to make sense of the response, and to integrate it with what is already known. Translating that analogy into technological terms, the computer is not seen as possessing supreme linguistic competence, does not make use of artificial intelligence and therefore eschews a rule-based approach to instructing the learner. Instead, it is said to possess linguistic performance in the form of a corpus of uttered or

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written sentences that facilitates a data-driven approach to language learning. Johns (1991) view is that: “if we take this second approach we do not attempt to make the computer intelligent—we simply provide the evidence to answer learner’s questions and rely on the learner’s intelligence to find answers.” (1991, 6). Thus, the learner takes on the role of a “research worker, whose learning needs to be driven by access to linguistic data” (1991, 8). Data-driven learning has generated a number of variations on Johns’ somewhat purist approach. Cloze, matching and text jumbling techniques, familiar to teachers who had started to focus more on texts and contextualized language in their teaching, were adapted to the concordance format. An example is the multiple-context cloze task (Doyle, 1991; Stevens, 1991), where the central “key word” (or phrase) is blanked out, leaving just the context lines on either side. The student’s task becomes one of guessing the missing word by utilizing all of the contexts provided. If the lines are revealed one by one, the teacher can scaffold the guessing process and support hypothesis making and testing, thus guiding the student away from a “accept the first guess” strategy. This approach has been incorporated into at least one website (Cobb, 2007) as a “multi-concordance.” Accessing a range of corpora, a teacher can enter a word, phrase, or multiword expression and generate a concordance, a gapped “multi-concordance,” or a quiz. These can then be downloaded for printing out as the basis of a class handout. In summary, data-driven learning encourages learners to hypothesize about how the target language system actually works. It scaffolds them in a process of moving beyond a first guess by training them to attend to patterns in the multiple context lines of key words or phrases in a concordance format. This format provides a “richer” or more intense context for the selected words than a single text, and acts in a motivational way as a kind of puzzle that learners want to solve. However, a practical question arises at this point. Where do teachers get access to corpora with which to support data-driven learning? In the past, they have had to make do with the ad hoc availability of general corpora not compiled for language learners, or make their own. As we shall see in the next section, this is no longer the case. Corpus data in the classroom Corpus data, particularly in the form of concordances and collocational profiles, is widely recognized (Biber, 1988, 1995; Biber and Conrad, 2001; Hunston, 2001; Sinclair, 1991, 2003, 2004; Stubbs, 1996, 2001) as valuable for gaining knowledge of language patterning, an aspect of the language system where lexis and syntax merge. Language learners, as has been often

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claimed (Gavioli, 1997, 2001, 2005; Johns, 1988, 1991, 1994; O’Keefe et al., 2007; Tribble, 1991; Tribble and Jones, 1990; Tribble and Scott, 2006) are likely to benefit from this kind of knowledge, whether in serendipity learning (Johns, 1991), writing tasks (O’Sullivan and Chambers, 2006) or post-task reflection on language use when the corpus is their own output (Willis, 1991, 2003). However, there is a critical problem with the use of corpus data in the classroom, as Gavioli (2001) has highlighted: Corpora typically contain millions of words of data, so as to maximize their reliability. Yet even 50,000 words (. . .) is a lot of material for learners particularly at beginner or intermediate level. Without filtering the data, how can we make large quantities of material accessible to them? How can learner analyse corpora without getting lost? (Gavioli, 2001, 108) I believe this is essentially a problem of interface design: increasingly, we all have to access data through interfaces of some sort. Thus, the solution seems likely to depend on technological innovation and new techniques for filtering and visualizing information in order to focus the user on relevant and knowledge rich data.

Focusing the learner’s attention—reading or viewing? KWIC concordances are a somewhat challenging way of presenting corpus data such as lexical patterning and phraseology because, while they appear to be texts, they are essentially nonlinear and rely as much on their visual impact as on reading in order to be processed. In terms of language learning from corpus data, it is worth emphasizing that a concordance is neither a text nor is it a conventional example of language use such as those found in language learning text books, dictionaries, or other EFL/ESL resources. It has arbitrarily truncated contextual information surrounding a key word or phrase. It brings together parts of a text that are not contiguous. Thus, it presents learners with a reading challenge: a concordance cannot be read in the same way as a conventional, linear text. Tognini-Bonelli (2001) has examined this contrast between conventional reading of texts and the approach required by corpus data in the form of concordances. Texts are whole units, while concordances are fragmented; texts are read horizontally as the reader takes in the content, while concordances are to be read vertically, as the viewer searches for formal patterning and repeated occurrences. A text is a coherent communicative event, whereas a concordance

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is not. (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001, 3). In other words, learners have to learn how to read a concordance—and not just learners, as Sinclair (2003) recognizes, but teachers and researchers too: In this new way of studying language the researcher has to maintain control of a potentially large quantity of evidence while trying out generalizations, and this requires intellectual skills that have traditionally not been taught. Instead of just finding a well-known “rule” that is close to the patterns in the data, a corpus linguist has to look at the detailed, individual instances and has to be prepared to formulate a statement that may have a strong original element in it. (Sinclair, 2003, x) Concordance data, as presented in commonly used software or web-based tools, for example, WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2007) one of the most commonly used text analysis software tools and Wordbanks Online, a web-based corpus query tool, present more of a problem for young language learners. Both interfaces essentially present the linguistic information as a list of lines, keywords in context yet abstracted from their original texts. Sometimes numerical data such as frequency information is also presented, and symbols for parts of speech may be included. It is clear that these are not tools designed with the younger language learner in mind, despite Johns’ (1991) claim that language learners can function as researchers. While the software can be modified to some extent to make it more “user-friendly” for young learners, with the use of color to highlight word classes in the concordance and a simplification of the interface displayed being key improvements, as Sealey and Thompson (2004) report, it will still present a much greater challenge to many learners than a web browser or a game console interface. Clearly, for use in a language learning context such as a classroom of younger learners, a teacher would need to devote large amounts of time to training learners how to read and how to access valuable information on the screens—time that busy teachers usually do not have. What is needed is a more visual way to reveal or highlight linguistic “facts” that will help the learner to “see the knowledge” and thus perhaps to retain information more effectively. Visual techniques for presenting corpus data and concomitant training in visual learning and multimodal literacy may be effective, especially with learners who do not have a strong visual intelligence. In other words, there is a learning problem here related to the conventional concerns of any language teacher—how do I best present information about language so that learners will notice the patterns of use?

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Presenting language It is useful to review earlier solutions to this issue of presenting language patterns to learners. Renowned for his pioneering work on phraseology and grammatical patterns in Japan, Hornby (1954) was an early proponent of “structures” related to verb patterns in English. These verb patterns were incorporated into the first dictionary for language learners, The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (Hornby et al., 1952: subsequently, The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), as well as teaching materials (e.g., Hornby, 1959). What is relevant here is his method of presenting the patterns to the reader. He used substitution tables to represent grammatical patterns expressed somewhat in the manner of scientific formulae. The table is a simple way of showing the paradigmatic variation in the sentence around a pattern. Later solutions consisted of variations in this approach, essentially organizing language data into lists or tables of structures. Concordance software and corpus query interfaces have relied heavily on the list and the table for their presentation of language data. The concordance, it could be argued from a design point of view, is essentially a table or a grid from which information can be gleaned, if one knows how to read the format. In addition to examples of language in context, however, the software can usually delve deeper and extract collocation information from the corpus. One typical presentation format for this kind of data is the table or grid, such as that shown in Figure 8.2.

Figure 8.2 Collocation patterns for “visual” with first right position (R1) highlighted. (WordSmith Tools, Scott, 2007)

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In Figure 8.2, which shows the “patterns” display in Wordsmith Tools (Scott, 2007), collocation patterns around the word form “visual” are shown, where each column lists collocates in that textual position in order of frequency. Thus, the most frequent collocate of the node word in first right position (immediately following “visual”) in the BAWE corpus data (Nesi, 2007) is “representation,” the second most frequent is “and,” and the third “image.” However, while this display is clearer due to a lack of boxing in the cells on the grid as found in other versions, such as the jLookup software (Breslin, 2002) for Collins Wordbanks Online, it is not especially visual and lacks the impact of true data visualization. Additionally, it is not obvious from this grid that each column is based on frequency and therefore one cannot read across the lines in any meaningful way. It is also not clear from the interface that clicking on a term in a cell will display a concordance for just that collocation pattern. This “zooming in” effect of being able to focus on ever more finely detailed patterns is one of the advantages of the software, but it is debatable whether learners will intuit this, because the table-based display does not reinforce the metaphor at work here, which is that of an adjustable lens. Another more visual “tool” available with this software is the plot of the distribution of the target word in each text, where each “hit” is shown by a vertical line in a row that represents the individual text (see Figure 8.3). The lengths of the texts are standardized by the software in order to facilitate

Figure 8.3 Dispersion plot for “visual” in BAWE texts: vertical line = 1 “hit.” (WordSmith Tools, Scott, 2007)

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the visual comparison of relative density of hits, and also to accentuate the appearance of “bursts” or “clumps” (Scott, 2007) of hits. Figure 8.3 shows part of a plot display for “visual” in some of the texts in the British Academic Writing in English corpus (BAWE: Nesi, 2007). The display is sorted by the number of hits per 1,000 words. Thus, the first text [0405d.txt] has only 7 hits, but is only 602 words long, so it has a high hits per 1000 words score. In comparison, the 11th text in the list [3032.txt] shows clear evidence of “burstiness” near the beginning and toward the end for occurrences of “visual.” While this is certainly a visualization of the patterned distribution of words in the individual texts that make up the corpus, little research has been conducted on the significance of “burstiness” in texts although it looks a promising line of inquiry. It seems reasonable to associate these bursts with the concept of “aboutness” (Phillips, 1989) and relate them to places in the text where there is a density of keywords. In effect, what I am suggesting is that concordance software operates as a kind of lens for looking at language, with an ability to zoom in and out to different degrees of resolution on the language patterns in the corpus, so that details that are important can be isolated for study, just as a biologist might use a microscope. However, this affordance of the software has not yet been fully realized in the interfaces available. It is in the interaction between web browser software and web page technology where much interface innovation has taken place, and it is on the web that corpora are increasingly accessed. Could there be a fortuitous synergy here? The next section discusses this question.

Online Corpora and their Interfaces The most significant recent development in corpus linguistics is that of websites that provide researchers, teachers, and language learners free access to some of the largest corpora available, from any internet-linked office, classroom, or home. Two of the most important are discussed in the next section. Using a combination of database, web-server, and scripting languages, such sites provide dynamic interfaces to the corpus, enabling sophisticated queries and interactive displays of results. Corpora at BYU Professor Mark Davies at Brigham Young University has created a webbased corpus query interface that allows anyone who registers at his

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website, “corpora.byu.edu,” to produce concordances, collocation tables, and distribution graphs from several corpora. The website hosts the British National Corpus, a 100-million-word corpus of written and spoken texts collected in the 1990s in the UK. The same website is also home to the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) which is currently 385 million words, and also the 100-million-word Time corpus of articles in Time magazine, from 1923 to the present. The generic interface for all three corpora comprises a single window organized into three panels: a panel on the left of the screen provides controls for the display and the results and allows the user to enter a search term. The rest of the screen comprises a top panel that displays distribution information as either graphs or numbers, and a lower panel that displays the results of a search as a key word in context concordance, though not with the key word aligned centrally as in Wordsmith Tools or jLookup. Moreover, the concordance cannot be sorted by words to the right or left of the keywords, as with the other tools, thus it is not possible to visually highlight the collocational patterns that may be contained in the concordance. One of the advantages of the BYU-BNC interface is that words selected can be compared across different parts (or sub-corpora) of the corpus. This is especially useful when exploring collocation because the collocational profiles for words differ according to register. An alternative way of exploring words across the different registers represented in the BYU-BNC is shown in Figure 8.4 where a distribution chart clearly shows that “accident” occurs much more frequently in the newspaper sub-corpus, with 129 occurrences per million words. This screenshot also shows the help system integrated with the interface, a particularly useful feature for anyone new to this method of investigating language. A guided tour in the help system demonstrates the various simple and complex searches possible, and automatically fills in the search criteria for the user. Thus, the interface is interactive: it teaches you how to use it, unlike Wordsmith Tools which relies on more conventional help “pages” in a separate window. An interface such as this provides several features that standalone concordance applications have lacked and, importantly, it is regularly updated at little cost to the producer. The interface is linked to a structured query language (SQL) database maintained on a web server at Brigham Young University (Davies, 2005). This system greatly facilitates the addition of new corpora, and the modification of interface features, often in response to the growing community of users for this site.

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Figure 8.4 Bar chart of the distribution of search term across five registers. (Davies, 2004)

Compleat Lexical Tutor The Compleat Lexical Tutor website (Cobb, 2007; Horst et al., 2005) is, in contrast to the online corpora at BYU (Davies, 2007, 2005), a site aimed primarily at language teachers and learners, and concordancers are just one of several tools provided that draw on corpus data. Several corpora can be accessed from the site, including the BNC mentioned above. The site also allows teachers to create their own corpora by uploading texts and then processing them with the same tools, giving language teachers a labor saving resource that can generate multiple-context cloze concordances and other types of corpus-based exercise in minutes. However, the interface is not as clear as that of BYU-BNC, being rather confusing for the first time visitor; it is also somewhat garish in its use of color and text. More importantly, it provides very little visualization of the data produced by entering search terms.

Exploring beyond the map While the technologies for visualizing data we have looked at so far are suggestive of the potential for engaging attention, they are constrained

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by a dependence on tables, grids, and links. It is possible, however, to break out of this constraint and make the text itself malleable, animated and consequently even more engaging of the attention, in a way that reinforces the notion of a lens trained on language. Some programmers interested in textual data have begun to find ways of doing this that are intensely visual and exploratory in nature. As was noted at the beginning of this chapter, information visualization has been likened to mapping, as it can “give you a way into complex information sets that, at first sight, might seem daunting or incomprehensible and reveal more of the world than you could possibly experience by yourself” (Austin and Doust, 2007, 47), and nowhere is this more appropriate, it seems to me, than in “mapping” the complexity of language. In the last part of this chapter, therefore, we look at the work of researchers who have attempted to map and otherwise visually represent large amounts of language, and presented the results online.

Mapping semantic relations and collocation A possible solution to the problems we have identified so far is the use of technologies that transform data into a visual object, rather than a display. An example of what can be achieved using this approach is Visual Thesaurus (Thinkmap Inc., 2005), a web-based tool as well as standalone software. The underlying technology has been used in a number of data visualization contexts: employee networks, musical databases, and scientific classification systems. The potential for language learning can be seen in the Visual Thesaurus, which presents the data in the WordNet database of synonyms (Fellbaum, 1998) as a dynamic net or web of words, blobs, and lines. The words are interconnected by lines to represent various semantic relationships, and the blobs act as a visual reference point for the words. The lines can be grabbed using a mouse and manipulated on screen which has the effect of moving the whole net around and allowing different items to come to the fore for a clearer view. This is both visually engaging and meaningful. The technology of interactivity found in Visual Thesaurus holds much promise for creating interfaces that allow the user to interact more deeply with textual data, and build a powerful metaphor of manipulation that encourages users to explore what they see, and beyond what they see. Clark (2008) has presented many text visualizations on his website, Neoformix, that utilize word association (collocation) and frequency data from a text to create what he calls a “word cloud”: a visual arrangement of

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the commonest words in a text in a way that instantly shows their relative frequency in the text. Wordle (Feinberg) is a similar tool that produces word clouds, and Tagul (Alex) takes the concept further by making the words in the cloud hyperlinked to Google web search. The potential for linking to a corpus instead of Google is clear. Word clouds (and the related “tag clouds”) have become increasingly familiar to web users due to their appearance on popular commercial sites such as Amazon.com. Perhaps the best example of the marriage of visual technology to datadriven learning is found in the visual concordancer, or “word tree” (Viegas et al., 2007), which displays an interactive view of frequent words in a text together with “branches” representing the common subsequent word sequences. The user can select which word or phrase they view, and the tool then displays the tree horizontally, as shown in Figure 8.5. One of the advantages of this tool is it forms part of a collection of tools made freely available at a website, Many Eyes (Visual Communication Lab, Collaborative User Experience Research Group), designed to provide a means of collaboration and communication within research communities

Figure 8.5 Word Tree: Visual concordance for “let’s” in classroom discourse corpus. (Viegas et al., 2007)

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globally. Thus a teacher could join the site, upload their own data, and then make use of the tool to visualize their texts for use with their students, who could access the site either in class or later at home for further study. Another striking example of text visualization is TextArc (Paley). This is an intriguing visual representation of a text (Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), with the sentences of the text arranged in sequence as an arc around a map or cloud of words which are the most frequent items in the text. Words are positioned in such a way as to suggest their importance: the closer to the center of the space enclosed by the arc, the more central they are in the text. Colored lines link words, textual position, and associated words (collocations) in various ways depending on what the user clicks on: the arc, the word cloud, or the pop-up menus (the “concordance” and the “thesaurus”). It is even possible to display the text in a window in conventional, linear form and click on this to locate the position of words in the arc and its enclosed word cloud. What do these alternative ways of presenting a text offer language learners? According to its designer (Paley, 2009), the application encourages exploration and conversations about known texts, as well as the generation of questions about the text that have not been considered before. The technologies deployed here, it seems to me, point the way ahead for corpusbased textual research and analysis, and, I believe, textual play. It is the engaging nature of TextArc that makes it successful. It is almost, but not quite, a game. It is both serious and playable, and it is this synergy that I think we need to develop in language resources for learning language, if we want to encourage our learners to truly explore texts and raise their awareness of language in use.

Conclusion In fact, if we enhance the visual representation of corpus data, younger learners may well be ahead of us in responding to information encoded in this manner, because they are more used to viewing language on screen, in often multiple overlapping windows, and frequently as language “on the move,” dynamic and animated through technologies such as the Flash® Platform (Adobe Systems Incorporated) and Java (Sun Microsystems) which pervade the typical web site interface today. Thus, if we take up the affordances of the visual medium where many young students spend their browsing—not “reading”—time, as defined by web browsers and rich internet applications, a place where text and images are not discrete

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entities but seamlessly merge into one another, we have probably made the information easier to access (not just “read”) for the so-called Net Generation.

References Alex. Tagul. Web site and blog, http://tagul.com/ (accessed on January 15, 2010). Austin, T. and Doust, R. (2007). New Media Design. London: Lawrence King. Biber, D. (1988). Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —(1995). Dimensions of Register Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D. and Conrad, S. (eds) (2001). Variation in English: Multi-Dimensional Studies. London: Longman. Breslin, G. (2002). jLookup. Software for Collins Wordbanks Online. London: HarperCollins, http://www.collins.co.uk/books.aspx?group=156 (accessed on November 1, 2008). Clark, J. (2008). Neoformix. Discovering and Illustrating Patterns in Data Weblog. http://www.neoformix.com , (accessed on November 1, 2008). Cobb, T. (1997). From concord to lexicon: development and test of a corpus-based lexical tutor. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, http://www.lextutor.ca/cv/webthesis/Thesis0.html (accessed on November 1, 2008). —(1999). Breadth and depth of vocabulary acquisition with hands-on concordancing. Computer Assisted Language Learning 12, 345–360. —(2007) Compleat Lexical Tutor. http://www.lextutor.ca, (accessed on November 1, 2008). Cowie, A. (ed.) (1998). Phraseology. Theory, Analysis, and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davies, M. (2004–). BYU-BNC: The British National Corpus. Available online at http:// corpus.byu.edu/bnc/ —(2005). The advantage of using relational databases for large corpora: Speed, advanced queries, and unlimited annotation. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 10 (3), 307–324. —(2007–). TIME Magazine Corpus (100 million words, 1920s–2000s). Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/time. —(2008–). The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Available online at http://www.americancorpus.org. Doyle, P. (1991). Could they be persuaded? An investigation of data-driven learning using classroom concordancing. STETS Review 25, 11–19. Feinberg, C. Wordle Blog, The. http://blog.wordle.net/ Fellbaum. C. (ed.) (1998). WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Friendly, M. and Denis, D. J. (2009). Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization. Available online at http://datavis.ca/ milestones/ (accessed on December 14, 2009).

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Gavioli, L. (1997). Exploring texts through the concordancer: Guiding the learner. In A. Weichmann, S. Fliegelstone, T. McEnery, and G. Knowles (eds) Teaching and Language Corpora (pp. 83–99). London: Longman. —(2001). The learner as researcher. Introducing corpus-concordancing in the classroom. In G. Aston (ed.) Learning with Corpora (pp. 108–137). Bologna: Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice/Houston, TX: Athelstan. —(2005). Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Higgins, J. and Johns, T. (1984). Computers in Language Learning. Glasgow: Collins ELT. Hornby, A. (1954) A Guide to Patterns and Usage in English. London: Oxford University Press. —(1959). The Teaching of Structural Words and Sentence Patterns. Stage 1. London: Oxford University Press. Hornby, A., Gatenby, E., and Wakefield, H. (eds) (1952). The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. London: Oxford University Press. Horst, M., Cobb, T. and Nicolae, I. (2005) Expanding academic vocabulary with a collaborative on-line database. Language Learning & Technology 9 (2), 90–110. Hunston, S. (2001). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johns, T. (1988). Whence and whither classroom concordancing? In T. Bongers, T. van Els, and H. Wekker (eds) Computer Applications in Language Learning. Dordrecht: Foris. —(1991). Should you be persuaded – two samples of data-driven learning materials. In P. King (ed.) Classroom Concordancing. ELR Journal 4 (pp. 1–16). Birmingham: University of Birmingham. —(1994). From printout to handout: Grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of data-driven learning. In T. Odlin (ed.) Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (pp. 293–313). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Many Eyes. Visual Communication Lab, Collaborative User Experience Research Group, IBM Watson. Website for shared visualization and discovery at http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/ (accessed on November 1, 2008). Mazza, R. (2009). Introduction to Information Visualization. London: Springer-Verlag. Nesi, H. (2007). British Academic Written English (BAWE) Corpus. Available online at http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/505/a/2850. O’Keefe, A., McCarthy, M., and Carter, R. (2007). From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Sullivan, I. and Chambers, A. (2006). Learner’s writing skills in French: Corpus consultation and learner evaluation. Journal of Second Language Writing 15, 49–68. Paley, W. (2009). Interface and mind. Information Technology 51 (3), 131–141. —TextArc. Website, http://textarc.org/Hamlet2.html (accessed on January 15, 2010). Phillips, M. (1989). Lexical Structure of Text. Discourse Analysis Monograph, No. 12. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Scott, M. (2007). WordSmith Tools (version 5.0). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Sealey, A. and Thompson, P. (2004). “What do you call the dull words?” Primary school children using corpus based approaches to learn about language. English in Education 38 (1), 80–91. —(2007). Corpus, concordance, classification: Young learners in the L1 classroom. Language Awareness 16 (3), 208–216. Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —(2003). Reading Concordances. London: Longman. Sinclair, J. (ed.) (2004). How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 12. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Spence, R. (2007). Information Visualization. Design for Interaction (2nd edn). London: Prentice Hall, Pearson Education. Stevens, V. (1991). Concordance-based vocabulary exercises: A viable alternative to gap-fillers. In P. King (ed.), Classroom Concordancing, ELR Journal 4 (pp. 47–610). Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Stubbs, M. (1996) Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell. —(2001). Words and Phrases. Oxford: Blackwell. Thinkmap (2005). Visual Thesaurus. New York: Thinkmap, Inc. Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001). Corpus Linguistics at Work. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 6. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tribble, C. (1991). Concordancing and an EAP Writing Programme. Cambridge: Bell Educational Trust. Tribble, C. and Jones, G. (1990). Concordances in the Classroom. Harlow: Longman. Tribble, C. and Scott, M. (2006). Textual Patterns: Key Words and Corpus Analysis in Language Education. Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tufte, E. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. —(1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. Viegas, F., Wattenberg, M., van Hamm, F., Kriss, J., and McKeon, M. (2007). Many Eyes: A site for visualization at internet scale. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 13 (6), 1121–1128. Willis, D. (1991). The Lexical Syllabus. Glasgow: Collins ELT. —(2003). Rules, Patterns and Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wordbanks Online. HarperCollins. Available at: http://www.collinslanguage.com/ wordbanks/Default.aspx (accessed on November 8, 2008).

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Chapter 9

Using Corpus and Web Language Data to Create EAP Teaching Materials David Oakey Iowa State University

Introduction The use of corpus data to promote English language learning has a distinguished pedigree at the University of Birmingham (UK). In the 1980s, the COBUILD project (Sinclair, 1987), the late John Sinclair’s outstanding contribution to the field of lexicography, designed and constructed the corpus now known as the Bank of English. This was one of the first commercially exploited electronic collections of language data, and was constructed with the goal of producing a new range of learner dictionaries which more accurately reflected the English language used by its speakers. During the ensuing decade, a wide range of other reference materials, all derived from frequency data from the corpus, was published under the COBUILD imprint: a grammar, books of common lexico-grammatical patterns, a range of vocabulary and stylistic guides, and a series of textbooks based on a lexical syllabus (Willis, 1990). While COBUILD was responsible for something approaching a paradigm shift, after which few language reference materials have been produced without prior construction of a sizeable corpus, Tim Johns, who was also working at Birmingham (UK), suggested an even more radical use of corpora. In two seminal papers (Johns, 1991a; 1991b) he argued that concordancing software, which shows a large number of examples in context of any lexical item the user chooses from a corpus, presented learners with a unique form of language input. Corpus data presented in this way, he argued, directly reveals to the learner how a language is used without requiring the mediation of a teacher. Johns’ proposed methodology of inductive “data-driven” learning foregrounded the learner’s status as an autonomous individual rather than a member of a class of homogeneous students. He believed that learners would derive their own, personal rules

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of language use by developing and testing their own hypotheses about how the language works, through using on their own computers large amounts of corpus data containing texts from genres appropriate to their own language learning needs. This extreme form of data-driven learning suggested an abrogation of the teacher’s traditional role. Less extreme forms of this methodology later emerged which suggested that teachers should incorporate their own findings from corpora into materials for use with their learners in the classroom (Tribble, 1997). Alongside these data-driven approaches, a large amount of linguistic research has also been conducted using language corpora. Researchers have identified new facts about the language which contradict statements made in current reference books, textbooks, or other teaching materials, and require such materials to be revised (Römer, 2004). However, there are often difficulties in bringing such valuable new corpus-driven knowledge about academic English into established teaching and learning situations, and both data-driven and research-driven approaches to corpus work in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) are to some extent unsatisfactory. Corpus data is often viewed as a threat by various participants in the language education process (Sinclair, 2004a, 272). Large quantities of unmediated concordance lines can overwhelm less confident learners (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998, 86). Examples containing abstruse, highly context-dependent uses can undermine the confidence of language teachers, and research-driven findings on language use can also conflict with and challenge the authority of publishers’ materials. This unfortunate perception is not helped by the “implications for syllabus designers and teachers” sections of many research-driven corpus papers, many of which do not go much further than suggesting that if a language feature occurs frequently in an academic English corpus data, then learners need to learn it, and so teachers should teach it (e.g., Cortes, 2004). The lack of guidance as to where such findings should fit into the EAP syllabus as a whole can leave corpus findings isolated as exotic “add-on features.” As Swales (2002, 152) has tactfully suggested, much of these “enthusiastic yet fragmented efforts” can be regarded “as banked intellectual resources whose pedagogical time has yet to come” (ibid., 159). The consequently patchy implementation of much of this potentially useful research into how corpora can be used for language teaching in general (e.g., Sinclair, 2004b) and in specific EAP contexts (e.g., Flowerdew, L., 2002) seems primarily to be due to the fact that corpus methodology has, up to now, been used independently from the theoretical assumptions of the syllabus. Corpus researchers have become adept at using corpus data

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to investigate lexical, discoursal, or grammatical points in academic English, but institutionally, they may not be in a position to influence the EAP teaching so that course materials can incorporate the resulting insights. If, on the other hand, a teacher consults corpus data to deal with an individual student’s problem, again, the research results often remain a supplementary resource, such as Johns’s Kibbitzer pages (1996), and are less easily brought within the preexisting framework of an EAP pre-sessional course syllabus.

Focus of Chapter This chapter reports on how, in an attempt to reconcile the two approaches contrasted in the previous section, materials created for an EAP presessional course at a UK university incorporated corpus insights. Since both corpus researchers and teachers were involved in the creation of the syllabus, it was possible to include corpus data in the teaching materials. In addition, sufficient time and resources were made available to the designers of the new course. The chapter briefly outlines the procedure by which the new syllabus was designed, and then provides details of materials for academic English language and study skills.

The teaching and learning context The syllabus and materials discussed in this chapter are in use on the University of Birmingham’s (UK) 10 week EAP pre-sessional course for international students whose first language (L1) is not English. These students intend to read a range of subjects from Education, Science, Engineering, and Law, and aim to improve their level of English proficiency in order to progress to their intended department. The new syllabus outlines a set of language features and study skills required of students before they are ready to study through the medium of English. The next section of this chapter briefly sets out these linguistic features before going on to exemplify how corpus data was used to produce materials with which to teach them.

The Goals of the EAP Syllabus The meaning of the term “syllabus” here is the practical realization of the assumptions underlying the aims of the course, presented in such a way to

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inform the various stakeholders—that is, the students, teachers, sponsors, University management—of the reasons for the choice of linguistic features and study skills taught in the course. The teaching materials described below are the means by which the course teachers create opportunities for the students to learn these linguistic features and skills. It should be emphasized that a syllabus is a document which should be accessible by all the stakeholders in the course, and should not therefore be over-designed in terms of its theoretical assumptions. Instances can be found of EAP syllabus design running far ahead of where teachers, learners, and other stakeholders are able to follow (Gee, 1996, 38). The syllabus has been designed not according to the assumed needs of the pre-sessional students, but according to the explicit requirements of in-sessional students, that is, what in-sessional students report that they wish they had learned before they started their degree program, and what departments in the University expect their students to be able to do with their English. Resources were made available by the University for researchactive staff to conduct corpus research as part of the process of preparing the teaching materials. As with other approaches to EAP syllabus design (Flowerdew, L., 2005), the EAP syllabus incorporates aspects from a number of approaches according to the language or skills area being taught, namely lexico-grammatical, notional-functional, discourse, and genre-based (Flowerdew, J. and Peacock, 2001). The overarching approach to the syllabus is communicative. What counts as “successful communication” depends on the context. In the academic context, meaning needs to be precisely, and therefore accurately, expressed. The syllabus thus focuses on enabling students to understand what is read in the given texts, and to communicate their meaning in a comprehensible way in their own texts. In order to achieve this aim, the syllabus develops the students’ own writing identity in relation to the writers they encounter in the texts they read. It gives them practice in the mechanical aspects of recording and acknowledging external sources of information in their own writing, and raises their awareness of the difference between macro-text types such as undergraduate and postgraduate essays and textbooks, dissertations, journal articles, and reports. Specific skills classes on speaking also develop micro-skills such as pronouncing consonant clusters and closing syllables, and macro-skills such as giving presentations and taking part in seminars/discussion groups. Listening classes develop micro-skills such as recognizing words in the flow of speech, note-taking skills, and macro-skills such as identifying the purpose, scope, topic, and structure of a lecture. There is also work in other miscellaneous

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study skills such as eliminating unnecessary reading, strategies for increasing reading speed, and storing and retrieving vocabulary items. It was felt that EAP courses traditionally overemphasize giving students practice in developing “top-down” study skills. The syllabus therefore addresses the need for more academic language work, and covers units of meaning of various sizes: text sections, sentences, words and phrases, and single words. The rest of this chapter aims to show how—providing that the syllabus contains a mix of top-down study skills as well as bottom-up language focus—a corpus can be used as a resource for building the number of words which students can use to express the increasingly complex meanings required by the syllabus. The materials, through these corpus examples, encourage students to focus on making meaning with different combinations of lexical and grammatical words so that they learn more than one way of saying or writing something, and paraphrase the meanings they will come across later in their own subjects.

The Linguistic Features of the EAP Syllabus While many non-linguistic aspects of study in UK higher education contexts are new to pre-sessional students, attention should also be paid to the language, much of which they will already know, but will need to use in unfamiliar ways. To illustrate this, three observed examples are examined below from the writing of in-sessional students who had not attended the pre-sessional course, with an explanation of the likely causes of the errors. The relevant areas of the syllabus which attempt to address these causes are then discussed. Example 1: How important is Stalinism to Soviet system can be seen in years after his death until collapse of USSR. Example 2: This theory can be explained that example which we mentioned at the beginning of the previous chapter. Example 3: The achievement of Birmingham and its district was made in the Industrial Revolution is undeniable. While correcting errors in learner academic writing is notoriously difficult, since it is not always clear what a student intends to mean in a particular point in their work, it was possible to identify the above writers’ original intended meaning through individual discussions with them.

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In Example 1 the writer has a number of problems, such as omitted definite articles, but what seems most problematic is the unsuccessful conversion of a direct wh-question to an indirect statement, for example, how important Stalinism was to the Soviet system can be seen . . . . This suggests that the student is not aware of how to nominalize. Changing the adjective form important to the noun form importance allows a simple noun group to become the Subject of the sentence, for example, The importance of Stalinism to the Soviet system can be . . . . The further advantage of the nominalized form is that a finite verb is not needed in the first part of the sentence, so that the student’s confusion of whether to use is or was does not arise (Thompson, 2010). In Example 2 the writer’s apparent lack of control over the transitive verb explain leads to ambiguity: this theory can either be explained by that example, or that example can be explained by this theory. While many EAP textbooks provide exercises on use of the passive versus the active voice, when a student is actually trying to use the language to mean something, an understanding of these rules is not always evident. As it stands, it is impossible to understand the meaning of Example 2 without asking the writer. The problematic aspect of Example 3 concerns the ordering of information within the frame of the main clause the achievement is undeniable. The extra information specifying the achievement is best used in a relative clause—either active: which Birmingham and its district made in the Industrial Revolution or passive: which was made by Birmingham and its districts in the Industrial Revolution. Control over extra information subordinate to a main clause is important for meaning not to be confused. It was felt that none of the EAP textbooks currently on the market approached these linguistic aspects in a sufficiently detailed way. A common theme found across such books is the teaching of skills, rhetoricofunctional features of academic writing (e.g., comparison-contrast “essays,” describing a process), writing sections of an essay (introduction, conclusion) smaller segments of essays (topic sentences, paragraphs), and formulaic use of discourse markers (Harwood, 2005). While all these important study skills are included in the new syllabus, the books themselves contain less on the use of English at a level below the sentence. The academic English language part of the syllabus aims to deal with these sorts of problems by enabling students to express smaller to larger units of meaning, namely single words, words and phrases, sentences, and text sections. The following section outlines how corpus-informed insights enable students to learn how to make meaning in the first three of these ways.

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Corpus Examples Single words The syllabus concentrates on single words as a first step in making more precise meanings by combining single words. Identifying this kind of feature in corpora is methodologically straightforward. With most corpus software, it is very easy to extract a list of single words in order of frequency. Much valuable corpus-based work has therefore already been done on single words, specifying which words a learner needs in order to understand a certain percentage of a text or to have acquired as some part of his or her linguistic repertoire (Coxhead, 2000; Nation, 2001). The syllabus takes these findings into account in grading the words in the materials according to their frequency using the Compleat Lexical Tutor (Cobb, 2002). The syllabus goes one step further by focusing on a cause of speaking problems for students from particular L1 backgrounds, that of incomplete pronunciation of individual words resulting in potential misunderstanding. A wordlist based on the academic corpus, known as the MicroConcord B Corpus available with MicroConcord (Scott and Johns, 1993), was sorted in reverse alphabetical order so that words ending in particular consonant clusters could be identified and grouped together, from short to long, with fewer consonant clusters to more, for more practice. As this was not a problem for all students, lists were provided to teachers to use as needed (see Table 9.1 on the next page). Lists of the most frequent collocates to the right of these problematic words were also provided (see Table 9.2 on the next page) in order to give students practice in pronouncing these followed by words beginning with vowels and consonants, for example, conflicts with and detracts from, where part of the consonant cluster is elided. Of course, such pairs are isolated, decontextualized examples, but, at this point in the syllabus, the focus is totally on form rather than meaning. This is remedial work for students who need to be aware that their unclear pronunciation is causing communication to fail.

Vocabulary: noun combinations A second appropriate place in the syllabus for corpus-informed materials is in developing students’ understanding of how nouns combine to make more specific meanings. Corpora have already revealed much about the relative frequencies of single words in different registers, most notably in

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174 Table 9.1

Single words ending in the consonant cluster /kts/

Final position vowel /a/

Final position vowel /e/

Final position vowel /I/

Final position vowel /∧/

facts pacts impacts tracts detracts refracts attracts extracts contacts interacts contracts distracts artefacts

sects erects defects affects effects infects rejects directs insects detects objects expects aspects collects connects protects reflects respects suspects neglects subjects projects prospects architects

edicts depicts predicts verdicts inflicts conflicts restricts districts instincts interdicts contradicts

ducts adjuncts conducts products obstructs instructs constructs byproducts reconstructs

Table 9.2 The most common vowel-initial words and consonant-initial words occurring immediately after words ending in cts in the MicroConcord B Corpus (Scott and Johns, 1993) Most common vowel-initial words occurring immediately after *cts

Most common consonant-initial words occurring immediately after *cts

of and in are on as a or is at

the for given have from such had who to that

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were which with but can by like was would

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the various vocabulary levels specified by Nation (1990) and in the academic wordlist (Coxhead, 2000). The underlying reasoning behind such lists is that words like findings and relationships are more frequent in English than words like ubiquitilation and apoptosis, and therefore need to be learned if students are to understand a sufficient proportion of the texts they encounter. Building on this, the next largest unit of meaning in the EAP syllabus is therefore “words and phrases,” realized in the idea of the “noun combination.” This term refers to (and is intended to be accessible by all stakeholders rather than just the syllabus designers) a variety of complex noun groups, such as the relationship between tip size and evaluations of the service, which function as a single noun in the clause but which are composed of strings of lexical and grammatical words in different ways. Thus, a “noun combination” could be a compound such as starter motor problems, a propositional group such as memory loss in young people, a gerund group such as finding and developing a new gold mine or a mixture of all three, such as telephone services in France and Germany for a business customer using 25 lines. Language work specified in the syllabus at this level of meaning attempts to address the point made by Oakey (2005) that learners appear to have problems not only with unfamiliar single words but also with unfamiliar combinations of familiar words. It also attempts to address the problem of simple sentences becoming difficult to read if they contain complex noun groups (cf. Cohen et al., 1988). Appendix 1 shows how these noun combinations are presented to students in a structured, sequenced way based on increasing length and complexity. The actual examples were not identified on an ad hoc basis, but were all found as part of two longer noun combinations, and occur immediately to the right of the most common cause of and the total cost of. A simple search for these two strings in the Bank of English yielded approximately 800 examples which were then filtered out to ensure that there was a low number, around 6%, of infrequent, “off-list” words in the resulting exercise. Students are first made aware of which noun to identify as the head noun, and then to see how the more precise meaning of the noun combination as a whole is achieved (Figure 9.1 on the next page).

Changing noun combinations to clauses This section of the syllabus attempts to enable students to describe a particular event—defined as something that is happening, or happened, or will happen—in two ways: either by a clause with a main verb, such as coal

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Exercise 1: identifying the head noun in a noun combination Underline the head noun in each of the following noun combinations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

health care raising a child depression in the US renting 500 videos per day owning and leasing buildings global warming over the next century finding and developing a new gold mine employer-sponsored health insurance benefits in the private sector nursing care for patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome telephone services in France and Germany for a business customer using 25 lines

Note how these noun combinations are made in three ways: • compounds: two or more nouns next to each other • prepositions: words like from, in, among, amongst, for, of, under; • gerunds: verbs which end in ing but act like a noun All of these noun combinations are part of two longer noun combinations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

the total cost of health care the total cost of raising a child the total cost of depression in the US the most common cause of back pain the total cost of renting 500 videos per day the most common cause of fires in hospitals the total cost of owning and leasing buildings the most common cause of low frequency noise the most common cause of starter motor problems the total cost of global warming over the next century the most common cause of communication breakdowns the total cost of finding and developing a new gold mine the most common cause of memory loss in young people the most common cause of high levels of lead in tap water the most common cause of death among people between 20 and 34 the most common cause of failure of proper fluid flow across the eye the most common cause of absence from work lasting more than 21 days the total cost of employer-sponsored health insurance benefits in the private sector the total cost of nursing care for patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome the total cost of telephone services in France and Germany for a business customer using 25 lines

Corpus used: Bank of English (2008)

Figure 9.1 Exercise for recognizing head nouns of different types of noun combination.

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extraction decreased by about 10%, or as a noun combination, as in a 10% decrease in coal extraction. Re-writing a linguistic item in another form without changing its essential meaning is a crucial skill in paraphrasing. In order to help students do this successfully, this part of the course requires them to apply their knowledge of the possible forms and classes of a word which they gained in earlier sections of the course. A related area worked on in this section is developing awareness of the transitivity (or lack thereof) of the main verb in the clause. This is a major source of avoidable errors in the writing of the University’s in-sessional students, such as in Example 3 above. Although, for learners, mechanically changing active sentences to passive in grammar exercises is a familiar form of practice, the passive voice nonetheless often remains a mysterious, pseudo-random area of grammar for those students whose L1 contains no equivalent, and who have not been made aware that it relates to the meaning of the lexical items involved. Transitivity is introduced here in relation to verbs of movement (i.e., things going up or down, or being caused to go up or down), but is crucial in all areas of academic English. The exercises in Figure 9.2 and Figure 9.3 therefore concentrate on showing students how to change clauses into noun combinations. Figure 9.2 covers clauses containing intransitive verbs, such as prices fell between January and June, which could be re-written as a fall in prices between January and June. Figure 9.3 covers clauses with transitive verbs, such as the government raised the basic rate of income tax from 15% to 30% last year. These latter clauses can be re-expressed using various combinations of lexis and syntax, such as a 15% rise in the basic rate of income tax last year, or last year’s 15% increase in the basic

Exercise 2: Re-write each clause as a noun combination 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

prices fell prices fell between January and June more people are working from home than 10 years ago more people were working from home in 2004 the number of viable cells decreased rapidly after 2 days his temperature rose from 37 to 40 degrees This year the Edinburgh Festival sold 80,000 more tickets than last year the total cost of stroke care will rise in real terms by around 30% by the year 2023 The number of New York City residents on welfare fell by half between 1995 and 2001, to 400,000

Figure 9.2 Changing clauses with intransitive verbs into noun combinations.

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Exercise 3: Re-write each clause as a noun combination 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

students bought their own laptops 10% fewer students took the IELTS test in 2005 than in 2004 the Government’s monetary policy has lowered demand for consumer goods domestic steel producers are expected to reduce their prices in June by $500 per tonne global warming may have increased the number and strength of hurricanes over the last decade the Bank of England is likely to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point next month libraries have cut the number of books they buy each year by 26% scientists have significantly reduced the number of animals used in product safety testing in recent times in California, Social Security lowered the number of elderly people living in poverty by more than one million, from 1.45 million to 421,000 as a result of two weeks of hot weather in June which caused electricity companies to increase electricity output, total industrial output increased by 0.7% from the previous month

Figure 9.3 Changing clauses with transitive verbs into noun combinations.

rate of income tax. In order to find enough examples containing mostly high frequency words, the World Wide Web was used as a corpus. These examples were taken from searches on google.com for finite verb forms indicating movement, such as decrease, climb, cut, decline, grow, halve, increase and so on. Use of the web as a corpus obviously raises issues relating to genre, although many of these issues also relate to corpus data as a whole, and these will be addressed in the Implications section of this chapter.

Navigating through long sentences The final example in this chapter is of materials designed to prepare students for dealing with long sentences. Very often in the teaching of reading, the emphasis falls on the skills of skimming and scanning. While these skills are useful for getting a general meaning of a text, students also have considerable difficulty in reading for detailed, specific information. This is an essential skill when a student is attempting to take material from one source to include in his/her own writing. Very often the student finds an area of text which contains a relevant idea, but then copies several sentences directly because they lack the linguistic resources to extract and re-express only the relevant meaning. One reason for this is not being able to divide long, complex sentences into chunks. This is one avoidance

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strategy that has the potential of resulting in unintentional plagiarism by the student. In these exercises students combine previous work on general and specific vocabulary with a new awareness of how to tell how one part of a sentence relates to another part. This involves “bottom-up” work building the specific meaning of a sentence, which eventually ties in with “top-down” work on inferring the general meaning of a paragraph. These exercises attempt to help students read more fluently long sentences containing relative clauses, which, with or without relative pronouns (i.e., reduced relative clauses), are an important way to pack information into noun combinations. A sentence will, at one level, have a fairly simple subject-verb complement structure, such as in Example 4, from the Bank of English, but the subject or object may contain long, information-dense noun combinations with several relative clauses that are quite complex, such as that in Example 5, also from the Bank of English: Example 4: The Bretton Woods System, which had given rise both to unprecedented prosperity and deep resentment of American privileges, was over. Example 5: In order to account for the very particular impressions which he receives, he attributes to the things with which he is in most direct contact properties which they have not, exceptional powers and virtues which the objects of every-day experience do not possess. In these exercises, students are asked to ignore the relative clauses and to read and understand only the idea of the main clause, that is, the italicized portions of Example 4. Examples for these exercises, as shown in Figure 9.4 on the next page, were found using the search term work which (which occurred in Example 4) in a corpus of academic research articles in different disciplines:

Implications for Teachers: “bottom-up” versus “top-down” A syllabus such as the one described in this chapter devotes as much time to word, phrase, and sentence-level language as it does to text-level features such as organizational structure. Many of the classroom activities therefore require a “bottom-up” approach to language, whereas EAP course books traditionally give students practice in developing “top-down” skills strategies such as skimming and scanning, that is, reading for gist and reading for specific information. While these are useful strategies for reading, however, they are less useful when a student is attempting to extract and re-express

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Exercise 4: underline the main part of each sentence. 1. The work, which addressed the problems emerging from the migration of African Americans to that state, became his most noted publication. 2. Resultant changes in the conditions of teachers’ work, which have also significantly impacted on managers, are viewed as inevitable and necessary for the overall efficiency of the system. 3. This work, which draws heavily on Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological interpretation of Weber, is an important source in contemporary sociology for the widespread notion that everything is socially constructed. 4. If we emphasize the normative elements in Hobbes’ work, which stress the rational law of nature and each individual’s equal right to those natural liberties that are compatible with a like liberty for others, the subjection of women to their husbands stands out as a manifest injustice. 5. Kay’s and Kempton’s work, which compares English speakers with speakers of Tarahumara (a Mexican language, which has one word for both our “green” and “blue” colors), investigates subjective judgments of similarity of simultaneously perceived colors, rather than recognition judgments. 6. These figures do not include travel to and from work, which now constitutes between one-fifth (Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 1995: 10) and one-quarter (National Travel Survey, 199111993, London: HMSO) of all vehicle use, and which itself forms part of injury data in many European countries. 7. Marx and Engels’s complex relation to Darwin’s work—which neither denied a relation between society and biology nor reduced one to the other—may also have something to say about why they never utilized the term “ecology,” coined by Darwin’s leading German follower Ernst Haeckel in 1866, the year before the publication of volume 1 of Capital.

Figure 9.4 Identifying the main clause in long sentences.

facts, ideas, or opinions from a source in order to support their own text. Many EAP students can skim a text quite easily to find the paragraph or sentence containing the information they need to quote in their own work, but cannot subsequently do much more than copy a whole chunk of text into their essay, or produce a mangled version of the original author’s point. This is because top-down skimming and scanning skills will only take students so far; students lack the ability to manipulate meaning and language, that is, to paraphrase, and cannot extract and reuse relevant information in their own work without risking accusations of plagiarism. The course materials presented in this chapter are therefore intended to complement top-down work by starting with language features below the level of the sentence, that is, ways of making noun combinations. These encourage students to focus on making meaning with different combinations of lexical and grammatical words so that they learn more than one way of saying or writing something. This is intended to help them

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develop the skills required in order for them to paraphrase the meanings they will come across later in their own subject. This focus on bottom-up exercises does not mean that top-down approaches are invalid; it is rather that bottom-up strategies are currently neglected. If students are to be able to paraphrase without being accused of plagiarizing, they need to be able to re-express meanings in different ways. Corpus data have in the past been criticized (e.g., Widdowson, 2000) for being examples of past language performance, particularly by native speakers. While this criticism may have had some weight in the 1980s, when newspapers were the only easily accessible source of mass electronic language data, and on which the first electronic corpora were subsequently based, it is less true today. Academic English is a lingua franca with many more nonnative than native users, and it is not always clear who the author is. In an international Nuclear Physics journal article with 70 authors, for example, it is impossible to know who wrote what, or what their first language was. The mixed-generic nature of the web is already well recognized; this means that there is still a place for intuition and selective judgments to be made in choosing examples. The charge that corpus based materials contain de-contextualized examples which may at times prove unfamiliar and difficult for the students is not without basis. However, it is one of the functions of a pre-sessional course syllabus to provide a supportive environment in which students can encounter unfamiliar and difficult language as a means of improving their existing language knowledge and study skills, rather than at the start of their degree course when it may be too late to do much more than survive by using avoidance and coping strategies. In view of this, teachers on the course are encouraged to activate students’ existing knowledge of the meanings of these linguistic features in a top-down manner.

Conclusion This chapter has described the principles behind an EAP pre-sessional course syllabus which aims to balance the coverage of study skills with more bottom-up language work, informed by corpus data. Such a detailed linguistic focus to the syllabus may appear overly grammatical and ignorant of the wider textual and discoursal features of academic genres, but these materials should be seen in the context of the wider syllabus. Such an eclectic approach means that students are equipped with more choices to express what they mean in their own work, and have a better opportunity to develop a more fully rounded academic communicative competence.

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Appendix 1 Summary of the Academic Language Features in the Syllabus Text sections

Sentences

Words and phrases

• general-to-specific text structure • situation-problemsolution-evaluation text structure • moving from general to specific information in an introduction • outside information in a text • linking paragraphs • organizing long academic texts • common text sections • signaling the structure of a text • planning the sequence of information in a text • linking the introduction and conclusions in a text

• noun combinations • in simple • sentences • definitions • spoken and written • style • appropriate and inappropriate • academic style • critical sentences • • the language of comparisons • the language of changes and events • • transitivity • • vagueness with quantities • relative clauses at the end and in • the middle of a sentence • reduced relative clauses • • long sentences containing lists • connecting ideas in two sentences • topic sentences • active and passive voice • tense and passive voice • beginning sentences with it

noun combinations turning noun combinations into simple sentences the sounds of words spoken together in RP and Brummie* critical phrases re-writing preposition and compound noun combinations fixed noun combinations changing clauses into noun combinations words and phrases for bringing outside information into a text linking words and phrases

Single words • word classes: vocabulary words and grammar words • learning new words and old words used in new ways • guessing the meaning of new words • word “families” • common and rare words • head nouns • nouns with general meanings and nouns with specific meanings • academic English terminology • the sounds of single words in RP and Brummie • stressed and unstressed words • relative pronouns • verbs of movement • critical words • linking words • referring words • transitive and intransitive verbs • the meaning and grammar of reporting verbs

* The accent spoken around the city of Birmingham

References Bank of English (2008). HarperCollins Publishers and the University of Birmingham (UK). Cobb, Tom (2002). Web Vocabprofile. An adaptation of Heatley and Nation’s (1994) Range (accessed on July 4, 2008 from http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/).

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Cohen, Andrew, Glasman, H., Rosenbaum-Cohen, P. R., Ferrera, J., and Fine, J. (1988). Reading English for specialized purposes: Discourse analysis and the use of student informants. In Patricia. L. Carrell, Joanne Devine and David E. Eskey (eds), Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading (pp. 152–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cortes, Viviana (2004). Lexical bundles in published and student writing in history and biology. English for Specific Purposes 23 (4), 397–423. Coxhead, Averil (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly 34 (2), 213–238. Dudley-Evans, Anthony and St John, Maggie-Jo (1998). Developments in ESP. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flowerdew, John and Peacock, M. (eds) (2001). Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flowerdew, Lynne (2002). Corpus based analyses in EAP. In John Flowerdew (ed.), Academic Discourse (pp. 95–114). Harlow: Longman. —(2005). Integrating traditional and critical approaches to syllabus design: The “what,” the “how” and the “why?” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 4, 135–147. Gee, Smiljka (1996). Teaching writing: A Genre-based approach. In Glenn Fulcher (ed.), Writing in the English language classroom (pp. 24–40). Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall Europe ELT. Harwood, Nigel (2005). What do we want EAP teaching materials for? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 4, 149–161. Heatley, Alex and Nation, P. (1994). Range. Victoria University of Wellington, NZ (computer program, available at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/). Johns, Tim (1991a). From printout to handout: Grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of data-driven learning. In Terence Odlin (ed.), Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (pp. 293–313). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —(1991b). Should you be persuaded: Two examples of data-driven learning. ELR Journal 4, 1–16. —(1996). Kibbitzers (accessed on July 2, 2008 from http://www.eisu.bham.ac.uk/ support/online/kibbitzers.shtml). Nation, Paul (1990). Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. —(2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakey, David J. (2005). Academic vocabulary in academic discourse: The phraseological behaviour of EVALUATION in Economics research articles. In Elena Tognini-Bonelli and Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti (eds), Strategies in Academic Discourse (pp. 169–183). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Römer, Ute (2004). A corpus-driven approach to modal auxiliaries and their didactics. In John McHardy Sinclair (ed.), How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching (pp. 185–199). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Scott, Mike and Johns, T. (1993). MicroConcord. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, John McHardy (ed.) (1987). Looking Up: An Account of the COBUILD Project in Lexical Computing. London: Collins ELT. —(2004a). New evidence, new priorities, new attitudes. In John McHardy Sinclair (ed.), How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching (pp. 271–299). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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— (ed.) (2004b). How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Swales, John (2002). Integrated and fragmented worlds: EAP materials and corpus linguistics. In John Flowerdew (ed.), Academic Discourse (pp. 150–164). Harlow: Longman. Thompson, Geoff (2010). Grammatical metaphor and success in academic writing. In Susan E. Hunston and David J. Oakey (eds), Introducing Applied Linguistics: Concepts and Skills (pp. 27–34). New York: Routledge Tribble, Chris (1997). Improvising corpora for ELT: Quick-and-dirty ways of developing corpora for language teaching. Paper presented at the First International Conference: Practical Applications in Language Corpora, April 12–14, University of Lodz, Poland (accessed on July 2, 2008 from http://www.ctribble.co.uk/text/Palc.htm). Widdowson, Henry (2000). On the limitations of linguistics applied. Applied Linguistics 21 (1), 3–25. Willis, Dave (1990). The Lexical Syllabus: A New Approach to Language Teaching. London: Collins ELT.

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Chapter 10

Blogging for Pedagogical Purposes: A Transformational Methodology for Post-secondary Education Brad Blackstone and Mark Wilkinson National University of Singapore National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction In an era that many writers have referred to as “The Digital Age,” postsecondary learners are truly a new breed. They do their work and entertain themselves while communicating in a manner that was unimagined just 20 years ago. In today’s world, a typical university student, whether in the UK, China, Singapore or the United States, can find both her daily news and more scholarly material from a vast array of sources on the internet. When she thinks of mail, she accesses a globally accessible web-based account like Hotmail or a social utility such as Facebook and can read or compose a message that might be processed with minimal time delay, between any two points on earth. If that is not fast enough, she might simply arrange to have a real time “chat,” the only limitation to synchronous communication being the participants’ typing speed. If even that is not satisfactory, she might download the appropriate software and simply “Skype,” allowing her to speak face to face via computer screen with anyone who has the same software. When this same student registers for a new semester and needs to browse library resources or requires handouts for a particular university assignment, she might access the university-affiliated website and be well on her way to completing her task. It is for learners holding this web-focused world-view that many postsecondary level educators in an expanding number of pre-university, university, and graduate level courses seek the most effective means of delivering the best pedagogical experience possible. Amongst the range of networked technologies that are now available for instructional use,

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there are integrated learning technologies such as Moodle and Blackboard, instant messaging sites such as Microsoft MSN, and network video conferencing sites such as the earlier mentioned Skype, iChat, and Yahoo! Messenger. However, no matter what the available technology is, for effective web-enhanced teaching and learning to take place, it has to be “planned and managed to bring about valued and purposeful results” (Towndrow and Vallance, 2004, 25). For language educators and teacher trainers, both the number and complexity of web-enhanced instructional technologies and methodologies might seem daunting. In fact, in a recent report on the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on achievement in pre-tertiary schools in Great Britain, prepared by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills, the authors state as follows: “The majority of teachers, including the most innovative, require more knowledge of and confidence with ICT, and a better understanding of its potential to help pupils’ learning” (Cox et al., 2003, 5). The same would seem to hold true for post-secondary teachers as well. Many educators, experienced and inexperienced alike, demonstrate an aversion to using ICT and implementing web-based activities in their classrooms. While various reasons account for this aversion, one of the most compelling is that practitioners are not convinced of the efficacy of such additions. The main objective of this chapter is to introduce the instructional potential of one particular network-based ICT, the weblog, or blog, and to provide a theoretical justification for using it in post-secondary teaching and learning. A second objective is to demonstrate how blogging activities have been implemented in two university English language and composition programs as well as in two training programs for language teachers and teacher trainees.

Blogs and Blogging: Definitions, Key Elements and Distinctive Characteristics Definitions A blog can be defined as “a journal that is available on the Web. The activity of updating a blog is ‘blogging’ and someone who keeps a blog is a ‘blogger.’ Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog” (Enzer, 2008). When comparing it to a journal, Lamshed et al. (2002) write

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that “a blog can be a continually updated resource that grows over time, with the accumulation of writing and other content. This archived information is accessed using a simple calendar that highlights the dates on which entries were made” (9). McIntosh (as cited in Blackstone et al., 2007, 3) expands on these explanations: Historically, a weblog, or “blog” for short, is recognized by its regularly updated, time and date stamped posts running down the computer screen in chronologically reverse order (i.e., the most recent post comes first). Crucially, there is an “Add Comment” feature so that readers of posts can leave their opinions, questions or thoughts. Finally, there is a writing style element: blogs are written by one individual who gives his or her thoughts in a generally relaxed, “spoken” style. The main functions of a blog are as follows: (1) it can serve the individual writer much like a journal does, but it is “published” online, (2) it is similar to a web page, albeit one easier to create, update, and maintain, and perhaps most importantly, (3) it includes an “add comment” facility that permits any reader to view any given post and to leave a response with a time signature. The blogger can also refer back to her post and to the comments that she has received and respond to those. This interactive facet makes the blog an ideal web-based platform for augmenting instruction in the traditional classroom. The key elements of blogging: blog posts and reader comments The most fundamental element of blogging is the blog post, or written entry. Before “posting,” however, the would-be blogger needs to create a blog, which can be done on a free blog host site such as Google’s blogger. com or Automattic’s wordpress.com. Once a person has set up a blog site, she can then begin to post. In an instructional setting, the initial post might be made by an instructor on his site in the form of a sample post, content question or assigned writing topic. Students then access the instructor’s site, read the sample post(s) and respond with comments or consider the assigned topic and respond to that with posts on their own blogs. To access a particular blog and the blogger’s post, the potential reader simply needs to have the blog address. For a class of bloggers, each student’s blog address can be listed as a link on the sidebar of the class blog, the instructor’s blog, and/or every user’s site. In this way the blogs of the participating bloggers can be accessed with ease.

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One recurring criticism of blogging for educational purposes has been that when students blog, they only write “trivia” (Downes, 2004). With so-called “free posts,” where the student is given the opportunity to write on any topic that she chooses, the blog post can, in fact, devolve to unstructured musings, loosely presented personal anecdotes or streamof-consciousness drivel. Within a course schedule of “planned and managed” blogging assignments, however, the student can strive to attain whatever level of expectation the instructor demands. In an article describing structured blogging activities within two levels of English for academic writing courses and two levels of more advanced composition courses in an English-language medium university in Japan, Blackstone et al. (2007) explain how students were routinely given bi-weekly blogging assignments that were closely connected to the course content: Before writing anything, students would read thematically related material, watch a popular or documentary video with content of a similar thematic focus, and discuss the content in class. Students would then use the content materials as a basis for doing narrowly focused paperbased writing tasks, such as question development and answers, idea outlines, and paraphrasing and summarizing exercises. Finally, each student would make a blog post in short essay form in response to a teacher-generated question or assigned task. Such assignments would usually be formulated so as to generate a clear student opinion. (7) As this example illustrates, in an instructional context, the degree of formality of a blog post and the associated linguistic demands correspond by necessity with the requirements of the assignment. The same can be said for the next essential element: reader commentary. Every writer longs for an audience. Traditionally in teaching and learning, that audience has only been one person: the teacher. “A student’s paper is often corrected, commented on, and graded only by the teacher. Peer review activities diffuse some of that power, giving students a sense of responsibility and accomplishment, both as readers and writers” (Blackstone et al., 2007). The “Add Comment” feature of a blog not only makes feedback from this broader audience possible, it establishes a platform among student peers for easy interaction beyond the classroom and extends this potential to the World Wide Web. When one reader views another’s online post—and that post can include images, embedded video, and audio, in addition to written text—then leaves comments for the writer and other interested readers to read, such commentary takes on an air of

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importance beyond the traditional peer review. What was once one-to-one dialogue becomes a multi-faceted group discussion: the writer who makes the post reacts in writing to the feedback that she receives, while for the same assignment, she reads and responds to her classmates’ various posts as they respond to hers. This feature of blogging and the communicative web that it initiates expand its power as an instructional activity exponentially. The student blogger gains not just the assurance that her post will be seen and reacted to by classmates but also the impression that she is participating in a highly meaningful community activity. Ideally, this realization gives the same learner a heightened sense of collaboration within that community. Distinctive characteristics Blogging for pedagogical purposes is similar to the much-used Web-based discussion forum, but different in significant ways. Typically, a discussion forum involves an instructor and a group of students accessing a single URL, a designated website where the instructor initiates a content “thread” with either a question or a proposition, to which the students respond appropriately. Anyone who accesses this common thread can read the comments of other respondents, which are connected to the main thread via subordinated links, and make additional comments. The primary function and advantage of the discussion forum is that it provides users with a “one-stop” venue for written group discussions. As has already been mentioned, in blogging each blogger creates her own website. In contrast to the discussion forum, there are several advantages to this. One is that with a blog, as with a personal website, the student blogger develops more of a sense of ownership and, closely related, personal responsibility. When the blogger sets up her site, she has to make numerous decisions about how her blog will look and how it will function. For example, for her site lay out, she must choose a template design, site fonts and colors, and placement of the various page elements. For blog settings, she controls whether feedback on her posts is limited to any specific group or open to any reader; and she must decide on whether reader commentary appears on a separate web page or in a window pop up. In addition, she can insert onto the site or within an individual post elements such as audio clips, photographs, video clips, linked slideshows, and other hyperlinked materials. In this way, setting up and maintaining a blog provides the blogger with decision-making opportunities and an engaging digital literacy experience.

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Another advantage of the blog over the discussion forum is that once it has been created, it can function much like an electronic archive. While each new post is presented in reverse chronological sequence on the main blog page, older ones are stored within folders or on separate web pages. It is this feature that can be of particular value to the educator, who can review the student blogger’s various contributions in much the same way that one might read through a journal or a learning portfolio. The digital aspect of the blog also highlights another important difference between it and the discussion forum: a blog can be maintained beyond a particular course experience, once again giving the student an added sense of proprietorship, and in the long run—as she reflects on her accumulated work— personal accomplishment. In sum, such “active learning, student engagement and student responsibility” make blogging a means of creating from the classroom “a learning community” (Darabi, 2006, 53). Stanley (2006) advances this same idea for language teachers in noting that blogging is “a way of opening up the classroom walls and showing the wider world what is happening . . . thus creating a small language learning community.” Williams and Jacobs (2004, 247) have made a related assertion but broadened its scope when they state that blogs have “the potential to be a transformational technology for teaching and learning.”

Blogging: In Theory and Practice Theoretical justification for implementing the use of blogs and systematic blogging activities in teaching and learning What pedagogical principles might support the use of blogging in postsecondary education? The best way to address this question is to first review briefly what the principles of good post-secondary education are. Toward that end, the writers of this paper would like to invoke the “seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education” as described by Chickering and Gamson (1987, 1) in their landmark research report for the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE). To quote the same authors, “good practice in undergraduate education: (1) encourages contact between students and faculty, (2) develops reciprocity and cooperation among students, (3) encourages active learning, (4) gives prompt feedback, (5) emphasizes time on task, (6) communicates high expectations, and (7) respects diverse talents and ways of learning.”

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These principles, based on the assumption that the most effective way for learning to take place is when that learning is learner-centered, participatory, and collaborative, were further articulated in a follow up report for the AAHE a decade later and connected to the emerging availability of communication and information technologies for the academic context (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996). In that update, the authors explain that “If the power of the new technologies is to be fully realized, they should be employed in ways consistent with the Seven Principles” (1). A discussion of these principles in the light of the key elements of course-related blogs within three different post-secondary teaching contexts illustrates how appropriate blogging can be for instructional purposes. Blogging in two English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and composition programs In courses at various levels in an English-medium university EAP and composition program in Japan (Blackstone et al., 2007) and in an EAP module offered through the Engineering Faculty by the Centre for English Language Education (CELC) at the National University of Singapore, systematic blogging and related activities have been used to promote developing language skills and to encourage students to view their written communication within the context of the broader learning community. Such activities have achieved these objectives while also adhering to the seven principles delineated above. First, blogging has ensured a strong instructor-learner link. In both the Japan and NUS program experiences under discussion here, a series of blogging assignments were carefully designed and implemented by participating instructors. Each instructor provided guidance to students in the creation of the blogs, arranged the guidelines for blogging interaction and set the blog assignments. The assignments, part of a semester-length series of short bi-weekly writing tasks, were closely connected to each course’s learning objectives and content. Typically, students were asked to respond by writing 250 to 300 words to questions about course content in a manner that would require reflection on the given topics and practice in the appropriate rhetorical forms. For example, in the advanced EAP course at NUS geared specifically for engineering students, assigned paragraphs and essays required cause/effect, problem/solution, and comparison/ contrast discussions. Students were given corresponding blog assignments that gave them an opportunity to practice these forms before their completion of the formal paper-based writing tasks.

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The blog post assignments in both EAP programs were also presented without the threat of content, organization, and language-use evaluation. The instructional focus, rather than on having student bloggers answer each question “correctly,” was on eliciting student opinions and providing them with the opportunity not just to write blog entries and then read classmates’ posts but also to experiment and to make mistakes, much like they would in “free writing” assignments. With the “Add Comment” function liberally used, the proactive teacher also tried to respond constructively to each student’s post as often as possible, even if only with a sentence or two of supportive feedback. When the instructor made comments, the emphasis was on offering constructive criticism and inspiration rather than on an overly critical assessment. This approach seemed well received. In the survey of 145 student bloggers in a Japanese university program that was the basis of an attitudinal study by Blackstone et al. (2007), 98.6% of the students agreed with the statement “I like having my instructor make comments on my post.” In a similar as yet unpublished survey conducted in Academic Year 2007–2008 of 62 NUS EAP Engineering Faculty student bloggers, 98.3% agreed with the same proposition. Through blogging, each student in a class of bloggers can become more closely linked with the instructor. That teacher-student connection is clearly one of the cornerstones of effective educational practice and in creating a vibrant “learning community.” Secondly, effective blog activities connect learner with learner, encouraging “reciprocity and cooperation.” In the blogging practice of both programs cited above, once a student had made her post, she was required to read the posts of at least three classmates and leave comments. In many instances, this reader comment was followed by a response from the original blogger, demonstrating what Blackstone et al. have called a “blogalogue” (2007, 6). In related research on blogging in the Stanford University community, a blogger is cited as saying that “a kind of reciprocity (is) expected because I read others’ blogs, so I have to make my contribution” (Nardi et al., 2004, 45). Through this sort of exchange, student bloggers develop, post by post, comment by comment, a stronger sense of cooperation within their particular learning community. By cooperating in blogging, students also have a chance to expand their relationship to course content. “Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one’s ideas and responding to others’ improves thinking and deepens understanding” (Chickering and Ehrmann,

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1996, 3). The fact that students value this sort of collaborative learning has been corroborated. In the Japan university survey, 97.3% agreed with the statement “I like having my classmates make comments on my blog.” Results from the NUS survey were equally impressive, showing that 96.7% agreed with the same proposition. Regardless of location, university students seem to have a high interest in interacting in writing with their peers, and blogging makes this possible in a way that paper-based writing cannot. In line with the third principle, blogging students experience “active learning.” As Yang (2006, 143–144) states, “A heated debate between two students might be a waste of classroom time, but on a course blog it makes for exciting and stimulating reading.” Students in both programs actively engaged the course content by making blog posts in relation to it and by reflecting on their classmates’ thoughts on the same content. In this way the blogs became a venue for intellectual discussion. Because the post assignments also often required students to make connections between course content and their own lives, these discussions also allowed them to fulfill one of the main aspects of active learning as defined by Chickering and Ehrmann: “They must make what they learn part of themselves” (1996, 4). Fourth, periodic blogging assignments lend themselves perfectly to continual feedback. “In getting started, students need help in assessing their existing knowledge and competence. Then, in classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive feedback on their performance” (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996, 4). One of the advantages of having a student’s post “published” online and commented on by others is exactly that: the audience, whether classmates, teacher or others, can access, read and comment on each piece of writing from any computer with an internet connection at any time. Feedback is no longer limited to the instructor or the classroom settings. Still, a blog can also be accessed from any classroom that has a computer, an internet connection, and an LCD projector, which makes blog posts useful sources for classroom discussions. One of the co-writers of this chapter frequently utilized student posts in class as a means of instruction, while reflecting on particular content approaches, organizational strategies, and pertinent language issues. Because the blog also functions as an archive of the student blogger’s writing, each post and the associated commentary are continually available for scrutiny. This element strengthens the prospect that the writer receives peer and instructor feedback. In the courses where blogging was implemented, each student was asked to make comments on three classmates’ posts during the week following posting. Many students made an effort to respond to far

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more than the required three. In fact, in one of the classes in the Japan study, one student blogger responded to nearly every post made by each of his 17 classmates throughout an entire semester; and because he also had the blog addresses of students in another class from the same level linked on his blog site, he responded to many additional posts as well. This would seem to demonstrate how powerful a tool the blog can become for both the learner who wants and needs feedback and the one who enjoys giving such feedback. The fifth principle for effective practice is sufficient time on task. Chickering and Ehrmann describe this as follows: “Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty” (2004, 5). In blogging, the time required on task is determined by the nature of the assigned blogging requirements. Even when bi-weekly postings of 250 to 300 words are required along with three comments per assignment on classmates’ posts, the time expended can vary depending on a learner’s skill level, work pace, and the amount of preparation required for each task. It is the challenge of the instructor to appropriately gauge the number of posts to be assigned and the number of reader comments that each student should make in a given period. As with other assignments, some students, burdened by excessive homework, illness or another problem, post and/or leave comments after the designated due date. But because of the archival nature of blogging, even the late post or comment is available for peer review. In this context another value of blogging is made clearer: a post can be made, edited, and reedited any number of times, whenever the blogger has time to access a computer. In this manner blog writing would seem to encourage the process-writing approach followed by many professional writers, with each blog post evolving through several stages to a higher degree of completion. Related to this, student or instructor comments on a post can be made at any time. When one co-author of this chapter wanted to review his students’ posts, he did so when he was most available, often late at night in the comfort of his own home office. There he would steadily scroll down the list of student blog addresses linked to his own site, one by one accessing blogs, reading posts, and making relevant comments. For a class of 15–20 students, he could read and respond to all posts within one hour to 90 minutes. Again, because the blog assignments were set up not to be critiqued line by line but to be evaluated in a holistic manner, the comments he left generally had three aims: (1) encouraging student reflection on their own work, (2) providing them more motivation for further thought, and (3) praising

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Figure 10.1 A screenshot showing a blog post and comments by peer and instructor, with links to blogging buddies’ sites and post archives in the sidebar. (Thio, 2008)

their contributions. Giving students sufficient time on task is essential for success in this process (see Figure 10.1). In line with the sixth principle, blogging is an effective means of communicating high expectations to students. According to Chickering and Ehrmann, “High expectations are important for everyone—for the poorly prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well motivated. Expecting students to perform well becomes a selffulfilling prophecy” (1996, 6). When a series of blogging tasks have been implemented, students seem to find external motivation to write from two sources: from the instructor and classmates’ expectations and from the fact that blogs are public postings. Such motivation is important both in posting and in leaving reader commentary. What the blogger does, or does not do, is there for all to see. In the programs cited earlier, most participating instructors added a further motivating stimulus: the blogging buddy. “The term ‘blogging buddy’ refers to a student writer’s editing partner, the person who checks and comments on a blog post before it is posted. The blogging buddy is

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the initial peer reviewer, the first or final-draft reader, the one who acts both as the writer’s good conscience—useful for motivational purposes—and as his/her proofreader—in that way, also a surrogate teacher” (Blackstone et al., 2007, 9). When each blogger has a buddy who is waiting for a post to review, high expectations are part and parcel to the process. Such in-built expectations also produce results. When implementing blogging in the EAP and composition courses both at NUS and in the university in Japan, this chapter’s co-author found that nearly 100% of the participating students completed each bi-weekly blog assignment as well as the three required comments on classmates’ posts, which were in addition to a large number of paper-based reading and writing assignments. At least half of those student bloggers did more blog writing than was assigned. Blogging activities also fulfill the last of the seven pedagogical principles: they provide an alternative means of having EAP students consider and discuss content-based topics, and in doing so, establish a place for “diverse talents and ways of learning.” Most post-secondary students today, irrespective of learning styles, work and play via the computer; many, even those whose primary language is not English, maintain English Facebook and/or MySpace accounts; quite a few students blog in their first language and a smaller number already in English. For the EAP learners in the programs already discussed, adjusting to the use of blogs for coursework seemed to be a natural progression from prior experience. All of these students had labored for years through paper-based writing classes, so much so that blogging came to represent a fresh approach for more work within a timetested language skill area. Amongst those same students, the ones who were more tech-focused, and perhaps more visually oriented, demonstrated clear satisfaction in supplementing their posts with a wide variety of photographs and video clips. Many “modified” their weekly posts with images from the internet, while some added their own photos. In this way, it seems that blogging provides a venue for exchanging not only written ideas but also other forms of self-expression.

Blogging in two English language teacher-training courses Blogging as implemented by one of this chapter’s co-authors in Japan and at NUS provided opportunities for the students to write, read, review, and respond to posts online. Blogging was a means to develop English language skills and/or to refine composition skills. At the National Institute of Education in Singapore (NIE), blogging was implemented by the other

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co-author in two instructional contexts for student teachers. The purpose and function of the blogs differed from their use in the EAP and composition courses, but the seven principles outlined earlier by Chickering and Gamson (1987) were equally applicable to the blogs created by the student teachers. In one of the courses, blogging was introduced as a component in a digital literacy skills course for English language teachers from the People’s Republic of China enrolled in a one-year postgraduate diploma course in English language teaching. The objective of the course was to introduce digital tools and techniques that could be used by the teachers in their English language teaching in China. While the teachers all had substantial teaching experience in China, their exposure to the use of technology in the classroom was often limited, in some cases extending only to the use of PowerPoint in delivering lectures. Within the context of this digital literacy skills course, blogging was seen as a technique to help promote the teachers’ acquisition of digital literacy skills, to demonstrate an instructional technology they could adopt in China, and to give them the experience of creating and participating in a learning community. In the same manner that learner blogs were set up in the EAP and composition courses, each NIE trainee teacher went through the process of registering with a blog service, then configuring and personalizing their blog with templates and related options. Once the blogs were established, each teacher joined with three other members of the class to form a blog group. The blogs were the platform for two key course activities, a webography and the teachers’ responses to issues raised in the assigned readings. The use of blogs integrated well with the module goals, which included z z z z

searching for and sharing with classmates sites and services featuring technology useful to the teaching and learning of English; increasing technical skills that enhance preparation of teaching materials in an IT rich environment; improving skills in using technology to present information; and improving information literacy skills.

The use of blogs had three key functions in this module. First, creating and maintaining a blog provided a venue for the development of digital and information literacy skills. At a minimum, the teachers needed to negotiate the Web account sign-up process, configure the blog, post information, and add hyperlinks. While some members of the class

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were satisfied with a minimum of personalization, others, like the EAP and composition students described earlier, substantially enhanced their blogs with widgets (small functional programs placed within the blog), links to resources, images, and embedded videos. To help develop information literacy skills, the webography assignment, developed by Wilkinson and Ellis (Ellis, 2009), required the teachers to use search techniques to locate relevant websites, forums, software, and other resources of interest to English language practitioners and then to describe these concisely in their own words, evaluate their usefulness, and provide links. By posting brief evaluations of these resources on their blogs, the teachers were able to increase their awareness of the vast resources available in online communities, user forums, and help centers, and to build a foundation for the development of a repository of educational resources. A second function of the blog was to demonstrate to the teachers how IT could be used as an instructional tool in their post-program teaching. By developing their own blogs, these teachers gained insight into how a blog could be integrated into the English language courses they teach in China. As discussed above, a blog can be used for specific assignments in reading and writing, for the creation of a learning group, and as a resource bank of useful weblinks; this course took advantage of these affordances. In their blogs the teachers posted their responses to assigned readings. As members of blog groups they commented on the posts of their colleagues. And in their webographies they posted links to resources that English language teachers might find useful. Through all these activities they were also interacting with their instructors. The value of the experience gained by the teachers through the use of their blogs as a learning tool was shown in comments in the end-of-course survey. In the survey, one of the most frequently mentioned benefits of the course was the usefulness of the blog as a teaching/learning tool. A typical response was that “I am going to teach my students to create a blog for peer review in their writing course.” Although these teachers did not use their blogs in reviewing their peers’ work as part of the writing process, they could easily envision the use of the blog for that purpose. The third and arguably most important function of blogging in the course was to promote the formation of a learning community among the trainee teachers. One step in the blogging process was for the trainees to form a blog group with three others and then to regularly read the posts of these group members and leave responses for them. This activity helped the bloggers develop new insights and see new perspectives on their own IT and learning experiences. The second requirement was the creation of the

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webography described earlier. Because the blogs containing these webographies were publicly accessible, the trainees were joining the wider online community of learners and practitioners interested in technology for English language teaching and learning. In the same way that Chickering and Gamson’s principles apply to undergraduate education, they are relevant to graduate learning. In the webography task, for example, the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth principles are especially evident. The use of blogs for the webography was especially helpful in strengthening the instructor-learner link, in encouraging active learning, in giving feedback, and in emphasizing time on task. Each teacher’s webography was reviewed by the course instructors, who visited the linked sites and gave written feedback to the trainee on both the sites and the descriptive evaluations posted on the teacher’s blog. This feedback, though given privately by email and not as public comments on the blogs, led the teachers to revise the webographies, and in some cases, led further to mini-tutorials on aspects of information literacy that the teachers hoped to clarify. In using the blogs to encourage the development of a learning community, the second and third principles in particular, for cooperation/reciprocity and active learning, are evident and underlie the value of building such a community. Since one of the main goals of the teacher training course was to facilitate “sharing with classmates,” the course developers viewed blogging, and work within blogging groups, as pertinent. (See Figure 10.2.) Many of the student bloggers in the course embraced the learning community with evident enthusiasm. Although the course required them only to comment on posts by their immediate blog group members, some of the teachers read and responded to posts outside their blog groups. Chickering and Gamson’s principles of effective practice also underlie the use of blogs in another course for student teachers at NIE. In this course, which helped local trainee teachers develop communication skills for their work in Singapore’s schools, blogs functioned as a conduit for the teachers’ reflections on what they learned in an e-tutorial on voice production and vocal health. Though far more limited than the pedagogical blogging described earlier in this paper, this project was noteworthy for its technical implementation. The trainee teachers did not set up the blogs using a free blog service; instead, one was set up for each tutorial group of students by an e-learning coordinator within BlackBoard, a password-protected course management system. In this manner, the blog belonged to the tutorial group rather than the individual; it could not be personalized; and viewing access was limited

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Figure 10.2 Blogs can encourage the development of a learning community: Screenshot showing blogging buddies’ comments on a post. (Chen, 2007)

to members of each tutorial group, with the posts having external availability only if the blog was configured for syndication (RSS). These blogs looked and functioned more like electronic bulletin boards than conventional individually owned blogs. At the same time, course tutors did post comments on the teachers’ posts, and as is often the case with blogs, the content of the posts was not assessed, thus allowing for a range in approaches to that content and to the nature of follow-up commentary. The decision to confine the blogs to BlackBoard was taken to facilitate course management. Placing each group blog on BlackBoard helped ease the transition to blog use by the course tutors, some of whom had limited experience with blogs and other forms of instructional technology. Additionally, this implementation was carried out uniformly across three programs (Diploma, Degree, and Postgraduate Diploma) with well over 1,500 trainee teachers writing posts and over 30 tutors reading and responding to them. Because of these numbers, the course designers desired a degree of control and uniformity so that all trainee teachers and course tutors would have similar experiences locating, posting, and commenting on the content.

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Despite a lack of external accessibility for the group blogs and the absence of other features typically found on those sites that are freely accessible, the principles of effective practice were apparent in this use of blogging, in particular, contact between instructor and learner, the opportunity for feedback, sufficient time on task, and respect for diverse ways of learning. Only the second principle of effective practice, connecting learner to learner, seemed diminished.

Potential challenges in using blogging and their practical solutions For all of the advantages of using blogging, there are still some challenges that may be apparent in certain contexts. For example, with some student populations there may be a fear of posting personal material online. This may stem from concern at overstepping boundaries set by the authorities, or it may result from a belief that the public availability of personal material could negatively affect the writer’s reputation or future employability. These reactions to blogging may be more common in older users, whose insights, experience, and awareness of the consequences of their actions within a given social and legal context could indicate that open discussion and posting on particular topics is a cause for concern. With some student bloggers, apprehension over the posting of personal material will not be a concern. Quite the opposite, some student bloggers may have a tendency to post too much personal material or overstep the boundaries of legal or appropriate posting. Resolving the problems of apprehension over posting or the posting of inappropriate material can involve an instructor raising student awareness of appropriate and legal online behavior posting before they begin to write their blog posts. It might also involve structuring blog assignments so that responses are clearly within expectations. A closely related problem may be the perceived conflict between blogging and the policies of the students’ educational institution. For example, most bloggers expect to adhere to a code of conduct in their online postings, but some may be unclear about what those rules are. Again, an instructor using blogging may want to clarify this sort of ambiguity for students at the start of a term. A second common challenge, one of potential time constraints, may affect both student bloggers and instructors. For all the pedagogical benefits and paper-free convenience that blogging brings to learners, the acts of navigating to and through blogs, making posts, and commenting

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on others’ blogs can require quite a bit of effort. For teachers, blogging still might require as much or more time than assessing work in the traditional classroom. Again, for the sake of all involved in educational blogging, it is essential for the managing instructor to allocate sufficient time to all related activities. In addition, the instructor need not respond to every post. To ensure the impression of an online presence, it may be sufficient if the instructor comments on 25–50% of the posts. The instructor may also offer oral feedback in class to acknowledge reading the posts. One means for an instructor to reduce the time needed when overseeing student posting is with the use of RSS feeds, which are priority lists of “favorite” sites that are automatically updated when new material is put online. Instead of going to each student blog to check for new posts, the instructor need only scan his RSS feed of student blogs for updated postings. If a student has posted something new, the instructor can read it in the RSS feed reader and/or go to the blog on the web to read and make comments. A final possible concern is an absence of desired public exposure for the learner’s blog. Although one aim in using blogs may be to help the student join a wider learning community, one whose members will find the student’s contributions of interest and who can contribute their own insights in reaction to the her posts, very few web users will happen by chance upon a student blog or find it through a web search. Steps need to be taken to promote such a blog to an appropriate target community. Creating blogging groups within a given class or across classes of the same learning level is one way to address this. Another way is by practicing what Yang calls “link reciprocity” (2006, 96). In this way, the instructor using blogging can encourage students to create links on their blogs not just for classmates’ blogs but also for those of family members, friends, and other associates. Once such links have been established, the students should also be encouraged to visit those linked blogs and leave comments. The ideal result would be for the student’s blog to be linked on others’ blogs as well, increasing the probability of periodic site visits and written feedback.

Conclusion In this chapter, the writers describe how blogs and associated blogging activities have been used effectively for pedagogical purposes in several

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post-secondary instructional contexts. The facets of this computer-based technology that make it attractive to language educators and learners alike include but are not limited to: (1) easy set up, engaging modification and maintenance, (2) online accessibility to users both inside and out of the physical classroom, (3) its capacity for dually supporting highly personalized and broadly interactive communication, (4) the manner in which it facilitates the evolution of a “community of learners.” For language instructors or teacher trainers working at the university level, blogging can provide an innovative means of helping learners practice and refine important linguistic and/or digital literacy skills. It can also serve as a conduit for intellectual discourse as each member of a particular learning community publicly explores course content and reflects upon that and other issues identified as relevant by the group. Finally, and just as important, blogging seems to be a prime motivator for these post-secondary learners, naturally lending itself to the sort of complex, authentic communication that makes for a widely satisfying “learning space” and for “good practice.”

References Blackstone, Brad, Spiri, J., and Naganuma, N. (2007). Blogs in English language teaching and learning: Pedagogical uses and student responses. Reflections on English Language Teaching 6 (2), 1–20. Chen Nan’s Instructional Technology Blog. January 17, 2007. The road ahead, http://ency2002.blogspot.com Chickering, Arthur W. and Ehrmann, S. C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. AAHE Bulletin 48, 3–6, http://www.tltgroup.org/ programs/seven.html (accessed on May 20, 2008). Chickering, Arthur W. and Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin 39, 3–7, http://honolulu.hawaii. edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm (accessed on May 19, 2008). Cox, Margaret, Webb, M., Abbott, C., Blakely, B., Beauchamp, T., and Rhodes, V. (2003). ICT and pedagogy: A review of the research literature. ICT in Schools Research and Evaluation Series, 18. London: Department for Education and Skills, http:// 209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:5xLyicR2a8J:partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/ downloads/page_documents/research/ict_pedagogy_summary.pdf+researched+ pedagogy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&client=safari (accessed on May 19, 2008). Darabi, Rachel (2006). Basic writing and learning communities. Journal of Basic Writing 25 (1), 53–72. Downes, Stephen (2004). Educational blogging. Educause Review 39 (5), 14–26, http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp?bhcp=1 (accessed on September 29, 2007).

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Ellis, Mary (2009). Evaluating and managing sources. In Anitha Devi Pillai, Mary Ellis, and Tan Oon Seng (eds), Project Work in Junior College (pp. 93–98). Singapore: Prentice Hall Pearson. Enzer, Matisse (2008). Blog. Glossary of Internet terms, http://www.matisse.net/files/ glossary.html (accessed on May 19, 2008). Lamshed, Reece, Berry, M., and Armstrong, L. (2002). Blogs: Personal e-learning spaces. Binary Blue, http://www.binaryblue.com.au/docs/blogs.pdf (accessed on September 29, 2007). Nardi, Bonnie A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., and Swartz, L. (2004, December). Why we blog. Communications of the ACM 47 (12), 41–46, http://64.233.179.104/ scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:-eGtmcPtumAJ:www.artifex.org/~bonnie/pdf/ Nardi_why_we_blog.pdf (accessed on September 29, 2007). Stanley, Graham (2006). Blog-EFL: Observations and comments on the use of weblogs, emerging technologies and e-learning tools for English language teaching, Thursday, November 16, http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/ (online video: 2:00–2:56) (accessed on April 1, 2007). Thio, Alethea (October 12, 2008). Reflecting on the research project experience, http://culater-alligator.blogspot.com Towndrow, Phillip and Vallance, M. (2004). Using IT in the Language Classroom: A Guide for Teachers and Students in Asia (3rd edn). Singapore: Longman. Williams, Jeremy B. and Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australian Journal of Educational Technology 20 (2), 232–247, http://www.jeremywilliams.net/AJETpaper.pdf (accessed on September 25, 2007). Yang, Jon (2006). The Rough Guide to Blogging. London: Rough Guides.

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Chapter 11

Why Write with Wikis? Ashley Tan National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Introduction The word “wiki” is a truncation of wiki-wiki, which is Hawaiian for “quick,” as wikis are essentially websites that are quick to edit. Anyone with internet access, a web browser, and a wiki password (if the wiki administrator requires it) can edit a wiki page without any knowledge of web design software, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), scripting, or File Transfer Protocol (FTP). If you can compose an email or edit a Word document, you can create and edit a wiki. Wikis are part of a larger phenomenon collectively known as Web 2.0. The essential difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that previously passive consumers of the web have become active producers of web content; whereas Web 1.0 was the read only Web, Web 2.0 is the read-write Web.

An Example, an Issue, and an Overview Wikipedia is probably the most well known wiki. It is commonly known as an online encyclopedia, but it is more important to understand that anyone with internet access can add a new topic or edit an existing article in Wikipedia. As a result, Wikipedia is an online reference tool that is maintained by the people and for the people. Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has harnessed the collective knowledge of more than 75,000 active contributors to produce more than 10 million articles in more than 250 languages (Wikipedia, 2008). Almost a quarter of those articles are currently in English. The number of content producers and articles grows every day, and it has been estimated that a new article is produced every two to three seconds (Richardson, 2006). A common concern among educators and skeptics is the validity and reliability of the information in Wikipedia. How credible is information generated by the enthusiastic masses? One investigation by Giles (2005)

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sought to determine the error rate in 50 science articles in Wikipedia and Britannica Encyclopedia. While both are online reference tools, the content of the latter is peer-reviewed by experts. In the study, reviewers were asked to check 50 pairs of articles, one from each source, but were not told the source of the articles. On average, there were about three inaccuracies per article in Britannica Encyclopedia and almost four inaccuracies per article in Wikipedia. In an informal study, Halavais (2004) tested the premise that there were more people who wanted to correct errors in Wikipedia than there were people who wanted to vandalize entries. Halavais created 13 errors in various Wikipedia entries and discovered that all had been corrected within a few hours. In all likelihood, the errors in Wikipedia from Giles’ study would have by now been found and corrected by the denizens of Web 2.0. In light of these studies, Wikipedia, which is maintained by the masses, seems to be a credible and more dynamic competitor to an encyclopedia maintained by “experts.” Might the practice of writing collaboratively with wikis harness the collective knowledge of a crowd that organizes and polices itself? In an attempt to answer this question, this chapter provides an examination of wikis as a collaborative writing tool and space. I will first provide some information about using wikis and then outline some of the rationales and a key theoretical foundation for using wikis for writing. I describe a few examples of wikis in Singaporean language education contexts in an attempt to connect theory with practice. Then I consider more pragmatic issues such as assessment to conclude. Using a wiki There are at least two main types of wikis. The first are the older, notationbased wikis. The second are the newer WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), or rich text editor wikis. The older wikis require a user to notate text with symbols to format it. For example, an entry like *sample bold text* would eventually appear as sample bold text on a wiki page. On the other hand, the newer wikis allow users to focus on creating content instead of worrying about formatting. They look very similar to what is available in Word processing software (Figure 11.1). Wikis with rich text editors are more convenient to use and have already become the norm. Providers of wikis with rich text editors include PBworks (http://pbworks. com), WetPaint (http://wetpaint.com), and Google Sites (http://sites.google. com, formerly known as JotSpot and acquired by Google). These and other

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Figure 11.1 Screenshot of the formatting and other tools available in wikis with rich text editors.

wiki providers offer their services free of charge. Users can create as many pages and write as much as they want. For a fee, subscribers also get optional extras such as greater online storage space for attaching files, more page templates, user-customizable features like logos or banners, and so on. To access a wiki, you can sign up for one or edit a wiki that someone else maintains. Using a wiki is simple: (1) visit a particular wiki page, (2) click on the edit button or link and make your edits as you would in a word-processing document, and (3) save the changes. Some wikis require users to email the wiki owner for permission to view or edit content. The wiki owner can then add the new user to the wiki and only then will the user be able to view or edit content. An online video entitled “Wikis in Plain English” (http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english) provides an idea of the process. However, there is no substitute for signing up for a free wiki and experimenting with it yourself. Note that a wiki owner might define some wiki pages as read-only or password-protect them in order to protect stable information such as the entry page of the wiki or to limit access to private pages. Wikis can be used for many educational purposes (e.g., brainstorming and developing ideas, managing courses, maintaining e-portfolios, project planning, creating user-generated repositories of information and media). However, their central affordance is to provide a common tool and online space for co-construction and collaborative writing.

Theories of Writing with Wikis Wikis may be used to promote information and social literacy. However, as Prensky (2008) and Penrod (2008) have argued, various forms of literacy evolve over time. Therefore, it is prudent to define the various literacies that relate to wikis.

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Literacies evolve with technology Penrod (2008) observed that the nature and importance of various forms of literacy change along with technology. For example, the need for basic literacy (the ability to read and write) stemmed from the advent of technologies like the pen and the printing press. Prensky also argued that many teachers are still only preparing students with the basic literacy skills in what he termed “backup education” (2008, 64). Such an education prepares students in a way with which teachers are comfortable and for a life more suited for the Industrial Age than for the Information Age; students are generally not being prepared to be literate for the now and the future. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking sites, and media sharing sites. We have fingertip and point-and-click/point-and-tap access to these resources thanks to mobile internet technologies like ultra mobile personal computers (UMPCs) and mobile phones. School hours and classroom walls no longer limit education, and learning can happen when the student decides to take up these affordances, not just when the teacher directs it. Consider how learning might take place with a wiki. Richardson (2006) recounted how, in the wake of the South Asian tsunami of Christmas 2004, a Wikipedia entry initially comprising 76 words was created nine hours after the disaster. One day and more than 400 edits later, the entry had grown to 3,000 words and included photographs of the disaster and graphics on how tsunamis form. Six months later, the entry was 7,200 words long after more than 7,000 edits. Where did these authors get their information and media? From shared information in blog entries, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and even other Wikipedia articles on the natural disaster. More recent incidents in Myanmar (Cyclone Nargis and the uprising of monks against the ruling junta) and Tibet (renewed calls for independence from China) are already part of Wikipedia, and their information sources include blog entries, tweets (a form of micro blogging via computers or mobile phones using Twitter), and the traditional press and media. The contributors of these wiki articles were self-organizing. Contributors had to read text and media that others had included before them, carefully analyze and evaluate their relevance and quality, and make their own edits and “add-its.” Collectively, they co-constructed a common document with the aim of informally educating others about the events they were themselves just learning about.

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Digital natives and information literacy Now consider the mindset of “digital natives”—persons born after computers and internet access became commonplace (Prensky, 2001). The information explosion and the ready access of information shape the expectations, culture, and education of children and students in modern, postindustrial societies. They grow up in a world where internet access is a given. They are attuned to the web and its related technological trappings. They expect news to be delivered in bite-sized pieces and in various media, often nontextual in nature. They rely on the web for information, be it for personal or educational reasons (and sometimes the two are not distinct from one another). Digital natives have access to information, often more than they need. However, what they need to learn, according to school-based expectations of their literacy practices, is how to “access, evaluate, and use” information (Doyle, 1992, 2); they need to learn how to create and share new information and to do so effectively (American Library Association, 1989). This is information literacy at its simplest. The need to be information literate is not new, but its need is more pressing given the quantity and quality of the information that learners now have access to. Prior to changing a wiki entry, a contributor has to decide if any existing content is opinion or fact. The contributor then has to add a new source of information and/or remove existing information. In adding new information, the contributor has to justify that new information is more accurate or valuable. In the process of doing this, the contributor has to not only actively synthesize but also integrate information into the existing article. Social literacy The American Library Association’s (ALA) definition of information literacy also states that a person “use effectively the needed information,” but it does not clearly define what “effective” is or how information might be used (ALA, 1989). A concept that might fill this void in the case of wikis is social literacy. Arthur et al. (2000, 5) defined social literacy very broadly as “the ability to understand and operate successfully within a complex and interdependent social world. It involves the acquisition of . . . the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for making reasoned judgments in a community.” While social literacy is more often mentioned in the context of citizen education, it has its place in the context of writing collaboratively as

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well. Consider Richardson’s (2006, 65) perspective: “In using wikis, students are not only learning how to publish content; they are also learning how to develop and use all sorts of collaborative skills, negotiating with others to agree on correctness, meaning, relevance, and more.” In co-authoring a wiki entry, a user not only has to decide what to include but, if necessary, what to remove in order to make the entry better or more complete. The contributor also needs to consider if he or she has ethically used a source of information and the reasons for changing or removing what someone else had previously written. In the context of writing with wikis, social literacy is not about acquiring the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be a useful member of society, but about writing in a community and doing so in a way that is recognized by others in the community as relevant and appropriate. The effectiveness of wiki-based writing is projecting the voice of the community over that of the individual. I argue that it is therefore the voice of the community that might reveal the wisdom of crowds.

Wisdom of crowds Surowiecki (2005) wrote about how a large group of people could be more intelligent and more accurate about predictions than a few experts could be. However, he claimed there are a few necessary conditions in order for this to happen: (1) diversity of opinion (each person should have some private information, even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts), (2) independence (people’s opinions are not determined by the opinions of those around them), (3) decentralization (people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge), and (4) aggregation (some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision) (Surowiecki, 2005). While Surowiecki described broader economic, political, and other social phenomena, the above principles also apply to writing with wikis. Wikis are a tool and space for aggregation and can be shared between classes, schools, and even whole societies. Diversity of opinion, independence, and decentralization are conditions that educators must ensure accompany wiki writing in order for the process to harness the collective wisdom of crowds. An important caveat regarding Surowiecki’s claims is that he assumed the members of the crowd had some knowledge, no matter how little, about a particular phenomenon. He did not presume that one could round up infants or newcomers to the village and get them to solve the problems of

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the village. In the context of writing with wikis, a teacher could get students to build upon what they already know about Hamlet or Harry Potter. I next describe some examples of wikis in education to consider how the wisdom of the crowds might be put into practice in order to promote information and social literacies.

Examples of Writing with Wikis The examples described below attempt to cover a range of wiki’s pedagogical uses, from contributing to Wikipedia to educators creating and using their own wikis. I present these examples in order from more conventional and informal uses of wikis to those that are testing new ground for formal classroom use.

Wikipedia as a teaching tool An Agence France-Presse article titled, “Once shunned by academics, Wikipedia now a teaching tool,” (AFP, 2008) described how Beasley-Murray, a professor from the University of British Colombia, used Wikipedia to engage his students in Latin American literature. His students not only faced the challenge of learning new material but also presented specific topics in an academically sound manner. Their audience included their peers and also Wikipedia contributors anywhere in the world who were interested in Latin American literature. This audience could participate by editing an entry or even flagging it for removal. Beasley-Murray rewarded his students with a grade of A+ if their entries were accorded the “Featured Article” status in Wikipedia. To be a featured article, the entry had to meet standards of comprehensiveness, accuracy, neutrality, and stability (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria) as determined by fellow editors and contributors. Three entries, the work of nine students, reached this status after four months of work and up to 1,000 edits. One of Beasley-Murray’s students shared that it was initially difficult to edit in the public eye but that it was exciting and addictive to work on. One of the takeaways from this example is that while participation in Wikipedia is largely informal, it is possible to design a formal learning activity while tapping on informal, but potentially critical, peer review. Such a project is more time-consuming than an end-of-course essay, and expectations like investment of time, risks involved, and grading issues should be clearly made to students.

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A K-12 wiki On a smaller scale are wikis that are maintained by teachers and students. A wiki simply titled, “Welcome to Room 15!” (http://mrlindsay.pbworks. com) is one such example (Figure 11.2). The teacher and students use the wiki for various purposes including maintaining a resource repository (The Web for kids, by kids), a showcase of student writing and projects (Creative Zone), and submitting book reviews. The resource repository is a page with links and descriptions to websites of potential value to the students, while the creative zone is Wikipedia-like in that it allows students to create wiki entries of topics in which they are interested. I highlight this wiki’s book review section to raise a critical aspect of it that can be both a value and a pitfall. The idea of doing book reviews online is similar to those on Amazon.com, except that the latter are mainly to inform consumer choice. Educationally, the book reviews are an attempt

Figure 11.2 Screenshot of the Book Review section of the Room 15 wiki. (http:// mrlindsay.pbworks.com)

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to encourage students to read and to reflect critically on what they have read. This can be a valuable activity, particularly if they had a choice in the readings and if they have opinions about them. However, the wiki is being used very much like a discussion forum and not like a collaborative writing space. In a book review, the individual voice is more important than the collective one, and the tool of choice is not necessarily ideal. For example, one student might change the review of another, which may not be desirable. The lessons one might take away from this example include: (a) maintaining theme or issue pages that are meaningful to students, (b) scaffolding the activity if the task is complex, and (c) designing for collaborative writing. The success of Wikipedia lies partly with the fact that anyone can add or edit an article that is of interest to them. They monitor and nurture the article so that it develops as fully as it can. If students are to maintain wiki pages, they should be doing so because they find it meaningful (e.g., I chose this book and I have something to say about it), not because they are forced to do so (e.g., the teacher made me read this book and told me to say something about it). They should take ownership of the content and the process. Occasionally the process might be too complex. For example, if students have never done a book review, a teacher could model the process (as shown in Figure 11.2) and provide some scaffolding in the form of guiding questions. Finally, if writing is to be collaborative, then the teacher can ask students to work in groups and review a book of their choice. The desired outcome of a panel review would be a single piece of writing that combines group members’ collective points of view.

Wikibooks Wikibooks is a parallel project to Wikipedia and was established in 2003. The idea behind Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Wikijunior (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior) is for anyone to contribute to the writing of educational, nonfiction books that are free to use and distribute. The typical authors include writers, teachers, parents, and students. Consider how a teacher might teach a course using the Wikibook on creative writing for example (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Creative_Writing, Figure 11.3). The Wikibook could be used as one of several references on creative writing. It could also be a project that a class contributes to as they learn about creative writing. The central idea of such a learning design is to

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Figure 11.3 Screenshot of a Wikibook on creative writing. (http://en.wikibooks. org/wiki/Creative_Writing)

capitalize on the collective wisdom of crowds. Alternatively, groups could be assigned to write versions of the book that are more appropriate for different age groups or to write chapters that focus on different genres of creative writing. They could do so as contributors to Wikibooks or to a separate course wiki set up specifically for this purpose. Alternatively, consider the motivation behind creating the Muggles Guide to Harry Potter (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_ to_Harry_Potter). The Harry Potter series is a highly motivating topic to write about for the many students who are fans of the series. Directing learners to inform and educate others about a book they love could give them a sense of ownership and responsibility. Collectively, they create a comprehensive guide on the Harry Potter series, perhaps first by focusing on one particular area and then by reviewing the writings of others. They do this with the common understanding of wanting to create the most comprehensive and accurate guide possible, and as they do this they also learn new aspects of information and social literacies.

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Wikibooks are a good example of Surowiecki’s (2005) four principles of the wisdom of crowds. Diversity: The contributors to the wiki books have varied backgrounds, education, values, and priorities among other things. Independence: As they work over distance and online, the authors are unlikely to meet in person. They may raise ideas in the discussion area of the wiki (see Figure 11.3, discussion tab), but they are unlikely to be overly influenced by the ideas of another writer and suffer from groupthink. Decentralization: Contributors specialize in what they know and draw ideas from the varied circumstances around them. Aggregation: These varied ideas and opinions are collected and negotiated in a wiki and synthesized into a single document. The next two examples of wikis for language education originate from a technology integration course that I facilitate at the National Institute of Education, Singapore for pre-service teachers. The wikis are the projects created by pairs of pre-service teachers for the purposes of storytelling and practicing different genres of writing. What differentiates these examples and the previous three are that these examples illustrate a more formal and topic-oriented use of wikis.

Storytelling wiki Two Chinese language pre-service teachers designed a wiki on storytelling (http://2nd-tortoiseandhare.pbworks.com). English translations have been provided at critical points. The wiki was created with the assumption that students were already familiar with the traditional fable of the tortoise and the hare. They then have to compose a follow up story, which may have various outcomes. The students are provided with guiding questions as a scaffold and, after writing their drafts, are required to critique the drafts of their peers. In the process, they may learn new vocabulary words and sentence structures, or they may pick up story ideas from their classmates. The wiki is not being used to write a single sequel to the original story but rather many parallel stories. The learners collaborate by critiquing the work of others and learning from a variety of writing styles.

Round robin wiki writing In this second example of a more formal use of a language wiki, two preservice English teachers designed a wiki for students to practice different

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genres of narrative writing (http://hybridgenres.pbworks.com). Students are expected to complete a narrative in three phases: create an orientation, develop a conflict, and come to a resolution. Each group creates an orientation based on an assigned genre (e.g., romance, fairytale). The romance group then visits the fairytale group’s wiki page, reads their work, and develops a conflict based on their genre—romance. In the meantime, the science-fiction group has visited the romance group’s page to create a conflict based on science fiction. All groups then return to their own wiki pages to resolve their stories. At every phase, each group must try to integrate and add to the ideas already on the wiki page. This activity allows students to practice writing based on different genres and to find combinations that challenge their ability to write creatively (for additional ideas on using wikis in education, see the FAQ and Educator Wiki Examples link at http://pbworks.com/education.wiki as well as Richardson (2006) on wikis in K-12 education).

Issues and Recommendations This section offers recommendations for tackling issues that may arise as educators attempt to integrate wikis into teaching and learning activities. To avoid unnecessary frustration, a wiki should be used based on its affordances (i.e., what it has been designed to do). A user should also be aware of a wiki’s limitations. Like most Web 2.0 technologies, wikis are asynchronous. This means that only one person can edit an article at a time, and changes cannot be viewed in real time. The article in its newly edited form can only be viewed after the contributor has saved the article. Wikis typically have mechanisms to prevent two people from editing the same article at the same time. Wiki activities are best designed when different people edit a wiki at different times; if a wiki is to be used in class, students might access different group pages or write in a round robin fashion. Imagine that using a wiki is like writing on a white board with only one marker and eraser: everyone has to take turns using the pen and eraser. However, unlike a white board, most wikis allow users to embed media like images, audio files, and video files. Such media may help illustrate concepts more clearly and contribute to media literacy and innovative multimodal practices. Wikis also have a built-in history tracking function (Figure 11.4). This allows a wiki administrator to monitor who contributed what, compare versions of wiki pages, and if necessary, revert to a previous version of a wiki page. The latter affordance can be useful in countering vandalism.

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Figure 11.4 Screenshot of the history tracking function in PBworks.

Educators, particularly those who are accustomed to learning management systems (LMS), are typically concerned with the security of their wikis. Wikis are designed with more open access in mind, but they can be protected with shared passwords. Alternatively, when users are invited to join a wiki, they define their own user names and passwords. This provides some level of security while making it easier to edit a wiki. However, the mindset of using a wiki should not be one of tight control but of social management. If a sense of ownership and responsibility can be inculcated in wiki users, they will self-organize and police the domain themselves. In the worst-case scenario, a wiki administrator can revert to an earlier version of a wiki page (Figure 11.4). As wikis are essentially web pages, their use is very broad. Wikis can be used like blogs and discussion forums or, as illustrated earlier, for the construction of book reviews. However, in these cases, the voice of the individual is more important than the collective voice. Wikis do not protect the individual’s voice, as anyone can edit anything. Wikis are better utilized for co-constructing, co-authoring, critiquing, and collaborating, whether formally or informally. If an individual’s voice is important in a particular context, then it might be better to use a host for a discussion forum or require individuals to maintain their own blogs or publish their own podcasts. There are benefits of promoting the individual or collective voice; choose the tool to suit the job.

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It is important to establish expectations on the part of both teachers and students. Learners sometimes feel uneasy editing their work in the public eye (Bonk et al., 2008), probably because the traditional model entails writing for an audience of one, the teacher. However, writing for a larger audience is something learners can become accustomed to over time. Teachers often have trouble shifting focus from transmitting information to facilitating student interaction and learning. To quote King (1993, 30), there needs to be a change in mindset from being the “sage on the stage” to being more of a “guide on the side.” It is vital that educators participate in wikis. There is a culture of use that cannot be simply described but is best experienced instead. Educators need to understand the process of pondering alternatives before editing an article. Educators need to experience the feeling of someone else editing their own contribution. Lastly, educators should practice what they preach before asking others to do the same. Wiki articles should be viewed as evolving documents. As a result, they can be very “messy” when viewed as a product. A wiki page might be littered with comments, ideas, links to resources, etc. As it undergoes revisions, subjective meaning making is more important than being “correct.” These practices, along with the ability to monitor the history of any wiki page, allow educators to observe the process behind the product. This gives educators the opportunity to rethink assessment and evaluation of writing, as wiki use provides opportunities for alternative forms of assessment. Much of the assessment in written language is rubric-based. Such rubrics could include more processes of writing, as these are now transparent to the teacher with wiki use. While the example first presented above on writing Latin American literature articles was still graded, the public recognition of achieving the “Feature Article” status in Wikipedia was a reward in itself. Other forms of assessment at the group level include peer critique and ranking. At the individual level, options include students’ self-assessment of their own contributions and personal reflection on learning. Whatever the form of assessment, it must evaluate not just the final product but also the process of writing; the final product does not reveal the social negotiation of meaning as the wiki article evolves. The final product also does not necessarily reveal how learners gradually added and removed content or the decisions they made to do so. The final version of a wiki document might be the collective knowledge or even wisdom of a small crowd, which could be missed if the process is not also part of the educator’s focus in assessing it.

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Conclusion The explosion of Web 2.0 and wikis are but a small indication of the myriad changes already taking place in the workplace and educational sector. Gartner, an information and technology research and advisory company, has predicted that half of all US companies will use wikis by 2009 (Burton, 2006). The year 2009 has come and gone, and wikis are only just gaining a foothold in mainstream education. However, technology does not wait for social behavior to catch up. Already the properties and affordances of Web 3.0 (the semantic Web) are being shaped, and there is at least one example of a three-dimensional wiki in the multiuser virtual environment, Second Life (Au, 2007). However, pedagogies change more slowly. This is evidenced by the fact that many teachers’ practices still reflect the more traditional pedagogical strategies to which they are accustomed instead of addressing new ways that students need to learn. It is critical for educators to rise to the challenges of the twenty-first century by building up their arsenal of tools and strategies. Adding wikis as tools for learning differently can utilize the wisdom of crowds to promote information and social literacies. The technologies may change, but the value of being informationally and socially literate will remain and continue to develop in our children and students.

References Agence France-Presse (2008). Once shunned by academics, Wikipedia now a teaching tool. Agence France-Presse, May 11, http://afp.google.com/article/ ALeqM5ggMwxmMUWxgdo5nkNerkzU8biFAA. American Library Association (1989). Final report: Presidential committee on information literacy. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/ whitepapers/presidential.cfm. Arthur, James, Davison, J., and Stow, W. (2000). Social Literacy, Citizenship Education, and the National Curriculum. London: Routledge. Au, Wagner James (2007). Gather ‘round the wikitecture tree: SL architects create true 3D wiki, New World Notes Blog. http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/11/ gather-round-th.html. Bonk, Curtis, Lee, M., Kim, N., and Lin, G. (2008). The tensions of transformation in cross-institutional wikibook projects: Looking back twenty years to today. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, March 25–28, in New York. Burton, Graeme (2006). Wikis to take over corporate America, claims Gartner. Enterprise Information. http://www.eimagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.1C18C408-37AB-4779A593-6621300E253D/articleid.2D750BF3-B757-4DD0-965F-C33D0C8F50CF/ eTitle.News_Wikis_to_take_over_corporate_America_claims_Gartner_/qx/ display.htm.

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Doyle, Christina (1992). Outcome measures for information literacy within the national education goals of 1990: Final report to national forum on information literacy: Summary of findings. ERIC Document (ED351033). Giles, Jim (2005). Encyclopedias go head to head. Nature 438, 900–901. Halavais, Alex (2004). The Isuzu experiment. http://alex.halavais.net/the-isuzuexperiment. King, Alison (1993). From sage on the stage to guide on the side. College Teaching 4, 30–35. Penrod, Diane (2008). Web 2.0, meet literacy 2.0. Educational Technology 48, 50–52. Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9 (5), 1–2. —(2008). Backup education? Educational Technology 48, 64. Richardson, Will (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Surowiecki, James (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few. London: Abacus. Wikipedia. About Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.

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Chapter 12

Wot did he say or could u not c him 4 dust?: Written and Spoken Creativity in Text Messaging Caroline Tagg Open University

Introduction This chapter draws on a corpus of over 11,000 text messages to put forward the suggestion that texters actively draw on their awareness of both written and spoken discourses. This has practical implications for the use of text messaging as a tool in classroom activities designed to focus attention on language. An awareness of written discourse is suggested by the fact that texters draw on principles of spelling variation which reflect historical and contemporary practices in written language. Their awareness of spoken discourse is shown through their use of creativity which is typical of conversational speech and which includes both the manipulation of idioms and the use of repetition. The ways in which texters draw on existing spelling practices and everyday creativity are illustrated in the text message cited in the title of this chapter: wot did he say or could u not c him 4 dust? that contains both the respellings: wot (what), u (you), c (see) and 4 (for), and also the contextualized use of the expression not seeing someone for dust. The suggestion that texters actively draw on other discourses in producing such language implies that texting is not simply “somewhere” between writing and speech, as indicated in studies of computer-mediated communication (e.g., Baron 2000; Crystal 1998). Nor are texters “doing to our language what Ghenghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago” (i.e., “destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary”) as media commentators such as Humphrys (2007) would have us believe. Instead, text messaging emerges as a language variety in its own right with users actively drawing on written and spoken discourses to express themselves through text. The observation that texters are drawing on written

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and spoken discourse in this way is important because, as mentioned above, it allows us to recognize their linguistic awareness which, in turn, has implications for the role of texting in the teaching of spelling, language, and literature. After briefly describing the data on which this study is based, I shall look first at spelling variation in text messaging and how it creates meaning by reflecting and extending practices seen in historical and contemporary written discourse. I will then explore how texters also draw on their familiarity with the everyday speech-like creativity now recognized as prevalent in conversational spoken language. The key concepts associated with each of these fields will be outlined and explained in the relevant sections. Finally, pedagogical implications will be outlined and possible classroom tasks suggested.

CorTxt, A Text Message Corpus The data that this chapter draws on is from CorTxt, a corpus of 11,067 text messages (190,516 words), currently the largest text message corpus in the English Language (for an initial study of a smaller version of this corpus, see Tagg, 2007). The corpus was collected between March 2004 and May 2007 from this researcher’s friends and family members. Messages they had sent and received were contributed, thus providing a range of participants, many of whom are unknown to the researcher. Consent was obtained from all participants, however, and the messages were anonymized. The main caveat which needs to be acknowledged here is that most contributors to the corpus are university students and professionals. Not only are they thus presumed to be highly literate and well-educated, but they also range in age from early twenties to early fifties. This, of course, limits the extent to which the conclusions reached in this chapter can be generalized to younger or less academically minded individuals. At the same time, there is little or no comparable evidence that the features identified in CorTxt will not be reflected in wider texting practices. There is value in examining the creative potential of such messages for useful pedagogical implications to be drawn for language learners.

Spelling Variation in Text Messaging Spelling variation in text messaging is, in part, responsible for public concern over a language variety which has been described as “thin

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and—compared, say with Californian personalised licence plates— unimaginative” (Sutherland, 2002) and the following text message taken from CorTxt illustrates the kind of language behind these concerns. All names in CorTxt have been anonymized with basic codes, as in this example: (1) Hi NAME38 hope unis ok & u’r feelin gud Hows it bin wiv NAME294 since u got bac? Gud news bout the playscheme Lookin4ward 2seein u soon hav missd u lotsa love NAME12 (CorTxt) However, the view that text messaging is responsible for falling standards in literacy has been shown to be no more than media-inspired “moral panic” (Thurlow, 2006), while the argument that text messaging can have beneficial effects on literacy appears to be gaining ground. Crystal (2008), for example, argues that texting offers children valuable writing practice, as long as they understand when and where it is appropriate to play with language in the way they do in text messages. Shortis (2007) describes what he calls “Txt spelling” through the metaphor of an orthographic palette from which spellings rather than colors can be selected and which provides texters with a new resource for meaning-making. By situating “textese” into a sociocultural model of orthography which explores the social meanings of respellings (Sebba, 2007), as Shortis (2007) does, we can suggest that spelling variation in texting is, as in other domains, both principled and meaningful. It is principled in the respect that texters are not randomly creating spelling variants, but are instead bound to principles of English orthography which ensure that variation from the norm is recognizable and effective (Sebba, 2007). Consequently, the apparently unconventional language of text messaging follows and extends traditional patterns of spelling variation found in contemporary and historical writing. It is meaningful in the sense that, although spelling may not be freely varied, it is the availability of choice as to how words are spelt which makes spelling another resource for meaning making. This can be seen in the use of spellings such as Punx (for punks) in underground music magazines to convey “notions such as originality, radicality, or toughness” (Androutsopoulous, 2000, 528). The choices made regarding how to spell a word in text messaging can similarly be seen as conveying meaning, in terms of signaling deviance from the norm and performing a kind of speech-like informality, as well as fulfilling the functions of brevity and speed.

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Investigation of CorTxt suggests that we can group the spelling variants into three broad categories: i. abbreviations and acronyms seen across written texts; ii. “colloquial contractions” (Weber, 1986); and iii. phonetic spellings. The use of abbreviations can be traced back to at least the sixteenth century, when early printing practices encouraged a great deal of variation in spelling. This was not only a priority to save space and keep costs down, but also to ensure that text fit the page. Books were prepared by folding four sheets of paper in half, so that pages 1 and 16 (for example) were produced as one sheet, and printers had to know what would appear on the sixteenth page as they prepared the first. As a consequence of this, spaces were omitted and words shortened or lengthened: here could be spelt here or heere, well and shall as wel and shal, on as on, onn, or hon (Baron, 2000; Crystal, 2003, 66–67). Similar abbreviations in text messaging include bac (back), hav (have), and missd (missed). Thousands of abbreviations also occur across business documents, Science writing and newspaper reporting today, not to mention in English Language Teaching (ELT) courses. These include what Crystal (2003, 120–121) calls initialisms (USA, BBC) as well as acronyms (NATO, TEFL), and clippings (pub for public house). The abbreviations we see in text messaging, which include uni (university), mess (message), and tomo (tomorrow), are not “new” but show a reflection of historical and widespread tendencies to abbreviate for practical reasons such as limited space and which are motivated by features of the technology (namely, in the case of the clippings in text messaging, the predictive texting device). Informal or personal writing has also always used contractions and abbreviations. Kesseler and Bergs (2003), for example, compare their corpus of Valentine text messages with love letters written by lower-class “fallen” girls at the London Foundling Hospital in the nineteenth century. As in texting, the Victorian letters used phonetic spellings such as bcoz (because) and luv (love); graphic symbolizations of kisses (xx), as well as what Kesseler and Bergs (2003) suggest are grammar and spelling deviations. As Kesseler and Bergs (2003) argue, the idea that we tend to have of an earlier, highly literate age, is based in part on letters composed by educated and public individuals who knew their writings would be retained, and they should not be compared to the average “texter.”

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Personal letters then and now also contain “colloquial contractions” (defined by Weber, 1986 as “contracted or shortened forms in writing that reflect colloquial or rapid pronunciations.” These include ya or yer for you, gonna (going to), wanna (want to), or gotcha (got you)! They can be traced back to songs of the 1960s such as “I wanna hold your hand” and in novels written by Dickens in the nineteenth century among others. They indicate informality, but also a lighthearted or emotional tone, and are used in text messaging for similar reasons: feelin (feeling), lookin (looking), bin (been), wiv (with), bout (about), lotsa (lots of). Finally, advertising uses phonetically spelt forms such as Rice Krispies and Beanz Meanz Heinz for stylistic effect and to create identifiable eyecatching product names; and similar forms can also be found to deviant or informal effect in graffiti, as in the popular postwar slogan: Wot, no butter? Phonetic spellings in text messaging, which includes gud (good), u (you), r (are), 4 (for), 2 (to or too) and ne (any) work in similar ways to indicate group boundaries and membership as well as deviance from a norm (Androutsopoulous, 2000). What these different motivations for variation show is that in drawing on existing written practices, texters have choices in how they spell individual words (Table 12.1). To take an example from Table 12.1, you occurs in five variant forms across the corpus. The letter u is a phonetic spelling, while the others are colloquial contractions representing informal or rapid speech. These choices suggest, first, that texters are actively and creatively choosing how to present themselves, while the fact that the variants follow or extend existing spelling practices and principles also highlights texters’ ability to draw on the resources of written discourse.

Table 12.1 Spelling variants in CorTxt Lemma headword

Spelling variants in CorTxt (frequency)

you

you (4560), u (3043), ya (256), yer (14), ye (9)

for

for (1698), 4 (357), fer (2)

because

cos (226), coz (24), because (8), cuz (3)

tomorrow

tomorrow (473), tomo (361), 2moro (42), tomoz (9)

would

would (64), wud (38), wld (22)

what

what (654), wot (148), wat (37)

yeah

yeah (382), yep (69), yea (15), yeh (22), yup (13)

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Everyday Creativity in Text Messaging Investigation of CorTxt also suggests that the everyday creativity seen in spoken language has an important role to play in text messaging. The assertion that creativity, such as in the following examples, is a normal, if not prevalent, feature of everyday spoken conversation has been put forward and illustrated by a number of linguists (Carter, 2004; Maybin and Swann, 2007; McCarthy and Carter, 2004). (2) Deborah: Peter:

Rover is being so good . . . He’s being hungry (Tannen, 1989: 63)

(3) A: He won’t forget this time. B: Brian, can you see those pigs over my left shoulder moving slowly across the sky? (Carter, 2004, 23) As the examples show, creativity in everyday language can be described as the manipulation of language form to achieve a certain effect. In the first example, we see the repetition of a grammatical structure (. . . is being . . .) for ironic effect, while in the second, a well-known idiom Pigs may fly has been reworded for added impact. In both cases, it is the unexpected form of these statements rather than the meaning of the words which conveys the full impact of the intended effect. The instinctive reaction to the use of the term creativity to describe this language use may well be to object to the notion that literary works such as Shakespeare’s have any parallel with our everyday conversations, but the important point is that Carter’s (2004) use of the term creative is, itself, free from consideration of social or cultural merit. Instead, the argument is that the same resources which Shakespeare draws on to craft impressive imagery and complex ideas are drawn on spontaneously in conversation in order to fulfill what may be less socially valued tasks. These functions include not only the humor or amusement provoked through overt and deliberate language play, but also a sense of involvement, intimacy, and evaluation created through the more covert patterning seen in the repetition of grammatical structures as in Rover’s being hungry. Creativity is seen to occur in a range of spoken contexts, particularly where relations are equal and intimate (Carter, 2004). The creative manipulation of form described above is drawn on in text messaging primarily as an evaluative device and to make connections across

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messages. In this example of self-repetition in text messaging, we see the repetition of the syntactic frame with the stick: (4) Am watching house—very entertaining—am getting the whole hugh laurie thing—even with the stick—indeed especially with the stick. (CorTxt) This is in reference to the medical drama House, in which Hugh Laurie plays a doctor with a walking stick. The repetition of the frame with the stick emphasizes the word especially which has slotted into the frame. In other words, even with the stick is not a mistake which should be corrected to especially with the stick but, instead, the second adds to the first to create the overall intended meaning. The texter finds particularly attractive something which should apparently detract from Hugh Laurie’s charm. The syntactic parallelism in this example illustrates the apparent role for repetition in indicating stance despite (or because of) the constraints of the medium. In this exchange, which is concerned with the handing in of a university assignment, the repetition serves to make connections across turns, by linking utterances to the previous message. (5) T01: All done? All handed in? Celebrations in full swing yet? T02: All done, all handed in. Don’t know if mega shop in asda counts as celebration but thats what i’m doing! (CorTxt) The transformation of the two initial questions into statements serves to show that the second texter is responding fully to the questions posed by the first: she is “listening” and is involved in the exchange. Similarly, the repetition of celebration shows how the otherwise somewhat irrelevant description of her shopping trip relates to the initial query, and indicates a touch of irony. In other words, the repetition serves to make connections across turns, by linking utterances to the previous message. This use of repetition also highlights how texters adapt the resources of spoken creativity to the particular demands of texting, in that the lexical repetition in this texted exchange would be unlikely to occur in a face-to-face spoken interaction. The repetition of nouns, rather than pronouns or other anaphoric reference, can be seen throughout the text message corpus, and is illustrated in the following example: (6)

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T03: Aah bless! How’s your arm? T04: Arms fine, how’s Cardiff and uni? xx (CorTxt)

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As with repetition, the manipulation of idioms in text messaging is also a significant evaluative device in an otherwise constrained medium. The following are examples: (7) Yes see ya not on the dot (8) I’ve got some salt, you can rub it in my open wounds if you like! (9) Did you show him and wot did he say or could u not c him 4 dust? (CorTxt) The first example turns a familiar expression on its head. The choice of not on the dot seems very marked in comparison to a more simple I’ll be a few minutes late and is perhaps being used to show that an earlier promise is being contradicted. In the next, the texter exploits the well-known idiom rubbing salt in an open wound to ironically point out some insensitive comment the other texter has made, but the new form of the idiom makes it more marked, noticeable and also more personal. In the last, the use of c him 4 dust conjures up succinctly the image of someone who quickly and recklessly leaves a situation, without much regard for those he leaves behind. What this and the other examples show is that idiom and idiom manipulation allow texters to convey a highly evaluative and emotive stance which would otherwise be difficult to express in this constrained medium. In other words, faced with the constraints of text messaging, texters are actively drawing on the resources of spoken creativity in order to fulfill interpersonal functions.

Pedagogical Implications The pedagogical implications of this study are highly practical ones which draw on findings from studies exploring how spelling can be taught (e.g., Kress, 2000) and how spoken creativity can be exploited in the classroom (e.g., Carter and McCarthy, 2004; O’Keeffe et al., 2006) with learners of English as a first or second language. The recognition that spelling can be an active, meaning-making process, rather than a fixed list of rules, allows for an approach which, to apply Kress’s (2000) arguments regarding very young children, harnesses and exploits the creativity which texters show in their messages as they try to mean through spelling. Text messaging can form a practical starting point from which to help older learners make a link between their spelling practices and the principles underlying English spelling (or, indeed, the spelling of other languages), and the different ways in which both standard and non-standard spelling can have

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meaning. The notion of correct and incorrect spelling can be replaced with that of appropriate or accurate spelling (“accurate” in the sense used by Kress (2000) that it conveys what writers intend it to mean, rather than following prescribed rules). This can give students confidence and a sense of control over their writing. In practical terms, classroom activities would vary depending on whether learners are approaching English as a first or second language, and the extent to which they write text messages in English. Tasks could involve transcribing text messages (either learners’ own or those prepared by the teacher) into and out of textese in order to compare and explore the choices which individual learners make. One effective trick is for students to swap phones, to remind them of the physical constraints and to see how their language use changes on a phone to which they are unaccustomed; students could also, if happy to do so, swap each other’s messages to compare spelling patterns. Furthermore, they could be drawing comparisons between, for example, the spelling in graffiti and novel dialogue on the one hand, and text messaging on the other, with discussion as to whether the effects are the same (see Appendix 1 for one suggested task). Second Language learners have the benefit, perhaps, of being able to compare and contrast English spelling practices with those of their own first language. Text messaging similarly offers a practical tool for teachers wishing to exploit creativity in everyday language in the teaching of both literature and language. The value of spoken creativity, outlined by Carter and McCarthy (2004), for the teaching of literature lies in the fact that it allows learners to make connections between their own language use (in a first or second language) on the one hand and literary language on the other, and to understand the creative resources on which writers draw. In relation to language classrooms, studies of spoken creativity highlight the need for interpersonal, phatic, and playful language use alongside transactional tasks such as information gaps encouraged by communicative language practices (Carter and McCarthy, 2004). The understanding that first language users engaging in “natural” communication focus not only on meaning but also on form suggests that there is room for repetitive, form-based instruction, alongside communicative methodologies (Cook, 1994, 1997). The challenging question which these suggestions raise is how teachers are to prepare classroom activities which engage learners of all ages in repetitive, interpersonal language play. The current study of creativity in text messaging is significant because texting can prove a motivating and practical tool for teachers in implementing the suggestions just mentioned. First, the motivation provided by texting should not be overlooked—most people have personal experience of using

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the medium and/or strong opinions one way or the other. Text messaging, in effect, highlights the need for playful and phatic communication to be simultaneously motivating and purposeful if children or other learners are to fulfill their creative potential. It provides a tool in creating this kind of interaction, both interpersonal and creative. Second, text messaging, although highly interpersonal and informal, is essentially a written medium in the sense that language can be returned to and reflected on in a way that spoken conversations (however creative) cannot, at least not without lengthy recording and transcription procedures. In other words, it is simply more practical for students to investigate text messages than examples of their own spoken language. Further, although texters draw on resources from spoken language, the transcription of text messages onto paper does not require the same kind of transformation as in the move from spoken to written form. That is, recording speech onto paper changes or transforms the original spoken form to a much greater extent than that which occurs when text messages are copied from mobile phone screens: no paralinguistic or prosodic features are lost. Exploring one’s own text messages is also more rewarding than studying prepared examples of others’ speech and this can help students overcome the feeling of being an “outside observer” conducting an abstracted, post-hoc analysis (Carter and McCarthy, 2004, 82). Finally, as my research suggests, texters are able to draw on their awareness of spoken and written language use in their texting practices. Teachers can tap into this awareness by exploiting text messaging as a tool in the classroom, essentially using it as a way to explore both spoken and written discourse. Classroom activities again depend on the type of learner involved, but could include the noticing of repetition and language play in text messages provided by the teacher, followed by comparison with learners’ own messages (in English or in comparison with other languages). This could be followed by discussion as to whether they use similar forms when talking (or not). The composition of short stories or poems by learners within the constraints of a 160-word text message can be contrasted with other, literary works (see Appendices 2 and 3 for suggested tasks).

Conclusion Research into a corpus of over 11,000 text messages suggests that text messaging is not simply a hybrid of speech and writing, but that its users are actively and creatively drawing on spelling variation patterns seen across written texts, as well as on the everyday creativity seen as prevalent across spoken conversation. What this highlights is texters’ awareness of

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other discourses and of their own language use when texting. The implication is that text messaging can be a rich and motivating classroom resource in a variety of contexts. However, bearing in mind the limited range of participants in this corpus CorTxt, as well as the variety which exists (as a result of the active choices made by texters) between texting practices, teachers are best placed to exploit the resource in a way appropriate for their learners. The tasks suggested in this chapter are suggestions. It is hoped these, together with feedback on teachers’ own approaches to exploiting text messages, would simulate greater interest in harnessing the creative potential of this form of mobile technology for learners in the classroom.

Appendices Appendix 1: Suggested format for a task exploiting text message spelling practices Note: The advertisements and graffiti suggested are from a British context. Teachers not based in the UK may wish to take equivalents that are more familiar to their students.

Task sheet 1: Phonetic Spelling in Text Messaging 1. Look at the underlined words in the advertisements, product names and graffiti below. Can you describe what the spellings have in common? Why do you think the advertisers have chosen this unconventional spelling? What effect does it have? a. Rice Krispies (a popular children’s cereal in the UK) b. Wot, no butter? (a popular post-war graffiti in Britain, accompanied by the picture of a figure peering over a wall, reproduced below, and commenting on the lack of various items in the aftermath of the Second World War. It also occurred in similar forms in other countries)

c. Beanz meanz Heinz (Heinz are perhaps the most popular producers of the British favorite, baked beans in tomato sauce)

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2. The following text message is a real one written by a woman in her late twenties. Which of the unconventional spellings (if any) are similar to those above, and how? Why do you think she uses them? For the same reasons as above, or for different reasons? Hi NAME38 hope unis ok & u’r feelin gud. Hows it bin wiv NAME294 since u got bac?Gud news bout the playscheme. Lookin4ward 2seein u tomo hav missd u lotsa love NAME12 3. Does your home language mak e similar uses of phonetic spellings in advertising or other places such as graffiti (and if not, why not)? 4. Do you use any non-standard phonetic spellings when you text, either in English or in your home language?

Appendix 2: Suggested format for a task exploiting repetition in text messaging Task sheet 2: Repetition in Text Messaging Task 1 The following is a real text message exchange, in which two university students discuss the completion and handing in of a university assignment. T01: T02:

All done? All handed in? Celebrations in full swing yet? All done, all handed in. Don’t know if mega shop in asda counts as celebration but thats what i’m doing!

Underline the words or phrases texted by T01 which T02 repeats. How does she change the words and why? Why do you think she repeats the words in this way? Task 2 Collect up to ten messages sent between you and a friend (they should make up a conversation and you should check with your friend that they don’t mind). Look through your texted conversations. Do you see any repetition between the text messages? Why (not)? Do you think you repeat things in a similar way when you talk?

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Appendix 3: Suggested format for a task exploiting idiom manipulation in texting Task sheet 3: Idioms in Text Messaging Pre-task Can you explain what the following English idioms or expressions mean? In what situations might you use them? → on the dot → rubbing salt into an open wound → not being able to see someone for dust Main Task The above idioms were used in text messages written by British speakers of English. → Yes see ya not on the dot → I’ve got some salt, you can rub it in my open wounds if you like! → Did you show him and wot did he say or could u not c him 4 dust? Why has the texter written “not on the dot” rather than “a bit late?” What effect is created by expressing the idiom “rubbing salt in an open wound” as “I’ve got some salt, you can rub it in my open wounds if you like?” In what other ways could the texter have written “see him for dust?” Why do you think the texter chooses to use the idiom? Look through your own text messages, either those in English or your own language. Have you used any idioms? Why or why not? What effect do they have on the reader?

References Androutsopoulos, Jannis K. (2000). Non-standard spellings in media texts: The case of German fanzines. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (4), 514–533. Baron, Naomi (2000). Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It’s Heading. London: Routledge. Carter, Ronald (2004). Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk. London: Routledge. Carter, Ronald and McCarthy, M. (2004). Talking, creating: interactional language, creativity, and context. Applied Linguistics 25 (1), 62–88. Cook, Guy (1994). Repetition and learning by heart: an aspect of intimate discourse, and its implications. English Language Teaching Journal 48 (2), 133–141.

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—(1997). Language play, language learning. English Language Teaching Journal 51 (3), 224–231. —(2000). Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, David (1998). Language Play. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —(2001). Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —(2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —(2008). Txtng: The Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Humphrys, John (2007). I h8 txt msgs: how texting is wrecking our language. Daily Mail Online (September 28, 2007). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article483511/ (accessed on November 13, 2008). Kesseler, Angela and Bergs, A. (2003). Literacy and the new media: Vita brevis, lingua brevis. In Jean Aitchison and Diana Lewis (eds), New Media Language, (pp. 75–84). London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther (2000). Early Spelling: Between Convention and Creativity. London: Routledge. Maybin, Janet and Swann, J. (2007). Everyday creativity in language: Textuality, contextuality, and critique. Applied Linguistics 28 (4), 497–517. O’Keeffe, Anne, McCarthy, M., and Carter, R. (2006). From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sebba, Mark (2007). Spelling and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shortis, Tim (2007). Gr8 Txtpectations: The creativity of text spelling. English Drama Media Journal 8, 21–26. Sutherland, John (2002). Cn u txt? The Guardian (November 2002). http://www. guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/nov/11/mobilephones2 (accessed on October 16, 2008). Tagg, Caroline (2007). A corpus based analysis of SMS text messaging. In Peter Teo and Caroline Ho (eds), Discourse in the Modern World (pp. 167–184). Singapore: McGraw Hill. Tannen, Deborah (1989). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thurlow, Crispin (2006). From statistical panic to moral panic: The metadiscursive construction and popular exaggeration of new media language in the print media. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 11 (3). Available online. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/thurlow.html (accessed May 27, 2010). Weber, Rose-Marie (1986). Variation in spelling and the special case of colloquial contractions. Visible Language 20 (4), 413–426.

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Index Note: The numbers in italics refers to tables and figures. abbreviations and text messaging 226 acronyms 226 active learning 192, 195 active voice 177 Add Comment feature, of blog 190, 194 Amasha, Siti Azlinda 49 American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) 192 American Library Association (ALA) 211 Anderson, K. T. 1 anxiety 88, 90, 92 arbitrariness 54–7, 63, 65, 154 relative 64 argumentation 122 and analysis 135–7 construction 133–5 critical thinking and 108 cues 111 impact on, in written essays 137 literacy and instructional approaches 109–10 rhetoric and 107–8, 109 social constructivist perspective, of learning and 108–9 Toulmin model see Toulmin model Arthur, J. 211 asynchronous online interaction 91, 92, 103, 124, 125 audience awareness/recipient design 41, 43, 45 Autonomous Language Learning in Art and Design using Interactive Networks [ALLADIN] 30 backings 126, 135, 136, 142 Bakhtin, M. 66n. 1

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Bank of English 167, 175 bar chart 160 Beasley-Murray, J. 213 Bednar, A. 30 Begeman, M. 111 Belvédère 113 Benveniste, E. 55 Bereiter, C. viii, 106, 110 Bergs, A. 226 Blackboard 188, 202 Blackstone, B. ix, 187, 190, 194 blogalogue 194 blogger.com, Google 189 blogging ix, 185, 197 blog posts 189–90 challenges in using, and solutions 203–4 distinctive characteristics 191–2 in English language teacher-training courses 198–203 functions of 189, 199–201 meaning and significance of 188–9 pedagogical principles in 192–8 reader comments 190–1 blogging buddy 197–8, 202 “bottom-up” approach to language 179, 181 Brigham Young University, corpora at 158–60 Britannica Encyclopedia 208 British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) 188 brochure, designing 78–82 Bruner, J. 18 Bruns, A. 20n. 3 Buckingham Shum, S. 118

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Canada 89, 91, 103 Carey, S. 92, 103 Carter, R. 228, 231 Centre for English Language Education (CELC), National University of Singapore 193 Chandrasegaran, A. 124, 125 Chee, Y. S. viii, 122 Chickering, A. W. 192, 195, 196, 197, 199 China 199 Choice of Task scale 30 claim 126, 133, 141 grounds for 134, 135–7, 141–2 Clark, J. 161 Cléirigh, C. 82n. 1 Clifton, J. 89 cloze 153 COBUILD team, University of Birmingham 150–1, 167 code breaker 77 Coffin, C. 124 cognitive engagement, effective 39–41 cognitive tools, scaffolding function of 110–11 coherence 41, 74, 103, 117, 154 collaborative construction 41, 43, 44 collaborative learning 115–17, 126 collaborative working and learning 18, 19, 124 Collins Wordbanks Online 157 collocation patterns 156, 157 and semantic relations, mapping of 161–3 colloquial contractions 227 communication see individual entries Compleat Lexical Tutor 160, 173 computer conferencing 124 computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) 107, 110–13, 125 for collaborative learning 115–17 considerations for 117–18 for scaffolding persuasive writing 114–15

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concordance method 151–2, 153, 156, 167 comparison with texts 154–5 visual 162 and zooming effect 157, 158 Conklin, J. 111 constructivism 28, 31 cooperation, in blogging 194–5 Co-Principal Investigator 129, 132 corpus data, in classroom 153–4 Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) 159 CorTxt 224, 225 investigation of 226, 228 spelling variants in 227 Creative Technology 125 critical consumption 39–41, 40 critical thinking and argumentation 108, 122 Crystal, D. 225, 226 Curriculum Cycle 16 data visualization and data-driven learning ix, 149 Compleat Lexical Tutor 160, 173 corpora at Brigham Young University 158–60 corpus data in classroom and 153–4 importance of 150 language, presenting 156–8 learner’s attention, focusing 154–5 semantic relations and collocation, mapping 161–3 Davies, M. 158 Denis, D. J. 150 De Souza, D. E. vii, 7, 23 dialogic literacy viii digital corpora of texts see data visualization digital natives 106 and information literacy 211 discussion forum 191 advantage of blog over 191–2 dispersion plot 157, 158 Doyle, P. ix, 149 Drucker, P. 106 Dudeney, G. 103 Duffy, P. 20n. 3

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Index Early Language Learning (ELL) 51 educators and wikis 220 Ehrmann, S. C. 195, 196, 197 email communication 14, 15, 125, 201 England 109, 124, 188 English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 168 and blogging 193–8 clauses and noun combination 175, 177–8 goals of syllabus 169–71 implications for teachers 179–81 linguistic features of syllabus 171–3 long sentences and 178–9 noun combinations 173, 175 single words on syllabus 173 Essay Assist 125 expert thinkers 108 Facebook 187, 198 face-to-face argumentation 113, 114, 116, 137 feedback 25, 115, 191, 201 oral 204 for periodic blogging assignments 195–6 from students 137–8 Finland 109 Flash® Platform 163 Flash Macromedia 80 follow-up move and classroom interaction 89, 101, 102–3 formal logic 108 Foundations of Intercultural Studies 89 France 109 Freebody, P. 71, 77 free posts 190 Friendly, M. 150 Gamson, Z. F. 192, 199 Gavioli, L. 154 General Paper (GP) 122, 123–4, 132 Geography unit of work and multimodal information text creation 13–16 Giles, J. 207 Google Earth 15

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Google Sites 208 Gopinathan, S. 25 Gordon, T. 113 Grading and Feedback Sheet 97 graphical Issue Based Information System (IBIS) 111 Griffiths, M. ix grounds for claims 134, 135–7, 141–2 Gudykunst, W. 88, 92 Guo, L. viii, 49, 70 Halavais, A. 208 Halliday, M. A. K. 73 Harris, R. 53 Healey, D. 30 Hedberg, J. 88 Hedberg, J. G. vii Hewings, A. 124 Ho, C. M. L. viii, 1, 122, 124 Hockly, N. 103 Hornby, A. 149 The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English 156 Hotmail 187 Hull, G. A. 66n. 4 Humphrys, J. 223 hypertext, wiki-based 15–16 iChat 188 ideational meaning 74, 76, 78, 80 idioms, in text messaging 230, 235 image schemas 62 Inch, E. 108 independent working and learning 19 informal logic 108 informal writing see personal writing 226 information and communication technology (ICT) 1, 23 alternative pedagogical approaches to implement 28–9 aversion to using 188 for collaborative construction 41, 43, 44 for critical consumption 40 embedding of 9–19 in language arts lesson 38

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information and communication technology (ICT) (Cont’d) for new literacies 105 for reflexive synthesis 41, 42 for research 39 in Singapore secondary school 25–8 for specific audiences 43, 45 task designers’ mixing desk 30–7 information visualization see data visualization for data-driven language learning initialisms 226 initiation move and classroom interaction 89, 101–2 instruction strategy, for learners 109 IntelliMetric® 125 integrational linguistics 52–3 interactive digital media (IDM) 1, 2 intercultural communication see under online academic interaction Internet 9, 12, 14, 62, 106, 187 new literacies of 105 interpersonal communication 109–10 interpersonal meaning 73–4, 76, 78, 81 intertextuality 79 Issue Based Information System (IBIS) 111–12 Jacobs, J. 192 Japan 156 Java 163 jLookup 157, 159 Johns, T. 151, 153, 155 Johns, T. 167, 169 Jonassen, D. 29 justification skills 108 K-12 education “enGauge®21st Century Skills: Literacy in the Digital Age” 107 and students and book reviews 214–15 Kesseler, A. 226 “key word in context” (KWIC) display 151, 152, 154 King, A. 220 Knobel, M. 2

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knowledge acquisition 109 Knowledge Age 106 knowledge building 106 Knowledge Forum 111, 114–15, 117, 118 Kramer-Dahl 71 Kramsch, C. 64 Kress, G. 2, 52, 55, 57, 59, 61, 230, 231 Lamshed, R. 188 Lankshear, C. 2 laptops, in education 26 learning management systems (LMS) 219 Lemke, J. 64 Leong, A. P. 1 Leu, D. 105 link reciprocity 204 logical argumentation 122 long sentences 178–9 main clause identification in 180 Luke, A. 71, 77 macro rhetorical text structures 122, 124, 125 main clause 179 identification, in long sentences 180 Malinowski, David 49, 51 Many Eyes 162 mapping of information 150 of semantic relations and collocation 161–3 Markin software 125 Marttunen, M. 125 MASS Media Communication 12 McCarthy, M. 231 McIntosh 189 McMillan, J. 108 meaning and communication 74 metacognitive cues 111, 114, 116–17 MicroConcord 173 MicroConcord B Corpus 173 Microsoft MSN 188 Mitchell, S. 126 modal qualifiers 126

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Index Modern Language Association Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World 51 modes 54 Moodle 188 More 56 motivation 16, 63, 92, 216, 227 authorial 65 blogging and 205 choices and 73 correspondence and 55, 56 data-driven learning and 153 external 197 by texting 231–2 in visual signs 57 Muggles Guide to Harry Potter 216 multiliteracies 52 pedagogical model 16–17 multimedial world language in 51 and arbitrariness 54–7 and value 57–8 widow/door metaphor and digital storytelling 58–65 multimedia presentation, designing 80–2 multimodal information text creation 13–16 multimodal literacy, in extended learning activities 70 English Language Syllabus and implementation, gap between 70–2 multimodal pedagogies 72–3 multimodal texts, analyzing 73–6 teaching and learning and 77–82 Myanmar 210 MySpace 198 narrative composing, multimedia see digital storytelling Nation, P. 175 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the U.S. (NAEP) 109 National Institute of Education in Singapore (NIE) 71, 198, 199, 201, 217

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National Reading Conference (2004) 2 Nelson, M. E. viii, 49, 51, 66n. 4 Neoformix 161 New Learning Environments (NLE) curriculum framework 10, 11–13 and pedagogy 16–19 New Literacy Studies 3, 52 pedagogical model 16–17 New London Group (NLG) 16, 52 New Media Age 2 New Zealand 124 nominalization 172 notation-based wikis 208 noun combinations 173, 175 changing clauses with intransitive verbs into 177 changing clauses with transitive verbs into 178 and clauses 175, 177–8 head noun identification in 176 novice thinkers 108 Oakey, D. ix, 167, 175 Oliver, R. 39 online academic interaction 87 conversational roles for students and teachers, altered expectations about 89–90 intercultural communication and 87–8 monitoring and 101–3 scaffolding and intercultural communication theory 92–101 subsequent-language speakers of English 90–1 online corpora and interfaces Brigham Young University, corpora at 158–60 online discourse viii organic circularity 55 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) project 23

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Osborne, J. 116 Ow, E. G. J. 116 Papert, S. 31 passive voice 177 PBworks 208 history tracking functions in 219 pedagogy 10, 26, 152 alternative approaches for ICT implementation 28–9 blogging for see blogging classroom 71 multimodal 72–3, 82 and New Learning Environments (NLE) curriculum framework 16–19 text messaging and 230–2 Peirce, C. S. 66n. 3 Penrod, Diane 209, 210 personal writing 226 persuasive writing, scaffolding of 114–15, 117 phonetic spellings, in text messaging 227, 231, 233–4 PowerPoint® program, in classrooms 12 Prensky, M. 209, 210 presentation, online general advice for 99 one-week planner for 94, 95–6 versus reflective posts 93–4, 93 printed brochure 78–9, 79 productive language skills see audience awareness/recipient design; collaborative construction; reflexive synthesis QuestMap 112, 118 argumentation on turf grass problem 115–16 Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 202, 204 rebuttal 126, 128, 134 receptive language skills see collaborative construction; critical consumption

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receptive skills 108 reciprocity, in blogging 194 reflective posts general advice for 99 instructions for 98 versus online presentation 93–4, 93 reflexive synthesis 41, 42 relative clauses 179 repetition, in text messaging 229, 234 report generation 15 response move and classroom interaction 89, 101, 102 rhetoric and argumentation 107–8, 109 Richardson, W. 210, 212 rich text editor wikis 208 Rittel, H. W. J. 111 round robin wiki writing 217–18 Royce, T. 82n. 1 Sam, C. 71 Sanders, J. 109 Saussure, F. de. 54, 56 Course in General Linguistics 53 scaffolded working and learning 18–19, 89, 90, 91 and persuasive writing 114–15 scaffolding and intercultural communication theory novelty and 92–4 online participant evaluation 100, 101 repeated encounters expectation and 99–101 rewards and 94–8 scaffolding strategy, for learners 110 Scardamalia, Marlene viii, 106, 110 Scott, R. 108 Sealey, A. 155 Second Life 13, 221 Seng, S. H. 124 Sensemaker 113 sentence openers 128, 129 Shortis, T. 225 signifier and signified, relation between 55, 57, 64 Sinclair, J. 150, 155

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Index Singapore 122, 123 English Language Syllabus (2001) 70 English Language Syllabus (2010) 51 secondary English classroom in 77–82 secondary school and ICT use 25–8 Toulmin model in 127, 133–7 single words 173 ending in consonant cluster (kts) 174 Sivell, J. viii, 87 Skuja, R. 124 Skype 187, 188 slowing down process, and critical thinking 113, 117 social constructivism and learning 108–9, 113 social literacy 211–12 sociocultural model of orthography 225 Stanley, G. 192 Stoney, S. 39 storytelling 217 structural constraints 112, 114 structured query language (SQL) database 159 students’ new literacies development see computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) subjectivity, multilingual 64 subsequent-language speakers of English 90–1 Surowiecki, J. 212, 217 Suthers, D. 112 Swales, J. 168 Tagg, C. x, 223 Tagul 162 Tan, A.-L. viii, 105 Tan, A. ix, 207 Tan, J. 25 Tan, L. 49 Tan, S. 116 Tan, S.-C. viii, 105, 115 Task Designer’s Mixing Desk (TDMD) 25, 29, 46 Choice of Task scale 30 learning support 32–3

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media and tool use 30–1 single to multiple outcomes and 31 single to multiple strategies and 32 in use 33–7 teaching of literacy 12 Teng, M. H. T. 115 text analyst 77 and concordances 154–5 critiquing 12 locating 12 multimodal 13–16, 73–6, 77, 80 participant 77 pedagogical models for integration of 16–17 skimming and scanning of 180 tags 111 user 77 visualization 162–3 see also individual entries TextArc 163 textese 225, 231 text lingo 185 text messaging 223 CorTxt 224 everyday creativity in 228–30 pedagogical implications 230–2 spelling variation in 224–8 textual meaning 74, 76, 78–9 The British National Corpus 159 Thompson, P. 155 Time corpus 159 Tognini-Bonelli, E. 154 “top-down” approach to language 179–80 Toulmin model 112, 115, 124, 126, 132, 133 construction of arguments and 133–5 and Voice of Reason (VoR) 127–31 Toulmin Rap 132 Towndrow, P. A. vii, 7, 23 transduction 59 transformation 3 transitivity, of verb 177 Tufte, E. 150 Turner, M. 62

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244 uncertainty 88, 90, 92 Universal Design for Learning 91 Unsworth, L. 82n. 1 value 57–8 Van Leeuwen, T. 56, 61 verb patterns 156 Visual Thesaurus 161 Voices of Reason (VoR) tool 122–3, 127–31 analytical feature in 130 argument analysis and 135–7 built-in sentence openers 129 fallacies in students’ argumentation and 130 implementation structure 132–3 interface 127 pedagogical implications and recommendations 139 problems encountered with 138–9 and student feedback 137–8 threaded discussion functionality 128 Vygotsky, L. 108, 110

Warnick, B. 108 warrants 126, 134–5, 142 Warschauer, M. 30 Web 2.0 technology 207, 210, 218 web-based scaffolding, for teaching argumentation 122 webography 200, 201 WetPaint 208

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Index Wikibooks 215–17 Wikijunior 215 Wikipedia ix, 14, 207 digital natives and information literacy and 211 issues and recommendation 218–20 K-12 students and book reviews and 214–15 literacies and technology and 210 round robin wiki writing 217–18 social literacy 211–12 storytelling 217 use of 208–9 Wikibooks 215–17 wisdom of crowds and 212–13 Wilkinson, M. ix, 187 Williams, J. B. 192 windoor hybrid and digital storytelling 58–65 Wong, R. 71 Wordbanks Online 155 word cloud 161–2 Wordle 162 wordpress.com, Automattic 189 WordSmith Tools 155, 157, 159 word tree 162 Xerox PARC 150 Yahoo! Messenger 188 Yang, J. 195, 204 Zammit, K. vii, 7, 9

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