Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

328 Part 4: Language and Literacy
and classroom interactions. Kress and van Leeuwen (2001), in particular,
are highly accomplished at examining the ways in which teachers
‘ orchestrate’ and/or activate modes in their lessons for specifi c designbased
purposes. The case of David, a science teacher, exemplifi es the
choices made in arranging and sequencing content when explaining the
fl ow of blood in the human body:
In elaborating the newly complex model in speech, [David] used
gestures (mode: gesture) to make signs indicating the pumping action
of the heart (rhythmically pushing his semi-raised arms against his
body), and in repeating [his] account of the blood’s circulation, using
[a] diagram, he both used his hands to indicate the motion of the blood
(mode: gesture) and at the same time wrote names as labels on parts
of the diagram: ‘The blood moves around the body, from the heart to
the lungs, to the small intestine, to the cells, to the . . .’ (mode: language
as writing). (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001: 52–53)
Third, the ways in which modes are understood as meaning-making
resources and how the relationships between modes are best represented,
particularly in prose, require important theory building. By way of illustration,
Unsworth (2006) explores how language, image, audio and hypertext
can be analyzed to highlight the story-makers’ art. Part of this process
involves mapping various types of electronic or e-narratives (E-stories for
early learners, linear e-narratives, E-narratives and interactive story contexts,
hypertext narratives and hypermedia narratives) onto a framework
of compositional features expressed as continua (Unsworth, 2006: 89):
• Linear ↔ Hyperlinked
• Monomodal ↔ Multimodal
• Still images ↔ Animation
• Receptive ↔ Interactive
• Fictive ↔ Metafi ctive
Unsworth contends that the most innovative of his categories of digital
fi ction are hypermedia narratives, which stimulate ‘re-creative’, interpretive
reading; see, for example, Childhood in Richmond, accessible from
http://wordcircuits.com/gallery/childhood/index.html. However, it is
also noted that linear e-narratives can be just as engaging. What is crucial
here is developing students’ appreciation of the nature of digital storytelling
by making explicit how the affordances of modes are used to achieve
varying narrative effects. Unsworth’s conceptualizations assist greatly in
this educative process as they provide a vocabulary for describing and
analyzing the compositional features of digital fi ction.
Furthermore, once e-literature is described and understood structurally,
a basis is provided for its assessment in classrooms. For example,
putting aside matters relating to the appropriateness of subject matter, the