Understanding and producing multimodal messages in Secondary School through webquest

Abstract

Technological developments offer us new ways to structure messages by making use of different semiotic systems. Therefore, the concept of reading has been stretched to make room not only for the written mode but also for the combination of modes such as the auditory and visual ones (Kress, 2004). This alteration in the traditional concept of reading has had an impact on the concept of literacy. Being literate implies that readers make use of different skills to perceive each composing element of a text and understand how the text elements are intertwined to create a unified coherent text. In this paper, we will describe an activity that we have crafted to enhance students´ ability to read and create multimodal texts and to understand that the composition of a text responds to the author's world view. To train students to craft and decode multilingual messages is a must for a literate citizen in the XXI century. This paper presents the results of a research project in which students were taught to deal with multimodal messages. We carried out a task with two groups of secondary school students between 15 and 16 years old. The task was divided into 4 main steps. The first three steps were intended at exposing students to the process of analysis and decodification of multimodal political propaganda; the final production step focused on designing and producing multimodal texts. In a closing plenary session, students were encouraged to provide feedback on the success of the task and reflect on the social significance of critical thinking and responsible citizenship. This activity was laid out in the form of a webquest, following the webquest model of Dodge and March (Sox, 2009) because it favours autonomous learning, inquiry- based learning, collaborative learning and a constructivist approach. Following Dörnyei & Ushioda´s (2009:1) conceptualization of motivation, this webquest project fostered students´ participation by relating new content with their own life experiences. Thus, students made use of different language skills to understand a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will enhance their cultural capital, their identity and their desires for the future. Thus, an investment in the target language is also an investment in the learner's own identity. (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009:4)