ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the study of literature, conveyed by a range of technologies, can be used as a vehicle for introducing concepts about multiliteracies and multimodality. It demonstrates that the study of literature develops students’ higher order thinking skills and critical literacy, together with understandings about the way texts are constructed to achieve particular purposes and meanings. There is discussion of the ways in which literature can aid students in the investigation of how the semiotic systems (linguistic, visual, audio, spatial and gestural), individually and in combination, convey meaning. Given the focus on the semiotic systems, multiliteracies and multimodality there is an emphasis on picture books and in particular, postmodern picture books, together with their translation and interpretation to other technologies through music, film and animation. The use of picture books is seen as highly appropriate as they are no longer limited to the province of beginning readers and can be used with students of all ages.
