ABSTRACT
Teaching from a multiliteracies perspective supports an understanding of the diversity of learners and learning as well as an expanded notion of literacy. Coined by the New London Group (NLG) in 1994, the term “multiliteracies” encompasses the many ways of being literate across cultures and challenges the static view of literacy as primarily text-based. The tenets of multiliteracies theory—diversity, multimodality, and design—reflect the plurality of the world around us. Diversity recognizes that communication varies over time and across many cultures. Teaching literacy from a multiliteracies perspective nurtures meaning-making using a variety of tools and modes. Multimodality refers to a broad sense of communicating meaning through multiple modes: audio, oral, written, visual, spatial, tactile, and gestural. Design encourages and supports agency and learner variabilities from a strengths-based perspective. The tenets of multiliteracies theory inform a multiliteracies pedagogy weaving traditional and progressive teaching into a reflexive pedagogy. In this chapter, multiliteracies is unpacked as a theory and a pedagogical approach providing an in-depth look at a reflexive pedagogy in action, embracing the complexities of the world’s communication system.
