ABSTRACT
This book explores how language and literacy classrooms can become more democratic spaces through addressing a central issue in teaching, learning and its assessment: namely, the forms of representation through which students make their meanings. In this sense, the book is about the politics of representation and the politics of difference in diverse, multicultural and multilingual classrooms. It focuses attention on the forms of representation which are produced from the many cultural sources students have access to, and examines these resources for their meaning potential. To put it simply, this book examines the question: how can the classroom, as a multi-semiotic space, become a complex, democratic space, founded on the productive integration of diverse histories, modes, genres, epistemologies, feelings, languages and discourses?
