Ask students where they get most of their information today, and most will cite podcasts, videos, social media, and graphics, like photos or ever-popular memes. However, many ELA classrooms still limit learning to more traditional formats. This begs the question, what happens when we expand our definition of text without sacrificing rigor?
Today’s ELA standards ask students to analyze diverse texts, evaluate sources, and synthesize ideas across formats. Our students are already living and learning in the space of audio storytelling, visual media, and interactive information. Meeting them where they are and integrating multimodal texts like podcasts and graphic novels isn’t about following trends, though. It’s about teaching literacy as it exists in the modern world.
Redefining the Text
What does redefining the text look like? The answer to that is twofold: the format and the action. Multimodal texts include formats like podcasts, graphic novels, photo essays, interactive timelines, and short-form documentaries. The action, and in turn the rigor, comes from what we ask students to do with the redefined “texts.” Actions could include tasks like analyzing and defining the structure, identifying main ideas, determining purpose, and dissecting arguments. Yes, these high-level critical thinking skills can still be accomplished with something as simple as listening!
Podcasts as Mentor Texts
A great entry point to going multimodal (and one you’re probably familiar with) is podcasts. Choose any topic you are interested in, and I almost guarantee there’s a podcast about the subject. Beyond that, there are numerous formats in podcasts, including 1:1 interviews, conversational discussions, round table debates, and narrative and/or serialized stories, just to name a few. These different formats provide excellent examples of narrative structure, claims and counterclaims, use of evidence and expert voices, and tone and audience awareness.
These formats lend themselves, not only to providing a more accessible learning format for many students, but also to a stronger environment for students to practice analyzing and synthesizing evidence. The audio format invites students to practice decoding claims, reasoning, and evidence in new ways. Listening comprehension often outpaces reading comprehension, which helps make podcasts an ideal format for practicing and growing these analytical skills.
While listening to podcasts, students are practicing close listening, note-taking, evaluating credibility, and analyzing perspective. Worried about class time? Podcasts range from bite-sized episodes to hour(s)-long deep dives, so you can find something that fits your schedule.
In my classroom, I taught with podcasts including season one of the critically acclaimed Serial and classroom-designed podcasts from GZM Classroom, like The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel. I found that my students came to class excited to learn, were debating theories in the lunchroom, and that the learning experience stuck with them. Years later, when I encounter former students, they always mention the podcasts we listened to! Just remember to always listen to podcasts before assigning them to your class to make sure they are appropriate and fit your needs.
Graphic Novels and Visual Texts as Complex Reading
There is a common misconception that graphic novels are somehow “easier” than traditional novels. Ranging from elementary-appropriate to college-level, graphic novels are a worthy classroom addition for several reasons.
The visual elements in graphic novels require students to use inference skills. A lot of the story within a graphic novel is told implicitly through images, rather than explicitly through the narration. Students must read between the panels or in the “gutters” within images and across visual cues to construct meaning.
Due to this implicit nature, graphic texts often demand slower, more deliberate reading. Students must consider elements such as color, light, and visual framing, as those elements can be used to signal tone and theme. The same goes for the font and panel shape, which are often used to carry additional meaning. Unlike traditional novels, graphic novels require continuous inference, rather than intermittent analysis.
Another large component of graphic novels is visual symbolism. One example is Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman, which was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. In this multiple timeline story, which spans from the 1930s to the end of the Holocaust in 1945, the author uses various forms of symbolism to depict the horror and lasting trauma of the Holocaust. Consider pairing the graphic novel to a more traditional piece of Holocaust literature, comparing the formats and discussing differences.
The need to infer and analyze in graphic novels makes them a beyond-worthy addition to the multimodal text world. Students are strengthening skills and exercising infrequently used learning muscles to determine an author’s meaning and get the full sense of the text. This leads to engaging multiple cognitive processes at the same time, which can help support deeper understanding for our diverse learners.
Using Multimodal Text Sets to Build Critical Thought
One way to incorporate multiple multimodal texts is by building text sets following the ThinkCERCA Literacy Framework of essential question, claim, evidence, reasoning, and counterargument, all while considering the audience.
Start with an essential question, determining the question, problem, or scenario you want students to resolve. Then build your multimodal text set around that question. To target different learning styles, skills, and reading levels, you can mix formats, intentionally including a podcast or radio show, an article, a visual or infographic, and a video. Tools like Gale In Context do the heavy lifting for you by curating this content by document type, making multimodal text set creation quick and easy.
Using multimodal sources strengthens evidence-based writing, while supporting our diverse learning population and engaging students with different formats.
Supporting Equity, Access, and Student Voice
Beyond being engaging, relevant, and rigorous, incorporating multimodal texts helps us to increase accessibility and equity in our classrooms. By offering multiple entry points to information, we are reducing barriers for emerging readers and multilanguage learners. Further, the use of multimodal texts validates different strengths like listening and visual literacy, providing students with different ways to learn and giving them choice in how they gather information. By letting students select from multimodal sources, we offer multiple ways to show understanding, while increasing participation and confidence. After all, it’s not necessarily how we learn information, but what we do with that information that counts!
Practical Classroom Moves
Ready to try this in your classroom tomorrow? Keep these tips in mind!
Sources
Fisher, Douglas. “Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning.” The Reading Teacher, 2014. doi:10.1002/TRTR.1296.
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