| English language arts in schools is positioned in a context where the meaning produced in the English classroom is caused and instantiated through a combination of contextual factors from both the national (i.e., government policy), and from the local level (i.e., district, school, and departmental ethos; as well as a teacher's and students' backgrounds). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate teaching and learning surrounding a multimodal curriculum through the framework of multimodal social semiotics.;This research is situated in a 12th grade English classroom, located in a large district in a relatively homogenous mid-sized suburban city in the western United States. Participants included one teacher, Mr. Z, who was purposefully selected due to his position of revamping the senior curriculum which had been in flux for the past several years, and six students who volunteered to participate in the study. All data were collected over a three-month period and included classroom observations and field notes, teacher and student interviews, and classroom artifacts. Data were analyzed through open and holistic coding methods, and then collapsed into five larger themes (Saldana, 2014). The first theme focuses on the teacher's belief that a multimodal curriculum is one way to provide students with life lessons. The second and third themes focus on how students responded to a multimodal curriculum through their design decisions which focus on audience and harnessing multiple modes due to their familiarity with certain modes. The remaining two themes focus on the tensions that surfaced between teacher's pedagogy and students' engagement are based on perceptions of assignments and choices offered in the classroom. The findings from this study align with existing research on multimodal social semiotics in the English language arts classroom, and highlight the importance of teachers' beliefs on the classroom content, and utilizing a multimodal curriculum to provide students' choice and authentic literacy assignments. The findings from this study have implications for policymakers, practitioners, and future researchers. |
