Lesson 1
Prior Knowledge
Students should already know:
- the idea of Metalanguage
Lesson Objectives
Students will be able to:
1. Analyse and explain using the appropriate metalanguage to discuss how the different modes in different transmedia texts portray characters.
2. Compare and contrast the affrodances of the two version of the transmedia texts to the meaning-making of the story
materials
Transmedia Story: The Witches
-Writing materials and paper
- Personal Learning Devices/ Ipads
resources
- Appendix 1: Engagement Metalangauge
- Appendix 2: Example of Guided Practice
- Appendix 3: Description of the Witch
- Video Resource: From 00:00- 1:07mins
Tune In (10mins)
description
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Teacher tasks the students to represent an ugly lady. They are to describe her using words and pictures. They will upload their responses onto Padlet.
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In their pairs, students will compare how they have decided to represent this lady and what choices they have made.
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Teacher explains how meanings can be composed through different semiotic modes such as visuals and written.
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Teacher introduces the lesson objectives, that they are going to learning about the different semiotic modes, how they relate to meaning-making and the different affordances.
Key Teacher Langauge
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How will you write the description to show that she is ugly? What details will you choose to include?
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How does the visual compare to the description? What are some similarities and differences?
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What emotions did the text make you feel? What about the visual?
rationale
Description Activity
This entire package focuses on the visual and written modes in transmedia texts. This tune-in activity is at the stage of building the context within the curriculum cycle (Humphrey & Feex, 2016). This also engages the Critical Framing aspect of the Learning by Design framework (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009), whereby the students start to inductively construct their own learning over the course of the transmedia analysis of the different written and visual choices made in describing the Ugly Lady.
Choice of Padlet
Padlet is an education technology tool where the users can upload their content, as well as provide feedback to their peers through a system of liking and commenting, similar to that of Facebook. Padlet was chosen as a structural scaffold for the social interactions within the reflexive pedagogy (Cope & Kalantzis, 2020). Also, placing the resources onto Padlet allows for the students to learn asynchronously during lesson time, such as being able to rewind the video if necessary.
description
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Teacher introduces the 6 semiotic modes and the metalanguage to the students (Appendix 1) through explicit teaching and teacher modelling using examples.
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In their groups, the students will view the film through guided practice with the teacher. They will look at specific screenshots (Appendix 2) and use the metalanguage that they have just learnt. Responses will be posted onto Padlet.
rationale
Metalanguage
Teaching metalanguage provides the vocabulary input for the students to discuss the interactions of the visual elements and other semiotic modes to create meaning. It also allows the students to take a more critical reading position by relating the elements to meaning (Lim, Nguyen and Tan, 2020). This lesson's metalanguage comes from the Learning by Design framework adapted by Lim et al., (2020). Introducing the students to the engagement strategies will probe the students beyond their first impressions to noticing how specific visual choices can express different meanings.
Authentic Texts
"The Witches" is an authentic multimodal text across the print version and the movie adaptations, with a clear real-world purpose of entertaining the viewer.
The familiar authentic text makes relevant their classroom skills to their daily lives, which not only provides the students with an intrinsic reason to learn the skills but also strengthens the theory-practice connections (Lim, 2018).
Situated Practice
As part of the situated practice, the viewing activity will engage the students in the known (their knowledge about the semiotic modes) and the new (the new text). Also, sharing the different interpretations each group has also demonstrates to the students how their diverse experiences (e.g. with the colour choices) will influence their interpretation of the text, which will lead to different analyses of the text (Cope & Kalantsiz, 2015).
Appendix 1:
Engagement Metalanguage
Adapted from Lim et. al., (2020)
Appendix 2:
Examples of Guided Practice
description
At this stage, the students will be comparing the different modes in terms of the representation of a specific character.
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In their groups, students will critically view the film and write down their inferences of The Grand High Witch based on evidence from the film.
Questions they will need to answer:
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Who do you think is this lady?
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How will you describe her looks?
The teacher will discuss their responses for Question 1 as a class.
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Teacher reads aloud the description of The Grand High Witch and shows the accompanying visual from the book (Appendix 3).
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The students will compare the meaning made between the written meaning, pictorial meaning and film meaning. Teacher will relate to their answer for Question 2, and if their inference remains the same across the different modes.
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Teacher will lead them to realise the affordances of each mode of representation on the whiteboard.
Key Teacher Langauge:
- What are some details that are present in the different semiotic modes?
- What are some benefits that each semiotic mode can provide that the others cannot?
rationale
Collaborative Learning
As the students work together in their groups to analyse the specific screenshots and the film, the learners are engaging in collaborative co-construction of knowledge. It gives them the agency and autonomy to be a knowledge producer in a highly organised community of learners (Cope & Kalantzis, 2020). There will be a recursive co-deisgn of knowledge that they contribute based on their own diverse experiences.
Critical Framing/ Guided Practice
At this stage, the students are at that of Guided Practice in the curriculum cycle. They will be engaged in Critical Framing of the Learning by Design Framework, whereby they will analyse the transmedia texts both functionally and critically. Again, they will be engaged in inductive learning since the meanings made are theirs, not that of the teacher's.
Appendix 3:
Description of the Witch
That face of hers was the most frightful and frightening thing I have ever seen. Just looking at it gave me the shakes all over. It was so crumpled and wizened, so shrunken and shrivelled, it looked as though it had been pickled in vinegar. It was a fearsome and ghastly sight. There was something terribly wrong with it, something foul and putrid and decayed. It seemed quite literally to be rotting away at the edges, and in the middle of the face, around the mouth and cheeks, I could see the skin all cankered and worm-eaten, as though maggots were working away in there.
From The Witches (Chapter 7 - Frizzled like a Fritter)
Conclusion
(10mins)
description
At this stage, students will recall the different semiotic modes engaged in each version of the transmedia text. They are to think about how each version presents different strategies of meaning-making and storytelling experience for them.
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Students will respond to the following Guiding Questions on padlet before the teacher discusses the responses with the class.
Key Teacher Language
- Which semiotic modes were present in the film that were missing in the text?
What is the relationship between the visuals and the words in the text?
How did the different semiotic modes in each version affect your impression of the character?
rationale
Explicit Comparison Across Modes
Two versions (Print and Digital) of the transmedia text allow for a systematic analysis and comparison of the affordances of the mediums and the different meaning-making potential of the modes that the media forms support. It highlights how each medium has its own inherent benefits. It sensitises them to the literacy aesthetics and supports their critical mulitmodal literacies. They will then be able to make more informed choices on their modes of representation.