The next set of concepts that we want to introduce is around this idea of design. Traditionally, what kind of designs were looked at in literacy? Well, there were things called grammar, which is if you like a kind of design, the design of a sentence. The spelling, which is the design of a relationship between a word and the phonic units that pull it together in a language like English, which operates phonically, and with all its exceptions and we've learned all those rules. So what we did is we actually did deal with languages design. And the way in which we dealt with it is by saying there are right and wrong ways to do things in the world, and we're going to test whether you got them right or wrong. Now, the way we use design is, in fact, more expansive than that, and we use it differently. So instead of a static view of, there are correct designs in language. We say that what happens is, when one's building a meaning, when one's building a text, be it just a written text, or a multimodal text, that what we do is we have a number of different conventions in the world that we can draw from. Across different modes, image, text, whatever, but also very different varieties of textual form depending on context. Vernacular, formal, professional, everyday,

culture A, culture B, register A, register B. So we actually, there isn't one way of doing things in the world. Part of our multiple literacies argument is this extraordinary variety of text types and, if you like, ways of communicating. Ways of representing the world to yourself and then ways of communicating in that world. So what we have, these are things that we call available designs.

And then what we do is rather than just replicate what we've been told, we do a very active process. We undertake a very active process that we call designing, as a gerund. Now, let me say, the word design is a rather nice word, because it can be used in two ways. It can be used as a noun, so there are intrinsic designs in things. So there is a design in a sentence, called grammar, and there is a design in a word, called phonics and spelling. And there is actually a design in a whole text, which might be called genre, which is introduction, whatever, conclusion. There are designs there, which are these patterns, conventions.

So that's design, the noun. But when we think of designing, the verb as an active process, we find this very, very interesting phenomenon going on, where it isn't just replicating the world, it's actually rebuilding the world. And every time the world is rebuilt, it's a different world. So the last 300 words that I said, have never been said before. The last 300 words that you said have never been said before in this kind of combination. And if I wanted to interpret your words and my words, I can explain the books I've read, the life I've led, the culture I've got. I mean, I can actually do a kind of

analysis of the provenance of this kind of text. But I rebuilt the text from all those available designs in my world and my life and so did you, on the fly. And I rebuilt the world anew. I rebuilt the world afresh while I was speaking, while I was building this design, so what came out was a design. It's got some kind of pattern to it, and structure. But, I did designing, which meant that what it was, it was uniquely voiced and was of this moment and it will never happen again in quite the same way, in just the way that it never happened before in exactly the same way. So, what we're left with is a residue called the redesigned. So in other words, you're watching this video now, you're listening to this video, and you're taking some things in. You're doing interpretive work. It inevitably won't be exactly what I'm thinking, but it will perhaps spark some ideas and you will rethink your world and you will interpret some of the words. What I have done is I have left an object in the world, which happens in this case to be a recorded artifact. This video, and that's left something in the world which is grist for the mill back in available designs. It's a kind of a cycle. But you can see here, the difference between this and traditional literacy is a much more dynamic view of literacy. A thing where I'm an agent in meaning making. I make meaning, and that meaning always inevitably expresses something of who I am. My identity, my experiences in the world. It's never just getting the rules right. It's never just simply replicating what I've been told as the rules of literacy. >> There are, of course, multiple modes for meaning-making in the world. And our case is that the digital has now put more emphasis on the range of meaning-making modes for all of us. We have listed a number of them. We can make our own meanings through speaking. We have written meanings, with formal text and symbols. We have visual meanings. Of course spatial meanings, by the way things are arranged. Tactile meanings, meaning from touching or feeling. Something is hot, something is cold, something is rough, something is warm and engaging. From gestural meanings, the way in which we understand space and meaning from gestures, and of course, audio, what we hear. All these meanings are distinct and interrelated, of course, and the point that we like to make is that we are born into meaning-making that involves every single one of these modes. We are born into synaesthesia. When we come into the world, we make sounds, we make marks, we gesture, we touch, we explore space, we react to color, we react to very many different prompts and stimuli. So we're born into a very synaesthetic, rich environment for meaning making. But when when we go to school, one of the things that school does, because it focuses on symbolic meaning making in English, at least in alphabetical signs. School tends to move a learner through all these other modes, through to alphabetical literacy and writing as the main form in which meaning is made in the context of schooling and school learning. We believe that as a consequence of the new technology now, and the affordances of the new technology, the means that allows you to reproduce many of those forms through the digital. That synaesthesia is open to us again. So, in terms of the curriculum, any part of the curriculum, right across the curriculum we can use visual meanings and written meanings and oral meanings and audio meanings. We can participate in recreating and rethinking

anything from an experiment to a piece of history and understand what space and tactile and gestural might mean in that context. So right across the curriculum, we as educators need to understand how multi-modality works in everyday life. But in particular, the way in which digital technology allows us to manipulate those modes, to integrate them and to enrich meaning making through a more synaesthetic use of the modes available to us.

8.2 Design and Multimodality

Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media

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