Multiliteracies : literacy learning and the design of social futures

359 Pages·2000·4.568 MB·English

by  Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis, New London Group

MULTILITERACIES
‘This is a unique effort, the effect of which is a very persuasive,
coherent volume set within a well-thought out conceptual framework.
The style is extremely readable.’
Nancy Hornberger, University of Pennsylvania
Multiliteracies considers the future of literacy teaching in the context of the
rapidly changing English language. Questions are raised about what constitutes
appropriate literacy teaching in today’s world: a world that is both a global
village yet one in which local diversity is increasingly important.
This is a coherent and accessible overview of the work of the New London
Group, with well-known international contributors bringing together their
varying national experiences and differences of theoretical and political
emphasis. The essays deal with issues such as:
(cid:127) the fundamental premises of literacy pedagogy
(cid:127) the effects of technological change
(cid:127) multilingualism and cultural diversity
(cid:127) social futures and their implications on language teaching
The book concludes with case studies of attempts to put the theories into
practice and thereby provides a basis for dialogue with fellow educators around
the world.
Contributors: David Bond, Courtney B. Cazden, Bill Cope, Norman
Fairclough, James Paul Gee, Mary Kalantzis, Gunther Kress, Joseph Lo Bianco,
Carmen Luke, Sarah Michaels, Martin Nakata, Denise Newfield, Richard Sohmer,
Pippa Stein
LITERACIES
Series Editor: David Barton
Lancaster University
Literacy practices are changing rapidly in contemporary society in response to
broad social, economic and technological changes: in education, the workplace,
the media and in everyday life. The Literacies series has been developed to
reflect the burgeoning research and scholarship in the field of literacy studies and
its increasingly interdisciplinary nature. The series aims to situate reading and
writing within its broader institutional contexts where literacy is considered as a
social practice. Work in this field has been developed and drawn together to
provide books which are accessible, interdisciplinary and international in scope,
covering a wide range of social and institutional contexts.
SITUATED LITERACIES
Reading and Writing in Context
Edited by David Barton, Mary Hamilton and Roz Ivani
MULTILITERACIES
Literacy learning and the design of social futures
Edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis
GLOBAL LITERACIES AND THE WORLD-WIDE WEB
Edited by Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe
Editorial Board:
Elsa Auerbach Boston University
Mike Baynham University of Technology, Sydney
David Bloome Vanderbilt University
Norman Fairclough Lancaster University
James Gee University of Wisconsin
Nigel Hall Manchester Metropolitan University
Mary Hamilton Lancaster University
Peter Hannon Sheffield University
Shirley Brice Heath Stanford University
Roz Ivanic Lancaster University
Gunther Kress University of London
Jane Mace Southbank University
iii
Janet Maybin Open University
Greg Myers Lancaster University
Mastin Prinsloo University of Cape Town
Brian Street University of London
Michael Stubbs University of Trier
Denny Taylor Hofstra University
Daniel Wagner University of Pennsylvania
MULTILITERACIES
Literacy learning and the design of
social futures
Edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis
for the New London Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Selection and editorial matter © 2000 Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis;
individual chapters © 2000 the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-97940-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-21420-3 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-21421-1 (pbk)
CONTENTS
About the authors viii
PART I Introduction 1
Introduction: Multiliteracies: the beginnings of an 3
idea
BILL COPE AND MARY KALANTZIS
1 A pedagogy of Multiliteracies designing social futures 9
THE NEW LONDON GROUP
PART II Changing times: the ‘why’ of Multiliteracies
Introduction 39
2 New people in new worlds: networks, the new 41
capitalism and schools
JAMES PAUL GEE
3 Cyber-schooling and technological change: 67
Multiliteracies for new times
CARMEN LUKE
4 Multiliteracies and multilingualism 89
JOSEPH LO BIANCO

5 History, cultural diversity and English language 103
teaching
MARTIN NAKATA
6 Changing the role of schools 117
MARY KALANTZIS AND BILL COPE
PART III Designs of meaning: the ‘what’ of Multiliteracies 145
Introduction 147
7 Design and transformation: new theories of meaning 149
vii
GUNTHER KRESS
8 Multiliteracies and language: orders of discourse and 159
intertextuality
NORMAN FAIRCLOUGH
9 Multimodality 179
GUNTHER KRESS
10 Designs for social futures 201
BILL COPE AND MARY KALANTZIS
PART IV Pedagogy: The ‘how’ of Multiliteracies 235
Introduction 286
11 A Multiliteracies pedagogy: a pedagogical supplement 237
MARY KALANTZISBILL COPE
12 Taking cultural differences into account 247
COURTNEY B.CAZDEN
13 Narratives and inscriptions: cultural tools, power and 265
powerful sense-making
SARAH MICHAELS AND RICHARD SOHMER
PART V Multiliteracies in practice 287
Introduction 289
14 The Multiliteracies Project: South African teachers 291
respond
DENISE NEWFIELD AND PIPPA STEIN
15 Negotiating a pedagogy of Multiliteracies: the 309
communication curriculum in a South African
managem ent development programme
DAVID BOND
16 Four innovative programmes: a postscript from Alice 319
Springs
COURTNEY B.CAZDEN
References 331
Index 347
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
This book has been collectively written by the New London Group although Bill
Cope and Mary Kalantzis have taken responsibility for editing the collection.
The following contributors to this book attended the original New London
meeting in September 1994, and authored the ‘Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’
manifesto, published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1996 and which
appears as Chapter 1 of this book: Courtney B. Cazden, Bill Cope, Norman
Fairclough, James Paul Gee, Mary Kalantzis, Gunther Kress, Carmen Luke,
Sarah Michaels, and Martin Nakata. Joseph Lo Bianco was unable to attend the
September 1994 meeting. He has, however, attended subsequent New London
Group meetings.
Following the publication of the ‘Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’ manifesto,
David Bond, Denise Newfield, Richard Sohmer and Pippa Stein were invited by
the New London Group to contribute to this book, adding their perspectives and
experiences in using and evaluating the Multiliteracies concepts.
Courtney B. Cazden is the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education
Emerita at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA. She is a member of
the National Academy of Education and a past president of the Council on
Anthropology and Education and the American Association of Applied
Linguistics. Currently she is working on a revised edition of her highly
acclaimed Classroom Discourse.
Bill Cope is Director of the Centre for Workplace Communication and

Culture and a former Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs in
Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is co-author, with
Mary Kalantzis, of Productive Diversity (Pluto Press, Sydney, 1997), Mistaken
Identity: Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia (Pluto,
1992; with Kalantzis, Castles and Morrissey), The Powers of Literacy (Falmer
Press, London, 1993, edited with Kalantzis), Cultures of Schooling (Falmer,
1991, with Kalantzis, Noble and Poynting) and Minority Languages and
Dominant Culture (Falmer, 1988, with Kalantzis and Slade).
Norman Fairclough is Professor of Language in Social Life in the
Departments of Linguistics and Modern English Language at Lancaster
ix
University, UK He is the author of Discourse and Social Change and Media
Discourse.
James Paul Gee holds the Tashia Morgridge Chair in Reading in the
Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, USA. He is the author of Social Linguistics and Discourses and The
Social Mind.
Mary Kalantzis is Dean of the Faculty of Education, Language and
Community Services at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. Her
publications include co-authorship of Mistaken Identity: Multiculturalism and
the Demise of Nationalism in Australia with Castles, Cope and Morrissey (Pluto
Press, Sydney, 1988/1990/1992); Minority Languages and Dominant Culture
with Cope and Slade (Falmer Press, London, 1989); Cultures of Schooling:
Pedagogies for Cultural Difference and Social Access, with Cope, Noble and
Poynting (Falmer Press, London, 1990); and Productive Diversity (Pluto Press,
Sydney, 1997).
Gunther Kress is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education at the
University of London, UK He is the author of numerous books, including
Learning to Write and Reading Images.
Joseph Lo Bianco is Chief Executive of Language Australia: The National
Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia. This is a network of thirty-one
centres across Australia devoted to research, policy and professional development
for all aspects of languages and literacy in the context of Australian
multilingualism and globalisation. The Institute derives from the 1987 National
Policy on Languages, Australia’s first explicit language policy, authored by Lo
Bianco. He has been actively involved in public advocacy, research and policy-
making for cultural diversity, multilingualism, literacy and improved education.
Lo Bianco is an economist, linguist and teacher by training and also holds the
position of visiting professor at the University of Wollongong.
Carmen Luke teaches sociology, communications and cultural studies and
feminist theory at the Graduate School of Education, University of Queensland.
Her most recent book is Feminisms and Pedagogies of Everyday Life (State
University of New Yor k Press), and she is currently working on research projects
on women in Asian higher education and on interethnic families.
Sarah Michaels is Senior Research Scholar of the Hiatt Center for Urban
Education at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA. A sociolinguist by training,
she has been actively involved in teaching and research in the area of language,
culture, literacy, and schooling. Her current work involves research and
development in an experimental after-school science program, The Investigators
Club, for inner-city middle school students. She has also worked closely over the
past ten years with teacher researchers interested in documenting talk, text, and
learning in their own classrooms. She holds a Ph.D. in Education (Language and
Literacy) from the University of California, Berkeley.