“Rap universal”: Using multimodal media production to develop ICT literacies

Turner, K.C. Nat. (2011). “Rap universal”: Using multimodal media production to develop ICT literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 613-623.

Here’s a case study giving us a glimpse of an after-school multimodal media production course for low-income middle school students. Turner observed a class of about 30 students (the population shifted a bit, as often happens in urban schools) and their teacher, Mr. Soto, extensively over the course of the 2006-2007 school year. Turner also conducted surveys as well as interviews of students and teachers. The study used qualitative methods (grounded theory) to analyze the data. The projects in the course were designed to help students develop necessary technological skills for the future, but also to help them use literacy to make connections with their lives and communities. Another goal was to help them develop skills to critique the media they were exposed to on a daily basis and help them think about the many decisions the creators of media make. Projects in the course included conducting community research projects and creating public service announcements, and writing hip-hop lyrics that reflected their lives and feelings. It’s obvious from this account that the course was beneficial for the students. They were motivated to learn for two reasons: 1) the course connected to their out of school lives, and 2) they saw how the skills learned in the course could help them in other contexts, first in their school lives (their other teachers saw this in their coursework), and later in the adult world of employment (as evidenced by some of the students’ interview comments). Because the observations documented here occurred several years ago, the author is able to provide us with follow-up information about these students, who now are about to graduate from high school. Near the end of the article, we hear that at least three of them have continued to develop their multimodal media production skills. Although the time it took to bring this article to publication allowed for a tiny longitudinal look at the observed students, it also means that the data reported in this article are several years old now and slightly “cold”. One has to wonder if the after-school multimedia production course has continued, and how it has developed, since advances in media technology have exploded since 2007.

The approach documented here looks promising, though a case study focused on a single class cannot generalize to all settings. As always with such studies, the reader must decide for himself/herself if this setting is enough like the settings where he/she works to make it workable there. One mediating factor that shows through clearly in the case here is the teacher. It is obvious from what we read here that Mr. Soto is a singular individual with many personal qualities that make him an especially effective teacher for these students. Could another teacher implement the same course as effectively? Also, the after-school course had the assistance of a number of undergraduate tutors (Turner’s students, perhaps?) who assisted in the computer lab. Having worked with children recently in computer labs, I know that every adult hand is helpful in those contexts, and much one-on-one scaffolding is required, especially early on, so the tutors may have been a key factor in the program’s success. We are not told much here about how the tutors functioned or how all of that worked.

Postscript: I learned a new vocabulary word from reading this article: deictic. This adjective appears in this context mostly: “the deictic nature of new literacies” (p. 621) or something similar. I gather that to be deictic means to be transferable and useful across multiple contexts. Once you learn how to do something in one context, you can use it in others, and maybe adapt it to new contexts. The only example I can think of at the moment is a very simple one from personal experience. One of my own first technological skills was using e-mail, and attaching documents there. I was able to generalize that skill when I learned to use my university’s electronic course shell to provide documents for my students, use the dropboxes, and use discussion threads. I’ve further built on those skills as I’ve developed and managed my blog. In another case, I’ve learned to use the scanner and to create and manipulate various kinds of files, which has translated across numerous purposes. I’ll have to look up the word deictic and see how others have used it.