Common Strands: Multimodality, Literacy, and International Perspectives

Titled “Common Strands: Multimodality, Literacy, and International Perspectives,” this podcast surveys Dr. Jennifer Rowsell’s engagement with New Literacy Studies as a graduate student, the rise of multimodality in the field of literacy studies, and the current landscape of UK and Canadian literacy research. Dr. Rowsell is professor in the Department of Teacher Education, Canada Research Chair in Multiliteracies at Brock University in St. Catherine’s Ontario. Dr. Rowsell is the 2016 recipient of the Writing & Literacies SIG’s Steve Witte Award for Lifetime Achievement. Named for Stephen P. Witte, leading scholar of writing theory and research and a founding editor of the journal Written Communication, the Steve Witte Award is presented to a senior scholar who has made significant contributions to research in the area of writing and literacies through a particular academic work or body of work that has contributed significantly to scholarship in the area of writing and literacies. Dr. Rowsell scholarship examining contemporary literacies across media, modes, and genres has contributed to expanding visions of what literacy education and pedagogy can be. Her work international contributions are many. Dr. Rowsell has authored, co-authored, and co-edited 18 books on an array of topics from new ways of framing literacy studies such asArtifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells A Story with Kate Pahl and Working with Multimodality: Literacy in Digital Age. She has pushed the field forward in volumes that address methodology in literacy research such as Resourcing Early Learners: New Networks, New Actors with Sue Nichols, Helen Nixon, and Sophia Rainbird and Learning and Literacy over Time: Longitudinal Perspectives with Julian Sefton-Green. She has also co-edited The Handbook of Literacy Studies with Kate Pahl which provides a renewed sense of the field of literacy studies and future directions in literacy research and theory. This Oral Histories Series is brought to you by the SIG Historian, Dr. Robert LeBlanc, Assistant Professor at Cal Poly Pomona, and the AERA Writing and Literacies SIG Communication Team, led by Dr. Anna Smith, Assistant Professor at Illinois State University. Theme music in this episode composed and performed by SIG member Dr. Vaughn Watson, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education, Michigan State University. More of this Dr. Watson’s music is available at: @heteroglossic