Reflections of Identity in Multimodal Projects Teacher Education in the Pacific

Abstract

Contemporary societies, whether in the United States or the Pacific are overwhelming visual in character. Yet, schools at all levels continue to privilege written text as demonstrations of learning over any other form of communication. A visual curriculum has the potential to strengthen instruction across disciplines and offers students another way to express their knowledge. As a receptive mediator, images can provide support for students who may be new to school, or English, or otherwise in need additional scaffolding of verbal language experiences (Cappello & Walker, 201 ; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). When used for literacy production, visuals may also help students to communicate their new ideas and understandings (Cappelo & Hollingsworth, 2008; Cappello & Lafferty, 2015; Eisner, 2002). Moreover, privileging visual texts as student demonstrations of knowledge may provide students an otherwise missing opportunity to express cultural knowledge and identity (Franquiz & Brochin-Ceballos, 2006 ).