This chapter presents both practical and theoretical support for educators to incorporate literacy learning into elementary classrooms. Clear connections between fanfiction and mentor texts provide examples of how film can mentor student writing. Multimodal classroom activities, focused on literacy skill development, showcase a variety of instructional strategies related to both reading and writing. Each literacy activity utilizes film as a foundation for student understanding of skills and to support successful completion of assigned tasks.
TopIntroduction
Literacy, once thought of as simply reading and writing, has become so much more. The International Literacy Association’s online glossary (n.d.), provides that literacy is “the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context” (para. 14). This definition offers literacy as something beyond academics, as it provides connections across materials, methods, procedures, processes, techniques, systems and/or modes. Connection in this way, often thought of as multimodal literacy, supports a variety of ways to learn concepts (Philippe, et al., 2020) while reinforcing memory and cognition (Lazar, 2008). According to Tussey et al. (2021), “multimodal learning opportunities across content areas allow students to experience elements of control over the time, place, and path within integrated learning environments” (p. 193). These types of experiences may include, but are not limited to, fanfiction writing, podcasting, vodcasting, and gaming (Collins & Halverson, 2009; Haas & Tussey, 2022; Knobel & Lankshear, 2007; Steinkuehler, 2008).
Respecting literacy experiences that happen outside of academia offers opportunities to link home, school, and community (Gee, 2007). Linking the different faces and places of literacy engagement elevates it beyond communication skills and situates it as cultural practice (Gavelek, et al., 2000). According to Haas and Tussey (2022), literacy as cultural practice offers purposeful and authentic opportunities for literacy engagement and growth. Bippert (2017) suggests that student “goals for reading and writing may not be directly connected with school achievement, so educators need to tap into these existing skills in order to make literacy meaningful to the students” (p. 19-20). Therefore, educators' awareness of the links between cultural practices and literacy engagement, as well as the skills associated with incorporating this knowledge into the classroom, offers opportunities to bridge the engagement gap (Alverman, 2008).