Elaborating Multiliteracies Through Multimodal Texts Changing Classroom Practices And Developing Teacher Pedagogies Geoff Bull

Elaborating Multiliteracies Through Multimodal
Texts Changing Classroom Practices And
Developing Teacher Pedagogies Geoff Bull
download
https://ebookbell.com/product/elaborating-multiliteracies-
through-multimodal-texts-changing-classroom-practices-and-
developing-teacher-pedagogies-geoff-bull-33978020
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.
Elaborating Professionalism Studies In Practice And Theory 1st Edition
Clive Kanes Auth
https://ebookbell.com/product/elaborating-professionalism-studies-in-
practice-and-theory-1st-edition-clive-kanes-auth-11845604
Slowing Metaphor Down Elaborating Deliberate Metaphor Theory Gerard J
Steen
https://ebookbell.com/product/slowing-metaphor-down-elaborating-
deliberate-metaphor-theory-gerard-j-steen-187015822
Power And Freedom In The Space Of Reasons Elaborating Foucaults
Pragmatism Tuomo Tiisala
https://ebookbell.com/product/power-and-freedom-in-the-space-of-
reasons-elaborating-foucaults-pragmatism-tuomo-tiisala-59129918
Elaborations Toward A Notion Of Community Music Therapy 1st Edition
Brynjulf Stige
https://ebookbell.com/product/elaborations-toward-a-notion-of-
community-music-therapy-1st-edition-brynjulf-stige-51380526

Elaborations On Emptiness Uses Of The Heart Stra Donald S Lopez
https://ebookbell.com/product/elaborations-on-emptiness-uses-of-the-
heart-stra-donald-s-lopez-51952378
Elaboration And Applications Of Metalorganic Frameworks 1st Edition
Shengqian Ma
https://ebookbell.com/product/elaboration-and-applications-of-
metalorganic-frameworks-1st-edition-shengqian-ma-43854758
Evaporating Genres Essays On Fantastic Literature Gary K Wolfe
https://ebookbell.com/product/evaporating-genres-essays-on-fantastic-
literature-gary-k-wolfe-5216970
Patriotic Elaborations Essays In Practical Philosophy 1st Edition
Charles Blattberg
https://ebookbell.com/product/patriotic-elaborations-essays-in-
practical-philosophy-1st-edition-charles-blattberg-51398832
User Needs By Systematic Elaboration Use A Theorybased Method For User
Needs Analysis Programming And Evaluation Wim Heijs
https://ebookbell.com/product/user-needs-by-systematic-elaboration-
use-a-theorybased-method-for-user-needs-analysis-programming-and-
evaluation-wim-heijs-46076548

ELABORATING MULTILITERACIES THROUGH
MULTIMODAL TEXTS
Elaborating Multiliteracies through Multimodal Texts: Changing Classroom Practices and Developing
Teacher Pedagogies is the complementary volume to Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and
Talking in the 21st Century, which provides a comprehensive introduction to multiliteracies, classroom
talk, planning, pedagogy and practice. This second volume embeds an action learning model, encouraging
readers to explore classroom practice around multiliteracies, collect data about their pedagogy and enact
change. It provides in-depth examination of the five semiotic systems, including a suggested school-wide
sequence, explores reading and writing processes with multimodal texts and explains how to develop
dialogic practices through talk around multimodal texts. The links between inquiry and action learning
are explored in order to demonstrate how these approaches can change classroom practices and talk
around multimodal texts.
Several features have been designed to help translate knowledge of multiliteracies into effective
classroom practice:
• Graphic Outlines orient the reader to the concepts in the chapter.
• Reflection Strategies enable the reader to gauge their understanding of key concepts.
• Theory into Practice tasks enable the trialling of specific theoretical concepts in the classroom.
• Auditing Instruments inform assessment of student performance and evaluation of teacher pedagogy.
• QR codes address the multimodal and digital nature of new literacies and link the reader to multimodal
texts.
• Action Learning Tasks enable readers to investigate specific aspects of their multiliterate pedagogy,
and plan and implement change, based on their findings.
Dr Geoff Bull is Co-director of ABC: Anstey and Bull Consultants in Education and formerly Associate
Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba. He was national president of the
Australian Literacy Educators’ Association.
DrMichèle Anstey is Co-director of ABC: Anstey and Bull Consultants in Education and formerly Associate
Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba. She was also a teacher in Victoria,
NSW, and Queensland and editor of Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.
Together, Geoff Bull and Michèle Anstey, provide professional development, conduct tendered research,
commissioned writing, speak at conferences, prepare professional development packages for trainers and
advise on curriculum.

ELABORATING
MULTILITERACIES
THROUGH MULTIMODAL
TEXTS
Changing Classroom Practices and Developing
Teacher Pedagogies
Geoff Bull and Michèle Anstey

First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor& Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Geoff Bull and Michèle Anstey
The right of Geoff Bull and Michèle Anstey to be identified as authors of this
work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
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 catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-55504-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-55502-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14928-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Interstate
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS
List of figures, tables and QR codes vi
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction x
1 The action learning cycle: Designing multimodal pedagogies 1
2 Multiliteracies and inquiry: Implications for pedagogy, planning and practice 46
3 The codes and conventions of the semiotic systems: Developing a metalanguage
for literacy inquiry 75
4 Developing dialogic talk and dialogic pedagogy: Designing multiliterate classrooms 157
5 Investigating the reading process in multiliterate classrooms:
Consuming multimodal texts 200
6 Investigating the writing process in multiliterate classrooms:
Producing multimodal texts 250
Bibliography 298
Glossary 316
Index 325

FIGURES, TABLES AND QR CODES
Figures
2.1 Amodel of inquiry 50
2.2 Apedagogy for inquiry learning 68
3.1 Text and design: Encouraging talk about texts as dynamic rather than static 79
3.2 Consuming and producing multimodal text in a multiliterate world 82
3.3 Developing facial expressions for Little Red Riding Hood 121
3.4 Developing appearance, in particular the costume of Little Red Riding Hood 122
3.5 Developing posture for Little Red Riding Hood 123
5.2 Ahierarchical or bottom-up theory of reading instruction 205
5.3 Afictitious example of a skills approach reader 206
5.4 Atop-down or meaning-focussed approach to reading 209
5.5 Relative use of decoding and comprehension skills 210
5.6 Applying the Four Resource Model to the consumption of text in terms
of design, multimodal texts and multiliteracies 224
6.1 Ahierarchical or bottom-up theory of writing instruction 254
6.3 An early linear representation of the writing process 256
6.4 The writing process as a recursive process 257
6.5 Arepresentation of the genre approach to writing 262
6.6 Applying the Four Resource Model to the production of text in terms
of design, multimodal texts and multiliteracies 264
Tables
1.1 Multiliteracies Matrix and Reflection Tool 24
1.2 Action Plan Proforma 34
1.3 Functions of teacher talk 36
1.4 Phases of lessons 37
2.1 Processes of inquiry in each discipline 52
2.2 Common processes across the disciplines 53
2.3 Organising information using top-level structures 63
3.1 Sample analysis 90
3.2 Elaborated sample analysis 94
3.3 Examples of the use of codes to achieve salience or coherence in a text 96

Figures, tables and QR codes vii
3.4 Metacognitive prompts for approaching the production or consumption of a multimodal text 97
3.5 Examples for achieving salience and cohesion with the codes and conventions of
the linguistic semiotic system 99
3.6 Codes and conventions of the visual semiotic system 102
3.7 Examples of how the codes and conventions of the visual semiotic system might
be applied to perform a function and facilitate salience and cohesion 104
3.8 Sample format for reporting investigations 110
3.9 Codes and conventions of the audio semiotic system 112
3.10 Examples of how the codes and conventions of the audio semiotic system might
3.11 The codes and conventions of the gestural semiotic system 117
3.12 Examples of how the codes and conventions of the gestural semiotic system might
3.13 Codes and conventions of the spatial semiotic system 127
3.14 Examples of how the codes and conventions of the spatial semiotic system might
3.15 Asuggested sequence for introducing metalanguage and describing the functions
of the codes and conventions for the five semiotic systems and focussing the
related pedagogy across all school years 139
4.1 Definitions for analysing the functions of teacher talk 168
4.2 Possible lesson phases 171
4.3 Initial framework for the implementation of a dialogic pedagogy 180
4.4 Criteria for establishing dialogic teaching 181
5.1 Early concepts of research skills 207
5.2 Asummary of Cambourne’s conditions for learning and possible implications
for practice in a multiliterate classroom 215
5.3 How the history of research about reading and the associated approaches,
pedagogy and practices inform the teaching of reading and consumption of
multimodal texts and a multiliterate pedagogy 227
5.4 Using the metafunctions of language to interpret visual text using Kress and
van Leeuwen’s definitions 233
5.5 Applying Callow’s framework to the cover of a picture book 234
5.6 Aresource for planning pedagogy and practice around meaning making with
multimodal texts 236
5.7 An interpretation of the grammar of multimodal meaning developed by
Kalantzis etal. (2016, p.242) 237
5.8 How current research and the associated approaches, pedagogy and practices
inform the teaching of reading and consumption of multimodal texts and a
multiliterate pedagogy 244
6.1 How the history of research about writing and the associated approaches,
pedagogy and practices inform the teaching of writing and production of multimodal
texts and a multiliterate pedagogy 267
6.2 Summary of the approach Rossbridge with Rushton (2015) developed to analyse
the visual text in a multimodal text 283

viii Figures, tables and QR codes
QR codes
3.1 Best Ads on TV (www.bestadsontv.com/) 89
3.2 Modern ballet performance (www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IOBglx2X3I) 91
3.3 Traditional ballet performance (www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8CUDVpkGk4) 91
3.4 Colour theory website (www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory) 106
3.5 Shaun Tan’s website (www.shauntan.net/) 107
3.6 Scientific images (www.google.com.au/search?q=Scientific+drawingclient=firefox-
bdcr=0tbm=ischimgil=CAHjf_h1uxmpEM%253A%253By5YPcivGZfyL3M%253
Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.slideshare.net%25252Fcristalbeam%25252
Fdrawing-scientific-diagramsource=iupf=mfht)107
3.7 The Chosen (www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBav5VVzmZM) 108
3.8 Creating a soundtrack for The Lost Thing (http://soundworkscollection.com/videos/
thelostthing)112
3.9 Areading of Wolves by Emily Gravett (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEIb88KnKYE) 124
3.10 The use of left (known) and right (new) in an illustration (www.shauntan.net/books.html) 126
3.11 Framing in a diagram showing a process (https://pmm.nasa.gov/education/sites/default/
files/article_images/Water-Cycle-Art2A.png)128
5.1 Cover of Mine! by Emily Gravett (2016) (www.emilygravett.com/books/bear-and-hare-mine) 233
5.2 Julie Coiro article (www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct05/vol63/num02/
Making-Sense-of-Online-Text.aspx)242

As with all our work, the focus of this book has been informed by our discussions and engagement
around multiliteracies and multimodality with teachers and teacher leaders throughout Australia in
recent years. We thank them for their willingness to share their thoughts and ideas with us. In doing so
they have revealed their passion for teaching and learning and their deep commitment to the education
of their students. We would particularly like to thank Jan Mansfield for allowing us to share transcripts
from her classroom.
Thank you also to the many people associated with Routledge who have supported and advised during
the process. In particular, we wish to thank Lucinda Knight and Matt Bickerton for their guidance and
assistance. We would also like to thank Jennifer Fester, Marie Louise Roberts and Emma Sudderick for
their editorial advice and to Jac Nelson for her work on the index.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Why two complementary volumes?
This book is the second of two complementary volumes. Our professional development work and
research with teachers and students across all education systems since we wrote Teaching and Learning
Multiliteracies: Changing Times, Changing Literacies (2006) and Evolving Pedagogies: Reading and
Writing in a Multimodal World (2010) stimulated the idea of writing two complementary volumes. We
discovered that it is not sufficient to know and understand the concepts and research that inform under-
standings about multiliteracies and multimodal texts. To fully understand these concepts in their
teaching context it was necessary for teachers to investigate and apply this knowledge in classrooms, to
examine and change their pedagogy. We found that engaging in a continuous cycle of Action Learning
enabled teachers to elaborate and apply their understandings in ways that were appropriate to the social,
cultural context of the community in which they were teaching. Engagement in Action Learning Cycles
resulted in not just new understandings about literacy but radical shifts in pedagogy.
Therefore, each of the complementary volumes was designed with very specific objectives in mind.
Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and Talking in the 21st Century provides a comprehen-
sive introduction to multiliteracies and the ideas and concepts that inform it, together with information
about the changes to classroom talk, planning, pedagogy and practice that are necessary as a result
of adopting a multiliterate pedagogy. This complementary volume, Elaborating Multiliteracies through
Multimodal Texts: Changing Classroom Practices and Developing Teacher Pedagogies, builds upon the
previous volume by embedding an action learning model throughout the book, encouraging readers to
explore classroom practice around multiliteracies, collect data about their pedagogy and practice and
enact change. Its aim is to build a more refined and in-depth understanding of literacies, multiliteracies
and multimodal texts and concurrently develop a multiliterate pedagogy.
Design of this book
Throughout the book we refer to writing and reading as a process of designing and redesigning text in
order to convey or make meaning, that is, to fulfil a particular communicative purpose. In Elaborating
Multiliteracies through Multimodal Texts: Changing Classroom Practices and Developing Teacher
Pedagogies, our aim is to assist teachers in designing and redesigning their pedagogy. Therefore, we
have designed this book around six intertwined themes which are investigated through six chapters:
• The value of action research and learning in developing teachers’ pedagogies,
• Inquiry as an essential component for developing multiliteracies and multimodality,
INTRODUCTION

Introduction xi
• The origins and development of the concepts of multiliteracies and multimodality and the five semi-
otic systems (linguistic, visual, audio, spatial and gestural) that underpin texts,
• The use of dialogic talk as the vehicle for enhancing the teaching and learning multiliteracies and
multimodality,
• Reconsidering reading and consuming text in a multiliterate multimodal world,
• Reconsidering writing and producing text in a multiliterate multimodal world.
As always, our overarching goal is to blend theory and practice and provide readers with the opportunity
to reflect upon and develop their own understandings, as well as apply this knowledge to the educational
setting in which they are based. Therefore, we have also designed particular features to help the reader
in these endeavours and in the development and implementation of their Action Learning Cycle as they
read:
• Graphic Outlines for each chapter are designed to orient the reader to the concepts contained in the
chapter and the relationships among them.
• Reflection Strategies provide activities and tasks that enable the reader to gauge their understand-
ing of key concepts.
• Theory into Practice tasks provide ideas and activities that enable the trialling of specific theoretical
concepts in the classroom.
• Auditing Instruments provide specific tasks related to assessment of student performance and eval-
uation of teacher pedagogy.
• QR Codes are used to address the multimodal and digital nature of new literacies. They immediately
link the reader to multimodal texts and further references that illustrate and enhance the concepts
being developed.
• A Glossary at the end of the book enables the reader to access definitions of key concepts.
• Action Learning Tasks are designed to assist the reader to develop an individual Action Learning
Cycle as they progress through the six chapters.

1 The action learning cycle: Designing
multimodal pedagogies
Previewing what
teachers and students
need to know and be
able to do with
multimodal texts and
technology
Redefining literacy, reading and writing – a psychological process
Literacy and literacies
Defining multiliteracies and the characteristics of a multiliterate individual
Introducing Action
Research (AR)
Defining Action Research (AR)
Benefits of Action Research (AR)
Effective Professional Learning and Development (PLD)
Introducing the Action
Learning Cycle (ALC)
and the project
Factors involved in the successful implementation of Action Research (AR)
Factors that are important for teacher learning when engaged in
Action Research (AR)
Unique features of the Action Learning Cycle (ALC) and the project
Defining multimodal texts and the five semiotic systems
Reading and writing as the consumption and production of text
Redefining literacy, reading and writing – a social practice
Strengths of the Action Learning Cycle (ALC) and the project
Factors that need to be considered when supporting participants in
completing their projects

2 The action learning cycle
This chapter will investigate what students need to know and be able to do with multimodal texts by trac-
ing the change in the concept of literacy to consideration of literacies and multiliteracies. It will define the
characteristics of a literate and multiliterate person through exploring semiotic systems and the changing
nature of texts and will propose that reading and writing might be more usefully seen as consumption
and production. The chapter will introduce the Action Learning Cycle as a way of examining and chang-
ing teaching practices around new texts, multiliteracies and multimodality. It will introduce new tools that
have been designed by Anstey and Bull to support understanding the relationships among professional
knowledge, planning and teacher practice. Finally, the chapter will explain how the Action Learning Cycle
and how it can be used to support the design and redesign of teachers’ pedagogy. As stated in the
introduction to this book, the purpose of Elaborating Multiliteracies is to increase the readers’ knowledge
about multiliteracies and enable the implementation of a multiliterate pedagogy. Therefore, the informa-
tion about the Action Learning Cycle in this chapter provides specific knowledge and Action Learning
Tasks for the reader to begin an action learning project focussing on the development of a multiliterate
pedagogy in their classroom. The project can be further refined and implemented as the reader engages
with subsequent chapters and the Action Learning Tasks within them.
Reviewing what teachers and students need to know and be able
todowith multimodal texts and technology
Redefining literacy, reading and writing– a psychological process
In the period following the end of World War Two, literacy was seen as a collection of knowledge and skills
that enabled individuals to participate effectively in the society of the time. This was defined by a 1962
UNESCO document (cited by Oxenham, 1980, p.87) as attaining a level of reading, writing and arithmetic
that made it possible to adequately function and to ‘use those skills toward his own and the communi-
ty’s development’. Earlier UNESCO (cited by Harris Hodges, 1995, p. 140) had defined literacy as the
ability of a person ‘... who can with understanding both read and write a short, simple statement on his
everyday life’. This view of literacy as a finite and unique set of skills pertaining to a particular society
was reinforced by the idea that literacy was a form of communication that was language dominated. It
followed that language was predicated on the understanding that the basics of grammar, spelling, punc-
tuation and comprehension were essential requirements for both reading and writing and provided what
Luke (1995) referred to as a basic toolkit. Cope and Kalantzis (2000, p.5) suggested when describing the
literacy of this era as ‘What we might term “mere literacy” remains centred on language only, and usu-
ally on a singular national form of language at that, being conceived as a stable system based on rules’.
Later Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 4) commented that students of this era ‘. . . became knowledgeable in the
sense that they recognised received rules and conventions. They learned complicated spelling rules, or
the grammar of adverbial clauses, or the lines of great poets’. At this time in Australia, literature in the
form of poetry, prose and plays was dominated by the British tradition, possibly because the population
was almost entirely of British heritage. This led some cynics to suggest that Australian students spent
their time in English lessons studying the writing of ‘dead English males’. Street (1993, p. 2) suggested
that these traditional approaches were ‘highly biased’ because they focussed mainly on genres from the
Western literary canon that were mainly concerned with ‘... the literate activities and output of the intel-
lectual elite’. During this time, it was not possible to study Australian literature at university level because
it was not seen as part of the canon that was worthy of attention or to have sufficient prestige. Literacy
was therefore defined by what educationists of the time thought was appropriate for the civic, economic

The action learning cycle 3
and work contexts that students would be entering, or as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD; cited by Lo Bianco Freebody 2001, p. 21) stated, students ‘. . . who are able to
use their skills to function fully in the workplace, the community, and the home’. It was also socially and
culturally determined by the values held by the community of the time, as the goal of education gener-
ally was to pass on and maintain the heritage and literacy skills needed to maintain it. The literacy of
this period has been variously described as old basics by Luke (1995) and Luke and Freebody (1997), as
traditional by Anstey and Bull (2004, 2006) and heritage based by Kalantzis et al. (2016). Further infor-
mation about these ideas can be found in Chapter One of the complementary volume Foundations of
Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and Talking in the 21st Century.
This view of literacy and literature as old basics was challenged firstly by the mass migrations follow-
ing the war that not only affected the population of Australia, but also populations in the U.S. and the
U.K. At the same time, the development of affordable air travel made it more likely that individuals would
meet people from different backgrounds, societies and cultures. These two developments increased
the diversity of populations around the world and made available a range of views about what literacy
was and how it might be enacted. The view that literacy could be regarded as a set of knowledge and
skills, essentially a psychological process, was no longer sufficient. The greater diversity of populations
together with increasing mobility meant that literacy had to be regarded not only as a psychological
process, but also as a social process with concomitant social practices. It was during this time that a sig-
nificant amount of research was carried out in the U.K. and the U.S. about the social and cultural factors
that affected the development of language and literacy in particular groups. It marked a change in the
way literacy was perceived, as researchers were now focussing on the practices associated with literacy
and about how language was used in social settings.
REFLECTION STRATEGY 1.1
• The purpose of this Reflection Strategy is to determine what views about literacy are held by
the individuals in your educational setting.
• Ask the people who you work with in your school/setting to reflect on their views about the
nature of literacy. Have them commit these views in writing and then collect them. (Make sure
that you inform participants beforehand that their views are to be collected and analysed. It
may be that the group will prefer their views to be anonymous.)
• The views should be analysed and placed into one of four categories:
o Those individuals who define literacy as a psychological process– a belief that literacy is
a unitary set of skills and knowledge,
o Those individuals who define literacy as a social practice – a belief that literacy is a com-
municative process relating to interaction among different sociocultural groups,
o Those individuals who define literacy as a balance between psychological processes and
social processes,
o Those individuals who do not have a clear definition of literacy.
• Use these four categories in a discussion about how these disparate ideas may influence stu-
dents learning about literacy. At this point it may be useful to have a further discussion about
the benefits of a school-wide developmental approach and sequence to literacy instruction.

Redefining literacy, reading and writing— a social process
One of the first researchers in the U.K. to investigate the social origins of literacy and language develop-
ment was Bernstein who, in his earlier work (Bernstein, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1971), proposed that there
was a link between the literate practices involving talk in the home and social class membership and
sociocultural practices in families. He suggested that there was a relationship between particular family
types found in working class and middle class families and what he termed codes. He advanced a theory
that restricted codes developed in working class families and elaborate codes in middle class families.
Bernstein suggested (1964, pp. 118–139 and 1971, pp. 170–189) that elaborate code users drew their utter-
ances from a broad range and variety of alternatives and therefore their language use was less predict-
able, more explicit and therefore more complex (elaborate). The literacy that developed in such families
was more flexible and creative. Conversely, restricted code was more predictable and implicit and less
complex. It followed that the restricted code was therefore less flexible and less creative. Bernstein fur-
ther suggested that working class families could be identified as position-oriented families because they
were more regulated and less open to change in family social structures, whereas middle class families, or
person-oriented families, had more fluid roles and family structures and were therefore less regulated.
A more detailed discussion of the codes and family types can be found in Anstey and Bull (2004, 2006,
2018) and Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014). See also a detailed explanation in Chapter Two of the
complementary volume Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and Talking in the 21st Century.
Bernstein’s theory became widely accepted and led to the belief that students from working class families
could be seen as ‘culturally disadvantaged’ or ‘culturally deprived’. Some schools adopted the position
that failure at school was determined by family background and therefore families were held responsible
for lack of student success rather than the school. This shift in accountability became widely accepted in
educational circles and resulted in some teachers adopting the position that students from working class
homes were somehow deficient in literacy. This led to the formation of the term Deficiency Hypothesis
as a way of relating student performance to family background and child-rearing practices. The defi-
ciency hypothesis was not proposed by Bernstein but its effect was to ‘blame the victim’ and shift respon-
sibility away from teachers and the schools. This may explain why this misinterpretation of Bernstein’s
ideas gained such wide acceptance even though they were controversial and were the subject of many
challenges in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.
It is interesting to note that despite the challenges and the controversies surrounding the work of
Bernstein, his ideas continue to be widely accepted and researchers still find evidence for teacher beliefs
and acceptance of the central ideas underlying the theory. In their study of literacy practices in low
socioeconomic communities, Freebody and Ludwig (1998) found that schools continued to hold to the
belief that poor student performance was related to working class membership some three decades after
Bernstein proposed his initial theory. This is in spite of the fact that Bernstein (1973, 1975, 1990) reviewed
and revised his theory in his later research.
There was some support for Bernstein’s proposals in the early stages of the development of his theory
in Australia (Poole, 1972), the U.K. (Lawton, 1968) and the U.S. (Williams Naremore, 1969). However,
there were also some questions raised about the efficacy of his theory. Labov (1966, 1969a, 1969b), while
disagreeing with the proposition that poor performance could be explained by social class membership,
did not abandon the theory altogether but rather suggested important modifications. He agreed with
Bernstein’s view that sociocultural factors affected, and partly determined, literacy performance. In his
study of African American students, he proposed that difference in student performance could be better
explained through the concepts of standard English (SE) and non-standard English (NSE) rather than
restricted and elaborate codes. Labov suggested that African American students learnt a non-
standard

variant of English at home that was not valued by the school. This position became known as the
Difference Hypothesis and reversed Bernstein’s theory that the home was accountable for poor student
performance by suggesting that the school was accountable because of its refusal to acknowledge that
NSE was an acceptable dialect of English, albeit with its own rules of grammar and syntax and its own
logic. Labov proposed that it was a question of linguistic relativity and should not be judged as a deficit.
The Deficiency Hypothesis would view these dialectic differences as a problem created by the home
whereas the Difference Hypothesis would interpret them as a problem generated by the school or
teacher. Therefore, the Difference Hypothesis was a more culturally appropriate theory because it valued
the literacy that students brought from home to school.
Just as Bernstein’s theory was modified by Labov, so Labov’s position was modified by Cazden. Cazden
(1967, 1970, 1972, 2015) agreed with Labov’s rejection of Bernstein and the Deficiency Hypothesis but
felt that linguistic relativity and the Difference Hypothesis did not adequately account for difference.
She suggested that both working class and middle class students had access to restricted and elaborate
codes or standard and non-standard forms of English. Cazden, drawing on the work of Habermas (1970)
and Hymes (1972), suggested that it was a matter of communicative competence, that is, while middle
class students knew which code was appropriate to use in which context, working class students did not.
It was therefore not so much about knowing a particular code or dialect, but rather a question of use. She
suggested that middle class children were able to distinguish between conventional or more formal situ-
ations (school and workplace) and casual or less formal situations (family and playground) and therefore
able to judge when SE or NSE was more appropriate to use.
The work of these three researchers, in investigating the relation of home and school literate prac-
tices, provided an important impetus to broadening the concept of literacy to include consideration of
literacy as a social process. This approach to literacy has been taken up more recently through the
research of Heath (1983), Hull and Schultz (2002), Dyson (2003) and D’warte (2014) who have investi-
gated the various literate practices to be found in the home and other out-of-school sites. Heath added an
additional factor when studying the effect of culture and context by focussing on social behaviour, thus
further broadening the concept of literacy. This approach was later followed by Gee (1990, 1992, 2004)
and Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) in their studies of discourse and Discourse.
• The purpose of this Reflection Strategy is to investigate the views held in your educational
setting/school about the factors that affect students learning about literacy in the home and
how this might impinge upon performance in school.
• Have a discussion with all participants similar to the one in the previous Reflection Strategy.
Make sure that the discussion includes debates about the Deficiency and Difference Hypoth-
eses, Communicative Competence and Discourses/discourses. It may require more than one
session to cover all these ideas.
• The outcome of these discussions is to challenge views that are culturally inappropriate and
to design an agreed-upon approach to literacy learning throughout the school. This may be
included in school policy documents.

Literacy and literacies
The research by Heath (1983, 1986), as did much of the research that followed, challenged the idea of
literacy encompassing one basic toolkit by concluding that literacy was a set of social practices that
varied according to culture and context. She concluded (1983, p. 10) in her study of two communities in
the American South that ‘The various approaches of these communities to acquiring, using and valuing
language are the products of their history and current situations’. Literacy began to be seen as an active,
flexible, dynamic and interactive repertoire of practices that could occur in the home, at school, in the
playground, in religious settings and in different social or cultural groups. As Lankshear and Lawler
(1987, p. 43) stated, ‘In other words, what literacy is is entirely a matter of how reading and writing are
conceived and practised within particular social settings’. Literacy was no longer regarded as a unitary
skill but rather a repertoire of practices that led to the formation of a multiplicity of literacies. This idea
was supported by earlier work by many researchers in the area such as Halliday (1973) in Australia, Smith
(1973) in the U.S. and Street (1984) in the U.K. Interestingly, Heath, Smith and Halliday all approached
the developments in literacies, rather than literacy, by proposing functions or purposes of literacy, while
Street focussed on the social practices around literacies.
In summary, the literacy toolkit proposed in the 1950s and 1960s, though still necessary, was no longer
seen as sufficient. Literacy was no longer to be regarded as only a psychological process. Literacy was
now defined as a social practice that required the acquisition and use of a variety of literacies and the
associated behaviours, to be used in a range of social and cultural settings. In other words, literacies and
literate practices are shaped by society and society shapes literacies.
Defining multiliteracies and the characteristics of
a multiliterate individual
The advent of literacies, or the new literacies as Street (1993, 1997) described them, set the scene for a
rethink of literacy. The growing diversity of societies around the world and the development of new tech-
nologies reinforced the need for a variety of literacies. Change became the new constant, necessitating
a further reconsideration of the nature of literacies. In 1996 the New London Group, comprised of edu-
cators from around the world, published a seminal paper describing what they termed multiliteracies.
Their first concern was to reconsider literacy as primarily encompassing only notions about language
and the linguistic. As Cope and Kalantzis (2000, p. 6) suggested, they were concerned that individuals
were also required to ‘ . . . interact effectively using multiple languages, multiple Englishes, and commu-
nication patterns that more frequently cross cultural, community, and national boundaries’. They stated
that multiliteracies should support learners to specify differences in language, and promote meaning
making, in a range of contexts and cultures at the regional, state and national levels.
The multi in multiliteracies refers to the range of literacies and literate practices used in all facets of
life and how these practices are similar and different. Various writers such as the New London Group
(1996), Cope and Kalantzis (2000), Carrington and Robinson (2009) and Mills (2011) all suggest that the
range of literacies and literate practices are a result of the growing diversity of populations at the local
and global levels. They also suggest that the increasing pace of technological change creates a variety of
new texts that have been created through the new and emerging live and digital technologies (Zammit
Downes, 2002) as well as those texts produced by the more traditional paper technology. As a result
of these changes, Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 7) state that students ‘. . . will be able to navigate change and
diversity, learn as they go and communicate effectively in a wide range of settings. They will be flexible

thinkers, capable of seeing things from multiple perspectives’. Therefore, the multi in multiliteracies not
only refers to multiple literacies and literate practices, but also to a growing variety of new texts and new
technologies. As Mills (2011, p. 124) concluded, ‘Previous conceptions of literacy as monolingual, mono-
cultural and monomodal– one language, culture and mode– have been transformed for the new times as
multiliteracies’. Multiliterate individuals must therefore be strategic, able to recognise what is required
in a particular context, examine what is already known, and then, if necessary, modify that knowledge to
develop a strategy that suits the situation. They need to be problem solvers, strategic and critical think-
ers (Anstey Bull, 2006, p.23).
Anstey and Bull (2006), Anstey (2009) and Bull and Anstey (2010a) have proposed a set of character-
istics of a multiliterate person. They suggest that in order to be multiliterate, a person must:
• Be flexible and able to deal with change – be analytical and reflective problem solvers, be strategic,
creative and critical thinkers who can engage with new texts in a variety of contexts and audiences.
• Have a repertoire of literate knowledge and practices– understand that new texts that have differing
purposes, audiences and contexts will require a range of different behaviours that draw on a reper-
toire of knowledge and experiences.
• Understand how social and cultural diversity effects literate practices – know that experiences and
culture influence and produce a variety of different knowledges, approaches, orientations, attitudes
and values that will influence the interpretation and occurrence of literate practices.
• Understand, and be able to use, traditional and new communication technologies – understand the
semiotic systems and recognise that the increasing variety of new texts are delivered by paper, live
and digital technologies, and realise that purpose, audience and context determine which semiotic
system and which technology is appropriate.
• Be critically literate – understand that in every literate practice it is necessary to determine who is
participating and for what reason, who is in a position of power, who has been marginalised, what is
the purpose and origin of the texts being used and how these texts are supporting participation in
society and everyday life.
AUDITING INSTRUMENT 1.1
• The purpose of this Auditing Instrument is to investigate the classroom practices that are
present across the school community.
• Conduct lesson observation exercises in each classroom in the school to investigate teachers’
practices to discover whether teachers are addressing literacy as a single unitary concept or
if there is evidence of multiple literacies being introduced.
• Develop a checklist based on the five characteristics of a multiliterate person to explore which
characteristics are present in students’ literacy learning.
These five characteristics can form the basis for teachers to create opportunities for students to
investigate, learn about and engage with literacies, literate practices and multiliteracies. While the central
concepts involved in the exploration of multiliteracies have largely remained constant, recent research

has addressed its application to particular issues relating to schooling and the workplace. These issues
include how to support teachers to address the diversity and inequalities manifest in classrooms, how
to introduce and teach about the multiplicity of texts that have been delivered by new and evolving
technologies, how multiliteracies can be applied to different disciplines other than English, and specific
approaches to the planning and teaching multiliteracies (Unsworth, 2001, Anstey Bull, 2006, 2018;
Baker, 2010, Bull and Anstey, 2010b, Cole Pullen, 2010, Mills, 2011).
Defining multimodal texts and the five semiotic systems
The concept of multiliteracies has necessitated that students and teachers engage with texts arising out of
paper, live and digital technologies. The diversity of contemporary populations and the increasing rates of
technological change have produced a variety of literacies and texts that were not available in earlier times.
The advent of digital technologies has produced an array of new texts that were not possible in the late
20th century. Live technologies which were once limited to face-to-face interactions can now, through the
development of the internet and through apps such as Skype, permit real-time interactions between indi-
viduals in different contexts. It is important to note that these technological developments often result in
the production of contested sites. As Hawisher and Selfe (2000, p.15) stated with reference to the internet,
... this system of networked computers is far from world-wide; it does not provide a culturally neutral
conduit for the transmission of information; it is not a culturally neutral or innocent communication
landscape open to the literacy practices of all global citizens.
Even texts produced through the traditional paper technologies have been transformed through devel-
opments in technology. The concept of text as limited to the written word is now outmoded. Paper texts
presented through such technological developments as the desktop computer and the internet can be
read or written in much more flexible ways, creating new ways of meaning making that individuals need
to access. Texts produced through live technologies require individuals to engage with elements from
music, art and drama, while texts produced through digital technologies require interpretation of such
elements as colour, movement, sound effects or images such as those presented in film or video.
• The purpose of this Auditing Instrument is to investigate which technologies are evident in
teachers’ planning and practice.
• Construct a simple checklist containing the three technologies (paper, live and digital) and
conduct classroom observations of teachers’ practices to see which technologies feature in
everyday lessons.
• Use the same checklist to analyse teachers’ planning for evidence of the three technologies.
• Look at the selection of texts that are present in lessons and planning to judge what balance
has been struck across the range of texts.
• Use the data from the checklists to implement a uniform approach across the school.

The proliferation of new technologies has produced a range of new texts which in turn has created
the need for a variety of new meaning making systems. As has been already stated in this chapter,
when the characteristics of a multiliterate person were defined, in order to be conscious of the
increasing variety of new texts that are delivered by paper, live and digital technologies, both stu-
dents and teachers need to understand the semiotic systems. A semiotic system is a system of signs
and symbols that have agreed-upon meanings within a particular group and is particularly suited
to the interpretation of these new texts (Anstey Bull, 2004, 2006, 2018 and Bull Anstey, 2010a).
Semiotic systems, being based on group interpretations of meaning making involving social pro-
cesses, are therefore subject to variation between, and across, different cultures. Therefore, semiotic
systems are:
• Comprising a set of signs and symbols that are called codes that are employed according to agreed-
upon conventions,
• By definition culture specific and may not be shared by every student in a classroom or by every
teacher in a school,
• Inextricably involved in the learning process and engaged in through the metalanguage of the semi-
otic system,
• Where meaning is negotiated and regulated, but is also imprecise, requiring individuals to have a
tolerance for difference,
• Meaningful only when they are used and shared,
• Essentially a social process that develops roles and relationships among individuals because they
are used for different purposes and in different contexts,
• Empowering or marginalising as they can either provide access to, or exclude, individuals from life
experiences.
Each one of these semiotic systems has a grammar of elements, or codes and conventions, that are par-
ticular to that semiotic system. As Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p.1) suggested,
Just as grammars of language describe how words combine in clauses, sentences and texts, so our
visual ‘grammar’ will describe the way in which depicted elements– people, places and things– com-
bine in visual ‘statements’ of greater or lesser complexity and extension.
They proposed that the grammar of the visual would contain such elements as colour, the meaning of
which would be culture specific.
Beyond the linguistic and visual grammars that have been discussed so far, there are other semiotic
systems that are required to deal with the ever-increasing diversity of texts. These have recently been
explored by Anstey and Bull (2004, 2006, 2018) and Bull and Anstey (2010a, 2010b, 2013), who proposed
five semiotic systems. These are briefly outlined below (for a more in-depth discussion of semiotic sys-
tems see Chapter Three and also Chapter Three in Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and
Talking in the 21st Century).
• Linguistic (written language, incorporating choice of nouns, verbs, adjectives and conjunctions);
• Visual (still and moving images, incorporating choice of colour, vectors and point of view);
• Audio (music, sound effects, incorporating volume, pitch and rhythm);

• Gestural (facial expression and body language, incorporating eyebrow position, movement of head,
arms, hands and legs);
• Spatial (layout and organisation of objects and space, incorporating proximity, direction and position).
• This Auditing Instrument is intended to determine the balance of the five semiotic systems in
classrooms across the school.
• Devise a checklist containing the five semiotic systems (linguistic, visual, audio, spatial, ges-
tural) and use during observations in each class to determine how often each semiotic system
is regularly incorporated into daily lessons.
• Use the same checklist to determine how often each semiotic system is regularly incorporat-
ed in daily lesson plans.
• Use the data from both checklists to implement a uniform approach across the school.
The codes and conventions of the visual, audio, gestural and spatial semiotic systems are more
dynamic and flexible sets of rules for engaging in meaning making as distinct from the linguistic semiotic
system that was often associated with a set of rigid and unchanging rules that were related to ‘correct
usage’. Kress and Leeuwen (2006, p.266) had suggested that a visual grammar should be interpreted as
‘... a flexible set of resources that people use in ever new and ever different acts of visual sign-making’.
The audio, gestural and spatial, through further research in the area, came to be interpreted in a similar
fashion. The concept of the codes and conventions of the five semiotic systems allowed the plethora of
texts that arose from the development of the new literacies, multiliteracies and the new technologies to
be further analysed. It is important to note that the application of the semiotic systems and their codes
and conventions should be treated carefully since the determination of all these texts is a complex pro-
cess that relies on careful and thoughtful introduction. As early as 1996 the New London Group (quoted
in Cope Kalantzis, 2000, p. 31) had cautioned that ‘. . . knowledge is inextricably tied to the ability to
recognise and act on patterns of data and experience, a process that is acquired only through experience,
since the requisite patterns are often heavily tied and adjusted to context’.
Analysis of these texts revealed that they were not only delivered through different technologies
(paper, live or digital) but also through different combinations of the codes of the semiotic systems.
The codes of each semiotic system provide a terminology that enable the reader/viewer to identify and
describe how attention is captured, how emphasis is created and therefore how meaning is shaped.
Aballet performance delivered through live technology relies on codes such as music, involving the audio
semiotic system, gestures and proximity of the dancers to convey meaning. Similarly, the home page of a
website delivered by digital technology conveys meaning through codes such as sound effects, music and
still or moving images. Texts delivered by paper technology are nearly always accompanied by images
employing codes such as colour, line or shape on the cover, between chapters or on the dust jacket or, in
the case of a picture book, throughout the whole book. All these texts rely on multiple semiotic systems
to convey meaning and are therefore termed multimodal texts (Anstey Bull, 2006, 2018, Bull Anstey,

2010a, Bull Anstey, 2010b, Kress, 2003, 2010, Jewitt et al., 2016) that can be delivered through paper,
live or digital technologies. As Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p.177) suggested, ‘... any text whose mean-
ings are realised through more than one semiotic code is multimodal’, and ‘. . . we see the multimodal
resources which are available in a culture used to make meanings in any and every sign, at every level,
and in any mode’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 4). Similarly, Jewitt and Kress (2008, p. 1) proposed
that ‘. . . meanings are made, distributed, received, interpreted and remade in interpretation through
many representational and communicative modes– not just language’. It is therefore critical that teach-
ers and learners understand what is involved in the application of both multiliteracies and multimodality
in order to understand how texts are created and how meaning is conveyed.
Reading and writing as the consumption and production of text
In applying knowledge about multiliteracies and multimodality, a multiliterate person needs to become
familiar with a whole range of new texts and increase understandings about the composition of texts and
how to engage with them. Engagement with the new texts requires more than the terms reading and
writing imply. These terms have traditionally been used when referring to the linguistic semiotic system.
While it seems appropriate to describe a text generated through the linguistic semiotic system as writ-
ten, or suitable to be read, it is not pertinent to suggest that a text generated using the visual, audio,
spatial or gestural semiotic systems should be written or read. Production is a more suitable term to use
when referring to the ‘writing’ process involved in all the semiotic systems. Similarly, consumption is
more applicable to all semiotic systems rather than reading. There are a number of understandings that
an individual requires in order to engage in the production and consumption of texts, and the practices
around texts, across the five semiotic systems. (This has been discussed in some detail in Chapter Two of
Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing and Talking in the 21st Century.)
These understandings are represented below:
• All texts are consciously constructed and have particular social, cultural, political or economic
purposes.
o All producers of text have some conscious purpose in mind when constructing a text.
• Texts will continue to change as society and technology changes.
o Texts are being constructed in more flexible and dynamic ways as producers attempt to deal
with rapid societal and technological changes.
• All texts are multimodal.
o All multimodal elements of a text need to be attended to as both producers and consumers have
realised that important meanings are not only contained in the written word.
• Texts can be interactive, linear or non-linear.
o Consumers of text, particularly digital and live texts, can become actively involved in the con-
struction of the text. Paper texts, because they are read page by page, are linear, whereas digital
texts are consumed idiosyncratically and are therefore non-linear.
• Texts may be intertextual.
o Texts, whether they be paper, live or digital, may draw or make reference to other texts to make
meaning.
• Texts are tending to become more screen-like as design and designing become more central to the
production of texts.

o The layout and organisation of paper texts is increasingly taking on some of the characteristics
of screen-like texts.
• Texts can be created by the consumer using the links in digital texts to produce hypertexts.
o The consumer creates his or her own hypertext by navigating through the digital texts in an
idiosyncratic manner.
• The social and cultural background of individuals influences the production of, and engagement with,
text.
o Individuals may bring their own notions about how texts are produced dependent upon their
social and cultural background and experiences. Therefore, individuals may respond quite dif-
ferently to texts in school and in other contexts.
• A text may have several possible meanings.
o There may be many possible meanings in a text depending on the social, cultural, economic
or political background of the reader/viewer and the context in which it is read. An individu-
al’s response to a text should be considered rather than the adoption of a single, authorised
interpretation.
• The consumer interacts with the text to actively construct the meaning of the text.
o The author or producer of a text constructs it in a particular way in order to convey certain
meanings. However, the consumer of a text reconstructs the text in his or her individual way in
order to gain meaning. The consumer is an active participant in meaning making rather than a
passive receiver. It is important that students realise that they have an important (active) role in
the construction of meaning in any given text.
• The complexity of multimodal texts means that consumers have to consciously differentiate the
focus of their attention across the semiotic systems.
o When a consumer interacts with a text, they may focus on a particular semiotic system as
part of their analysis. However, all the semiotic systems may play a part of the meaning
making process while engaging with a text. It is important not to focus on the one semiotic
system, or the same semiotic system, when interpreting a text. The consumer needs to be
conscious of this process and be capable of realising when to engage with the text in a par-
ticular way.
• No text is neutral.
o Every producer of a text expects that the consumer will learn something from engaging with the
text. Therefore, every text has a particular purpose that is designed to change the consumer in
some way. The consumer should always be asking themselves, among other things, ‘What is this
text trying to get me to do or believe?’ Any text has a message or belief to convey and is, as a
result, not neutral.
Because of the development of multiliteracies and multimodal texts generated by rapid changes in
technology and the growing diversity of populations, students and teachers have access to an expanding,
and ever-changing, variety of texts at school and other sociocultural contexts. This proliferation of texts
can potentially engage students and teachers in new and interesting ways that go beyond simple access.
The twelve understandings enumerated above require teachers and students to engage in discussions
about multiliterate practices, to uncover the purposes of texts, to decide which texts to attend to, and to
decide which are the most powerful and of most use to them.

The questions in the preceding Theory into Practice have been adapted from the work of Kress (2003),
Walsh (2007) and Bearne (2009) and were originally proposed by Bull and Anstey (2010a). The questions
focus attention on what it is that teachers and students need to know and be able to do. It is now import-
ant to consider how to move beyond knowing what it is that teachers and students need to know and
explore how such knowledge can be incorporated into everyday classroom practice.
Introducing Action Research (AR)
The complexities of the concepts of multiliteracies and multimodality necessitate the provision of sup-
port in order to change teachers’ pedagogy and practice. Professional learning and development (PLD)
that is practical and classroom based has been effective in encouraging teachers and schools to adopt
these concepts to build capacity for sustainable improvement in student performance. In recent years,
the introduction of action research as a way of addressing the issue of changing teachers’ pedagogy
and practice has received increasing attention. Wells (2001) suggested that the concept of teachers as
researchers was a powerful way of modelling successful learning to students. Ingvarson etal. (2003) and
Ingvarson (2005) suggested that PLD was an important way of changing teacher practice, and Ingvarson
(2005, p.66) reported on ‘... the importance of making practice, and evidence about practice, the site for
professional learning’. This type of approach to research that involved teachers gathering data in their
THEORY INTO PRACTICE 1.1
• The purpose of this Theory into Practice is to support discussions about the purposes of the
variety of texts now available.
• To guide such discussions, the following questions may be helpful in determining the purpose
of a particular text. These questions can be used in teacher discussions with the students or
alternatively by the students themselves as they engage with texts.
o What was your purpose for using the text?
o Where or when have you come across this topic or subject before? What did you do?
o What do you already know that might help?
o What else do you need to know or find out that might help you?
o Have you used a text like this before? How did you use it?
o What prior experiences can help you here?
o Which semiotic systems were used in the construction of this text?
o Have you engaged with these semiotic systems in texts like this before? How does this
help you?
o What is the purpose in using each semiotic system in the construction of the text?
o Have you used this technology or software before, or something similar? How does that
prior experience help you?
• Discuss with the staff of the school which of the twelve understandings about texts should be
a feature of literacy teaching and learning within the school and how they might be taught.

own classrooms is commonly referred to as action research, although it is sometimes termed cooperative
inquiry, action inquiry, practitioner or teacher research, practice-based research, case study research or
participatory research.
Defining Action Research (AR)
As a methodology, Action Research originated in the 1940s and Lewin (1946) is credited with popularis-
ing the approach. As Adelman (1993, p.7) suggested, ‘Kurt Lewin is often referred to as the originator of
action research’. Since then there have been many, and varied, definitions proposed by researchers in
the area such as:
• AR can be seen as a critical and systematic inquiry into teacher practices based on gathering data
about the processes of teaching and learning that occur in classrooms and schools. Normally it is
carried out by teachers but can sometimes be supplemented by outside experts (Mills, 2003; Nolen
Putten, 2007).
• AR generally takes the form originally proposed by Stenhouse (1981, 1983, 1985), who influenced
later theorists such as Noffke in the U.S., Alexander in the U.K., and Kemmis in Australia. Among
the first to apply it to educational settings was Corey (1953, p. 70) who concluded that ‘. . . the con-
sequences of our own teaching is more likely to change and improve our practices than is reading
about what someone else has discovered of his teaching’. Action Research follows a number of com-
monly accepted sequential steps:
o Identifying a research problem or question,
o Developing a plan of action and collecting data/evidence,
o Analysing and evaluating of data and establishing findings,
o Reflecting on findings and modifying practice and/or pedagogy,
o Sharing findings,
o Identifying a further research question and beginning a new cycle of research.
As Denscombe (2010, p. 6) stated, the purpose of action research is to solve a particular issue and
to propose guidelines for best practice. It is therefore based on problem solution and active learning
on the part of the teacher and/or school. It requires engagement in an inquiry process that involves
what Reason and Bradbury (2007) term 1st, 2nd or 3rd person research, that is research conducted
by an individual teacher, a team of teachers, or a whole school or network of schools (see also
Ferrance, 2000, p.6).
• AR research, according to Dick (2000, pp.1–2) tends to be:
o Cyclic– a recurrent process,
o Participative– participants play an active role in the research process,
o Qualitative– focusses more on qualitative than quantitative data,
o Reflective– involves critical reflection in each cycle of the research process,
o Responsive– responds to the changing needs of the research context,
o Emergent– the research process develops gradually and, because of its cyclical nature, informs
later cycles of action research,
o Often based on some version of the Carr and Kemmis (1986) and Kemmis and McTaggert (1988)
cycle of plan– act – observe– reflect.

In summary, Action Research can be understood as a research methodology that is based on system-
atic and critical inquiry about teaching and learning carried out by teachers in their classrooms/schools.
It arose from the need to relate theory to practice by investigating the nature of theory while addressing
teacher concerns about everyday pedagogy and practice.
• The purpose of this Reflection Strategy is to explore how important action research is in your
school.
• Discuss with other teachers in your school whether they have been involved in action re-
search, and if so, whether they engaged in it by themselves, with other teachers, or with the
whole school.
• Try to determine whether one type of action research was preferred over others. This will give
some direction as to how you might embark on action research yourself.
• Have a meeting with the leadership team in your school to gauge what support there is for
the introduction of action research and what support strategies the team might be willing to
provide.
• If action research is to be encouraged, then it will be useful to determine whether PLD is
needed and what outside expert help might be needed and/or available.
Benefits of Action Research (AR)
There are a number of benefits arising from engaging in AR that make it attractive to teachers and
schools. As has been stated earlier in this chapter, teachers find PLD (professional learning and develop-
ment) particularly helpful when it is practical and informs pedagogy and practice. The idea of support-
ing engagement in AR with focussed PLD is therefore particularly appealing. AR develops a relationship
between acquiring knowledge about the teaching and learning around a certain issue with engaging in
action at the coalface of the classroom. As Coghlan and Brannick (2010, p.4) suggested, AR is ‘... research
in action rather than research about action’. Its focus is about improving or modifying practice through
the generation of new knowledge by involvement in research. It can also encourage teachers to form
cooperative partnerships that focus on joint planning, reflection and sharing knowledge (Rose etal., 2015,
p.2). Coghlan (2007, p.293) refers to these benefits as ‘actionable knowledge’. Earlier Adelman (1993, p.7)
had stated that AR, as different from scientific or empirical approaches to research, promoted develop-
ment of social relationships within, and between, groups that led to sustained communication and coop-
eration. Mertler and Charles (2008, p.308) concluded that teachers often used AR because it:
• Dealt with real-life personal issues or problems rather than general ones relating to education as a
whole,
• Could be started without delay and could provide immediate results,

• Provided opportunities to understand and improve educational practices,
• Promoted the building of stronger relationships among teachers,
• Provided teachers and schools with a variety of alternative ways of understanding and investigating
educational issues and, in addition, new ways of examining their own practices.
The benefits of AR that have been discussed so far point to the fact that it addresses the relationship
of theory and practice and makes it possible for teachers to have a practice-based theory of teaching
and learning. This relationship allows teachers to make good use of theory in their day-to-day teaching
rather than judging theory as somehow impractical. In the research reported by Bull and Anstey (2010b),
the participants in the study accorded theory an important part of their action research projects and
rejected the proposition that good practice did not need to relate to good theory.
ACTION LEARNING TASK 1.1
• The intention of this Action Learning Task is to determine how you might begin action
research
in your classroom.
• In your discussions with other teachers find out what issues are of concern or interest to
other teachers.
• The purpose of discussing issues with other teachers is that this may give you alternative
ideas about the topic of your research or, alternatively, assist you in deciding whether to join
other teachers in a joint project.
• It will be very useful if, at this point, you raise the possibility of forming a community of learn-
ers. This does not imply that everyone will be researching the same issue but rather that the
community can provide mutual support and advice.
Effective Professional Learning and Development (PLD)
Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014, p.140) developed a set of characteristics for effective PLD drawn
from the work of Alexander (2001, 2004, 2005a, 2008b) and Wells (1999, 2001) in the U.K., Noffke (2008)
and Hendricks (2002) in the U.S., and Kemmis and McTaggert (1988, 2005) and Ingvarson (2005) in
Australia. These characteristics supported teachers in transforming their practice, particularly in situa-
tions where teachers were involved in AR. Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull suggested that effective PLD
should:
• Address teacher concerns related to their classrooms and not be drawn from research in other edu-
cational contexts,
• Be school based,
• Emphasise modelling and demonstration of teacher practices,
• Involve a community of learners that is based upon joint planning and sharing and emphasises
reflection,

• Incorporate spaced learning over a significant period of time,
• Provide for follow-up sessions between each set of PLD days,
• Focus on the change process as well as practices, pedagogy and talk,
• Address the relationship of theory to planning, practice and pedagogy,
• Mandate the collection of evidence from a variety of sources to indicate that change in planning,
practice and pedagogy has occurred,
• Provide opportunities for participants to develop a sense of ownership of the process of action
research,
• Involve external experts from outside the context of the school,
• Include provision for extended periods of time when participants can discuss issues pertaining to
planning, practice, pedagogy or talk.
These twelve characteristics are similar to the work of many researchers and writers who have explored
both AR and PLD and the positive relationship between them. This work has enabled teachers and
other researchers to develop successful programs and approaches to action research following the
benefits enumerated by this research. Rose et al. (2015) explored the benefits of AR and suggested
that it should be:
• Based on the structuring of social relationships and practices,
• Flexible and require judgements to be made about appropriate practices,
• Include monitoring of results that depended upon analysis, interpretation and synthesis of results
that enabled conclusions to be drawn.
Dick (2000) suggested that benefits of AR accrue when it is seen as a cyclical process that needs to be
based on a number of iterations of the cycle that enable multiple sources of data to be analysed. There
are a number of other factors that have been identified that lead to the successful implementation of
Action Research.
Factors involved in the successful implementation
of Action Research (AR)
Developing a community of learners has been identified as having an important influence on AR. Meiers
(2010, p. 1), quoting the work of Bolam et al. (2005), reported that a community of learners had the
capacity to promote and sustain the learning of both teachers and learners. Meiers (2010, p. 1) further
referenced the work of Stoll et al. (2006), which concluded a community of learners produced positive
results when displaying the following characteristics:
• Shared values and vision,
• Collective responsibility for students’ learning,
• Collaboration focussed on learning,
• Group as well as individual learning, reflective professional enquiry,
• Openness, networks and partnerships,
• Inclusive membership,
• Mutual trust, respect and support.

Reason (1994) developed the concept of cooperative, or collaborative, inquiry within a community of
learners to emphasise active participation and group decision-making and encapsulated this approach
as ‘research with’ rather than ‘research on’. Lefstein and Snell (2014, p. 4) also recommended teachers
sharing their practice with colleagues in order to learn from each other and suggested ‘This approach
is better than best practice because it helps to develop and support thoughtful, flexible and insightful
practitioners’.
The provision of long-term Professional Learning and Development (PLD) in action learning settings
has been a focus of recent attention. This is not so much a question of providing longer sessions, but
rather spreading PLD over a longer period of time by introducing spaced learning. According to Edwards-
Groves and Ronnerman (2012), teachers are more likely to participate in collegial discussions if they are a
part of a community of learners that is part of long-term PLD. Similar findings were suggested by Kemmis
et al. (2012), Ronnerman and Olin (2012) and Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014), who concluded
that teachers were more likely to engage in successful AR because of the greater opportunities created
through spaced learning.
Based on the work of Schon (1983) who proposed reflection-in-action (when teachers engaged in
reflection about their practices while they were actually engaged in those practices), the process of reflec-
tion, particularly collaborative reflection, has become an important part of both AR and PLD. Kemmis
and Grootenboer (2008) and Kemmis and Heikkinen (2012) found that reflection, as with a number of
other factors, played a part in successful PLD in their work in Australia and Sweden. However, reflec-
tion was accorded a more prominent role in the work of Edwards-Groves (2003, 2008), who suggested
that teachers in what she termed reflective learning communities – that is engaging in collaborative
reflection – asked significant numbers of questions involving reflection that modified classroom prac-
tices. She concluded (2003) that collaborative focussed reflection resulted in a number of benefits that
were later adapted by Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014, p.145) and encouraged teachers to:
• Join a community of learners and engage in collaborative reflection,
• Investigate, and modify, their classroom practices,
• Tape their lessons in order to analyse their pedagogy,
• Engage in critical analysis and self-monitoring of their PLD,
• Acknowledge that reflection should result in action,
• Realise that teacher talk shapes classroom practices,
• Reshape their practices through explicit instruction.
Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014, p. 146) concluded that this type of reflection-based PLD is best
supported through AR conducted over the long term. This position was supported by Lefstein and Snell
(2014, p.34) through what they termed their reflection workshops that encouraged participating teach-
ers to engage in collaborative reflection.
Successful PLD is achieved by a focus on pedagogy. As Lefstein and Snell (2014, p. 3) suggested in
their approach, which they described as ‘better than best practice’, they outlined ‘... an approach to ped-
agogy and professional development that is sensitive to and appreciative of the tensions and dilemmas
inherent to teaching and learning in classrooms’. They describe a pedagogy that is sensitive to ‘critical
moments, problems and/or opportunities’, interprets various situations that arise in the classroom and
about making judgements about the possibilities that are likely to unfold (Lefstein Snell, 2014, pp.8–9).

As they conclude (2014, p. 9), ‘Professional teaching practice involves sensitivity, interpretation, judge-
ment and a flexible repertoire of methods’. It is therefore critical that teachers’ actions in developing
their pedagogy and the way they talk about pedagogy should be at the core of their everyday practices.
Bull and Anstey (2010b) recommended that such a pedagogy can be successfully developed through PLD
that is situated in a program of action learning and is based on validation of learning through promoting
change in pedagogy and practice. Ingvarson etal. (2003) reviewed eighty professional learning programs
involving three thousand teachers and concluded that PLD was a vital part of changing teachers’ prac-
tices. Ingvarson (2005) later reported that it was important to make practice the site for professional
learning and development.
In his report Ingvarson (2005, p. 66) concluded that not only was it important to make practice an
important part of professional learning, but also it was critical to gather evidence about practice. Both
Ferrance (2000) and Bull and Anstey (2010b) recommended that gathering evidence about change in
pedagogy and practice should be an essential part of AR and PLD. They further stated that any con-
clusions arising from the gathering of evidence should be based on the triangulation of three sources
of data that might include such things as transcripts of lessons, interviews, lesson observations, ques-
tionnaires, case studies, surveys or samples of student work. The focus on the gathering of evidence to
support change in pedagogy or practice is crucial in determining whether change has been effective in
a program of AR or PLD rather than relying on teachers or students reporting enjoyment in engaging in
a particular activity.
Collaborative dialogue occurs when teachers discuss issues or problems that they have in common. This
often occurs when teachers engage in collaborative reflection but may, as Ferrance (2000) reported, when
teachers or principals work together to mutually assist one another. Both Ferrance and Rose et al. (2015)
report on the benefits of collaborative action through dialogue and its value in increased participation of
participants. Bull and Anstey (2010b) suggested that collaborative dialogue resulted in teachers developing
shared knowledge of a particular issue which led to increased success in programs of AR and PLD. Bull and
Anstey (1995, 1996, 1997) also reported that teachers reading about the research on educational issues
increased the amount of collaborative and professional dialogue. Dialogue, whether it is referring to talk or
pedagogy, is accorded a central place in the discussion about teacher practices by Lefstein and Snell (2014).
As Hattie (2012, p.39) stated, ‘... learning is collaborative and requires dialogue’.
When teachers are attempting to modify their pedagogy and practices, they need support in dealing
with change. Ferrance (2000, p.8) concluded AR is increasingly becoming an instrument for addressing
school reform or school renewal. In each of these cases, there is a requirement for teachers to change
their behaviour, whether it be through talk, pedagogy or practice or perhaps some combination of all
three. Meiers (2010) referring to the research of Stoll etal. (2006) identified response to change as being
one of the factors that impacted on ‘... schools’ overall capacity for change and development, including
individuals, orientation to change, group dynamics, school context influences’. Bull and Anstey (2010b),
drawing on the work of Comber and Hill (2000), Comber (2005), Comber and Kamler (2005) and Kamler
and Comber (2008) in Australia, suggested that teachers who were engaged in an action learning model
of PLD were supported to implement change successfully.
Much of the research that looks at the nature of change and how teachers deal with it is based on
the work of Fullan (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008), who traced how teachers lead in a culture
of change. His later work identified factors such as resilience and sustainability that promoted and
supported long-term change in pedagogy and practice. A recurring theme in much of the work around

change is that change is a complex process where some teachers and schools have difficulty in dealing
with it and some do not. Hendricks (2002) suggested that success in dealing with change was influenced
by who was driving the change. She concluded that when AR was guided by researchers or by teachers
it met with limited or no success, whereas if AR was implemented through a collaboration of both groups
it was more likely to succeed. Change in pedagogy and/or practice was achieved when all stakeholders
had ownership of the process and had a degree of control over its direction. Change was also more likely
to be successful, according to Ingvarson (2005, p.69), when participating teachers had some knowledge
of, and confidence in, the theory on which it was based. Earlier Wells (2001) had proposed that the rela-
tionship between theory and practice was important in that good practice needed to be grounded on
good theory and that good theory grew out of good practice – one needed to inform the other. Another
note of caution was sounded by Alexander (2004a, 2005a) in his work on changes in practice and in
talk when he stated that some teachers were achieving real change in their classrooms whereas others
were struggling. He concluded that those teachers who took time to set up the conditions and routines
for classroom interaction before attempting to change pedagogy, practice or talk were more likely to
successfully implement change.
Finally, both Bull and Anstey (2010b) and Edwards-Groves and Ronnerman (2012) reported that change
was more likely to occur when there were high expectations about the amount of change in participants’
teaching and learning. They concluded that the result of being challenged encouraged teachers to make
greater degrees of change in their practice.
There appears to be a relationship between the culture of the school and the likelihood of achieving
measurable change. The fact that some schools have clear and shared understandings about their goals
and well-defined ideas about the nature of good teaching and learning suggests that they are more
likely to successfully implement change. Conversely, those schools that struggle to achieve consensus
on issues are not likely to be prepared to undergo change and more likely to remain content with con-
ditions as they are. There have been attempts to classify schools according to how open they are to the
introduction of new ideas and approaches. Gossen and Anderson (1995) proposed three types of schools
according to the characteristics that they exhibited. The following characteristics are a summary adapted
from Gossen and Anderson (1995, pp.117–146):
• The conventional school – having a traditional atmosphere and belief system where school is seen
as a place to work; teachers work in isolation from each other and tend to teach without regard to
others; teachers tend to be competitive.
• The congenial school – where social relationships are friendship based and are regarded as import-
ant as work; belonging to a group is important; there is an aversion to conflict; when a difficult issue
is raised, it often results in silence or a lack of discussion so that the issue is put off for another day
or ignored.
• The collegial school– vigorous discussion is encouraged where there is no fear of disagreement; staff
openly examine beliefs and practices; there is a willingness to modify or shift paradigms; ideas and
differences of opinions are shared; all staff are encouraged to air their opinions while others listen.
Another set of characteristics are those proposed by Stoll and Fink (1996) and adapted in the typology
of cultures below:

• Moving – encourages student performance; responds to change through cooperation of staff; clear
identification of goals and standards.
• Cruising – appears to be effective; often an affluent school; students learn in spite of the quality of
teaching; standards inhibit change because they are not clearly defined; staff does not deal effec-
tively with change.
• Strolling – seems to be marking time so is neither effective or ineffective; change dealt with inad-
equately; needs of students not addressed; goals are not clearly defined and often conflicting so
progress is inhibited.
• Struggling– staff are aware of ineffectiveness and have the will but lack the skills to succeed; expend
considerable energy to improve but progress is unproductive; often identified as failing.
• Sinking– loss of faith in progress which inhibits improvement; ineffective with staff unable to change;
tends to blame others, such as parents, for lack of student performance; often in a deprived or dis-
advantaged area where dramatic action and significant support is required.
It is important to treat these two typologies of school cultures with a certain amount of caution. It is not
intended by either group of researchers that any school should fulfil all the characteristics of a particular
type of school. Nor is it their intention that just because a school appears to be ‘sinking’ or ‘conventional’
that there would not be pockets or groups of teachers who could be judged as ‘moving’ or ‘collegial’.
It was concluded by Gossen and Anderson (1995) and by Stoll and Fink (1996) that the categories of
schools tended to be accurate only in terms of general tendencies across most characteristics. Different
teachers in a particular school might judge their school in diverse ways or individuals from outside the
school might hold different views from those from within the school. There may also be occasions when
a school moves from one category to another because of staff changes or change in goals. Ashift in cat-
egory might also be caused when different issues are addressed. Despite these notes of caution, the two
typologies can be used to explore why some schools are more open to change than others by alerting
teachers to some characteristics that can be investigated. Many of the teachers in the research reported
by Bull and Anstey (2010b) found the characteristics most useful in exploring the conditions for change
in their schools and the reasons why it might be impeded or encouraged. The teachers were also able to
analyse their school in terms of both cultures and characteristics and found this categorisation useful in
planning PLD and AR at their site.
• The purpose of this Reflection Strategy is to decide which factors will be considered in how
you conduct your action research.
• It will be useful to discuss with the community of learners in your school which factors will
be considered. If you do not have such a community in your school, it will be important to
have discussions with other teachers. It may be useful to review the eight factors discussed

Introducing the Action Learning Cycle (ALC) and the project
Having discussed the factors that contribute to successful professional learning and development and
the role of action research in professional learning, the remainder of this chapter provides information
about the Action Learning Cycle developed by Anstey and Bull. It also provides tools and Action Learning
Tasks that enable the reader to commence their own Action Learning Project as an individual, or as part
of a group or school engaging in an Action Learning Cycle.
Using the research literature concerning the factors that affect AR, the various definitions and ben-
efits of AR and what contributes to effective AR that have been previously discussed in this chapter,
Anstey and Bull devised what they termed the Action Learning Cycle (ALC). They drew firstly on their
earlier research (Anstey, 1998, 2003; Anstey and Bull, 2005; Bull and Anstey, 1993, 1994, 2000) in the
areas of multiliteracies, multimodality and PLD. Secondly, they referred to their more recent research
(Bull and Anstey, 2004, 2005b, 2007) that explored the relationship of PLD and AR. Their ALC was
similar to AR but differed in a number of important ways that will be discussed later in this chapter. Two
early decisions were made about the conduct of the ALC. The first was that participants would engage in
the ALC only on a voluntary basis. Secondly, the participants would decide whether their research would
be conducted over a period of one, two or three years. The overall structure of the ALC was determined
by selecting a number of characteristics drawn from the research about action learning that assisted in
framing the project.
It was at this point that Anstey and Bull decided to use the term ‘action learning’ rather than ‘action
research’ since they felt that learning was a more appropriate expression because it emphasised that par-
ticipants were learning through the application of research. It was also decided to add the term ‘cycle’ to
draw attention to the fact that classroom-based research was not a one-shot approach but rather should
be seen as a continuous cycle that, as it addressed one issue of interest to the researcher, raised other
areas of possible future research. Participants were therefore engaged in a succession of investigations,
each building on the previous one to form a cycle of action research. Once the nature of the ALC was
determined, it was then possible to ascertain which characteristics of action learning were essential to
the implementation of the cycle.
The following characteristics were adopted:
Adoption of the term project. It was decided for ease of reference that participants would describe
what they were doing as a project that involved an ALC.
Duration of the project. The duration of the project was seen as critical to the processes involved in
the ALC. This was based on the belief that significant and lasting change in pedagogy and teacher
in the preceding section titled ‘Factors Involved in the Successful Implementation of Action
Research (AR)’. As an example, it will be crucial to decide in what period of time the research
will be conducted. Long-term research, as with any PLD you decide is important, will be more
likely to be successful if it is conducted over a period of at least one year.
• It is important to go through a period of careful planning before you begin your research. If
you rush into a project because you are excited about it, it is likely that you will run into trou-
ble and have a negative experience.

practices can only be attained over time. As previously stated, it was up to the teachers and the
school to decide whether the project would run over one, two or three years.
Site-based professional learning and development. One of the recommended conditions of appropri-
ate PLD is that it results in teachers having a shared knowledge of a particular area or discipline.
In the case of the ALC, because of the structure of the project it was mandated that participants
have a thorough background in multiliteracies, multimodality, the change process and the nature
of pedagogy. The project was therefore designed around an intensive period of PLD that was con-
ducted over two days at the beginning of the project, which was followed by three more days at
intervals throughout the year (with additional days if the project ran over two or three years, or if
the group desired). The sessions of PLD were developed around the needs identified by the teach-
ers concerned so that they were particular to the site but also included some sessions that were
common to all projects.
Multiliteracies Matrix and Reflection Tool. This tool, reported by Anstey and Bull (2010b) and Bull
and Anstey (2000, 2004, 2005b, 2007), was specifically devised by Anstey and Bull to support
the ALC in a number of ways. For the purpose of future discussion, it will be referred to as the
Matrix and will be examined in more detail later in this chapter (see Table 1.1). The Matrix was
initially designed to define the concepts of multiliteracies and multimodality by requiring partic-
ipants to engage with the 26 items outlined in it that addressed knowledge, understandings and
practices about the two concepts. Some of the 26 items had sub-categories that provided par-
ticipants with the opportunity to rate themselves on 40 elements. These elements were divided
into three broad categories that addressed the areas of text (16 elements), context (10 elements)
and pedagogy (14 elements).
The Matrix was also used as a reflection tool by requiring participants to evaluate their classroom ped-
agogy and practice by rating themselves for their current knowledge about, and practice implementing,
each of the 26 items. They were then asked to justify why they rated themselves at a particular level. In
this way, the Matrix was intended to increase teachers’ awareness of their knowledge about multilitera-
cies, multimodality and pedagogy and encourage them to engage in reflection.
Once all 40 elements were addressed and justified, participants were asked to select two or three
elements that would form the basis of their research in the classroom. One element had to be selected
from the pedagogy section in order to ensure that teacher pedagogy was investigated, and the remain-
ing element/elements could be chosen from any of the three broad categories. Allowing participants
to select items from the Matrix was designed to assist in deciding the focus of their research, thereby
overcoming the perennial problem of determining which issue in the classroom to investigate. Limiting
the choice of elements to two or three was predicated on the tendency of teachers to attempt to solve
too many issues in their classroom-based research that produced a project that became unmanageable,
leading to negative outcomes for teachers.
Participants were expected to fill out the Matrix a number of times throughout their project
as a way of collecting data about their change in knowledge and approach. It was therefore seen
as important that each time teachers filled out the Matrix, a new copy would be filled in so that
developing changes could be analysed to increase the validity of the data being collected. Teachers
were also supported to form learning pairs, or small groups, to engage in professional dialogue as
they deliberated about the Matrix. Table 1.1 below represents all of the categories and elements of
the Matrix.

Table
1.1
Multiliteracies
Matrix
and
Reflection
Tool
Instructions
for
using
the
Multiliteracies
Matrix
and
Reflection
Tool.
The
purpose
of
this
tool
is
to
identify
the
characteristics
of
a
multiliterate
classroom
in
terms
of
three
Domains:
Text,
Context
and
Pedagogy.
In
the
first
two
columns,
the
Domains
and
a
description
of
characteristics
associated
with
each
Domain
is
provided.
In
the
Text
and
Context
Domains,
each
characteristic
is
accompanied
by
an
italicised
example.
The
example
indicates
what
a
student
might
have
engaged
in
and
learned
if
that
characteristic
was
fully
embedded
in
the
classroom.
The
example
is
intended
as
an
aid
to
you
in
interpreting
how
the
characteristic
might
be
implemented
in
a
classroom
and
what
the
actual
learning
might
look
like,
that
is
how
a
student
might
talk
about
their
learning.
In
the
Pedagogy
Domain,
each
characteristic
is
accompanied
by
an
italicised
example
of
how
you
might
describe
the
enactment
of
that
feature
in
your
classroom
if
it
was
fully
embedded
.
Again,
the
example
is
there
to
help
you
trans-
late
the
characteristic
into
classroom
practice.
Use
these
characteristics
and
examples
to
reflect
upon,
evaluate
and
rate
your
knowledge,
planning
and
practice
in
relation
to
these
descriptors,
on
a
scale
rated
from
1
to
5.
The
scale
is
presented
below.
Scale
for
Rating
Personal
Knowledge
Planning
and
Practice.
1.
This
is
a
new
concept
to
me
and
I
have
no
understanding
of
it.
2.
I
have
some
understanding
of
this
concept
but
have
not
attempted
to
apply
it
in
my
classroom
planning
and
practice.
3.
I
understand
this
concept
and
have
begun
exploring
ways
I
can
implement
this
as
part
of
my
classroom
planning
and
practice.
4.
I
fully
understand
this
concept
and
it
is
an
important
part
of
my
classroom
planning
and
practice.
5.
This
concept
is
fully
embedded
in
my
understanding
and
consistently
implemented
in
my
classroom
planning
and
practice.
Two
additional
columns
are
provided
as
part
of
the
reflection
tool.
In
the
first
column,
Justification
and
Comments,
you
can
provide
specific
information
and
clarification
about
why
you
rated
yourself
as
you
did.
You
are
encouraged
to
differentiate
between
beliefs
and
practice
when
rating
yourself,
to
ensure
your
ratings
reflect
your
current
knowledge
and
classroom
practice.
The
final
column
is
designed
for
use
after
the
rating
and
comments
columns
have
been
completed.
Its
purpose
is
to
encourage
you
to
reflect
about
what
area
you
wish
to
prioritise
in
terms
of
your
personal
learning
and
action
in
your
classroom
and
what
form
that
action
might
take.
Multiliteracies
Matrix
and
Reflection
Tool:
Name
__________________________________
Year
level/Subject
________________School
__________________
Domain
In
a
multimodal
literacy
classroom:
1
2
3
4
5
Justification
and
Comment
Ensure
you
differentiate
between
belief
and
practice
Possible
Strategy
or
Action
TEXT
1.

S
tudents
use,
interpret,

produce
texts
using:
•
paper,
•
live,
and
•
digital
technologies.
For
this
purpose
and
in
this
context,
it
would
be
better
to
conduct
a
conversation
face
to
face
rather
than
send
an
email
because
.
.
.

TEXT
2.

S
tudents
know,
understand
and
use
individual
and
combined
semiotic
systems:
•

l
inguistic
(vocabulary,
grammar)
•

v
isual
(still

moving
images,
page

screen
layouts)
•

a
udio
(music,
sound
effects,
silence)
•

g
estural
(facial
expression

body
language)
•

s
patial
(environmental

architectural
spaces

layouts)
As
I
watched
this
video
I
could
see
that
the
character
was
being
developed
not
only
by
the
way
the
plot
dictated
his
actions,
but
through
the
costuming,
soft
lighting
and
close-up
camera
shots.
This
was
achieved
by
.
.
.
3.

S
tudents
engage
in
explorations
that
develop
knowledge
and
understandings
about
how
and
why
meanings
are
actively
constructed.
My
friend
and
I
went
to
the
movies
and
afterwards
we
discovered
we
had
quite
different
views
about
the
way
the
plot
was
re-
solved.
We
discussed
what
had
shaped
our
views
and
discovered
that
we
had
very
different
life
experiences
and
this
had
shaped
our
interpretation
and
understanding
of
the
plot.
These
were
.
.
.
4.

S
tudents
engage
in
explorations
which
develop
knowledge
and
understandings
about
how
and
why
a
text
may
have
several
possible
meanings.
Although
I
was
amused
by
this
ad,
if
I
was
a
recent
immigrant
to
this
country
I
believe
that
I
would
find
it
offensive
because
.
.
.
5.

S
tudents
engage
in
explorations
which
develop
knowledge
and
understandings
about
how
and
why
texts
may
be:
•
multimodal
•
interactive
•
intertextual
•
linear
and
non-linear
We
looked
at
a
website
today.
Its
audience
is
mostly
.
.
.
and
it
had
lots
of
video
and
music.
You
could
enter
competitions
online
and
download
stuff.
It
had
hotlinks
to
other
sites.
I
think
the
website
worked
well
for
its
audience
because
.
.
.
(Continued)

Domain
In
a
multimodal
literacy
classroom:
1
2
3
4
5
Justification
and
Comment
Ensure
you
differentiate
between
belief
and
practice
Possible
Strategy
or
Action
6.

S
tudents
explore
and
develop
understandings
about
the
concept
that
all
texts
have
a
purpose
and
therefore
‘no
text
is
neutral’,
that
is,
they
explore
how
and
why
texts
are
pro-
duced
and
distributed.
We
explored
smartphone
ads
and
found
that
smartphones
are
marketed
as
a
form
of
entertainment.
This
was
evident
be-
cause
.
.
.
Smartphone
manufacturers
do
this
because
.
.
.
7.

S
tudents
investigate
how
and
why
texts
have
and
will
con-
tinue
to
change.
We
were
looking
at
SMS
messages
today
and
comparing
them
with
notes
we
handwrite
and
email
messages.
We
found
that
the
way
we
write
notes
has
changed
and
think
this
is
because
.
.
.
8.

S
tudents
explore

develop
understandings
about
how
social
practices
shape
texts
and
behaviours
with
texts.
Today
we
looked
at
places
where
we
do
not
always
use
correct
spelling
and
grammar
(such
as
SMS
messages
and
shopping
lists)
and
then
we
talked
about
why
this
was
acceptable
in
these
contexts
but
not
in
others.
We
concluded
that
.
.
.
.
CONTEXT
9.

S
tudents
explore

develop
understandings
about
how
litera-
cy
can
be:
•

c
ultural
(behaviours,
stories,
dialects)
•

e
conomic
(advertising,
marketing)
•

i
deological
(beliefs,
values,
attitudes)
•

p
olitical
(bias,
propaganda)
•

p
sychological
(thinking)
•

s
ocial
(dress,
behaviour,
vocabulary)
Today
we
looked
at
the
fairy
stories
we
grew
up
with
and
found
out
that
although
in
some
cultures
we
have
three
wishes
and
three
bears,
in
other
cultures
they
have
a
motif
of
four,
like
four
wishes
.
Table
1.1
(Continued)

10.

S
tudents
explore
their
unique
literacy
identity
and
how
it
affects
their
literate
practices.
When
I
started
to
do
this
task,
I
thought
about
what
previous
school
and
other
life
experiences
might
help
me
or
hinder
me
and
then
I
worked
out
a
strategy
for
completing
the
task
based
on
these
reflections
.
11.

S
tudents
learn
about
literate
practices
and
literacy
in
all
key
learning
areas.
We
looked
at
report
writing
in
science
today
and
compared
it
with
writing
a
report
about
an
historical
event.
We
found
the
following
similarities
and
differences
.
.
.
and
concluded
.
.
.
12.

S
tudents
explore
how
audience
and
context
influences
how
and
why
texts
are
produced.
We
looked
at
all
the
Harry
Potter
books
and
products
and
iden-
tified
who
might
buy
them
and
why.
Then
we
talked
to
someone
from
an
advertising
firm
about
how
these
products
might
have
been
developed
and
marketed
PEDAGOGY
13.

T
he
class
literacy
learning
and
teaching
program
is
informed
by
reference
to
the
Four
Resource
Model.
There
is
not
only
a
balance
between
the
four
practices
but
the
program
clearly
articulates
what
each
practice
looks
like
in
different
disciplines
and
year
levels.
When
I
am
planning,
I
ensure
that
students
are
engaged
in
all
four
practices
across
all
disciplines.
I
am
also
careful
to
select
appropriate
materials
and
teaching
strategies
for
the
practice
I
am
focussing
upon
.
14.

T
he
desired
learning
outcome
informs
the
selection
of
teaching
strategies.
When
I
plan
lessons,
I
start
by
working
out
what
I
want
the
students
to
know
and
be
able
to
do
at
the
end.
Then
I
select
activities,
materials
and
strategies
that
best
achieve
that,
rather
than
starting
with
the
materials
and
activities
.
(Continued)

Domain
In
a
multimodal
literacy
classroom:
1
2
3
4
5
Justification
and
Comment
Ensure
you
differentiate
between
belief
and
practice
Possible
Strategy
or
Action
PEDAGOGY
15.

S
tudents
engage
in
strategy
development
rather
than
activities
(problem
solving,
strategic
approaches,
knowledge
as
problematic).
When
we
engage
in
a
task
we
focus
on
the
strategy
to
be
used,
when
it
should
be
applied,
and
why
it
is
being
used
and
not
just
what
is
to
be
done
to
complete
the
task.
In
this
way,
the
students
get
the
idea
that
things
change,
and
sometimes
you
have
to
modify
what
you
know
in
order
to
address
the
task
at
hand
.
16.

T
eachers
and
students
have
a
metalanguage
for
exploring
and
talking
about
texts
and
their
semiotic
systems.
When
we
discuss
texts
the
students
and
I
use
the
correct
termi-
nology,
so
for
example
we
talk
about
parallel
cutting
and
close-
ups
when
we
consume
or
produce
moving
images
.
17.

T
eachers
use
explicit
pedagogy
that
focusses
on
the
what,
how,
when
and
why
of
literacy
learning
and
literate
practices.
Whenever
we
start
a
task
and
even
during
the
task,
we
constant-
ly
refer
to
why
we
are
doing
it,
what
we
are
learning
and
how
and
when
this
learning
might
be
used
in
other
contexts
and
with
other
texts
.
18.

E
xplicit
teacher
talk
focusses
on
the
what,
how,
when
and
why
of
literacy
rather
than
classroom
organisation
and
dis-
cipline
and
is
a
feature
of
all
literacy
teaching
and
learning.
I
have
been
audiotaping
my
lessons
and
analysing
them
in
order
to
change
my
talk
around
texts.
I
try
to
have
substantive
con-
versations
rather
than
simple
question
and
answer
sequences
where
students
have
to
‘guess
what’s
in
my
head’
.
Table
1.1
(Continued)

PEDAGOGY
19.

C
lassroom
talk
is
dialogic,
there
are
extended,
explicit
and
purposeful
exchanges
between
teacher
and
student
and
student
and
student.
I
am
concentrating
on
shifting
my
classroom
talk
from
monolog-
ic
to
dialogic
to
allow
students
the
space
to
ask
questions
and
initiate
learner
talk
.
20.

T
eacher
talk
is
not
dominated
by
IREs
that
restrict
ex-
changes
with
students
to
initiation,
response
and
evalu-
ation,
creating
the
perception
that
learning
is
only
about
getting
right
answers.
I
am
allowing
more
time
for
learner
talk
by
vacating
the
floor,
encouraging
more
student
reflection,
by
employing
wait
time
and
extending
exchanges
.
21.

S
tudents
are
engaged
in
the
consumption,
production
and
transformation
of
knowledge
about
literacy.
I
am
really
aware
that
I
must
provide
different
learning
oppor-
tunities
for
my
students.
Sometimes
it’s
necessary
to
engage
in
focussed
learning
episodes
,
but
sometimes
they
actually
need
to
work
out
the
learning
for
themselves.
Other
times
they
need
practice
in
applying
that
knowledge
in
new
ways
and
in
different
contexts
.
22.

T
he
literacy
teaching
and
learning
is
balanced.
Students
learn
literacy,
use
literacy
to
learn
and
learn
about
how
literacy
operates
and
functions
in
society.
It’s
not
just
enough
for
my
students
to
be
able
to
identify
the
features
of
a
genre,
they
need
to
know
how
to
use
it
to
learn
and
how
it
is
used
in
society
to
shape
social
practices
and
behaviours
.
23.

A
ll
learning
encourages
the
development
of
metacognitive
skills.
Students
monitor
their
learning
in
four
ways:
knowing
that
,
knowing
how
and
knowing
when
and
why
a
particular
strategy
needs
to
be
employed.
I
encourage
the
students
to
develop
a
plan
for
every
task
and
then
monitor
its
use.
Afterwards
I
get
them
to
reflect
on
their
learning
and
the
success
of
their
strategy
.
(Continued)

Domain
In
a
multimodal
literacy
classroom:
1
2
3
4
5
Justification
and
Comment
Ensure
you
differentiate
between
belief
and
practice
Possible
Strategy
or
Action
PEDAGOGY
24.

S
tudents
investigate
how
literate
practices
operate
in
the
social,
cultural,
political,
ideological
and
economic
world
in
order
to
develop
understandings
about
the
relationship
between
literacy
and
power.
When
we
investigate
a
genre
or
any
piece
of
text
we
discuss
the
purpose
of
the
text,
who
constructed
it
and
how
it
constructs
the
world.
We
identify
the
power
of
the
text
for
different
groups
in
different
contexts.
I
want
the
students
to
understand
that
no
text
is
neutral,
that
being
literate
is
about
gaining
control
over
your
life
.
25.

L
iteracy
teaching
and
learning
is
planned
in
response
to
students’
social
and
cultural
diversity
in
order
to
ensure
connectedness
between
home,
school
and
community.
Initially
I
used
the
school’s
community
audit
data
to
inform
my
selection
of
materials
and
teaching
strategies,
and
then
I
con-
ducted
some
further
investigations
with
my
class
to
fill
in
gaps
in
that
data.
This
helped
me
make
the
learning
more
relevant
and
empowering
for
my
students
.
26.

A
pproaches
to
the
teaching
and
learning
of
literacy
are
part
of
a
shared
vision
about
literacy
to
which
the
whole
school
has
committed.
I
know
that
the
literacy
teaching
I
do
is
part
of
a
clearly
articulat-
ed
whole
school
approach
and
that
my
students
will
encounter
similar
approaches
in
other
classes
and
disciplines
.
Table
1.1
(Continued)

ACTION LEARNING TASK 1.2
• The purpose of this Action Learning Task is to introduce the ALC and support you in beginning
a project designed to change your literacy pedagogy, to introduce you to the characteristics
of a multiliterate classroom and to a methodology suitable for action research.
• Spend some time reading through the 26 items in the first column on the Matrix to make
yourself familiar with them.
• Start the process of rating yourself in the second column against the 26 items, remembering
that there are 40 individual elements within the items. As you rate yourself on each item,
there are some important points to consider.
o There are detailed suggestions on the first page of the Matrix that will assist you in rating
yourself from 1 to 5.
o The 40 elements are not belief statements. If they were, then you would likely say that
you believe all elements are important to you and rate yourself as a 5 for each element.
When you rate yourself on each element, what you are doing is making a judgement about
how well each element is established in your classroom.
o In order to help you with making this judgement, there are statements in italics for each
item that reflect what students in your class would say about their understanding of each
item. The italicised statements are meant to reflect the understandings of an average
student in your class who has mastered this knowledge and understanding. There will
necessarily be some students who have not reached this level of understanding and oth-
ers who have exceeded it.
o It is important that you address all 40 elements so that you get an accurate assessment
of your practice and pedagogy.
o There may be a tendency for you to rate yourself as a 3 for each element. This could be
interpreted as ‘fence sitting’ or as avoiding making a decision about the items. This is not
to say that the 3 rating should be avoided, but rather if you have a preponderance of 3
ratings, then you might be focussed more on ‘getting the Matrix done’ rather than making
judgements about your teaching.
o In order to assist you to make accurate judgements in the third column, you need to
justify each rating that you make against the 40 characteristics. Remember that you
are making judgements about your practice and not about whether you believe some
characteristic is important.
o The fourth column is there only if you wish to add any reminder to yourself about ideas
that you might have about addressing a particular practice. It is important to add those
comments as you go, as leaving them till you have finished all items on the Matrix may
lead you to forget some good ideas.
o As a guide, most participants take 2 to 3hours to fill in the Matrix. Most participants also
return to the Matrix a number of times during their project to adjust some of their rat-
ings. It might be useful to complete the Matrix in pencil to aid in this process of revision,
or alternatively if completed as a Word document, save each revision as a separate file so
you can trace the development of your ideas and reflections. It is important to approach

Action plan
Anstey and Bull designed the action plan as a proforma that teachers completed in order to devise a
sequenced and carefully balanced research-in-action project. With over 1,500 possible combinations of
elements, the Matrix enabled teachers to self-select their research focus. The Action Plan Proforma
was designed to allow teachers to conduct their research at a level that matched their capabilities and
at a pace that suited their experience and expertise with the research process. From its inception, the
proforma was designed to focus attention on changing teacher practice and pedagogy rather than on
improving student performance. In this way, the Action Plan Proforma and the Matrix were teacher
focussed rather than student focussed. In order to quantify change in pedagogy and practice, teachers
were expected to focus their attention on collecting a variety of data so that any conclusions that they
drew were evidence based.
The proforma had two broad categories of action and validation. These were further divided into
the sub-categories of aim, method, data collection, analysis and reporting. These sub-categories were
specified so that participants would become familiar with the format of a research project so that they
would be able to repeat the process in further cycles of the ALC. The format was seen as way of pre-
paring teachers for more formal research projects as part of further postgraduate study or as a way of
supporting them in any future application for recognition of prior learning (RPL) as part of a university
course. The Action Plan Proforma also required teachers to specify any visits to other schools that they
undertook and any conversations that occurred with fellow teachers as well as providing evidence of
change in practice, pedagogy and planning and evidence of professional reading. This came to be termed
‘the 4P’s of evidence of change’ because it was based on the idea that any change in teacher belief or
filling in the Matrix as a work in progress and not a document that is set in concrete from
the beginning of your project.
o Once you have completed the Matrix, it is time to select some items that will form the
basis of your project. It is advisable that you limit your choices to two but no more than
three elements in order to make your project manageable. It is important that you select
at least one element or item from the pedagogy section of the Matrix, as it is a project
designed to change your pedagogy. As an example, a number of participants selected
the visual semiotic system from Item 2 and then selected Item 15, 16 or 18 depending on
whether they were investigating strategy development, metalanguage or explicit teacher
talk. You will have noticed that the element visual semiotic system was selected by the
participants and not Item 2. Selection of Item 2 would have resulted in five foci, one for
each semiotic system, creating a project that was unmanageable for the scope of the
project as it is envisaged.
o You need to give careful consideration to which items you are going to select from
the Matrix. While the ratings on the Matrix lend themselves to revision, once you have
selected the items from the Matrix and begin to frame your project, it is very time-
consuming to change your focus by selecting alternative items. Nevertheless, it is
possible and sometimes necessary.

behaviour brought about by one of these factors had to influence the other three. For example, any theo-
retical change brought about through professional reading would change teacher practice and therefore
modify pedagogy and planning.
It was pointed out to participants that both the Matrix and the Action Learning Proforma were not to
be understood as absolute or immutable but rather open to change or modification as part of the normal
process of engagement in research. The Action Plan Proforma is presented in Table1.2.
Factors that need to be considered when supporting participants
in completing their projects
Role of the leadership team
A feature of the ALC was the expectation that the leadership team in the participating schools including
principals, deputy principals, curriculum specialists and any other teachers in leadership positions would
be involved in the action learning and research process. It was a case of leading by example– do as Ido,
not do as I say. This became a crucial factor in influencing completion rates and satisfaction with the
outcomes of the projects by the participating teachers.
Follow-up support
Follow-up support was provided to participants by access to Anstey and Bull via telephone and email
and also by the appointment of trained on-site specialist advisors. This was necessary because of
the vast distances involved in the Australian context. The on-site specialists were responsible for
addressing day-to-day problems as they arose and also conducting sessions devised to address
set tasks that were designed to be accomplished between the visits that were focussed on PLD
sessions.
Analysis of pedagogy
As part of the collection of data in their action plan, participants were required to audiotape at
least one lesson and prepare a transcript. It was decided that an audiotape of a lesson was more
appropriate than a videotape because it focussed attention on the role of teacher talk. Analysis
of a videotape requires investigating the gestural, visual and spatial semiotic systems, a complex
process involving the many codes of each system. As most participants were novice researchers, it
was important to make data collection and analysis focussed and manageable in order to promote
positive outcomes. The gestural semiotic system alone contains 47 separate codes and would involve
an onerous process of analysis. It was felt that to make some selection of the codes from the three
semiotic systems to reduce the size of the task would potentially lead to some important data being
ignored. (For further details about the codes and conventions of the five semiotic systems, see
Chapter Five.)
The audiotapes were analysed to identify the different types of teacher talk and the different phases
present in each lesson. Teachers were then able to identify which types of teacher talk were absent in
their lessons and which types of talk were over-represented and whether they were appropriate to the
desired learning outcomes for the lesson. Similarly, phase structure could also be analysed to identify
lesson structures and which phases were absent or over-represented. In terms of teacher talk, partici-
pants often found the categories of classroom organisation and literacy management over-represented
and process and utility talk under-represented. In other words, teacher talk was more concerned with

Table
1.2
Action
Plan
Proforma
ACTION
VALIDATION
Aim
or
Goal
Method
(focus
on
action)
Method
(focus
on
validation)
#
Data
Collection,
Analysis
and
Reporting
#
What
are
the
items
identified
for
change?
What
is
your
desired
outcome?
How
will
you
go
about
achieving
this?
What
will
you
do?
What
would
you
expect
to
see
as

e
vidence
of
change
or
improvement?
Where
would
you
look
for
this
evidence?
How
would
you
recognise
it?
What
would
it
look
like?
How
would
you
collect
this
evidence?
How
would
you
collate
it?
How
will
you
analyse
it
and
report
it?
Items
Desired
Outcomes
Professional
Reading,
Visits,
Conversations
Pedagogy
and
Practice
Planning
Resources
#
Examples
of
data
collection
methods:
Reflection
journals
about
professional
reading;
reflection
logs
by
teacher
and
students
on
teacher
practice;
student
interviews;
student
work
samples;
observations
of
your
work
by
critical
friend;
discussion
with
critical
friend;
field
notes
about
conversations/discussions
with
colleagues;
samples
of
your
planning
(before,
during,
after);
samples
of
lesson
transcripts
(before,
during,
after).

controlling behaviour and less concerned with explaining strategies, thinking processes and how and why
the lessons might be useful. As far as lesson structure was concerned, the review phase was not regularly
used, and when it was present it usually occurred at the end of the lesson. Further, only a small number of
phases were used while others were rarely employed. Interestingly, when the focus, review, guided identi-
fication, guided practice and guided transfer phases were used in lessons, they were accompanied by sig-
nificant amounts of process and utility teacher talk. Participants were often surprised, and dismayed, at
the imbalances they found in the analyses of their talk and lesson structures but were always successful
in addressing these imbalances, over time, in further transcripts. More information about these ideas can
be found in Chapter Four of the complementary volume Foundations of Multiliteracies: Reading, Writing
and Talking in the 21st Century and in Anstey (2003). The types of teacher talk and phases of lessons are
presented in Tables1.3 and 1.4.
Knowledge about change management
The ALC was specifically designed to engage participants in classroom-based action research with one
of the central goals to change pedagogy and practice. There is therefore an expectation that significant
change will take place at the classroom and school levels. It was felt that if participants had a knowl-
edge of the change process, then they would be more likely to be able to deal with the highs and lows
of the process. Teachers would then appreciate that there would be times when they would experience
positive feelings about the changes that were occurring in their classrooms and sometimes they would
experience negative reactions. They also needed to realise that there would be some plateaus where
little change would occur. For these reasons participants were introduced to the research of Michael
Fullan (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) on how to deal with the culture of change. From Fullan’s
work, Bull and Anstey (2010b, p.145) identified the concepts of capability, sustainability and thriveability
as critical to the support of teachers engaging in the ALC by establishing the means by which teach-
ers could measure the success of their project. Capability was developed by providing teachers with
increased knowledge about literacy, pedagogy and the change process. Sustainability was addressed
firstly by encouraging teachers to change current practices and pedagogies rather than approaching
their projects as an ‘add-on’ to their already crowded teaching programmes. Secondly, suggestions were
made to school leadership teams regarding providing support to teachers to maintain and increase capa-
bility and also to create extra time and space for teachers to undertake their research. Thriveability, the
potential to continually grow and create new knowledge, was maintained by presenting the ALC as a
cyclical process where the process of action learning would be continuous, as each project would lead
further questions to be explored that had arisen in the original study.
Production of a written report
As part of the ALC, participants submitted an evidence-based report of approximately 1,000 words on
their action research. Appendices were used to provide summaries of data that might include such items
as examples of planning, transcripts and student work. It was intended to record the process of change
in classroom practices and pedagogy that traced development of capability, as well as suggestions for
further study that promoted sustainability and thriveability. The report was structured into sections that
reflected the format and categories outlined in the Action Plan Proforma. The format of the report was
adopted so that it could be used as a submission to a university for part of an independent study in a
postgraduate degree programme.

Table 1.3
Functions of teacher talk (Developed by Anstey, 1993b, 1998, 2003 and adapted from Anstey and
Bull, 2018)
Category/Type
of Talk
Description Questions or
statements that focus on:
Example Focus and
Function of talk
Classroom
Management
•
Physical, social and organisational
management
• School rituals
•
Turn around, Mandy
•
Pens down
•
Get out your...
Organisation
Literacy
Management
•
Management of literacy tasks and
lesson
•
Functional aspects of literacy not
teaching about literacy
•
Read the first page
•
Write...
•
Look at the cover
Reconstruction
Restatement
•
Construct, reconstruct
paraphrase or rephrase oral
written or pictorial text
•
Repeat students’ answers
•
Confirm a correct answer– but
no more
•
Require literal thinking
•
Provide implicit modelling
•
Mary ran away (paraphrasing text)
•
John said Mary is frightened
(repeating student answer)
•
Yes, right, well done
•
I would write...
•
I think there are two ideas
Doing Literacy
Elaboration
Projection
•
Require inferential thinking
•
Require drawing on own
experience or knowledge from
previous lessons
•
Why might he do that?
•
What can you tell me about ...
Informative •
Provide information or definitions
about literacy
•
Do not provide explanations
about how to use the information
to complete the task
•
Every sentence has a verb
•
Usually the first sentence in the
paragraph provides the main idea
Process •
Focus on cognitive aspects of
task, decision-making processes
•
Explicitly model cognitive activity
and thinking processes
•
What is a better strategy than
guessing?
•
How would you work that out?
•
I am writing... because ... Learning How
When, and Why
about Literacy
Utility •
Explain how the strategies or
process might be useful in other
situations
•
Explain why it is useful to be able
to do this
•
It is useful to do... because...
•
You skim to work out whether
there is useful information present
•
Why do we use paragraphs?
Validation day
At the conclusion of their project, participants made an oral presentation on a feature of their research
that they felt would be of interest to others. This was sometimes presented to the rest of the group as
a way of sharing expertise with their colleagues, but more often delivered at an area or network confer-
ence held specifically for the purpose of informing a wider audience of interested teachers. This process
was designed to validate the participants’ study by describing the progress they had made and sharing
the evidence they had gathered. Participants often spontaneously referred to this as a celebration day,
which encapsulated how they felt about the process and their outcomes.

Table 1.4 Phases of lessons
Phase Definition Example statements or description of activity
Attention How the lesson begins. Not necessarily an
introduction. For example getting students’

attention and organising for beginning of
lesson.
Boys and girls, who’s ready? My that is good to
see.
Focus The part of the lesson as indicated by the
teacher’s tone, language etc., where the
focus of the lesson is identified. Some

information may be imparted.
Now today we are going to talk about the

structure of stories.
Guided
Implementation
Where teacher and student construct,

practise, or implement the knowledge which
is the focus of the lesson but the activity is
led by the teacher.
Specific aspects of Guided Implementation:
(a) Identifying
Identifying examples of new knowledge. May
include writing on whiteboard or in books/
laptops/iPads.
(b) Practising
Using new skills or knowledge learned to

practise in a similar task.
(c) Transferring
Using new skills or knowledge learned in
a
different combination or to carry out a
different task.
Identifying
Teacher leads students in identification of main
idea in paragraph.
Practising
Teacher leads students finding main idea in a new
paragraph and making notes about the main idea.
Transferring
Teacher leads students in using notes taken
about main idea to construct a paragraph.
Report Sharing presentation of work/task by
student
Students share answers or discuss completed
work to class as requested by teacher.
Display Teacher displays/presents/reads aloud/
models task he or she has completed.
Teacher might show work and say, ‘When Iwas
looking for information on this topic the first
thing Idid was...’
Unguided
Implementation
Same as Guided Implementation but student
must perform on own. Same sub-categories
as for Guided Implementation. Independent
student-driven or student-led work.
As for Guided Implementation examples, except
student led or done by student independently.
Review Teacher reviews definitions/information/
skills presented in previous phases at a
general
level. It is not a complete reworking
or re-teaching of examples but a review of
what has been done and learned.
Teacher might use following phrases in such a
phase:
‘Now what we have learned so far...’
‘First we found out that...’
Presentation of
Text
Teacher reads text to students, or students
read text. Random exchanges between

teacher and students may occur during this
phase.
Reading of story to class as part of a shared
book activity.
Coda Teaching aspect of lesson has concluded but
teacher or students may continue exchanges
in some way related to topic or content of
lesson.
Having finished the actual literacy lesson using
a text about Eskimos, continuing to talk about
Eskimos.
Transition Out Signals end of lesson and tidying up or

reorganisation of class for subsequent
lessons.
Usually signalled by activity and teacher

instructions such as ‘Put your work away’ or
‘Forward out’.

Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Siam: Land of
Free Men

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Siam: Land of Free Men
Author: H. G. Deignan
Release date: January 16, 2014 [eBook #44679]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by the volunteers of Project Gutenberg Thailand.
Proofreading by users emil, rikker, dekpient. PGT is an
affiliated sister project focusing on public domain books on
Thailand and Southeast Asia. Project leads: Rikker Dockum,
Emil Kloeden. (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIAM: LAND OF
FREE MEN ***

Produced by the volunteers of Project Gutenberg Thailand.
Proofreading by users emil, rikker, dekpient. PGT is an affiliated
sister project focusing on public domain books on Thailand and
Southeast Asia. Project leads: Rikker Dockum, Emil Kloeden. (This
file was produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES
NUMBER EIGHT
SIAM—LAND OF FREE MEN

By
H. G. DEIGNAN
(Publication 3703)
CITY OF WASHINGTON PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION FEBRUARY 5, 1943
The Lord Baltimore Press
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.

CONTENTS
Geography
Peoples
Prehistory
Kingdom of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok
Kingdom of Ayuthia
Kingdom of Tonburi
Kingdom of Siam
Thailand
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
1. 1, Gorge of the Me Ping
2, Ancient wall at Chiengmai
2. 1, A monolith in the Me Ping gorge
2, Boat being pulled upstream through the rapids by ropes
3. 1, The mai kwao, tree that yields gum resin
2, Transplanting young rice plants
4. 1, Fishing from the roadsides after the rains
2, Water buffalo

5. 1, A primitive type of cart
2, Elephants breaking up a log jam
6. 1, Small river boats, and bamboo water wheel
2, A temple
7. 1, A reliquary
2, The high altar of a Buddhist shrine
8. 1, Royalty visits Chiengmai
2, A princely funeral at Chiengmai
TEXT FIGURE
1. Map of Siam
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—Map of Siam.]

SIAM—LAND OF FREE MEN
By H. G. DEIGNAN
Associate Curator, Division of Birds
U. S. National Museum
(WITH 8 PLATES)
From the earliest times the great peninsula which lies between India
and China …. has been peculiarly subject to foreign intrusion.
Successive waves of Mongolian humanity have broken over it from
the north, Dravidians from India have colonised it, Buddhist missions
from Ceylon have penetrated it, and buccaneers from the islands in
the south have invaded it. Race has fought against race, tribe
against tribe, and clan against clan. Predominant powers have arisen
and declined. Civilisations have grown up, flourished and faded. And
thus out of many and diverse elements a group of nations have been
evolved, the individuals of which, Môn, Kambodian, Annamese,
Burmese, Shan, Lao, Siamese and Malay, fundamentally much alike,
but differing in many externals, have striven during centuries for

mastery over each other, and incidentally over the countless minor
tribes and clans maintaining a precarious existence in their midst.
Into this mêlée of warring factions a new element intruded in the
sixteenth century A. D. in the shape of European enterprise.
Portuguese, Dutch, French and English all came and took part in the
struggle, pushing and jostling with the best, until the two last,
having come face to face, agreed to a cessation of strife and to a
division of the disputed interests amongst the survivors. Of these
there were but three, the French, the English, and the Siamese, and
therefore Further India now finds herself divided, as was once all
Gaul, into three parts. To the east lies the territory of French Indo-
China, embracing the Annamese and Kambodian nations and a large
section of the Lao; in the west the British Empire has absorbed the
Môn, the Burmese and the Shans; while, wedged between and
occupying the lower middle part of the subcontinent, with the
isolated region of British Malaya on its extreme south border, lies the
kingdom of Siam, situated between 4° 20' and 20° 15' N. latitude,
and between 96° 30' and 106° E. longitude.[1]
So wrote Graham at a period when the Siamese held sway over a
territory of more than 200,000 square miles or an area equivalent to
the combined areas of the States of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and almost half of Ohio.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Thai[2] had permanently
resigned themselves to a continuation of this political division of the
peninsula. Rich provinces to which they had more or less cogent
claims, based on facts of history or ethnography, lay under foreign
rule and, with the rise of world-wide nationalism in the 1920's and
1930's a lively irredentism came into flower. This irredentism and its
accompanying nationalistic fervor have colored the policies of the

Thai Government during the decade just passed and serve to explain
many political actions which are otherwise puzzling to the western
world.
[1] Graham, W. A., Siam, vol. 1, pp. 1-2, London, 1924.
[2] Pronunciation near English tie.

GEOGRAPHY
Whatever more or less final rectifications of frontiers result from the
current war, the land of the Thai will still, for general purposes, fall
into four geographic divisions of major importance: Northern,
Central, Eastern, and Peninsular.
Northern Thailand, lying between the Salwin and the Me Khong,
two of the world's most majestic rivers, is, for the most part, a
country of roughly parallel ranges and valleys running north and
south. At the heads of the flat-floored valleys, which vary in
elevations above sea level from 800 feet in the southeast to 1,200
feet in the northwest, arise important streams, the Me Nan, the Me
Yom, the Me Wang, and the Me Ping, which, falling through narrow
defiles to debouch in the low land of Central Siam, eventually there
conflow to form the Me Nam Chao Phraya, the chief artery of that
division. On the alluvia of these streams, as might be expected in a
country whose civilization was originally based upon riziculture, live
the great bulk of the northern Thai or Lao, in a setting of rich fields
and orchards. The ranges similarly rise, southeast to northwest, from
low, rounded hills to imposing peaks, many of which exceed an
altitude of 5,000 feet and two of which achieve more than 8,000
feet. These mountains, rising abruptly from the valley floors and, on

the whole, densely forested, are scarcely inhabited by man except
for scattered groups of seminomadic hill tribes, which exist there by
hunting and a primitive agriculture. The northernmost province,
Chiengrai, is separated from the sister provinces by a mountain wall
and belongs wholly to the Me Khong drainage; it is largely a region
of marshes and grassy savannas.
Central Siam, the heart of Thailand, is the vast alluvial plain of the
Chao Phraya and may be described as 55,000 square miles of almost
unbrokenly monotonous scenery. The level of the land is but little
higher than that of the sea and, during the dry season, tidal
influence is plainly evident as much as 50 miles from the river's
mouth. Alluvial deposits, brought in the season of floods from the
northern hills, are, however, raising this level at an astonishing rate;
geological evidence shows that within comparatively recent times a
great part of the plain was covered by the sea and even now the
northern shores of the Gulf of Siam, at the mouth of the Chao
Phraya, are advancing seaward at a rate of almost a foot a year. Its
rich soil, its abundance of watercourses, both natural and artificial,
and its comparatively dense population combine to make it one of
the most eminently suitable areas of the world for the production of
fine rice.
As Central Siam is the heart of the Kingdom, the royal city of
Bangkok or Krungthep is the very core of that heart. Situated on the
banks of the Chao Phraya, some 20 miles from its mouth, this
metropolis, whose history goes back not earlier than the mid-
eighteenth century A.D., is the center for scholarship and the arts,
the filter through which pass all goods and ideas received by the
interior from the outside world, and the nucleus of one of the most
highly centralized of national governments. Its citizenry of some

800,000 represents no less than 5 percent of the total population of
the country.
Eastern Thailand is a huge, shallow, elevated basin, tilted toward
the east, so that while its western rim stands 1,000 feet above the
sea, its eastern rim is formed by low hills. The plateau is watered by
the system of the Me Nam Mun, a tributary of the Me Khong. A
poverty-ridden country of unproductive soil and adverse climatic
conditions, it supports indifferently well a comparatively limited
population.
Peninsular Siam is the narrow, northern two-thirds of the Malay
Peninsula, sharply divided longitudinally by a mountain chain which
passes down its whole length. It is a country rich in forests, cattle,
fisheries, mines, and agriculture, and possessed of great natural
beauty in the countless islets off its shores, its beaches lined with
palms and casuarinas, and the verdure of it mountain-backed
landscapes. Most of the developed natural wealth of the Kingdom is
found in this portion, which has fine systems of highways and
railroads.
The whole of Siam lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the
Equator and is subject to the typical monsoonal climate of
southeastern Asia, by which the prevailing winds, from the latter
part of April to the middle of October, consistently blow from the
southwest and from mid-October to April, from the northeast. In
Northern, Central, and Eastern Thailand there are three distinct
seasons—the hot weather, the rains, and the cold weather, the first
extending from February or March to May, the second from June to
October, and the third covering the remaining months of the year.
When the northeast winds blow strongly, the cold weather is very

marked, but at such times as the seasonal winds fail, the cold
weather is scarcely distinguishable from the hot. In Northern Siam,
which lies at greatest distance from the sea and possesses greater
radiation, the days may be hot even during the cold weather when
the night temperatures afford a strong contrast by dropping to as
low as 50° F. and on the mountains even lower, although never
reaching freezing temperatures. The basin of Eastern Siam, with its
thin vegetation and cut off from cooling breezes by its surrounding
rim, is subject to terrific heats during the day and, during the winter,
very low temperatures at night. The central plain, outside of
Bangkok, is pleasantly cooled during the hottest season by the
continuous sea winds, night and day; in Bangkok, however, perhaps
owing to houses of masonry in place of thatch and the drainage of
surrounding marshes, the climate is not only appallingly hot but
actually becoming perceptibly more so year by year. Peninsular Siam
has the mildest and most equable climate, the greatest annual
rainfall, and only two noticeable seasons—the hot weather from
February to August and the rains from September to January, with
the peak of the wet season coming in December.
Owing to the fact that the political frontiers have little relationship
to biogeographical boundaries, the Kingdom possesses a fauna and
flora richer than those of most areas of comparable size. The
primeval jungles of the western and northern mountains show
untrammeled Nature at her tropical best. The slopes are enlaced
with countless streams and waterfalls, from roaring torrents to rills
which flow only during and after the rains. In the forests of these
hills and valleys, huge epiphyte-laden trees, bound together by
vines, shelter such animals as the elephant, the tiger, and the gaur,
but so dense is the cover that the presence of large game is more
often made known by signs than by actual sight, and only the hunter

who is willing to work hard and long is likely to shoot a worth-while
trophy. More than 1,000 different birds are recorded from the
country, while fishes of almost endless variety abound everywhere,
from the Gulf to the smallest roadside ditches. The natural
vegetation ranges from the most typically tropical plants, such as the
mangosteen, to forms of the Temperate Zone, such as pines and
violets, on the northwestern mountains. The central plain, where not
devoted to rice cultivation, shows the characteristic flora and fauna
of a marsh and the eastern plateau has an impoverished biota,
characterized by a certain number of endemic forms; the Peninsula,
however, like the west and north, bears great forests rich in species
of animals and plants.

PEOPLES
Archeology can still tell us little of the first human occupants of
Siam. The earliest evidence of man's existence here is furnished by
celts, uncovered in the Peninsula and on the eastern plateau, which
are supposed to date from the later Neolithic period; geology,
however, gives us no reason to conclude that the makers of these
implements were not preceded by other races.
[Illustration: 1. The rivers fall from the northern plateaus to the
central plain through narrow defiles.]
[Illustration: 2. Ancient wall at Chiengmai. The city walls are
preserved as picturesque ruins.]
[Illustration: 1. An international incident was caused by the
European alpinist who first scaled the monolith to plant his nation's
flag upon it.]
[Illustration: 2. Boats must be pulled upstream through the rapids
by ropes.]
[Illustration: 1. The valuable gum resin, Bengal kino, is yielded by
the mai kwao (Butea frondosa).]

[Illustration: 2. Young rice plants are transplanted from a seedbed
to the flooded fields.]
[Illustration: 1. At the end of the rains, fish may be captured from
the roadsides.]
[Illustration: 2. Cows and water buffaloes are treated as family
pets.]
Among the mountains of the Malay Peninsula exist to this day
small groups of dwarf, black-skinned, kinky-haired people, different
from all other races of the country but closely related to the natives
of the Andaman Islands and the Negritos of the Philippines; it has
been surmised that these Ngo (Semang) are the dwindling remnant
of a once numerous population, successors to (and possibly
descendants of) the Neolithic men.
Following the Ngo and sometime during the past few millennia, it
is believed that there came successive waves of a people of
Mongolian origin who, making their way down the rivers, drove the
primitive Negritos into the hills and settled in their place. Now
conveniently known as the Mon-Annam family, their descendants are
the Mon (Peguans), the Cambodians, and the Annamese, as well as
numerous semibarbarous lesser tribes which persist among the
mountains of the subcontinent.
Probably between two and three thousand years ago and certainly
after the arrival of the Mon-Annam immigrants, another great
population wave, known as the Tibeto-Burman family, rolled
southward over Indo-China but chiefly descended the valley of the
Irrawaddy (where they have given rise to the modern Burmese),
thus scarcely entering Siam at all. Only in comparatively recent

times, driven from their former homes by political disturbances, have
tribes of this stock (Yao, Meo, etc.) migrated into Thailand and the
territories to the east, where they are constantly being joined by
others of their blood brothers from farther north.
While the Mon and the Khmer (Cambodians) were still spreading
over the southern parts of Indo-China and before they had begun,
under the influence of colonists from India, to emerge from a
condition of savagery, the tribes which they had left behind them at
different points during their southward movement were already
being driven back into the mountains and brought into a state of
partial subjugation by the members of a third great family of
migrants from the north. These were the people now known as Lao-
Tai, who, sending out bands from their ancient seat in the valley of
the Yangtze, had already, 2,500 years ago, established a powerful
state on the banks of the Me Khong in the neighborhood of the
modern Wieng Chan (Vientiane).
The Lao-Tai of the Yangtze Valley were evidently very numerous,
for not only did they thus early establish kingdoms far from home
but also became a power in their own land and for some time bid
strongly for the mastery of all China. For centuries they waged
successful wars on all their neighbors, but their strong propensity for
wandering weakened their state and finally caused its disintegration.
The Chinese attacked them repeatedly, each attack producing a
fresh exodus until, during the thirteenth century A.D., the Emperor
Kublai Khan dealt them a final blow which crushed their power and
scattered them in all directions. Fugitives entered Assam, where
earlier emigrants had already settled, and became the dominant
power in that country; others invaded Burma, where for two
centuries a Lao-Tai (Shan) dynasty occupied the throne; while down

the Salwin and Me Khong Valleys came band after band of exiles
who mingled with their cousins already established in those valleys
and, in time fusing with the Mon and the Khmer, produced the race
which, since the founding of the city of Ayuthia, has been dominant
in Siam.
The principal divisions of the Lao-Tai family now living within the
borders of Siam are the Thai (free men) or Siamese proper; the
Lao, who occupy the former seats of those tribes of their own stock
that afterward developed into the Thai; and the Shans, a later
intrusion of distant cousins, descended from the Lao-Tai tribes that
settled in the more eastern districts of Burma in the twelfth century
and earlier.

PREHISTORY
The history of Siam prior to the fourteenth century A.D. is chiefly
known from a hodgepodge of disconnected stories and fragments
known as the Pongsawadon Mu'ang Nu'a (Annals of the North
Country), compiled at different periods from such of the official
records of various cities and kingdoms as had escaped the
destruction which at intervals overtook the communities to which
they referred. With the omission of the numerous supernatural
happenings there recorded and comparative study of the chronicles
of neighboring countries, scholars have been able to draw a rough
picture of the condition of Siam at the dawn of historical time.
Their researches show a country inhabited by primitive people of
Mon-Khmer stock among whom had settled groups of their more
civilized cousins from Cambodia, who had brought with them the
religion and customs acquired by contact with colonists from India.
These communities grew from villages into cities and at the same
time sent out offshoots in all directions, which in time became the
capitals of small states, the chiefs of which constantly made war on
each other and against the Lao-Tai tribes at their borders and now
and again rose to sufficient strength to repudiate the vague
suzerainty claimed over them all by the empire of Cambodia.

Contemporary records of the period subsequent to the fourteenth
century A.D. are easily available. The most important is the
Pongsawadon Krung Kao (Annals of the Old Capital or Annals of
Ayuthia), which contains a complete and fairly accurate account,
compiled in successive reigns, of the history of the country from A.D.
1349 to 1765. The seventeenth and later centuries have also seen
the production of numerous works, by European travelers and
missionaries, which deal wholly or partly with Siam.

KINGDOM OF SUKHOTHAI-
SAWANKHALOK
The most ancient Mon-Khmer settlement of which anything definite
is known was Sukhothai (located on the river Me Yom some 200
miles north of the site of modern Bangkok), which by 300 B.C. was
already a sizable village. At first putting forth no pretensions to the
status of kingdom, the community evidently increased rapidly in
importance, for some two centuries later the chief, Phraya
Thammarat, declared himself King of the district, founded the new
capital of Sawankhalok, and appointed one of his sons viceroy of
Sukhothai, which itself soon grew into a fortified city. Thereafter, the
two towns served alternately as the capital of a country which, as
the Kingdom of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok, gradually grew to great
wealth and strength.
Its monarchs occupied themselves with the waging of war against
the petty chieftains of neighboring states (founded in the same
manner and upon the same principles as their own but at somewhat
later dates) and, in course of time reducing all of them to vassalage,
came to be recognized as rulers of the whole country. The vague
overlordship of Cambodia continued for many centuries but with

little or no influence upon the destinies of its nominal dependency,
which was left to manage itself and its own subordinates as seemed
to it best.
At the same time as the various Mon-Khmer states of Siam were
struggling to subdue each other, the Lao tribesmen inhabiting the
mountainous districts to the north, emboldened by their increasing
numbers and constantly raiding the rich villages of the plains, were
demanding an ever greater amount of attention and as early as the
fifth century A.D., the reduction of the Lao had become almost the
main preoccupation of the kings of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok.
Expeditions against them were constant, but while they were
frequently defeated and large numbers of them carried captive to
Sukhothai or Sawankhalok, the intercourse thus brought about
served only to strengthen them, since it enabled them to adopt the
customs and civilization of the conquerors and then turn the
acquired knowledge against their instructors with an ever-growing
degree of success.
About A.D. 575, a Lao city, built in imitation of the Khmer capitals,
was founded at a spot about 250 miles north of Sawankhalok and
given the name of Haribunchai (later corrupted to Lamphunchai and
the modern Lamphun). The chief of this town married a princess of
the Khmer state of Lopburi and established a dynasty which closely
followed the Brahman rites and ceremonies in vogue at Sukhothai.
During this time other Lao states arose and the time soon came
when the Khmer could no longer hold the Lao in check. During
succeeding centuries Lao armies advanced far south into the Mon-
Khmer kingdoms, marital and political alliances between Lao and
Khmer royalty became common, and Lao settlements were
established in various parts of southern Siam.

Despite wars with rival states to the south and the Lao to the
north, the Kingdom of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok prospered greatly and
in time attained to a high civilization. The arts were encouraged, the
people were well governed, trade was extensive, and friendly
relations were maintained with China and other distant countries by
frequent exchange of embassies. Envoys from the Emperor of China,
who visited Sukhothai in the seventh century A.D., have left records
which indicate that the populace were chiefly engaged in the
cultivation of rice and the manufacture of sugar and that in manners
and customs they closely resembled the modern inhabitants of Siam.
The style of architecture, remains of which still survive, followed, in
somewhat degenerated form, that seen in the ruins of Angkor and
other Cambodian cities.
During the reign of the hero-King Rama Khamheng (Phra Ruang)
the country reached the zenith of its greatness and when he died,
about A.D. 1090, he left to his heir an empire which embraced much
of the Lao states to the north and all of the more southern Khmer
kingdoms of Siam. This heritage, however, was fated to endure but a
short time. During the eleventh century the Khmer King of Lopburi
and the Lao King of Lamphun, both vassals of Phra Ruang, had been
intermittently at war with each other without interference from the
suzerain; toward the end of the century Lopburi was finally
overcome and, declaring itself subordinate to Lamphun, was forced
to admit large numbers of Lao to settle within its borders. Soon after
Phra Ruang's death, a great Lao army composed of the warriors of
several allied states and led by a chief known as Suthammarat,
invaded Sukhothai-Sawankhalok itself, defeated its armies, overran
its lands to the south, reduced the cities, and founded the capital of
Pitsanulok, southwest of Sukhothai and in the heart of the Khmer
Kingdom. Thereafter, although the rulers of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
ebookbell.com

Elaborating Multiliteracies Through Multimodal Texts Changing Classroom Practices And Developing Teacher Pedagogies Geoff Bull

More Related Content

Similar to Elaborating Multiliteracies Through Multimodal Texts Changing Classroom Practices And Developing Teacher Pedagogies Geoff Bull (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Elaborating Multiliteracies Through Multimodal Texts Changing Classroom Practices And Developing Teacher Pedagogies Geoff Bull