Designing Meaning with Multiple Media Sources: A Case Study of an Eight-Year-Old Student's Writing Processes
Jason Ranker
This case study closely examines how John (a former student of mine, age eight, second grade)composed during an informal writing group at school. Using qualitative research methods, I found that John selectively took up conventions, characters, story grammars, themes, and motifs from video games, television, Web pages, and comics. Likening his writing process to assemblage, I used the multiliteracies design framework (New London Group, 1996/2000) to understand
how John took up various pieces from popular-cultural sources and redesigned them into a unique whole by assembling parts of previously mediated meanings into a new set of meanings (rather than replicating already-available stories from popular culture). This case study highlights the highly situated character of student compositions that incorporate popular culture, and the influence
of specific media conventions, genres, and story grammars. John’s case also provides a metalanguage for understanding, appreciating, and interacting pedagogically with the potential complexity of students’ composing processes that incorporate popular media.
RTE, Volume 41, Number 4, May 2007
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