English Teaching and New Literacies Pedagogy

Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney. He completed his PhD in applied linguistics at the University of Sydney. His related books include e-Literature for Children and Reading Visual Narratives (with Clare Painter and J. R. Martin).
Angela Thomas is a senior lecturer in English education at the University of Tasmania. She completed her PhD at Charles Darwin University. Her books include Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age and Children's Literature and Computer-Based Teaching, which she co-authored.

English Teaching and New Literacies Pedagogy: Interpreting and Authoring Digital Multimedia Narratives is about the fusion of media and narrative, and explores theoretical and practical dimensions of young people's engagement with contemporary forms of text. It showcases a range of critical interpretative approaches for integrating multimedia narratives into English teaching contexts, including animated films such as Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing, digital novels such as Inanimate Alice and 5 Haitis, and a virtual treatment of Shakespeare's Macbeth. English teachers across grade levels will recognize the valuing of literature and will appreciate the practical pedagogy and fostering of creativity as students are encouraged to explore new forms of narrative. In the context of developing expertise in knowing how multimodal texts work, students can apply that knowledge in their own authoring of digital multimedia narratives.

English Teaching and New Literacies Pedagogy: Interpreting and Authoring Digital Multimedia Narratives is about the fusion of media and narrative, and explores theoretical and practical dimensions of young people's engagement with contemporary forms of text.

Contents: Len Unsworth: Toward a Metalanguage for Multimedia Narrative Interpretation and Authoring Pedagogy: A National Curriculum Perspective from Australia - Angela Thomas: Using Contemporary Picture Books to Explore the Concept of Intermodal Complementarity - Angela Thomas: Digital Fiction - Thomas Apperley & Catherine Beavis: A Model for Critical Games Literacy - Paul D. Chandler: Enabling Students to Be Effective Multimodal Authors - Len Unsworth: The Image/Language Interface in Picture Books as Animated Films: A Focus for New Narrative Interpretation and Composition Pedagogies - Annemaree O'Brien: Using Focalisation Choices to Manipulate Audience Viewpoint in 3-D Animation Narratives: What Do Student Authors Need to Know? - Martin Waller: Social Media, Education, and Contentious Literacies - Angela Thomas/Jenny White/Ros Lippis: Teaching Inanimate Alice - Julie Bain/Len Unsworth: Empowering Older Adolescents as Authors: Multiliteracies, Metalanguage, and Multimodal Versions of Literary Narratives - Winyu Chinthammit/Angela Thomas: Augmented Reality in the English Classroom - Angela Thomas/Kerreen Ely-Harper/Kate Richards: Virtual Macbeth: Using Virtual Worlds to Explore Literary Texts.