Research in the Teaching of English May 2021

Multimodal Voicing and Scale-Making in a Youth-Produced Video Documentary on Immigration

Wan Shun Eva Lam ; Natalia Smirnov Philadelphia University ; Amy A. Chang ; Matthew W. Easterday ; Enid M. Rosario-Ramos ; Jack C. Doppelt

Abstract

This study builds on research of multimodal storytelling in educational settings by presenting a study of a youth-produced documentary on immigration. Drawing from a video documentary project in a high school class, we examine students’ representational processes of scaling in documentary storytelling, and the kinds of resources they use to construct multiple spatiotemporal contexts for understanding their experience of immigration and immigration policy. Our theoretical framework relates the concept of scale to the Bakhtinian concept of voice to consider the semiotic resources that are used to index and connect multiple social and spatiotemporal contexts in storytelling. Focusing on a documentary produced by some students in the class, we analyze how the young filmmakers used particular speaker voices (characters) and their social positioning to invoke and construct relevant scales for understanding the problem of deportation. Our analysis extends the study of scaling to multimodal texts, and the strategies that people use to represent and configure relationships among different socially stratified spaces. By conceptualizing the relations between voice and scale, this work aims to contribute to literacy learning and teaching that support young people in bringing their knowledge, experiences, and narrative resources to engage with societal structures.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2021-05-15
DOI
10.58680/rte202131256
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
teacher development multimodality literacy studies
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Jocson et al. (2022)
    Pedagogical Openings and the Gift(s) of Teaching: Announcing the 2020–2021 Alan…
    Research in the Teaching of English

References (52) · 4 in this index

  1. Bakhtin (1984)
    10.5749/j.ctt22727z1
    Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics  ↗
  2. Bakhtin (1981)
    The dialogic imagination: Four essays
  3. Baldry (2010)
    Multimodal transcription and text analysis: A multimedia toolkit and coursebook
  4. Baynham (2009)
    Just one day like today”: Scale and the analysis of space/time orientation in narratives …
  5. Blommaert (2010)
    The sociolinguistics of globalization
     ↗
Show all 52 →
  1. Blommaert (2015)
    Chronotopes, scales, and complexity in the study of language in society
    Annual Review of Anthropology  ↗
  2. Blommaert (2015)
    Further notes on sociolinguistic scales
    Intercultural Pragmatics  ↗
  3. Bloome (2005)
    Discourse analysis and the study of classroom language and literacy events: A microethno-…
  4. Bogdan (2007)
    Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods
  5. Canagarajah (2016)
    Shuttling between scales in the workplace: Reexamining policies and pedagogies for migran…
    Linguistics and Education  ↗
  6. Canagarajah (2016)
    Introduction: Scales analysis, and its uses and prospects in educational linguistics
    Linguistics and Education  ↗
  7. Capps (2018)
    Migration Policy Institute
    Revving up the deportation machinery: Enforcement and pushback under Trump
  8. Chang (2018)
    Exploring ideological becoming for youth of diverse backgrounds: Documentary practices as…
    Rethinking learning in the digital age: Making the learning sciences count
  9. Charmaz (2014)
    Constructing grounded theory
  10. Collins (2012)
    Migration, sociolinguistic scale, and educational reproduction
    Anthropology & Education Quarterly  ↗
  11. Collins (2009)
    Goffman and globalization: Frame, footing and scale in migration-connected multilingualism
    Globalization and language in contact: Scale, migration, and communicative practices
  12. Collins (2009)
    Globalization and language in contact: Scale, migration, and communicative practices
  13. Curwood (2010)
    Just like I have felt”: Multimodal counternarratives in youth-produced digital media
    International Journal of Learning and Media  ↗
  14. Domingo (2011)
    Analyzing layering in textual design: A multimodal approach for examining cultural, lingu…
    International Journal of Social Research Methodology  ↗
  15. Domingo (2012)
    Linguistic layering: Social language development in the context of multimodal design and …
    Learning, Media and Technology  ↗
  16. Feng (2011)
    Intertextual voices and engagement in TV advertisements
    Visual Communication  ↗
  17. Gal (2016)
    Scale-making: Comparison and perspective as ideological projects
    Scale: Discourse and dimensions of social life
  18. Gamber-Thompson (2016)
    DREAMing citizenship: Undocumented youth, coming out, and pathways to participation
  19. Gee (2014)
    An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method
     ↗
  20. Glick Schiler (2011)
    10.7591/9780801460340
    Locating migration: Rescaling cities and migrants  ↗
  21. Halverson (2010)
    Film as identity exploration: A multimodal analysis of youth-produced films
    Teachers College Record  ↗
  22. Heath (2008)
    On ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research
  23. Herod (2011)
    Scale
  24. Honeyford (2014)
    From aquí and allá: Symbolic convergence in the multimodal literacy practices of adolesce…
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  25. Hull (2006)
    Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling
    Research in the Teaching of English
  26. Hull et al. (2005)
    Locating the Semiotic Power of Multimodality
    Written Communication
  27. Jewitt (2016)
    10.4324/9781315638027
    Introducing multimodality  ↗
  28. JoCson (2018)
    10.5749/j.ctt1pwt78w
    Youth media matters: Participatory cultures and literacies in education  ↗
  29. Kress (2006)
    Reading images: The grammar of visual design
     ↗
  30. Lam (2012)
    Transnationalism and literacy: Investigating the mobility of people, languages, texts, an…
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  31. Leander (2001)
    This is our freedom bus going home right now”: Producing and hybridizing space-time conte…
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  32. Leander (2002)
    Locating Latanya: The situated production of identity artifacts in classroom interaction
    Research in the Teaching of English
  33. Leander (2004)
    They took out the wrong context’’: Uses of time-space in the practice of positioning
    Ethos  ↗
  34. Lemke (2000)
    Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in eco-social systems
    Mind, Culture, and Activity  ↗
  35. Meissner (2013)
    Migration Policy Institute
    Immigration enforcement in the United States: The rise of a formidable machinery
  36. Mills (2010)
    Filming in progress”: New spaces for multimodal designing
    Linguistics and Education  ↗
  37. Rowsell (2013)
    Working with multimodality: Rethinking literacy in the digital age
     ↗
  38. Smirnov et al. (2019)
    “Presenting Our Perspective”: Recontextualizing Youths’ Experiences of Hypercri…
    Written Communication
  39. Soep (2010)
    Drop that knowledge: Youth Radio stories
  40. Stornaiuolo (2016)
    Scaling as a literacy activity: Mobility and educational inequality in an age of global c…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  41. Stornaiuolo (2017)
    Disrupting educational inequalities through youth digital activism
    Review of Research in Education  ↗
  42. Summerson Carr (2016a)
    Introduction: Pragmatics of scale
     ↗
  43. Summerson Carr (2016b)
    Scale: Discourse and dimensions of social life
     ↗
  44. Vasudevan (2018)
    Digital youth and educational justice
  45. Vasudevan et al. (2010)
    Rethinking Composing in a Digital Age: Authoring Literate Identities Through Mu…
    Written Communication
  46. Wang (2019)
    Observing literacy learning across WeChat and first-year writing: A scalar anal…
    Computers and Composition
  47. Wortham (2001)
    Narratives in action: A strategy for research and analysis
CrossRef global citation count: 10 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Computers and Composition Digital Press Dec 2025
    Composing with AI ↗
    Nupoor Ranade; Douglas Eyman
    teacher development multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies
  2. Pedagogy Oct 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
  3. The Peer Review Sep 2025
    The Writing Center as a Rebel Space: Stories of Tutoring and Writing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ↗
    Ghada Seifeddine
    discourse analysis teacher development writing centers peer tutoring empirical research multimodality literacy studies race and writing disability studies editorial matter
  4. Pedagogy Apr 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism african american rhetorics cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing graduate education two-year college teacher development writing centers technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions digital rhetoric multimodality social media literacy studies race and writing gender and writing community literacy literary studies editorial matter
  5. Computers and Composition Mar 2025
    Multimodal composing with generative AI: Examining preservice teachers’ processes and perspectives ↗
    Blaine E. Smith; Amanda Yoshiko Shimizu; Sarah K. Burriss; Melanie Hundley; Emily Pendergrass
    writing pedagogy teacher development multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies