Where lies your text?' (Twelfth night act I, scene V) : engaging high school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in reading multimodal texts

From the original performances of Shakespeare's plays and the illustrated title page of his First Folios, to the current day use of YouTube, mobile phones and tablets, multimodal texts have been apparent across Western cultures. The rapid development over the last 20 years of technology has markedly increased access to a much broader array of texts, new forms of communicating and alternative ways of responding and 'reading'. Whether print-based graphic novels and zines or online multimedia experiences, multimodal texts are part of secondary school students' everyday life. Utilising such resources not only provides teachers with a variety of engaging texts, but also requires students to develop a range of literacies, not only in English but across all curriculum areas. The development of these multiliteracies is important for all students but particularly those from low socio-economic settings, where disengagement from education is a historical reality. This paper will present findings from case studies of teachers in Years 7-12 gathered as part of the Teachers for a Fair Go project about the practices employed to engage students in learning content and literacy in different subject areas. In particular it will investigate the reading and writing of multimodal texts. The article argues that the way the teachers integrate literacy learning is not only exemplary and theoretically sound, but also nurtures highly engaging classrooms, where their students are active and interested participants.