圖像素養融入多模態英語寫作:以兩位臺灣高中生為例之個案分析 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文指導教授：黃怡萍先生 Advisor：Dr. Yi-Ping Huang. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 圖像素養融入多模態英語寫作:以兩位臺灣高中生為例之個案分析. y. Nat. Visual Literacy in Multimodal English Writing: A Case Study of Two Senior High. n. er. io. al. sit. Students in Taiwan. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 研究生：陳佩如撰 Name：Pei-Ju Chen 中華民國 108年6月 June, 2019. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(2) Visual Literacy in Multimodal English Writing: A Case Study of Two Senior High Students in Taiwan. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English,. 政治大. National Chengchi University. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Pei-Ju Chen June, 2019. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(3) Acknowledgements. In the arduous journey of completing the thesis, there were many hardships and obstacles. Without people accompanying me through the challenges, I may not overcome difficulties and complete the thesis. Therefore, I would like to express my thankfulness to people who guided me and gave me support along the journey. First, the foremost gratitude goes to my advisor, Prof. Yi-Ping Huang, who was like a lighthouse guiding me to find my directions and made me see the fascinating world of. 政治大 that was not really my interest. When discussing the topic, professor Huang asked me to think 立 TESOL in the journey. In the beginning, I did not choose the current thesis topic but a topic. about the meaningfulness of the topic to me and to make sure that I had passions and. ‧ 國. 學. curiosity to do the research. After a couple of days’ contemplations, I figured that I did not. ‧. have enough passions to it. I then explored more studies and found the topic I was truly. sit. y. Nat. interested in. If it were not for professor Huang’s guidance and understanding of me, I may. io. er. not explore my interests well and I may get lost in the boundless sea. Also, when I encountered difficulties and got stuck in dead-end thinking, professor Huang always. al. n. v i n illuminated the route and helped meC think out of the box. U h e n g c h i Though the process of doing. research was not easy, with professor Huang’s patience, support and encouragement, I could feel the passion to explore the answers with genuine curiosity. Professor Huang is the one who taught me to keep curious and think critically throughout the journey. My gratitude also goes to the members in the thesis group, Alan, Amy, Vivianne, Heidi, and Frances. They not only gave me academic suggestions but also accompanied me to face the challenges. Though each of us needed to write the thesis on one’s own, holding one’s own paddles to row the boat, I felt not alone because I knew we were all heading to our destinations with efforts and that I had friends to back me up all along. iii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(4) Also, I would like to show my gratitude to my partner, Jenny, who encouraged me and gave valuable suggestions while I was planning and teaching the writing course. It was my first experience to teach a writing course so I hesitated a lot when making decisions. She observed my classes in the first month and encouraged me to be more assertive and had more confidence in myself. I’m very grateful for her encouragement and concrete suggestions. In addition, I would like to express my thankfulness to my friend, Gi Su. Though he and I were in different fields of study, he was willing to understand my difficulties and gave me suggestions from different perspectives. He always opened his heart and listened to my. 政治大 Finally, I would like to give my sincere gratitude to my beloved family. They 立. mind. His spiritual support gave me the courage to keep going on the journal.. respected my decisions on choosing my career path and supported me to pursue M.A in. ‧ 國. 學. TESOL. Their spiritual support further encouraged me to complete the thesis with little. ‧. worries.. sit. y. Nat. The completion of this thesis is credited to those accompanying me. Their support and. io. n. al. er. encouragement meant a lot to me.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. iv. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(5) Table of Content. Chinese Abstract .................................................................................................................. xi English Abstract .................................................................................................................. xii Chapter 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1 2. Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 5 Multimodal Writing Approach ........................................................................................... 5. 政治大. Visuals in Multimodal Writing .......................................................................................... 7. 立. Visual Literacy and Visual-Literacy Instruction ................................................................. 9. ‧ 國. 學. The Incorporation of Visual Literacy and Multimodal Writing......................................... 10 3. Methodology ................................................................................................................... 13. ‧. Research Design .............................................................................................................. 13. y. Nat. Context & Participants ..................................................................................................... 13. io. sit. Course Design ................................................................................................................. 15. n. al. er. Genre Writing .............................................................................................................. 15. Ch. i n U. v. Multimodal Writing Approach ..................................................................................... 17. engchi. Visual Literacy Instruction ........................................................................................... 18 Data Collection and Procedure......................................................................................... 21 Questionnaire ............................................................................................................... 21 Observation.................................................................................................................. 22 Reflective Journal ........................................................................................................ 22 Document and Artifact ................................................................................................. 23 Individual Interviews with the Participants ................................................................... 23 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................. 25 Trustworthiness ............................................................................................................... 29 Role of the Researcher ..................................................................................................... 29 v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(6) Research Ethics ............................................................................................................... 29 4. Results ............................................................................................................................ 31 Stanley ............................................................................................................................ 31 Background Information .............................................................................................. 31 Conceptualizing Visual Literacy .................................................................................. 32 Exploring Visual and Multimodal Writing in Structure of a Paragraph ......................... 33 Exploring Visual in the Description of a Scenery .......................................... 33 Exploring Coherence in Writing a Story ....................................................... 34 Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Description of a Person ........................... 39 Exploring Visual in the Description of a Person............................................ 39 The Use of Visual in Composing Description of a Person ............................. 41 The Designing Process ......................................................................... 41 The Producing Process ......................................................................... 44 The Presenting Process ......................................................................... 45. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Description of a Scenery ......................... 46. ‧. Exploring Visual in Description of a Scenery ............................................... 46 The Use of Visual in Composing Description of a Scenery ........................... 47 The Designing Process ......................................................................... 47. y. Nat. sit. er. io. The Producing Process ......................................................................... 48 The Presenting Process ......................................................................... 49. al. Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Narration of Gender Experience.............. 50. n. v i n Exploring Visual in Narration 50 C h ....................................................................... U i e h n c The Use of Visual in ComposinggNarration .................................................. 51 Designing Process ................................................................................ 51 Producing Process ................................................................................ 52 Presenting Process ................................................................................ 54. Comparison of Visual in Different Genres.................................................................... 54 Frank ............................................................................................................................... 58 Background Information .............................................................................................. 58 Conceptualizing Visual Literacy .................................................................................. 58 Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Structure of a Paragraph ......................... 59 Exploring Visual in the Description of a Scenery .......................................... 59 Exploring Coherence in Writing a Story ....................................................... 59 vi. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(7) Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Description of a Person ........................... 62 Exploring Visual in the Description of a Person............................................ 62 The Use of Visual in Composing Description of a Person ............................. 63 The Designing Process ......................................................................... 63 The Producing Process ......................................................................... 65 The Presenting Process ......................................................................... 67 Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Description of a Scenery ......................... 67 Exploring Visual in Description of a Scenery ............................................... 67 The Use of Visual in Composing Description of a Scenery ........................... 68 The Designing Process ......................................................................... 68 The Producing Process ......................................................................... 69 The Presenting Process ......................................................................... 71. 政治大 Exploring Visual in Narration ....................................................................... 72 立 The Use of Visual in Composing Narration .................................................. 73. Exploring Visual and multimodal Writing in Narration of Gender Experience.............. 72. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. The Designing Process ......................................................................... 73 The Producing Process ......................................................................... 73 The Presenting Process ......................................................................... 76. Comparison of Visual in Different Genres.................................................................... 76. Nat. sit. y. 5. Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 79. er. io. Research Question 1. What is EFL senior high students’ development of visual literacy. al. under the multimodal approach and visual-literacy based instruction across time? ........... 79. n. v i n C h to ManipulationUof Visual Thinking as a Visual From Recognition and Identification engchi Consumer..................................................................................................................... 79 From Recreation to Creation for Multimodal Writing as a Visual Creator .................... 83. Research Question 2 & 3. How do the participants use visuals in their multimodal structured writings in different genres, including descriptive and narrative paragraphs? How does the participants’ visual literacy interact with their composing of multimodal structured genre writing? ................................................................................................. 85 Visual Inspires Ideas in the Designing Process ............................................................. 85 Visual as Associator for Abstract Ideas in Descriptive paragraphs ................ 85 Visual as Topic Decider for Concrete Ideas in Descriptive paragraphs .......... 86 Visual as Writing Prompt for Descriptive Paragraphs and Narrative Paragraphs. .................................................................................................. 86 vii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(8) Visual helps Organize the Structure in the Producing Process ...................................... 88 Visual as sequencing arranger for descriptive and narrative paragraphs.. ...... 88 Visual as structure organizer for descriptive and narrative paragraphs. ......... 89 Awareness of Coherence from Visual in the Producing Process ................................... 90 Visual Indicates Structure and Main Idea in the Presenting Process .............................. 92 6. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 95 Summary of the Study ..................................................................................................... 95 Pedagogical Implications ................................................................................................. 97 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research ......................................... 99 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 100. 政治大 Appendix A: Design of the Course 立 ................................................................................ 108. Reference .......................................................................................................................... 102. ‧ 國. 學. Appendix B: Detailed descriptions of the course for each week ..................................... 111 Appendix C: Reflective journal...................................................................................... 122. ‧. Reflective Journal 1 ................................................................................................... 122. y. Nat. Reflective Journal 2 ................................................................................................... 122. io. sit. Reflective Journal 3 ................................................................................................... 124. n. al. er. Reflective Journal 4 ................................................................................................... 125. i n U. v. Appendix D: Interview Protocols for the Two Participants............................................. 127. Ch. engchi. First Interview Protocol.............................................................................................. 127 Second Interview Protocol ......................................................................................... 130 Third Interview Protocol ............................................................................................ 133. viii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(9) Table of Tables Table 1. Profiles of the two participants ............................................................... 15 Table 2. Phase of the course ................................................................................. 16 Table 3. Incorporation of visual literacy and multimodal writing with genres ....... 18 Table 4. Procedure and instruction for visual literacy activities ............................ 21 Table 5. Interview for the two participants ........................................................... 24 Table 6. Visual Literacy Competency (Bowen, 2017, p.713) ................................ 26 Table 7. Writing Rubric from College Entrance Examination Center (2016, p.10) 27 Table 8. The use of visual for the three multimodal writings in the designing process ......................................................................................................... 88 Table 9. The use of visual for the three multimodal writings in the producing process ......................................................................................................... 90 Table 10. The use of visual for the three multimodal writings in the presenting process ......................................................................................................... 93. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大 Table of Figures. ‧. Figure 1. Principles for multimodal writing approach ............................................. 7 Figure 2. Principles for visual-literacy instruction ................................................ 10. Nat. y. sit. n. al. er. io. Figure 3. Procedure for visual literacy instruction ................................................ 20 Figure 4. Procedure of Data Collection ................................................................ 25 Figure 5. Braun & Clarke’s (2006) Thematic Analysis ......................................... 27 Figure 6. Story timeline ....................................................................................... 31. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 7. Except of Stanley’s visual analysis based on Schmitz’s illustration (2018) .................................................................................................................... 33 Figure 8. Except of the description based on the photographs from Conoce Honduras (2018) from Stanley’s group......................................................... 34 Figure 9. Excerpt of Stanley’s retelling of the story, The Drum (Martinez, n.d.) ... 38 Figure 10. Excerpt of whole-class co-construction: describing a dog .................... 39 Figure 11. Analysis of the picture by students in groups ....................................... 39 Figure 12. Stanley’s worksheet ............................................................................ 41 Figure 13. Frank’s worksheet for designing ......................................................... 42 Figure 14. Stanley’s multimodal writing: describing himself ................................ 45 Figure 15. Excerpt of Stanley’s co-construction: description of the scenery ......... 47 Figure 16. Excerpt of Stanley’s multimodal writing: describing a scenery ............ 49 Figure 17. Stanley’s outline for designing ............................................................ 52 ix. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(10) Figure 18. element ............................................................................................... 53 Figure 19. element…………………………………………………………………53 Figure 20. element…………………………………………………………………53 Figure 21. Excerpt of Stanley’s multimodal writing: narrative paragraphs ............ 54 Figure 22. Excerpt of Stanley’s final analysis of the illustration ........................... 57 Figure 23. Except of Frank’s Visual Analysis ....................................................... 59 Figure 24. Excerpt of Frank’s story retelling, The Drum (Martinez, n.d.) ............. 60 Figure 25. Frank’s worksheet ............................................................................... 63 Figure 26. Stanley’s multimodal writing: describing himself ................................ 65 Figure 27. Excerpt of Frank’s multimodal writing of describing a scenery ........... 69 Figure 28. Excerpt of Frank’s multimodal writing of narrative paragraphs ........... 74 Figure 29. Revised designing of the image for multimodal writing ....................... 75 Figure 30. Excerpt of Frank’s final analysis ......................................................... 78 Figure 31. The lack of connectors due to inability to infer the connection among pictures ........................................................................................................ 91 Figure 32. Pictures for visual analysis and co-constructing a structure paragraph 112. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. Figure 33. Example of a structured paragraph .................................................... 113 Figure 34. illustrations from The Drum (Martinez, n.d.) ..................................... 114 Figure 35. Worksheet for whole-class construction of describing the dog ........... 115 Figure 36. Photos for description of a dog (Rius, 2018)...................................... 116 Figure 37. Example writing: description of a person .......................................... 117. sit. y. Nat. Figure 38. Example writing: description of a scenery ......................................... 118. io. n. al. er. Figure 39. Worksheet: coherence of a descriptive paragraph .............................. 118 Figure 40. Photos for description of sceneries .................................................... 119. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. x. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(11) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要論文名稱：圖像素養融入多模態寫作:以臺灣高中英語課程為例之個案分析指導教授：黃怡萍博士研究生：陳佩如論文提要內容：現有文獻指出圖像素養融入多模態寫作能夠促進圖像素養之發展和寫作能力的提升。然而，多數文獻多專注於以英語為母語或第二外語之兒童的故事寫作(Mill, 2014;. 政治大. Vasudevan & Bateman, 2010; Wiseman, Mäkinen, & Kupiainen , 2016)，且寫作作品多停. 立. 留在句子的程度而未發展成具有結構性的完整段落。因此，本研究旨在探討台灣高中. ‧ 國. 學. 生圖像素養之發展，以及了解圖像的使用和圖像素養如何與學生創作的過程互動，特別是描述文和敘述文。. ‧. 為了深度刻畫學生圖像素養之發展和圖像與多模態創作之互動，本研究採用質化. y. Nat. sit. 個案研究方法。本研究透過問卷、觀課紀錄、反思日誌、文件與創作，和訪談逐字稿. n. al. er. io. 蒐集兩位研究參與者的資料，並且使用 VLC rubric (Bowen, 2017) 和 six-step framework ( Braun & Clarke, 2006)來分析研究資料。. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 研究結果顯示兩位參與者的圖像素養在課程中有進步，但部分的能力因為不同圖像特質而未展現操縱式的圖像思考。圖像在學生設計的過程能夠促進學生聯想和決定題目，在產出過程中幫助學生組織和編排內容，在報告分享多模態創作中幫助讀者預測主題或是更加準確理解文字內容。然而，不同的圖像角色在不同寫作文體中的使用必須要有特定的圖像思考能力才能體現。結果也顯示圖像素養和多模態寫作能夠加深彼此的發展。本文最後建議讓學生接觸不同素材的圖像以發展圖像素養，也建議將圖像素養融入多模態寫作課中，才能讓學生充分發揮圖像之始使用，也創作出更好的多模態寫作作品。關鍵字: 多模態寫作、圖像素養、課程設計 xi. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(12) Abstract Prior research shows students’ visual literacy and writing ability can be improved under the multimodal writing course involving visual literacy instruction. However, most research is targeted at ESL children’s stories (Mill, 2014; Vasudevan & Bateman, 2010; Wiseman, Mäkinen, & Kupiainen, 2016) at the sentence level without further developing into structured paragraphs. Thus, the current study attempted to explore EFL senior high students’ development of visual literacy and see how visual and visual literacy interact with the composing process of multimodal writing in different genres such as descriptive and narrative. 政治大 To provide insightful understanding 立 of students’ development of visual literacy and how. paragraph.. ‧ 國. 學. their use of visual in multimodal writing involved their demonstration of visual literacy, a qualitative descriptive case study approach was adopted. Two participants’ data from. ‧. questionnaires, observations, reflective journals, documents and artifacts, and individual. sit. y. Nat. semi-structured interviews across sixteen-week classes were analyzed through Bowen’s. al. er. io. (2017) VLC rubric and Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-step framework.. v. n. The results found that two participants’ visual literacy improved across the time in this. Ch. engchi. i n U. course but different visual in different genres required different visual thinking abilities, and they did not demonstrate manipulation of visual thinking for every kind of visual stimuli. As for the role of visual in multimodal writing, it enabled students to make association and decide the topic in the designing process, and it helped organize and sequence the contents in the producing process. In the presenting process, visual made readers understand their text better as a content predictor or confirmer. However, the use of visual in multimodal writing required certain visual thinking ability for different genres. The results also showed that visual literacy and multimodal writing reinforce each other. Finally, it is suggested that students should be exposed to various kinds of visual stimuli to develop visual thinking xii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(13) competency fully and that visual literacy-instruction should be taught along with the multimodal writing so that students can make use of visual and demonstrate better multimodal writing.. Keywords: multimodal writing, visual literacy, course design. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. xiii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(14) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(15) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In this 21st-century digital era, the demand for literacy has changed as with the rapid shift of sociocultural and technological landscape (Bowen, 2017) and with the increasing use of visuals in the current visually saturated society. This trend has an impact on language learning and creates demands for New Literacy, which can also be called multiliteracies (Mills & Exley, 2014). In the past, the traditional view of literacy is absolute and limited only in reading and writing abilities for print-based texts. From the perspective of multiliteracies,. 政治大. however, literacy interplays with social contexts and is considered as a social practice that. 立. relate people, groups, and community (The New London Group, 1996). Multiliteracies not. ‧ 國. 學. only promote multiple literacies that “associate with different domains of life,” (Barton and Hamilton, 2000, p.11) such as media, music, computer, visual literacies, and so forth, but also. ‧. entails multimodality—social practice of meaning making with multiple modes or semiotic. io. sit. y. Nat. resources.. n. al. er. Under the impetus of visual and the entailment from multiliteracies, multimodality. i n U. v. gains pedagogical importance in reading and writing courses and is encouraged to be. Ch. engchi. incorporated into curricula with various literacies (Jewitt, 2005, 2009; Kress, 2003; O'Halloran, 2011; Unsworth, 2001). Among various literacies, visual literacy, the ability to interpret and create visual messages, gains as much importance as other literacies under prevalent use of visuals in social and technological platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Visual literacy is similar to traditional literacy in the view of reading and producing meaning for communicative purposes, but is different in the way of thinking involving pictures, images or videos. Visual literacy requires a high level of thinking abilities that emphasizes critically interpreting, evaluating, and analyzing visual messages, and also producing visual communication through the understanding of meaning making. Research 1. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(16) shows that visuals help improve students’ motivations (Darrington & Dousay, 2015; Lee, 2014), and provide a means for structure students’ multimodal writing of a story (Ranker 2009). With the instruction of visual literacy, children’s critical thinking about visuals and exploration of meaning-making can also be improved (Lopatovska, 2016a; Lopatovska, 2016b; Pantaleo, 2013). Though various studies integrate visuals in the multimodal writing, they tend to either focus on the efficacy towards writing or the development of visual literacy. Not all of them shed light on the development of visual literacy in writing or the connection between visual. 政治大 2016a; Lopatovska, 2016b) or elementary school (Mill, 2014; Ntelioglou, 2014; Ranker 立. literacy and writing. Besides, most research is conducted in ESL kindergarten (Lopatovska,. 2009; Vasudevan & Bateman, 2010; Wiseman, Mäkinen, & Kupiainen , 2016), and students. ‧ 國. 學. seemed to have limited development of visual literacy due to their limited development. ‧. within these ages. What is more, most research is about story writing, and little research has. y. Nat. focused on paragraph and structured writing in different genres probably because young. er. io. sit. learners’ limited ability to write structured and longer paragraphs. Since senior high students may develop higher visual literacy than children and have higher ability to write more. al. n. v i n C hhow senior high students’ complex paragraphs in different genres, visual thinking ability engchi U. interact with multimodal writings and how they draw upon visuals in multimodal writings with different genres need more investigation. Finally, the twelve-year curriculum guideline (Ministry of Education, 2014) in Taiwan suggested to incorporate “core competency” such as “the use of symbols and communicative expression,” and multiliteracies into different subjects in the formative courses to cultivate students’ basic competencies in different stages. Important as it is, these guidelines are only suggested but not compulsory ones, and there are difficulties for teachers to design and implement integrated competency-based curriculum. Thus, pedagogical implication for the incorporation of visual literacy into an English writing 2. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(17) course is needed. In order to fill in the gaps, this research was conducted for the purpose of finding out students’ development of visual literacy under the integration of visual-literacy and multimodal writing based instruction, and revealing the role of visual and visual thinking in learners’ structured and paragraph writing in different genres, including descriptive and narrative paragraph. This thesis intends to propose a pedagogical design which imbeds visual literacy into English writing course for Taiwanese students in senior high school and the promotion of. 政治大 implications for practitioners in charge of writing courses. 立. visual literacy in students’ multimodal writing in a hope that it could give pedagogical. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 3. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(18) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 4. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(19) CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter attempts to address the principles of multimodal writing approach, discuss of the role of visuals in multimodal writing, reveal what visual literacy and visualliteracy instruction are, and review some research that incorporate both multimodal writing and visual literacy. In the final part of the literature review, the research gap will be identified and research questions will be presented.. 政治大. Multimodal Writing Approach. 立. Multimodal writing approach adopts social semiotic theory which believes that. ‧ 國. 學. meaning is from “social environments and in interactions” (Kress, 2010, p.54), and that sign exists in all modes, while language is one of the modes for meaning making and is seen as a. ‧. social practice as other modes (The New London Group, 1996). According to Jewitt (2009),. y. Nat. sit. multimodality values sign-makers’ “situated use of modal resources” (p. 30) in creating. n. al. er. io. intended meanings. That is to say meaning making involves sign-makers’ social interests. i n U. v. represented by sign-makers’ choices of recourses and the expressions they want to make in a. Ch. engchi. given context (Kress, 2005). The goal of using multimodal writing approach is to have students explore the meaning-making process and prompt them to use multiple semiotic resources that are culturally shaped and inextricably link to meanings and form (Kress, 2003; 2005). Accordingly, students under multimodal approach play the roles of social agents and sign-makers who organize communication through selecting semiotic recourses. Apart from accounting for various resources, there are two essential elements in multimodal writing, i.e., authentic audience and students’ collaboration (Edwards-Groves, 2011). First, students need to have a clear purpose of writing and the target audience. In multimodal composing process, students will be aware of how the audience perceive or 5. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(20) interpret their work, which may influence their design. Also, bearing audience in mind when composing is also an interacting process with the audience, and students need to learn that everyone has their own way of understanding and interpreting the same sign. Second, although writing is often considered as individual work, multimodal writing values collaboration in the learning process. Students’ talk, interaction and consultation with others facilitate their meaningful writing (Edwards-Groves, 2011), and develop the concept that meanings are co-constructed. The multimodal meaning making process is dynamic and discursive in construction. 政治大 drafting, revising, editing and publishing, but a recursive movement among these phases. 立 and so does multimodal writing. Multimodal writing is not a linear process of planning,. Aside from the process, we also need to consider the incorporation of “designing, producing,. ‧ 國. 學. and presenting” as the key elements in multimodal writing (Edwards-Groves, 2011, p.62).. ‧. Design is the planning process of the arrangement for the multiplicity of texts to achieve. y. Nat. certain purpose (Rowsel& Decoste, 2012). Students will have to think about what meaning,. er. io. sit. emotion, or opinion they want to express and how to express their ideas through the arrangement of the modes designing. During producing, they may also go back to planning. al. n. v i n C h modes may create and designing processes and the different new ideas. Finally, students will engchi U have the opportunity to present their multimodal writing and thus they could articulate their. design rationale or the meaning-making process, and their products have chances to be read by authentic audience with more interactive process and better understanding of multimodality. Finally, multimodal writing emphasizes not only interpersonal interaction but also interaction with other disciplines. It can be integrated with other subjects, or incorporated into curricula with various literacies (Jewitt, 2005; 2009; Kress, 2003; O'Halloran, 2011; Unsworth, 2001). For example, multimodality is often incorporated with technology or media 6. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(21) literacy because technology can facilitate creating a meaningful text with various modes, and technology is a key tool for learners to enact multimodal and interactive writing (McGrail & Behizadeh, 2017). Though this research does not emphasize technology and media literacy, some of the students’ multimodal writings were accomplished through the use of computers and internet so as to explore and utilize more resources. Figure 1 summarized principles for multimodal writing approach.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 1. Principles for multimodal writing approach. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. In this study, the course adopted visuals and texts for students to explore the meaning-. v. n. making process, the role of visuals, and the relationships between visual and writing. The. Ch. engchi. i n U. following paragraphs discuss the role of visuals in multimodal writing.. Visuals in Multimodal Writing Multimodal writing considers other modes such as visual other than text as important ways to make meanings instead of seeing them as alternatives or substitutes to texts. Most research about multimodal writing involves the use of verbal mode and visual mode. For example, Tseng (2014) conducted a case study of an EFL college student’s meaning-making in a film proposal that involved persuasive writing and an advertising poster for the promotional genre. The result showed that the participant was able to apply visual 7. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(22) composition of spatial arrangement, color, and salience to make meanings, and she was capable of writing with the structure of a proposal. The interplay of visual and verbal modes also helped her add creativity in the film proposal. Research has shown that visuals not only help students improve their writings but also increase their confidences. Lee (2014) investigated how art-integrated multimodal projects influenced two low-level Taiwanese undergraduates’ writing and confidence by a longitudinal qualitative case study. Students used photos, drawings, and pictures to support their writings including online reading responses to literature, first-person narratives, and. 政治大 writing improved, so did their confidence and motivation in learning English. In students’ 立. digital storytelling. The result showed that both low-achieving and low-motivation learners’. writing, images were used to support writings while texts sometimes served to explain the. ‧ 國. 學. photos, which made writings less challenging for the two students. This finding also indicates. ‧. that images and texts can interact and enrich each other in students’ writing. Also, in Oskoz. y. Nat. & Elola’s (2016) research about digital storytelling in a writing class, images helped ESL. er. io. sit. undergraduates to express their emotions and sometimes substituted some words in which the meanings can be expressed through visuals. Visual in multimodal writing in the two studies. al. n. v i n C hto express meanings are treated as a mode that help students when language competency is engchi U. not sufficient or the image itself shows the meaning and substitutes words. However, visuals are not just expressing messages, but transmitting values, opinions, attitudes, belief, and arguments. Students need not only to explore multimodal meaning making but also think critically about visuals so that they can express not just the surface meanings but also values or arguments behind those images. In other words, students also need training in visual thinking ability in a multimodal writing class.. 8. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(23) Visual Literacy and Visual-Literacy Instruction Visual literacy is a cognitive ability to critically read and create visuals, including photographs, illustrations, paintings, electronic images and so forth. For reading, it is the ability to imagine possibilities, utilize contextual clues to interpret the message, evaluate the relationship of visual elements, integrate and synthesize the pieces into whole. Learners will be able to reveal the underlying message, opinion, or argument of the pictures, instead of simply looking at the surface meaning superficially. It is a higher thinking ability that requires “analysis, evaluation, synthesis and prediction” (Bowen, 2017, p.710). As for. 政治大 with the ability to articulate one’s reason or rationale (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011; Bowen, 立 creating, learners should be capable of creating visual grammar by using rhetoric concepts. 2017; Lundy & Stephens, 2015; Kress, 2003). Though people nowadays are highly exposed. ‧ 國. 學. to visuals, visual thinking ability cannot be acquired simply by living in the visual world. It is. ‧. a learned competency with a set of developing skills and brain’s capacity to be built over time. y. Nat. through experiences, interaction with visual environment, ongoing training, and instructions. er. io. sit. step by step (Baylen & D'alba, 2015; Cordell, 2015; Westraadt, 2016). It has been proved that through instruction with visuals such as artwork or photograph, learners’ visual literacy can. al. n. v i n C Lopatovska, be improved (Baylen & D'alba, 2015; 2016b; Westraadt, 2016), but h e n g c2016a; hi U. children seemed to have limited development for understanding and interpreting abstract elements (Lopatovska, 2016b). For further development of children’s visual literacy, it is a skill needs to be cultivated over time with one knowledge built on the previous one. As for adult leaner, Huang (2015) investigated Taiwanese university students’ critical media literacy in the genre of film. The result showed that students were able to identify power relationships and recognized the ideologies based on their analysis of multimodal clues such as images, gestures and sounds of the films. The goal of visual-literacy instruction is to cultivate students’ visual thinking and the 9. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(24) ability to deconstruct and construct visuals. Students are considered as consumers and active consumers of visual media, and creators or producers of visual grammar, while teachers are facilitators or co-learners (Baylen & D'alba, 2015; Flynt & Brozo, 2010; Lundy & Stephens, 2015). Visual-literacy instruction values authentic learning, connecting pedagogical learning to the real world and relating to the students’ own experiences for exploring the meaning. It also emphasizes interpersonal relationships and collaboration within or outside the classroom through technology to explore and create visual messages. It is also suggested that visual literacy can be incorporated with other disciplines (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011). Figure 2. 政治大. summarizes principles for visual-literacy instruction.. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. i n U. v. Figure 2. Principles for visual-literacy instruction. Ch. engchi. The Incorporation of Visual Literacy and Multimodal Writing The above literature review shows both visual literacy and multimodal writing value meaning-making process with resources. According to Rowsel& Decoste (2012), drawing on different resources also invited new ways of thinking and learning. Some studies investigated the integration of the visual literacy and multimodal writing to find out how they provide a way to engage learners’ design of different modes, resources, and elements in writing, and they revealed that the incorporation helped the improvement of both visual thinking and writing skills. For example, Ranker (2009) investigated how the import of visuals transforms 10. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(25) ESL children’s multimodal composing through seven-month composing events. The result indicates that children are able to use books as resources for visual meanings and transform the resources to their composing. The research also discovered that children’s thinking process of dividing a series of drawings physically into frames contributed to their structure of writing. They wrote one sentence for each drawing and the physical arrangement of the papers with drawings decided their sequence of sentences. Also, Pantaleo (2013) investigated an ESL sixth grader’s development of visual literacy through reading visual elements in picture books and graphic novels, and creating multimodal text. The participant applied the. 政治大 analysis to design a graphic novel that was composed of phrases, sentences and drawings. It 立 knowledge of color, typography, object size, and framing that she learned from visual. also revealed that the participant was equipped with the ability to articulate her design. ‧ 國. 學. rationale, showing her understanding of meaning making through the training. Similarly,. ‧. Wiseman et al. (2016) developed ESL children’s literacy through photograph and multimodal. y. Nat. writing. The research reveals that photography helps children develop ideas and add details to. er. io. sit. story writings. Finally, Sarar (2016) designed a writing class based on semiotics analysis theory of artwork for 7th graders in Turkey to improve students’ reading and essay writing. al. n. v i n C hreceiving instructions skills in the language of Turkish. After on semiotics analysis with the engchi U. concept of signified and signifier, the posttests showed that semiotic analysis-based writing activities arouse students’ awareness of multimodality, which further improved students’ writing skills through viewing the topic in various perspectives and identifying messages. Previous research has found that multimodal writing and visual literacy interact with each other. It shows that the cultivation of visual literacy helps students’ writing in terms of planning the structure, adding details of the story, and better understanding of the topic. However, the focus of previous research was mostly about the benefit of visual literacy instruction on students’ narrative writing and participants in previous studies were mainly 11. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(26) ESL kindergarten or elementary school students whose multimodal writings stayed at phrase and sentence levels corresponding to the pictures of the story. Their writings tend to be phrases or sentences that explained the picture without the form of a paragraph. Little research concerns EFL senior high students’ development of visual literacy and the role of visual in students’ multimodal paragraph writing with different genres. According to Kress (2003), in social theory, genre is not about the content but concerns “who acts (and) in relation to whom, with the question of purposes” (p.84). Seeing that multimodal writing is considered the product of social practices, how the participants’ interaction involves structure. 政治大 English paragraph is conventionalized structure and patterns repeatedly used (Tardy, 2012), 立. and genre with visual mode and verbal mode need to be shed light on. Given that the genre of. with different features and purposes in different genres (Lam, 2011, March), the role of visual. ‧ 國. 學. might be different in EFL senior high students’ multimodal meaning-making process of. ‧. composing longer and structured paragraphs in different genres.. y. Nat. Among various genres for writing, descriptive and narrative paragraphs are selected to. er. io. sit. be explored due to the basic level of EFL beginning writers and the necessity based on the 12-year basic curriculum guideline (MOE, 2016; National Academic for Educational. al. n. v i n Cintends Research, 2017). All in all, this thesis senior high students’ development of U h e ntogexplore i h c visual literacy and its interaction with genre writing. The followings are the three research questions this research intends to address: 1.. What is EFL senior high students’ development of visual literacy under the multimodal approach and visual-literacy based instruction across time?. 2.. How do the participants use visuals in their multimodal structured writings in different genres, including descriptive and narrative paragraphs?. 3.. How does the participants’ visual literacy interact with their composing of multimodal writing? 12. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(27) CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY Research Design In order to gain thick and deep understanding of EFL senior high students’ development of visual literacy and its interaction with the production of multimodal writing, a qualitative descriptive case study (Yin, 2003) was adopted in this study. According to Yin (2003), the purpose of adopting the descriptive case study is to present detailed and. 政治大 development of visual literacy and the role of visual literacy in multimodal genre writing 立. contextualized understanding of a phenomenon. This study intended to understand students’. under the context of a multimodal writing course integrated with visual-literacy instruction in. ‧ 國. 學. a senior high school in Taiwan. Detailed descriptions of students’ development of visual. ‧. literacy and how students perceive the role of visual and visual literacy in their multimodal. y. Nat. writing were presented. According to Merriam (1998), every case has its’ ‘bounded system’. er. io. sit. that the researcher wants to explore (p.9). In this research, the boundary of case is individual. Two students in multimodal writing class in senior high school in Taiwan were selected as. al. n. v i n C hbeing studied in this participants, that is, there are two cases thesis. engchi U Context & Participants. This study was conducted in an after-school English Writing Course in a public senior high school in northern part of Taiwan. Students in this class had few writing experiences and little training of visual literacy. Most students only had the experiences of writing phrases or translating sentences. They had never learned the structure of an English paragraph or genres, and they did not have chances to systematically learn English writing in formal classes. As for students’ visual literacy, though they commonly used social media such as Facebook or 13. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(28) Instagram, where they are exposed to a large amount of visuals outside of the classroom, they had never received visual literacy training in school. The school was highly supportive to let students learn English in an after-school class to improve students’ general English competency and writing ability. The administrators of the school also encouraged students’ exposure to English in various ways, so they also agreed the researcher to integrate visuals in writing. There were 16 students who volunteered to sign up for the after-school to improve their general English ability and writing ability and they knew that this was a course. 政治大 around low-intermediate to intermediate on average with the age around 15 to 16 years old. 立 incorporated with visual literacy before they signed up. The students’ English levels were. Among the sixteen students, two students, Stanley and Frank, were selected as the cases of. ‧ 國. 學. the study based on purposive sampling. Stanley and Frank were selected due to their ability to. ‧. articulate their thoughts and reasons. Also, the researcher intended to find contrastive cases. y. Nat. with different development of visual literacy and multimodal writing from the observations in. er. io. sit. the first five weeks for the purpose of understanding how different degree of visual literacy or the ability of writing may interact with how they perceive the role of visual. In other words,. al. n. v i n C hthe role of visual interacts the researcher aims to explore whether differently with different engchi U. levels of visual thinking ability and writing ability. In the cases, Stanley demonstrated higher English ability than Frank based on the test results from Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students (CAP). Stanley had learned English for 10 years and he had once learned English writing, while Frank had learned English for five years without any training in English structured or genre writing. Based on the researcher’s observation of the two students’ participation in group discussions and the analysis of their worksheets and multimodal writings, Frank demonstrated higher visual literacy than Stanley after the five weeks. To sum up, Stanley had higher writing skills than Frank and Frank had better visual 14. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(29) literacy competency than Stanley, and the research intends to explore whether different degrees of visual literacy interact with students’ use of visual in the multimodal writing. Table 1. Profiles of the two participants illustrates the profiles of the two participants.. Table 1. Profiles of the two participants Pseudonyms. Age. Year of English learning. Stanley. 15. 10. Frank. 16. Grade of English in CAP B++. 5. English proficiency Test and Result. lower None. B. 立. Visual Literacy Competency. higher. 政治大 Course Design. ‧ 國. 學. In this course, the researcher was also the instructor who designed and taught the multimodal writing course with visual literacy. This course was from September 2018 to. ‧. January 2019, with 16 weeks in total and one class each week. For every class, there were. sit. y. Nat. three periods with 50 minutes per period. Though there were 16 weeks, the study only took. al. n. and exams.. er. io. 14 weeks and the other two weeks were used as flexible time for reviewing the school work. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Genre Writing The goal of this writing course is to enable students to develop the concept of structure of a paragraph and English writing genres. According to Tardy (2012), genre is considered as “forms of communication that have become conventionalized through repeated use” (p.2278). The genres in this research and course refer to the English structure of a paragraph, including descriptive and narrative. The two genres were chosen based on 12-year basic curriculum guidelines for Language-art— English course handbook (National Academic for Educational Research, 2017). The guidelines for English writing suggests teachers to teach writing step by 15. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(30) step from the structure, concept of unity and coherence, to genre writings, including narration, description, picture writing, letter writing, exposition and argumentation and so on. Due to the complexity and difficulty of the genre, it is also suggested to teach narration and description before exposition and argumentation and other genres. Thus, this course aimed to start with the structure and the genres of description and narration. Due to limitation of time, exposition and argumentation were not included in the syllabus for this semester. The teaching of English structure of a paragraph in the first five weeks was considered as the preparation phase before students produced individual multimodal genre writings. This. 政治大 with the examples of both descriptive and narrative paragraphs with visuals. The students had 立 phase was to build students’ knowledge about the structure and multimodal ways of thinking. some practices of paragraph writing during this phase. After the sixth week was the second. ‧ 國. 學. phase in which the students learned two genres. The first genre, descriptive paragraph, was. ‧. divided in two focuses— description on person and description on scenery, which were. y. Nat. taught in weeks 6 to 8, and 9 to 11 respectively. The second genre, narrative, focused on. er. io. sit. telling ones’ own stories and personal reflection under the topic of gender issue during week 13 to 15. Table 2. Phase of the course.. n. al. Table 2. Phase of the course. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In every genre, students were taught the structure of the genre, read sample multimodal writings of the genre, and finally created their own multimodal writings in about 150 to 200 words with images or photos. During the process, they also practiced analyzing 16. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(31) pictures and figuring out the intended meaning or purposes before their actual design of visuals. For a detailed descriptions of the design of this course, please refer to Appendix A for the syllabus and Appendix B for detailed course description. Multimodal Writing Approach The course design adopted multimodal approach and visual-literacy based instruction to teach students structured writing in different genres. For multimodal writing approach, first, the course followed the principles of having students explore meaning-making process. Students explored the relationship between text and visual by reading and creating a. 政治大 photos or using free online resources 立 such as Flaticon or Freepik to find images. Second,. multimodal text with both words and pictures. The pictures were mainly created by taking. ‧ 國. 學. according to Edwards-Groves (2011), multimodal meaning making process is dynamic and discursive in construction which demands the incorporation of “designing, producing, and. ‧. presenting” (p. 62). Thus, the course also included cycles of processing in every genre.. sit. y. Nat. Students are the agents who organize communication through selecting semiotic recourses. al. n. “presentation.”. er. io. (Kress, 2005) in “designing” and “producing” sessions, and expressing themselves in. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Multimodal writing also emphasizes cooperation. Though every student created their own multimodal writing, all the trainings of reading visuals were group work, and they coconstructed writing in a group as practices before they made their own. When they were designing, they could discuss with classmates. During students’ deconstructing and constructing process, the instructor played the role of a facilitator who stimulated students’ discussion and also a consultant who gave suggestions or assistance upon request. In this course, the two participants, Stanley and Frank, happened to be in the same group and in the group discussion or group work, they discussed mainly in Chinese with some codeswitching into English when discussing the word choice for writing. 17. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(32) Visual Literacy Instruction The researcher intended to cultivate students’ visual thinking ability, so she adopted principles for visual literacy instruction. First, students were provided chances to analyze and create visuals to develop their visual literacy competency (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011; Bowen, 2017). Second, visual literacy instruction encourages students’ cooperation and coconstruction of meaning (Bowen, 2017), and thus the students in this course worked in groups to analyze visuals. Finally, according to Bowen (2017), every visual can be interpreted. 政治大 role of a facilitator or co-learners 立(Baylen & D'alba, 2015).. in multiple ways; thus, instead of providing answers as an authority, the instructor played the. ‧ 國. 學. Since the course incorporated genre teaching and multimodal writing, the teaching of visual literacy was taught along with genre and multimodal writing. Students were exposed to. ‧. visuals for description and narration corresponding to the genre they were learning and they. er. io. of visual literacy and multimodal writing with genres. sit. y. Nat. wrote their analysis or create visual in a certain genre as illustrated in Table 3. Incorporation. al. n. v i n C hand multimodal writing Table 3. Incorporation of visual literacy e n g c h i U with genres. 18. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(33) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. i n U. v. As for the procedure, each genre included visual analysis activity, creation of visual for. Ch. engchi. multimodal writing, and presentation of visuals as illustrated in Figure 3. First, in the reading visuals activities, in order to let the students interpret the visuals based on clues and reasons, the instructor would ask questions such as “What does the color tones tell you about the dog’s personality?” and “How do the elements in the picture show the dog’s life experiences?” Students would analyze in groups with the guiding questions. After finishing reading visual, the instructor asked each group to share their interpretation of visuals with reasons in order to cultivate their ability to articulate their rationales and to let them understand the possibility of meaning creation. During the process, the instructor pointed out the similarities and differences of each group’s analysis and students could understand that people had their own 19. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(34) perspectives to look at a picture and there were multiple ways to interpret the same visuals.. Figure 3. Procedure for visual literacy instruction In the next week, students were asked to create visual for their multimodal writing with the use of online resources provided by the instructor, including Flaticon and Freepik. In the. 政治大. designing process, the instructor asked students to think about their purpose of creating visual. 立. and the main idea they intended to express. For example, in description of oneself, the. ‧ 國. 學. instructor asked students to figure out the items that could represent who they were. They could talk about personality, interests, habits, hobbies, etc. There was no limitation or certain. ‧. format to follow and students could create in any way they like based on their designing. sit. y. Nat. rationale.. n. al. er. io. Finally, students presented their visual to the class and their classmates could guess the. i n U. v. intended meanings of the creators with the use of social media, Facebook. Each student. Ch. engchi. would look at least one classmate’s creation and write down comments. The students could know how the readers interpret their visuals and knew whether they expressed themselves clearly through the visual. Detailed descriptions of the visual activities be found in Appendix A and B. Table 4 summarizes the instruction for the procedure in visual literacy activities.. 20. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(35) Table 4. Procedure and instruction for visual literacy activities Procedure Instruction. Visual analysis activity . . . Visual creation for multimodal writing. The instructor gave  directions for students to analyze visuals with clues. Students should create visual based on their designing. and reasons Each group shared interpretations with reasons. The instructor . rationale with clear purpose and intended meaning. No limitation or. Visual presentation . Students presented visuals and audience commented through Facebook.. pointed out similarities and differences of each group’s interpretation.. 學 ‧. ‧ 國. 立. assigned format 治政 to follow in 大 creating visuals.. Data Collection and Procedure. sit. y. Nat. Five data collection methods were used, including questionnaire, observation, reflective. n. al. er. io. journal, documents and artifacts, and individual interviews of the two selected participants.. v. The following paragraphs explain the five methods of data collection.. Ch. engchi. i n U. Questionnaire Two kinds of questionnaires were distributed at the beginning of the course and at the end of the course respectively. The former questionnaire aims to understand the two students’ background information, including their English proficiency, English writing experience, writing difficulties, and sources of reading visuals. This information gave the researcher ideas about students’ levels of English and their conceptualization of visual literacy. The second questionnaire the two participants was used as the interview prompt.. 21. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(36) Observation Classroom observations were conducted for nine times during the teaching and learning cycles of designing, producing, and presenting of every genre. Since students sat in groups, the researcher firstly focused on group responses to the discussions. After getting more familiar with the students, she particularly focused on the two selected participants’ reactions and thoughts. A video-camera was set in front of the classroom for a clearer view of the whole-class students’ discussion for the first five weeks before the researcher decided the selection of the participants, while the researcher made observation from the stage or walked. 政治大 and the camera were targeted at the two participants’ participation in activities, discussions, 立 around from group to group. After the participants were selected, the focus of observations. composing process, and presentations about visuals and their design of multimodal writing.. ‧ 國. 學. The record included the participants’ explanations of how they interpreted visuals and how. ‧. they produced multimodal writing in order to understand their development of visual literacy. y. Nat. and how they perceived visuals in writing. During the observation, the researcher also made. er. io. sit. field notes about time, space, activity, event, act, object and comments or memos. Since the researcher was also the instructor of the course, she was busy teaching or answering students’. al. n. v i n C h important eventsUthat a researcher would need to be questions and thus might overlook some engchi aware of. To avoid omissions, the researcher made records and took notes during the break. time or after the class. With the help of videotape, she was able to review and check whether she had missed important events during the class and whether she would need to make up for the missing data.. Reflective Journal Students were asked to keep a reflective journal for their learning and thoughts about multimodal writing and visual literacy in the journal for four times. They wrote their reflection after they learned the structure of a paragraph in the 5th week, two descriptive 22. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(37) writings in the 8th and the 11th week, and narrative writings in the 15th week. They were allowed to choose any language they like to write down their thoughts since the instructor used both English and Chinese in the class and they could refer to the contents in any of the two languages. The two participants’ reflective journals were mainly written in Chinese. Only when they referred to some of the concepts like “topic sentence or supporting sentences” would they used English. This data was collected to help the researcher understand the participants’ viewpoints about multimodal writing process and their understanding of visual literacy. The guidelines for their reflective journals can be found in Appendix C.. Document and Artifact. 立. 政治大. Students’ worksheets, notes, and multimodal writing were collected by scanning their. ‧ 國. 學. worksheets or saving the files in the researcher’s computer. The multimodal writing collected. ‧. included all the genres so as to find out how they composed visuals and texts differently in. er. io. sit. y. Nat. different genres and to reveal learners’ development of visual literacy across time.. Individual Interviews with the Participants. al. n. v i n C h to gain deep and Individual interview was conducted insightful understanding of the engchi U. two students’ perceptions of their own visual literacy and multimodal writing. The two target students were interviewed for three times with each time lasting for about thirty minutes to one hour after they finished composing multimodal writing of a genre. There was one followup interview for the two participants to confirm the researcher’s understanding of their words. All the interviews were conducted in Chinese, the students’ mother tongue, in order to encourage them to speak freely without language barriers. Table 5 is the date and time for the interviews.. 23. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(38) Table 5. Interview for the two participants Interview 1. Interview 2. Interview 3. Follow-up interview. Stanley. 112718 63 mins. 121218 41 mins. 010319 71 mins. 021119 20 mins. Frank. 120518 51 mins. 121918 48 mins. 010319 60 mins. 021119 30 mins. All the interviews were semi-structured and developed based on Carspecken’s (1996) interview protocol design, which included topic domains, lead-off questions, and possible followed-up questions. The three interviews were specifically focused on the multimodal. 政治大. genre writings that the students composed, that is, descriptive paragraphs of a person,. 立. descriptive paragraphs of a scenery, and narrative paragraphs respectively. The first interview. ‧ 國. 學. contained two topic domains. In topic domain one, the researcher asked students to make. ‧. retrospect on their composing process and design of multimodal writing of the first genre. In the second topic domain, students’ opinions on the connections between visuals and writings. y. Nat. sit. and the role of visual in the genre were explored. As for the second and third interview, the. n. al. er. io. direction of topic domain one and two are similar to the first interview except for the genre. i n U. v. the researcher focused on. Additionally, the third topic domain will be added in the last two. Ch. engchi. interviews to understand the participants’ changes of ideas about their experience of composing and their perceptions of the role of visual over time. If the participants’ answers are not clear enough, follow-up questions will be asked to encourage them to elaborate their thoughts. The interview protocol for the three interviews can be found in Appendix D. Figure 4 shows data collection at different stages.. 24. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(39) Figure 4. Procedure of Data Collection. 立. 政治大 Data Analysis. All the recordings of interviews and the discussions or presentations related to visual. ‧ 國. 學. literacy or multimodal writing in the videotapes were transcribed into texts for later analysis.. ‧. There were mainly two ways to analyze the data to answer the two research questions. First,. y. Nat. in order to understand the participants’ development of visual literacy and competency across. er. io. sit. time, Bowen’s (2017) Visual Literacy Competency (VLC) rubric was used as an analytical framework. This rubric was used to understand how students analyze, recreate or create. al. n. v i n CofhVLC, from recognition, visual representations and their level identification and narration, engchi U. manipulation and recreation, to creation and application. Table 6 presents the descriptions of the five levels.. 25. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(40) Table 6. Visual Literacy Competency (Bowen, 2017, p.713). 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Second, in order to gain understanding of how visual literacy interact with the students’ writing in different genres and its role, thematic analysis from Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-step framework for analyzing was adopted. The researcher firstly read the transcripts, documents, reflective journals, and artifacts repeatedly to get familiar with all the data, and then generated initial codes. The coding was read across the data set to identify potential patterns and themes for the role of visual literacy in multimodal genre writing. After. 26. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(41) defining and naming the theme, potential phenomena was identified with the examples. Figure 5 shows Braun & Clarke’s six-step (2006) thematic analysis.. Figure 5. Braun & Clarke’s (2006) Thematic Analysis. 政治大. 立. As for students’ writing, the rubric designed by College Entrance Examination Center. ‧ 國. 學. (2016, p.10) in Taiwan was used to evaluate the two selected participants’ writing. This rubric was adopted because it was the standard for EFL senior high students to reach organization,. ‧. structure, grammar, and vocabulary in the English writing part in Taiwan. Table 7 illustrates. y. Nat. n. er. io. al. sit. description of every domain of the rubric.. iv n U Poor. Table 7. Writing Rubric from College Entrance Examination Center (2016, p.10) Level and. Excellence/. score. Good (5-4). Ch. Clear topic (sentence) with specific content. organization. examples or details to support the main idea. Structure of the text is clear and the flow is smooth and. e Fair ngchi. Very poor. (3). (2-1). (0). The topic is not clear enough or obvious. Some. The topic is not clear. Most descriptions are irrelevant to the. The content does not reveal the development of. details are given but not sufficient.. topic or not insufficient to support the main idea.. the topic. No detains are given to support the main idea.. Structure of the text is not clear enough with insufficient use 27. Structure of the text is not obviously developed. The. No demonstration of the structure.. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.

(42) logically connected. Connectors are. of connectors and some missing. text is not coherent with unsatisfactory. appropriately used.. information.. use of cohesive devices.. (Nearly) no grammatical Grammar, syntactic structure and mechanics. and mechanical mistakes. Appropriate and abundant use of the syntactic structure.. 立. Grammatical and. Serious. mechanical mistakes are frequently found. The errors make meaning. grammatical and mechanical mistakes. The errors impede communication. obscured. 治政大 Spelling mistakes. of the meaning.. and mechanical mistakes. The errors have no influence on the interpretation of the meaning. Demonstrate repeated use of. and incorrect use. 學. Vocabulary and spelling. ‧ 國. Demonstrate. Little grammatical. Cohesion is totally absent.. ‧. accurate of the vocabulary vocabulary and spelling and are frequently some inaccurate broad use of the found, making use of the language. misunderstanding language. of the meaning.. Only write few. Nat. er. io. sit. y. words that related to the topic.. al. To ensure reliability of the analysis, one rater who is also studying for an M.A. in. n. v i n TESOL was invited to analyzed theC two writing with the researcher. To hstudents’ e n g cmultimodal hi U increase inter-rater reliability, the two raters including the researcher firstly discussed the. rubric together to ensure proper understanding of the description and standards. During the analyzing process, the two raters corrected to students’ writings separately and individually. Then, they compared the results to see whether there were discrepancies. When the differences were found, they discussed before reached an agreement about the levels based on the rubric. As for intra-rater reliability, the research read and analyzed the students’ work for at least two times to avoid overlooking or carelessness.. 28. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900350.