Critical Multimodal Literacy

Abstract

This research investigates how three female Nigerian high school students were taught to deploy critical multimodal literacy to interrogate texts and reconstruct unequal social structures. A class of ninth-grade students in an all-women school was given instruction through the analysis of how multiple modes were used to represent meanings in textbooks. Data were collected from multiple sources, including students’ interviews, observations, classroom videos, social media posts, and artifacts of students’ literacies to analyze how they reflect on and critique their personal experiences in Nigeria within and through the English curriculum. The findings suggest that the teacher and students co-constructed possibilities for the learners to critique the social production of gender and resist structural practices that diminish their voices and their literacy learning. The findings indicate a need for English teachers in Nigeria to enact critical multimodal literacy pedagogy which relates instruction to female students’ interests to promote agency and change.