Critical Questioning in and beyond the Margins: Teacher Preparation Students’ Multimodal Inquiries into Literacy Assessment

Abstract

This article explores the potential of using multimodal texts—particularly comics—as a way of engaging teacher education students in critical inquiry around literacy and ELA assessments. We describe a qualitative study into the use of a multimodal comics-form article within an ELA/literacy assessment course in an MEd program. Our findings suggest that teacher preparation students were able to effectively remix and play with both comics tropes and more traditional “academic” writerly discourses. The use of multimodal texts in teacher preparation helped students engage in dialogic and critical forms of inquiry around issues related to classroom practices and policies. We end by suggesting ways that English teacher educators can include similar texts and activities in their courses and teacher preparation programs.