Epilogue: Looking Back to Look Ahead

Abstract

By definition, an epilogue is a concluding segment of a literary work that often describes the futures of its main characters. It can also be a short speech at the end of a play or musical interlude that addresses the audience directly. Leaning in the direction of the latter, we propose as writers of this epilogue to engage in a bit of poetic license while not deviating from the seriousness of the subject at hand. Our intention is to use multiple modes–as much as possible within a traditional print text–to achieve what we perceive is the purpose of the Journal of Education's themed issue on “Becoming a Nation of Readers: Retrospectives and Visions.” Namely, we offer a retrospective and visionary examination of literacy instruction from a multimodal perspective that includes visual imagery, icons, and memes to make connections between what the authors of other pieces in this issue have argued and how we envision their points playing out in the future.