“Have You Seen Lord of the Rings?” Power, Pedagogy, and Discourses in a Multiliteracies Classroom

Abstract

Literacy today is characterised by rapidly changing and emergent forms of meaning making in the context of increased cultural and linguistic diversity, giving rise to the multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group. This article responds to these imperatives, reporting findings from a critical ethnography investigating the interactions between pedagogy, power, and discourse, and students' access to multiliteracies among culturally and linguistically diverse learners. The article reports the way in which a teacher enacted the multiliteracies pedagogy in the context of Claymation movie-making lessons with her Year 6 (age 11–12 years) class in Australia. A key finding was that students' access to multiliteracies differed among the culturally and linguistically diverse group because of a gap between multiliteracies theory and praxis. Specific recommendations are provided concerning the use of coercive power and the need for culturally inclusive discourses when enacting the multiliteracies pedagogy to enable meaningful designing.