Centre for Research in Multiliteracies

Exploring Multimodal Worlds

We exist in new times. It has been new for a while, but the pace of change has not necessarily been reflected in literacy curriculum and pedagogy. Mobile communication devices, billboards, animated movies, valued artifacts, hypertext, 2D vs. 3D, we are living in a sea of texts that are converged, remixed, and spun out different modes and concepts that make communication a complicated enterprise.

The Centre for Multiliteracies at Brock University is committed to researching what literacy is in the 21st century. Situated in a picturesque part of the Niagara escarpment, we research how to stretch concepts of reading to include graphic and vernacular books beloved by many junior and adolescent readers; we research new forms of writing as multimodal compositions; we research new teaching methodologies in the 21st century such as using iPads, flip cameras, Smart board technologies, and using ishuffles to invite alternative modal learning; and, a videogaming laboratory where researchers can observe, document, and analyze game play.

Please join in the Global Conversations Session on February 19th, 2012 at http://globalconversationsinliteracy.wordpress.com when Dr. Peggy Albers will be speaking with Drs. Kate Pahl and Jennifer Rowsell about Artifactual Literacies, Materializing Literacy, The Aesthetics of the Everyday and Modal Learning. 

Visiting Scholar to Centre for Multiliteracies
Dr. Lisha Chen is an Associate Professor at Beijing Forestry University in China. She specializes in English language and literature. She received  her BA from Hunan Normal University of China in 1982, her MA in 2002 and her PhD in 2010. She has been working as an English teacher since 1982 and has been teaching in Beijing Forestry University since 2002. Before she shifted to Beijing Forestry University she taught in Central South University of Technoledgy of China. Her major field is in English and American Literature and recently her interest has shifted to Language Assessment. In 2009, Dr. Chen received funding from a provincial educational school board on teaching and assessing Chinese college Students’ pragmatic competence in English learning. 

Associated Faculty

• Dr. Jennifer Rowsell, Director and Canada Research Chair in Multiliteracies
• Dr. Camille Rutherford
  
• Dr. Candace Figg
  
• Dr. Kari-Lynn Winters
  
• Dr. Tiffany Gallagher
  
• Dr. Dolana Mogadime
• Dr. Vera Woloshyn

Associated Students

• Hanin Bengezi
• Nadine Litwin

Partnering Institutions & Scholars

• Dr. Deborah Kozdras, Chief Creative Officer
• Gus A. Stavros Center for Free Enterprise and Economic Education
• Dr. Mary Lovering
• Dr. Julian Sefton-Green
• SSHRC Insight Development Grant
• Reading by Design: 21rst Century Reading
• Brock Team: Drs. Jennifer Rowsell (PI), Tiffany Gallagher, and Ruth Mcquirter-Scott (Co-Investigators)
• Australian Team: Drs. Alyson Simpson (University of Sydney) and Maureen Walsh (Australian Catholic University) (CIs)
• US Team: Drs. Diane Lapp and Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University) (CIs)
• Research Assistants: Katia Ciampa and Mary Lovering (Brock University) (CIs)