This week, I am privileged to present, with my colleagues Dr. Megan Cotnam-Kappel, Julie-Anne Turner and Dr. Janette Hughes, a report of research on the layered literacies practices used by three fifth-grade students as they worked through phases of an interdisciplinary project that included elements of online reading and research, Making, and multimodal composition. In a post-truth world where information is complex and always shifting, it is important for children to come to know that knowledges — in all of their forms — are constructions. We therefore need pedagogies that position and empower children as meaning makers, and idea assemblers themselves. This work is helping us to consider the ways that children make meanings during these types of multidimensional projects as a starting place for future research on student agency and the potential for Making to support students as they learn to become more critical readers, writers, and participants in all of the literacies landscapes they navigate.

Suggested citation: Hagerman, M.S., Cotnam-Kappel, M., Turner, J.-A., & Hughes, J.M. (2019, April 8). Layers of online reading, research, and multimodal synthesis practices while making: A descriptive study of three fifth-grade students. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, ON.