Multimodal literacy: Best practices for comprehension instruction

Usually, when I ask English teachers to discuss the ways in which they address multimodal literacy in their classrooms, I hear about a range of activities that serves as technology-driven eye candy for student engagement. These activities are great ways to engage students initially, but they do little to create formative experiences that allow for learner growth. Equally, what I don’t hear is that multimodal literacy is, really, every-thing. It is silent and spoken, it is textual and oral, it is technology and analogue, and it is reading but also listening. It is drama, art, visual representation.