Comprehension through
TRANSMEDIATION
READERS ENGAGE IN
MUTIMODAL RESPONSE
Understanding
TRANSMEDIATION
 Transmediation: the
process of bringing
meaning from one sign (semiotic)
system to another.
Literacy depends on one’s ability to read a central
concept (the macrostructure) identify separate
ideas, and recognize how they form the
whole….With transmediation students must
consider how the supporting details of a concept
are inherently connected in one sign system in
order to create the structural equivalent in the
second system (McCormick, 2011, p. 580)
Transmediation is
everywhere!
 Book
into movie
 Movie into videogame
 Pop song into music video
 News story into comedy/satire
Resisiting Verbocentrism
 Verbocentrism: privileging
language over images,
movement, music ( Siegel, 1995;2006).
 Reduction

of teaching to telling -
positions students as passive learners ( Goodlad,
1984)
 Weaving
together sign systems of all kinds
affords students the ability to orchestrate
literacy events long before language alone can
serve them.
5
Trying out Transmediation
 We
will be reading a short story.
 As
you read it, sketch what you are “seeing”
in your mind.
 The
story is 3 paragraphs long – create a
sketch for each paragraph.
 Remember
– this is not “art class” the idea is
to portray meaning.
Salvador Late and Early
by Sandra Cisneros
 Salvador
with eyes the color of caterpillar, Salvador
of the crooked hair and crooked teeth, Salvador
whose name the teacher cannot remember, is a
boy who is no one’s friend, runs along somewhere
in that vague direction where homes are the color
of bad weather, lives behind a raw wood doorway,
shakes the sleepy brothers awake, ties their shoes,
combs their hair with water, feeds them milk and
cornflakes from a tin cup in the dim dark of the
morning.
 Salvador,
late or early, sooner or later arrives with
the string of younger brothers ready. Helps his
mama, who is busy with the business of the baby.
Tugs the arms of Cecilio, Arturito, makes them
hurry, because today, like yesterday, Arturito has
dropped the cigar box of crayons, has let go the
hundred little fingers of red, green, yellow, blue,
and nub of black sticks that tumble and spill over
and beyond the asphalt puddles until the
crossing-guard lady holds back the blur of traffic
for Salvador to collect them again.

Salvador inside that wrinkled shirt, inside the throat that must
clear itself and apologize each time it speaks, inside that
forty-pound body of boy with its geography of scars, its history
of hurt, limbs stuffed with feathers and rags, in what part of
the eyes, in what part of the heart, in that cage of the chest
where something throbs with both fists and knows only what
Salvador knows, inside that body too small to contain the
hundred balloons of happiness, the single guitar of grief, is a
boy like any other disappearing out the door, beside the
schoolyard gate, where he has told his brothers they must
wait. Collects the hands of Cecilio and Arturito, scuttles off
dodging the many schoolyard colors, the elbows and wrists
crisscrossing, the several shoes running. Grows small and
smaller to the eye, dissolves into the bright horizon, flutters in
the air before disappearing like a memory of kites.
Discussion & Cooperation
 Reread
the poem and discuss the imagery with
your partner.


Share your drawing with each other.
Compare your drawings and create a final
illustration on a new sheet of paper that combines
all or some of the pictures into an image that
best represents the meaning of the whole story.
“Gallery” Walk
1. With a partner, take a gallery walk of the posted images.
2. Discuss what the final drawings suggest about the story. What
images are common across the gallery?
3. In 10 minutes, please be ready to discuss your ideas with the
whole group.
VSOL/CC Standards
Craft and Structure



Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and
figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the
text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas



Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and
quantitatively, as well as in words.1
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning
as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to
compare the approaches the authors take.
Key Ideas and Details


2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key
supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
What does this mean for students?
 The
existence of multimedia calls for
multiple forms of literacy, forms that can
represent the world of ideas, emotions, and
events with multiple symbols.
 Educational
equity is provided not merely
by opening the doors of the school to the
child but by providing opportunities to the
child to succeed once he or she arrives (
Semali & Fueyo,2001)