Australian Sign Language

Globalisation and societal change suggest the language and literacy skills needed to make meaning in our lives are increasing and changing radically. Multiliteracies are influencing the future of literacy teaching. One aspect of the pedagogy of multiliteracies is recruiting learners' previous and current experiences as an integral part of the learning experience. This paper examines the implications of results from a project that examined student responses to a postmodern picture book, in particular, ways teachers might develop students' self-knowledge about reading. It draws on Freebody and Luke's Four Resources Model of Reading and recently developed models for teaching multiliteracies. 'If we weren't doing any sessions, I probably wouldn't have thought much about the book being about Europeans and Aboriginals. I probably just thought it was like … It probably just meant to be like one of the others; that they just have no meaning to it. They're just basically there, like Spot or something.' Susan (pseudonym) age 11 This quote from Susan was from the last of four sessions in which a small group of Year Six students read and discussed The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan. The lessons formed part of a small case study, originally conceptualised to explore the notion that students from different backgrounds, cultures and countries might interpret the book differently. The study was conducted in parallel with a similar group of students in the UK and findings were to be compared. However, when the sessions were complete it became apparent that there were implications beyond simply ascertaining that students drew on different socio-cultural resources in order to make meaning. As Susan herself said if there 'hadn't been any sessions' then she would never have accessed other possible meanings in this text. It was this comment that led us to reexamine the transcripts of the sessions with other questions in mind. The re-examination of the transcripts focused on the role 'knowledge about reading' plays in assisting students to make meaning, This time we considered students' identity in terms of both their socio-cultural characteristics and their knowledge and experiences 9

This paper investigates early home literacy practices and their influence on preschool children's literacy and reading development. In particular, two recently developed Australian home literacy interventions are reviewed that were based on a parent shared ...

The digital spaces that young people inhabit are rapidly changing as the technologies and tools of the Internet evolve. As online environments reshape, so too do the identities of the content creators and the texts they produce in community spaces such as Facebook and MySpace. Outside of the school environment, many young people are avid online authors of multimodal texts (Lenhart & Madden, 2005) while, in school, these same students may show a reluctance to engage in paper-based authoring (Witte, 2007). Furthermore, online texts produced by these young authors vary in sophistication and quality (Jenkins et al., 2006; Kimber & Wyatt-Smith, in press). This paper explores current research about middle years students' online authoring and engagement with digital spaces. We will then discuss the curriculum, assessment and pedagogical challenges for us as teachers as we endeavour to engage students and support them in becoming proficient creators of new texts in this new literacies environment.

This paper investigates early home literacy practices and their influence on preschool children's literacy and reading development. In particular, two recently developed Australian home literacy interventions are reviewed that were based on a parent shared ...

Language variation is often symptomatic of ongoing historical change, including grammaticalization. Signed languages lack detailed historical records and a written literature, so tracking grammaticalization in these languages is problematic. Grammaticalization can, however, also be observed synchronically through the comparison of data on variant word forms and multiword constructions in particular contexts and in different dialects and registers. In this paper, we report an investigation of language change and variation in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Signs glossed asfinishwere tagged for function (e.g., verb, noun, adverb, auxiliary, conjunction), variation in production (number of hands used, duration, mouthing), position relative to the main verb (pre- or postmodifying), and event types of the clauses in which they appear (states, activities, achievements, accomplishments). The data suggest ongoing grammaticalization may be part of the explanation of the variation—variants...

Language variation is often symptomatic of ongoing historical change, including grammaticalization. Signed languages lack detailed historical records and a written literature, so tracking grammaticalization in these languages is problematic. Grammaticalization can, however, also be observed synchronically through the comparison of data on variant word forms and multiword constructions in particular contexts and in different dialects and registers. In this paper, we report an investigation of language change and variation in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Signs glossed as finish were tagged for function (e.g., verb, noun, adverb, auxiliary, conjunction), variation in production (number of hands used, duration, mouthing), position relative to the main verb (pre- or postmodifying), and event types of the clauses in which they appear (states, activities, achievements, accomplishments). The data suggest ongoing grammaticalization may be part of the explanation of the variation—varian...

The literary experiences of teens today are vastly different from those of previous generations. The online world ventured into by many young people on a daily basis, provides opportunities to consume, compose and even inhabit new texts. Online ...

The literary experiences of teens today are vastly different from those of previous generations. The online world ventured into by many young people on a daily basis, provides opportunities to consume, compose and even inhabit new texts. Online environments rapidly change, as do the responses and identities of young content creators and the texts they produce in these spaces. Outside of the school environment, many young people are avid online authors of multimodal texts (Lenhart and Madden, 2005) utilizing social networking spaces, such as Facebook and MySpace, and other web services including blogs and video sharing. But, in school, these same students may show reluctance to engage in paper-based authoring (Witte, 2007). Furthermore, online texts produced by these young authors vary in sophistication and quality (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robinson, and Weigel, 2006; Kimber and Wyatt-Smith, 2008). This paper explores current research about the online environment in which young ...

Language variation is often symptomatic of ongoing historical change, including grammaticalization. Signed languages lack detailed historical records and a written literature, so tracking grammaticalization in these languages is problematic. Grammaticalization can, however, also be observed synchronically through the comparison of data on variant word forms and multiword constructions in particular contexts and in different dialects and registers. In this paper, we report an investigation of language change and variation in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Signs glossed as finish were tagged for function (e.g., verb, noun, adverb, auxiliary, conjunction), variation in production (number of hands used, duration, mouthing), position relative to the main verb (pre- or postmodifying), and event types of the clauses in which they appear (states, activities, achievements, accomplishments). The data suggest ongoing grammaticalization may be part of the explanation of the variation—varian...