“Don’t Tell Me It’s Not Research”

If we are to reframe social semiotics and multimodality as decentering dominant ideas of power and what “counts” as purposeful meaning making, then it is imperative that we acknowledge our students as intentional, skillful, and knowledgeable creators of multimodal text. Students who practice research positioned as critical inquirists are invited to question and challenge the very instructional design and purpose of their schooling, are self-empowered to question the status quo, recognize inequities where they are present, and use their learning to speak out, share their experience and advocate for change they see as necessary. The purpose of this chapter is to explore what happens when teachers and students abandon the traditional paradigm of research-based writing (or in other words, “the paper”) for the study and construction of multimodal, critical, inquiry-based texts meant for community consumption via a digital platform. The Digital Museum Project represents the shift to implementing research-based writing assignments using a critical inquiry framework as one that privileges youth perspectives, experiences, and calls for action.

The chapter will begin with an overview of this teacher’s curricular aims and the resulting driving questions that guide student learning. In the case of this particular instructional practice, students are being asked to consider the question, “How do we use inquiry and activism to tell our truths?” This will include a discussion of the learning unit’s connection to the theoretical frameworks of social semiotics and criticality as focused upon in this volume. In other words, this chapter will explain how students, along with their teachers, can be invited to become critical multimodal authors through the construction of digital museum exhibits that “advanc[e] criticality and [push] youths to cultivate the tools to dismantle deficit ways of the world, protect themselves against wrongdoing, and ultimately transform the world for the better” (Muhammad, 2018, p. 139).

Next, the chapter will provide a review of instructional moves made to assist students in the critical reading of multimodal texts, focusing specifically on physical and virtual museum exhibit designs. Focus is placed on which modes of design and expression, voices, and lived experiences are privileged, and which are missing. Students are then tasked to construct their own virtual museum exhibit for the culminating assessment of their critical inquiry as evidence of their work toward answering the driving question noted above. The construction of their digital museum exhibit requires them to consider the multiple modes they will be communicating their intention to their given audience. Both the content of their inquiries as well as their methods of and purposes for the work relates to Muhammad’s call for criticality, in that they speak to critical issues important to them as young people and as understood from their traditionally marginalized positions. The chapter will conclude with samples of instructional materials and student work, as well as a discussion of implications and next steps for this work in the following school year.