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Martin Heidegger famously asserted (1947) that language is the ‘household of being’ (p. 217). Similarly (1927), that it is simultaneously our most fundamental mode of inhabiting every consideration of the question of the meaning of our being-in-the-world (p. 55) even as this essential Seinsfrage has historically been forgotten (p. 21). Pre-eminent among the emerging modes of this philosophical forgetfulness is Technology (1977) which, if we would but dare to subject it to a process of deep questioning, would yield up its essential logos as itself merely another revelatory mode of poiesis (pp. 3, 12-14) – a mode of language for constructing meaningful ways of being in the world.

The understanding of language Heidegger’s phenomenology bears more than a passing resemblance to aspects of what might be called ‘Deep English.’ The present paper attempts something of an outline of what constitutes Deep English as a practice. It assumes that Deep English is more a way of seeing rather than a fixed definition of what is seen. It might even be regarded as a subject-specific, professionally focussed parallel of a larger cultural and historical discourse. Indeed Bulfin & McGraw’s description (2011, p.1) proposes contemporary English practice as a mediating pathway between what Marshall Berman (1982) describes as the competing polarities of modernity – the excessive optimism of the ‘modernolators’ and the pessimism of the ‘visionaries of cultural despair’ (p.169).

In the second place this paper will also attempt an analysis of the proposed unit Living English Through Multimedia Texts. This analysis will be critical in nature and will seek to establish the extent to which it exemplifies aspects of an adequate model of contemporary English in Secondary Schools, one that embraces and appropriates technology in a manner that is equal to the emerging challenges for English in the 21st century teaching and learning environment.

‘Deep English’ might be proposed as that emerging shape of practice which, according to Kress (2000, 2002), has arisen out of a critical need for a self-reflexive discourse able to positively interrogate the ground of its own continuing possibility in an age of instability and multiplicity (p.253f). As Beavis (2010) suggests, it is also a function of the convergence of revolutionary technological changes with an array of competing political and curriculum pressures (p. 21). Citing Kress’ earlier statement (2002) of much of what has since become his seminal body of work on English, multimedia literacy and semiotics (2003, 2005, 2006), Beavis casts the problem of the ‘deep purposes’ of English curriculum in terms of a fundamental question:

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How can new digital texts, technologies, and forms of multimodal literacy be embraced as authentic resources for enacting the kinds of critical and appreciative reading, the living connection between the realms of personal, affective experience and cultural meaning, that have always constituted English practice? (p. 22).

For Cumming, Kimber & Wyatt-Smith (2011) these concerns are made all the more urgent by the fact that the political counterpart of this technologised landscape is increasingly being expressed in terms of a desire for standardised testing and curriculum outcomes. These, however, are largely unequal to the demands of learning in an age of multimodal literacy and perhaps threaten to foreclose on possibilities of a more richly conceived practice in English before they can be fully developed (p. 49). This is fully in accord with Kress’ concern (2002) that English as a subject might well become either an anachronism or a mere adjunct to assist cross curricular literacy unless a renewed vision of its traditional concerns can be reconceived in multimodal terms (2009, p. 17).

Whilst ‘Deep English’ might sound like a rather arcane discourse it is, in fact, a pre-eminently practical preoccupation. It is, as always, still concerned with language, meaning and textuality. But it is also interested to describe the actual ways in which English teachers as practitioners are variously concerned with essaying, from multiple textual perspectives, features of language and meaning, and the very capacity of English teaching itself to meet the challenges of technology. Deep English practice, then, seeks simultaneously to enhance the unique meaning-making possibilities inherent within multimodal literacy and technology whilst resisting being merely enthralled by what Jaron Lanier (2011) has described as technology’s own propensity toward to standardising and predetermining text-making procedures (p. 48).

Living English Through Multimodal Texts is one of a number of proposed learning packages designed to assist pre-service teachers become more conversant with aspects of ICT and multimedia pedagogy. From the perspective of Deep English practice outlined above, both the title and the choice of text for this unit (Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing) might initially appear in a positive light. In realty, however, there are a good number of shortcomings in this proposed unit of work.

In order to provide what, in the space of this paper can only hope to be a reasonably representative critique of this unit the following comments are arranged under those three headings of Mishra & Koehler’s (2006) TPACK framework that are proposed as the organising pedagogical core of the unit.

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i) ICT and Multimodal Technology

A review of this unit conducted by Sutton & Williams (2011) on behalf of the University of Southern Queensland concluded that, although this was one of the more effective units overall, it also tended to trivialise the nature and potential of the technology and that this was reflected in poor lesson planning and an assessment that was inadequately constructed in relation to the nature of the text and the task undertaken (p. 1). In fact a good deal of the emphasis on how to teach the technology appears to dominate the unit documentation and is poorly integrated with considerations of just how this might be delivered as an effective multimodal unit for teaching English.

It is also probably safe to assume that what might be regarded as an over-emphasis on the technology itself might be problematic in the upper year levels, failing to engage those ‘digital natives’ who, according to Hughes (2007) are likely to have an already well developed expertise, or at least an intuitive familiarity with al manner of multimodal texts, text-making practices and experiences of digital literacy.

It would seem apparent, then, that this unit has not actually been developed by English teachers since it is largely concerned with teaching students how to use the technology to create what amounts to little more than an emulation of but one aspect of Shaun Tan’s otherwise complex and engagingly multivalent text.

This is not evidence of good practice in English and certainly would not qualify as an instance of deep English practice adequate to the 21st century world of appreciating how all sorts of possibilities for meaning are mediated in and through digital and other texts. This is primarily because, for English teachers, being conversant with technology is inseparable from a consideration of how that technology shapes meaning and the extent of its cultural significance.

As Kress (2010) asserts, even if 21st century English practice is multimodal in nature, the techniques of multimodality itself cannot hope to supply this dimension of meaningful engagement and deep understanding. We need the critical reflection of language to assist us to make meaning of multimodal texts (p. 3) such that multimodality can, itself, be viewed as a technologically mediated site for conducting those long-standing, deep preoccupations of core English practice.

This proposed unit might therefore benefit from a more thorough-going and robust conception of what Futurelab (2011) – a seemingly parallel project from the

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UK – articulates under a broader, more culturally inclusive definition of the scope of ‘digital literacy’ (p. 3).

ii) Pedagogy

In their review of this unit Sutton & Williams (2011) are highly critical of what they regard as inadequately framed lesson plans and assessment rubrics (p. 2) whilst they generally believe that the task of assisting students to create a multimedia text of their own is a pedagogically sound exemplar of the use of ICT and multimedia technology (p. 1).

It could be argued, however, that Sutton & Williams’ own combined KLA areas of Science, Mathematics and Computing make it difficult for them to assess the proposed activity through an adequately nuanced framework appropriate to English – especially in secondary settings. Indeed, what is striking about this unit is the lack of any significant signature pedagogy which might have extended what has been proposed in the direction of something like a deep English practice. This is despite the fact that a later iteration (2010) of Misra & Koehler’s proposed TPACK framework specifically cites Shulman’s notion of pedagogical content knowledge (and therefore signature pedagogy) as the inspiration for this framework (p. 123).

The proposed unit appears simply to assume that students can be taught to use aspects of multimodal technology to proceed almost directly to the performance and recording of a spoken version of the text under examination. But the ‘immediate’ presumptions of this are inadequate in terms of a deep English pedagogy. A more adequate approach would seek to scaffold a process of writing, perhaps even through a number of drafts and using collaborative learning strategies, as a means of arriving at a version of the text finally to be performed and recorded.

In this manner students can be introduced to the plain fact that all texts, (including multimedia texts) are successful acts of communication which mediate complex meaning precisely because they are the product of deep reflection, the integration of skills across language modes and recursive processes of composition.

Without being adequately framed the proposed activity could actually assist the false impression that technology obviates the need for a pedagogy which carefully scaffolds the learning of these skills and textual experiences. As Shepherd and Mullane (2010) insist this is especially necessary when teaching ‘digital natives’. Because they are so immersed in the propensities of technology to reify assumptions

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of immediacy, appropriate pedagogy is required to assist them to move toward a maturing appreciation of the deep processes of language and meaning at work even in multimodal composition (p. 66).

Additionally, an adequately scaffolded deep English approach to this task recursively also creates an opportunity for the development of necessary complex, higher order cognitive experiences and meta-analyses with respect to language features and texts (Weaver et. al., 2006). If, as Coker and Lewis (2008) also suggest, the very process of writing involves a willingness to entertain a species of creative uncertainty, this is itself one of the necessary skills for life in what Kress (2008) calls the 21st century world of instability and multiplicity.

iii) Subject Knowledge

A greater pedagogical emphasis upon scaffolding processes for writing, drafting and composing a response to a multimodal text like The Lost Thing merely mirrors the extensive and complex multimodal creativity of its composition. Shaun Tan himself (2001) describes the complex relationship between the processes of writing, drafting and composing and assembling images and the final production of a text that is simultaneously simple and complex, and which engages readers and responders at multiple levels. Given that these processes become even more critical and complex in the process of transposing his picture book into a multimodal text, an effective English approach to this text would need to be informed by a much greater depth of specialist curriculum content knowledge than is evident in the proposed unit.

Whilst some attempt is made in the accompanying lesson plan to give attention to more complex features of language in terms of the National Curriculum standards, this is generally not translated into the design of lesson content and pedagogy. This is particularly problematic as a secondary English lesson. As a perfect exemplar of the very multimodality which Kress describes as emblematic of the new textual terrain for English it is disconcerting that the proposed unit does not appear to engage with Tan’s text in terms of this multiplicity, its rich possibilities for meaning, and for the design of richly conceived lessons exploring broader aspects multimodal literacy.

From a Deep English perspective any number of possibilities suggest themselves. As a picture book, The Lost Thing provides a powerful resource for exploring issues such as identity and cultural difference and power (Taliaferro, 2009).

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Lampert (2010) also indicates the extent to which picture books are able to make sophisticated aesthetic and reading experiences available to reluctant readers (p. 106f). For Tan (2001) the very theme of the appearance of The Lost Thing and its ability to disrupt settled perceptions is directly related to the notion of visual literacy and the unique power of multimodal texts to represent and explore this dimension.

But all these require specialist curriculum content knowledge not the least of which concerns the specific literacy practice of decoding visual texts according to what Howie (2010) following Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) describes as the emerging grammar of visual design required to read and fully appreciate the semiotic meaning inherent in all manner of multimodal texts.

In the final analysis it might be conceded that the proposed unit does seek to genuinely embrace the technology of multimodal texts. It fails, however, to elucidate an adequate practice appropriate to the needs of 21st century English teaching which must also attempt the deeper and more complex task of assisting students to appreciate, enjoy and become increasingly proficient in the skill of reading and utilising the underlying grammar of multimodality from which such texts are created.

Deep English as a practice which is inevitably multimodal in nature, but steeped in both the practice wisdom and preoccupations of the past, seeks to engage more critically and creatively with the state of the actual questions posed by technology. This emerging practice views technology and the world of digital texts as neither the devil nor a deliverance from the necessity of deep consideration of how meaning in the actual world is still mediated in and through text and language. In this sense Deep English practice holds out hope of assisting an authentic and therefore genuinely radical revision of its own subject and dicipline.

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References: Beavis, Catherine. (2010). English in the Digital Age: Making English Digital.

English in Australia. Volume 45, Number 2. Berman, Marshall. (1982). All that is Solid Melts into Air. New York: Simon &

Schuster. Bulfin, S. & McGraw, K. (2011). Editorial: Technologies, Texts, and Practices.

English in Australia. Volume 46, Number 3 Coker, David &Lewis, William E (2008). Beyond Writing Next: A Discussion of

Writing Research and Instructional Uncertainty. Harvard Educational Review. Volume 78, Number 1. Retrieved 8 May 2012 from, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/212268026/fulltextPDF?accountid=36155

Cumming, J., Kimber, K., & Wyatt-Smith, C. (2011). Historic Australian Conceptions of English, Literacy and Multimodality in Policy and Curriculum and Conflicts with Educational Accountability. English in Australia. Volume 46, Number 3.

Futurelab. (2011). Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum. Slough: Futurelab. Retrieved 6 May 2012, from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/digital-literacy-across-curriculum-handbook

Heidegger, Martin. (1927/1973) Being and Time. Tr. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Heidegger, Martin. (1947/1993) Letter on Humanism. Tr. F. Capuzzi in Basic Writings. Revised Edition., D. F. Krell Ed. London: Routledge.

Heidegger, Martin. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays. Tr. William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row.

Howie, M. (2010). The Grammar of Visual Design in the English Classroom. Charged with Meaning. Sydney: Phoenix Education.

Hughes, Janette. (2007). Poetry: A Powerful Medium for Literacy and Technology Development. What Works: Research into Practice Research. Monograph #7 Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education. Retrieved 23 April 2012, from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/Hughes.pdf

Kress, Gunther R. (2002). English for an Era of Instability: Aesthetics, Ethics, Creativity and ‘Design’. English in Australia. Number 144. Retrieved May 6 2012, from http://www.aate.org.au/view_journal.php?id=42&page_id=44

Kress, Gunther R. (2003) Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther R. et. al., (2005). English In Urban Classrooms: A Multimodal

Perspective On Teaching And Learning. London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther R. & Van Leeuwen, Theo. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar

Of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther. Meaning and Learning in a World of Instability and Multiplicity.

Studies in the Philosophy of Education. Volume 27, Issue 4. Kress, Gunther. (2009). Changing English? The Impact of Technology and Policy

on a School Subjecy in the 21st Century. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. Volume 8, Number 3.

Kress, Gunther R. (2010). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.

Lampert, J. (2010). Using Picture Books in the Secondary English Classroom. in Charged with Meaning. Sydney: Phoenix Education.

Lanier, Jaron. (2011). You are not a Gadget. London: Penguin Books. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content

Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record. Volume 108, Number 6. Retrieved 6 may 2012, from http://punya.educ.msu.edu/2008/01/12/mishra-koehler-2006/

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Mishra, P. et. al. (2010). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): The Development and Validation of an Assessment Instrument for Pre-service Teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. Volume 42. Number 2. Retrieved 5 May 2012, from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/274696152

Shepherd, C & Mullane, M. (2010). Managing Multimedia Mania: Taming the Technology Beast. Journal of College Teaching and Learning. Volume 7, Number 1.

Sutton, P. & Williams, M. (2011). Living English Through Multimodal Texts – The Lost Thing. A Review of TTF Multimedia units for the University of Southern Queensland School of Education. Retrieved 6 May 2012, from http://www.learningfutures.com.au/teaching-teachers-future

Taliaferro, C. (2009). Using Picture Books to Expand Adolescents’ Imaginings of Themselves and Others. English Journal. Volume 99, Issue 2. Retrieved 30 April 2012, from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/237313942

Tan, Shaun. (2001). Picture Books: Who are they For? A paper presented at the 2001 AATE/ALEA Joint National Conference. Retrieved 29 April 2012, from http://www.education.tas.gov.au/curriculum/standards/english/english/teachers/discussion/picture

Weaver, Constance. et. al., (2006). Grammar Intertwined Throughout the Writing Process: An “Inch Wide and a Mile Deep” English Teaching: Practice and Critique Volume 5, Number 1. Retrieved 2 April 2012, from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2006v5n1art5.pdf

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key aspects of the Rationale as expressed in the NSW Years 7-10 Syllabus Document (NSW Board of Studies, 2003) which asserts that

Students learn English through explicit teaching of language and through their immersion in a diverse range of purposeful and increasingly demanding language experiences. . . Through responding to and composing texts, students learn about the power, value and art of the English language for communication, knowledge and pleasure. They engage with and explore texts that include the literature of past and contemporary societies. By composing and responding with imagination, feeling, logic and conviction, students develop understanding of themselves, and of human experience and culture (p.7).

In the unit under review said that this was one of the better uses of technology but that it was still very basic. This is al the moreso when we think that this might be intended for a secondary class. Not only how to use the technology but to examione the ways in which the very use of the technology, the nature of multimodality tself is a significant shaper of meaning and experience of the text both in itself and in the classroom setting in which it is examines (see Kress 2008 Meaning and Learning in a World of Instability and Multiplicity)

In this paper Kress demonstrates that multimodal texts not only mediate meaning different ly and modify our expeirenceof the text but that the examination of the text differs markedly in the very multimodality of the pedagogical situation.

A larger critical concern also relates to a kind of paradox. Kress indicates that 19th century models of fixity. We are not in that situation any longer and yet, the merely technological approach is one in which the technology serves to create the experience. There is still a de facto fixity which the technology is preparing students for unless it is modulated by a deeper understanding of the essential textuality of technology and multimodality and the foregrounding of u=individual experience.

See also Jaron ? re the extent to which those versed purely in the technology appear to be tone deaf to the deeper individual well-springs of technology and (p.48f)

Once again it is Deep English and its essentially radical conection to the renewed power of its tradition which is able to truly assist in the preparation of

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students crticaly aware of the genuine possbilities in a world od instability and nultiplicity. As Kress (2010) asserts elsewhere multimodality itself is unable to supply this dimension. We need the critical reflection of language to assist us to make meaning of multimodal texts (p. 3)

If Deep English points in the direction of being able to authentically re-assert this subject’s traditional concern with universal human concerns in a genuinely new setting, it is equally possible to view the apparently radical new applications of technology as an instrument of outmoded forms of social imagination when not applied critically and creatively.

In this respect Kress (2008) is critical of older models of English teaching which merely enact 19th century forms of social reproduction more appropriate to a time of predictable social stability. But there is also a well established tradition of critique which asserts that the unthinking use and application of technology can itself become a technique (Ellul, 1954) or mode of power (Mumford, 1967) for the ever more efficient accomplishment of rather antique social purposes.

Given Ken Robinson’s assertion that, despite our clichéd statements to the contrary, we are unable to precisely educate students for a future the shape of which is not yet available to us, Deep English approaches to digital media and literacy seek to meet this inherent multiplicity with means for reading and discerning the emerging future. Only this knowledge can be elaborated in self-determined, creative fashion beyond the presently accepted bounds of our newly technologised field of plausibility.

In fact, Kress asserts that such a challenge is more than adequately addressed by English as conceived as a Deep English practice which recognises that multimodality has, in some form or another, always been part of English practice.

See English in Australia articles

Kress’ articulated solution is genuinely radical (2009, p.11;)

But again this is not new p. 17)

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it is able to cast its own critical simultaneously in two direction: backwards and past all its and forward past the ‘state of the art’ rhetoric of technology toward a suitably sober optimism regarding the possibilities inherent within an emerging multimodal English practice