Talk
Making Meaning Visible: Infographics and Multimodal Literacy in the L2 Classroom
Beatrice Dupuy
University of Arizona, Professor, Dept. of French & Italian, Dept. of Public & Applied Humanities, Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching
Although communication has always been multimodal, the rise of social media and digital tools has transformed the semiotic landscape. Audio, visual, gestural, and spatial designs increasingly integrate with—or even supplant—traditional linguistic designs in meaning making (New London Group, 1996; The Douglas Fir Group, 2016). Communicative competence today must be understood as multimodal communicative competence, encompassing “the totality of a speaker’s semiotic resources” (The Douglas Fir Group, p. 26).
Digital multimodal composing (DMC) is well documented as a new genre and composing practice in second language (L2) writing (e.g., Belcher, 2017; Elola & Oskoz, 2017; Jiang, 2021; Yi, Shin, & Cimasko, 2020). Yet, L2 classrooms still privilege written texts, neglecting other modes and their interconnectedness, and leaving learners underprepared for the fast-changing communicative practices essential to their present and future lives (e.g., New London Group, 1996; Bezemer & Kress, 2008; Kim & Belcher, 2020).
This talk outlines the theoretical grounding of DMC and demonstrates the pedagogical application of infographics in the L2 classroom. Drawing on the Learning by Design framework (Cope & Kalantzis, 2016), we will examine how learners can be guided to analyze modes and semiotic resources in infographics, interrogate the interests behind them, and develop a metalanguage of multimodal texts in the process. Sample learner artifacts and the multimodality- and genre-informed rubric used to evaluate them will be presented.
Bio:
Beatrice Dupuy is a Professor at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language, and Literacy. Her research focuses on (multi)literacy-based approaches to teaching and learning, multimodality, and language program development and administration. Her most recent publications are The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration and “Infographics by Design: Beginning French Learners’ Multimodal Composition and Authorial Agency”. In Reyes Torres, A., Brisk, M. E. & Lacorte, M. (eds.), Multiliteracies, Multimodality, and Learning by Design in Second Language Learning and Teacher Education (pp. 67-85, Routledge.
Friday, October 10, 2025
In-person & Zoom, 3-5 pm
This lecture is sponsored by the College of Letters and Science.
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