The re-conceptualisation of texts over the last 20 years, as well as the development of a multimodal understanding of communication and representation of knowledge, has profound consequences for the reading and understanding of multimodal texts, not least in educational contexts. However, if teachers and students are given tools to "unwrap" multimodal texts, they can develop a deeper understanding of texts, information structures, and the textual organisation of knowledge. This article presents a model for working with multimodal texts in education with the intention to highlight mutual multimodal text analysis in relation to the subject content. Examples are taken from a Singaporean science textbook as well as a Chilean science textbook, in order to demonstrate that the framework is versatile and applicable across different cultural contexts. The model takes into account the following aspects of texts: the general structure, how different semiotic resources operate, the ways in which different resources are combined (including coherence), the use of figurative language, and explicit/implicit values. Since learning operates on different dimensions-such as social and affective dimensions besides the cognitive onesour inclusion of figurative language and values as components for textual analysis is a contribution to multimodal text analysis for learning.

This paper examines the affordances of physical objects (e.g. apparatus, models, manipulatives) as they were used by teachers and students to make meaning in coordination with their speech and gestures. Despite the pervasive use of physical objects as material and tactile resources in hands-on investigations or demonstrations, there have been few attempts to analyze their role and function in meaning-making, in the same way, that researchers have previously done for other modes of representation such as speech, written text, diagram and gesture. Using social semiotics as a theoretical framework, we conceptualise physical objects as a semiotic mode with a particular affordance for making meaning that involves embodied actions and manipulation of tools. Based on a multimodal discourse analysis of numerous classroom situations, we illustrate how physical objects as a mode have four unique affordances for meaning-making in science classrooms. These affordances are: (a) enacting material interaction, (b) providing evidential meaning, (c) orientating three-dimensional spatial meaning and (d) sensitising experiential meaning. The implication of why we should use physical objects to support or value-add science meaning-making is then discussed.

Teaching and learning in science disciplines are dependent on multimodal communication. Earlier research implies that students may be challenged when trying to interpret and use different semiotic resources. There have been calls for extensive frameworks that enable analysis of multimodal texts in science education. In this study, we combine analytical tools deriving from social semiotics, including systemic functional linguistics (SFL), where the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions are central. In regard to other modes than writing—and to analyse how textual resources are combined—we build on aspects highlighted in research on multimodality. The aim of this study is to uncover how such a framework can provide researchers and teachers with insights into the ways in which various aspects of the content in multimodal texts are communicated through different semiotic resources. Furthermore, we aim to explore how different text resources interact and, finally, how the students, or authors of teaching resources, position themselves in relation to the subject. Data consist of one student text and one teaching resource text, both comprising drawn and written elements in combination with symbols. Our analyses of the student text suggest that the proposed framework can provide insights into students’ content knowledge and, hence, how construction of multimodal texts may be a useful tool for formative assessment. When it comes to teaching resources, the framework may be a useful tool for teachers when choosing resources, particularly in relation to students’ possibilities of meaning making when engaging with such texts, but also, as a basis for classroom discussions.

This open access book provides an introduction to multimodality and the role of multimodal texts in today’s education. Presenting a comprehensive framework for analysing and working with multimodal texts in disciplinary education, it serves as a tool for researchers and teachers alike. The second part of the book focuses on sample analyses of a variety of educational texts for different age groups and from different disciplines, including games and online resources. The authors also comment on the specific challenges of each text, and how teachers can discuss such texts with their students to enhance both their understanding of the content and their multimodal literacy. The book is intended for researchers in fields like education and multimodal studies, and for teacher educators, regardless of school subject or age group. With the combined perspectives on text analysis and implications for education, the book addresses the needs of teachers who want to work with multimodal aspects of texts in education in informed ways, but lack the right tools for such work.

This study reports on a case study about multimodal work in a primary physics classroom focusing on forces. Previous research reports that students benefit from multimodal work in science classrooms. Yet, few systematic studies have been performed to reveal how students represent their experiences and ideas of science phenomena over time within and across different semiotic modes (e.g., through action, speech, writing, and image, including multimodal ensembles). The design of the lessons was built around a number of experimental activities, starting with a puzzling phenomenon and where students for each experiment predicted, observed, described, and tried to come up with explanations. Based on social‐semiotics, we combined analysis at an overall level (long timescale and large grain size) and a detailed level (short timescale and small grain size) to shed light on how the science content was represented within and between modes over the teaching and learning period, and what content was expressed in these representations. Our findings reveal how students moved from focusing on attributes such as a “heavy” regarding artifacts used in the experiments, towards the central physics processes, such as one object exerting force on another object. Furthermore, we were able to detect that such “signs of learning” were shown in students’ small‐group discussions and multimodal texts following a carefully orchestrated multimodal exposition by the teacher. Hence, such a careful multimodal orchestration appeared to be critical for the students’ meaning‐making about the science content.

Previous research suggests that students use metaphors when asked to explain digestive processes and nutritional uptake. In this paper, we describe the results of a study designed to gain a deeper understanding of how metaphors and anthropomorphisms are used by students when describing such processes. We applied analyses based on the systemic-functional grammar framework to 123 student responses to a question about nutrition on a Swedish national test in biology in order to identify, describe and analyse how students use metaphors and to understand the linguistic structure of those metaphors. We also considered how the metaphors are linked to metaphor systems and anthropomorphisms, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of the role of metaphors in this area. The results of our analyses provide important insights into how students understand digestion and nutrition and could provide the basis for improved teaching materials and methods for these important topics.