NEW LITERACIES The Connecticut Reading Association Journal • Volume 1 • Issue 1 ISSN 2169-2777 READING DIGITALLY LIKE A HISTORIAN: Using Multimedia Texts to Facilitate Disciplinary Learning Michael Manderino, Ph.D, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL A mong the recommendations for ameliorating the lack of literacy achievement for adolescents (ACT, 2006; Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) is to reconceptualize the ap- proach to literacy instruction in school subjects to focus on the literacies that are speciic to the disciplines instead of applying generic literacy strategies across all content areas (Conley, 2008; Lee & Spratley, 2009; Moje, 2009; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). A disci- plinary literacy approach to instruction focuses on the ways that knowledge is produced, communicated, dissemi- nated, and critiqued in a speciic dis- cipline (Shanahan, 2009). Disciplinary literacy then is comprised of the cog- nitive literacy processes used to make meaning, the cultural tools, including language and texts that mediate think- ing, and the epistemic beliefs about knowledge and knowledge production that constitute the discipline (Moje, 2007; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). herefore, learning focuses on reading, writing, speaking, listening, and think- ing like a historian, chemist, mathema- tician, or literary critic. his paper will focus on the discipline of history. Historians value the use of primary and secondary sources in their inquiry and yet when one envisions how the discipline of history is enacted in a high school classroom, images of text- books, ilmstrips and old dusty maps may be conjured up that send shivers down the spine. History teachers are often chided for their liberal use of videos to augment their instruction. But what do we know about the types of texts that are so pervasive in the history classroom? How do students make sense of multimedia texts and integrate their meanings with their own historical knowledge and the knowledge extracted from traditional textbooks as well as primary and sec- ondary sources? I argue that the use of a range of texts that are prevalent within a discipline like history includ- ing audio, video, and images must be utilized in order to further promote disciplinary literacy for adolescents. Reading Online in History Recently, literacy research has focused on the literacy practices required to make meaning from the texts that are integral to everyday life—that is, texts that are omnipresent through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as comput- ers, smart phones, IPods/IPads, and so on (e.g. Alvermann, 2002; Coiro, 2011; Knobel and Lankshear, 2007; Leu, McVerry, O’Byrne, Kiili, Zawa- linski, Everett-Cacopardo, & Forzi, 2011). hese media tools are used when reading text in non-tradition- al formats like multimedia sources found on the Internet (Coiro, Kno- 79 bel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008). Mayer (2005) deines multimedia as, “pre- senting words (such as printed text or spoken text) and pictures (such as illustrations, photos, animation, or video).” Access to multimedia texts has exploded with the expan- sion of the Internet, text messaging, instant messaging, blogging, IPods/ IPads, social networking, and so on. As a result of the expansion of these technologies, teen use of multimedia has grown exponentially over the past 5 years (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). Adolescents are immersed in a context of multimedia consumption and production that can be leveraged for classroom instruction. Multimedia sources like audio and video clips, lash animation, and an array of images and pictures found on- line can expand the number of possible meanings students can create. When teaching with multiple multimedia sources, meaning creation becomes much like the kind of sense making students use in their everyday lives as they negotiate meanings through print, visual, and auditory media on television, the Internet, smartphones, By expanding the notion of what counts as “text”, the study of history can become more nuanced and complex. Increasing the number and quality of historical sources offers new voices and multiple perspectives for historical inquiry. When students create intertextual connections across multiple texts to construct historical meaning, they are engaging in complex disciplinary practice that is personalized instead of distant and voiceless (Paxton, 1999).