While historically, schools have promoted the acquisition of standardized language (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015), language is socially constructed, and the negotiation of its meaning is dynamic (e.g., Thorne, 2013). Language, through the lens of translanguaging theory, can be reconceptualized as multilingual, multisemiotic, multisensory, and multimodal. Including multimodality in this framework adds to students' repertoires of socio-linguistic analysis (Li Wei, 2018; Cope, Kalantzis, & Tzirides, 2024). The multiliteracies pedagogical approach recognizes the sociocultural context of language and its varieties. However, its framework on metalanguage analysis serves to focus on multimodality, specifically the transfer of meaning forms across mediums (Cope & Kalatnzis, 2020; Cope, Kalantzis & Tzirides, 2024). While researchers have conceptualized shared terminology to explore multimodality and its metafunctions across mediums (e.g., Halliday & Mathiessen, 2014; Lim, 2022), fewer studies have explicitly explored the pedagogical approach of multiliteracies in heritage language classrooms (e.g., Prada, 2022). This article focuses on the application of shared metalanguage, and transpositional grammar functions proposed by Cope & Kalantzis, 2015), to analyze artwork as a part of a thematic unit in a high school heritage language classroom to offer implications for curricular design.

Heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States first had contact with English at a young age while still maintaining a level of proficiency in Spanish; heritage speakers of Spanish come from diverse backgrounds in terms of socioeconomic status, race, etc (Prada, 2022). The field of Spanish teaching has contributed to pedagogical research on multiliteracies, be it explicit or not (Lacorte, 2018), such as through the implementation of multimodal art forms in a heritage Spanish classroom at the college level (e.g., Prada, 2022; Parra et al., 2018). Prada (2022) specifically addresses the pedagogical implementation of show-telling after giving background on translanguaging, multimodal learning, and multiliteracies practices. He states that a heritage curriculum must center differentiation to support students linguistically and culturally, citing that while heritage Spanish-speaking students may be expected to be literate, there have been systemic failures that have impacted their education as educational models have not adapted to their multilingual identities. This means that courses must be designed with inclusion in mind.

While research regarding multimodal learning has been conducted at the university level for Spanish heritage language learners (e.g., Prada, 2022; Parra et al., 2018), there is also a need for this research to be done at the high school level. His paper focuses on scaffolding high school students' ability to analyze artwork in a heritage Spanish classroom prior to applying their knowledge to their own presentational art project with a written component.

Language, through the lens of translanguaging theory, can be reconceptualized as multilingual, multisemiotic, and multimodal. Including multimodality in this framework adds to students' repertoires of socio-linguistic analysis (Li Wei, 2018; Cope, Kalantzis & Tzirides, 2024). Students stand to benefit from learning how to negotiate meaning in a diverse range of contexts, potentially influenced by life experience, subject matter, etc. (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015).

Translanguaging pedagogy, which acknowledges the ability to move between languages rather than the "switch" codes, can aid in this as it incentivizes students to explore the bridge across languages and to understand and analyze language ideologies, such as analyzing the choice to use two different languages in the same caption of a photo which would challenge monolinguistic and standardized language ideologies. This encourages students to analyze context, agency, and audience.

The multiliteracies pedagogical approach recognizes the sociocultural context of language and its varieties. However, its framework on metalanguage analysis serves to focus on multimodality, specifically the transfer of meaning forms across mediums (Cope & Kalantzis, 2020; Cope & Kalantzis, & Tzirides, 2024). This is where transpositional grammar comes into play. Transpositional grammar builds on systemic functional theory by focusing on patterns of meaning forms across different mediums (e.g., Lim, Cope & Kalantzis, 2022; Cope & Kalantzis, 2020).

As multimodality means experiencing meaning created across different mediums (e.g., paintings, photographs, sculptures, websites, etc.), metalanguage is the ability to discuss the artistic/rhetorical choices that go into creating meaning across mediums. Transpositional grammar bridges this by breaking down the basic meanings or "functions" that expressed across different meanings.

Cope & Kalantzis (2021) outline 5 functions of transpositional grammar to analyze educational artifacts: 1) Reference 2) Agency 3) Structure 4) Context 5) Interest. Complementing the term "function" in linguistics, Cope & Kalantzis (2020) employ the term "meaning forms" to aim to have people think of different meaning patterns of text, sound objects, etc.

According to Lim (2021), Hallidayan metafunctions (Halliday, 1998; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) have served as inspiration for multimodal resources and frameworks provided by different researchers. These researchers include Cope & Kalantzis (2020), as they specifically named their 3 functions of Reference, Agency, and Structure based on Hallidayan metafunctions for their theory of transpositional grammar, which serves as their framework for analyzing multimodal metafunctions. Cope & Kalantzis (2020) stated that the renaming of their functions was to certify that their conceptual framework was specifically meant to work well across mediums (e.g., speech, text). They provide one example of multimodal frameworks that have repurposed and renamed Hallidayan metafunctions, with their specific aim being to broaden networks of meaning (Lim, 2020).

In order to apply these functions to my own teaching context, I have modified the 5 functions outlined by Cope & Kalantzis (2021) to stay consistent with the terminology used in AP Spanish Literature as a form of backwards unit planning for the Heritage Spanish 1 course that I facilitate.

These 5 functions work in relation to the analysis framework provided by the College Board for AP Spanish Literature, and I think art is a great way for students to focus on analysis in a way that is engaging but still provides higher-order thinking. The art in the unit will consider globalization and societies in contact as paintings refer to mass displacement and cultures and languages of mayas, “aztecs” (mexicas), inca, olmecs in addition to other cultures and their languages (Kalantzis & Cope, 2006). This ties into the term “multiliteracies” expressed by the work of Cope, Kalantzis, and Tzirides (2024), as it recognizes the multimodal, polysemiotic ways of creating meaning while also taking sociocultural and language differences into account.

Cope & Kalantzis (2015) state that it is not enough to cover standardized language in school, as students benefit from learning how to negotiate meaning in different contexts which can be influenced by gender, subject matter, life experience, etc. This relates to the 5 functions that Cope & Kalantzis (2021) recommend utilizing to study educational artifacts, looking at 1. reference (what’s this about?) 2. agency (who or what is acting?) 3. structure (how does this hang together), 4. context (what’s around this) and 5. interest (who or what is this for?). I plan on using this method to help students analyze art in my upcoming art unit this upcoming semester in my Heritage Spanish 1 course, as I think it will help scaffold students' ability to analyze by the time they get to AP Spanish Literature. For this unit, I wanted to consider how I would apply this method of analysis based on a research article (Escobar Zelaya, 2021) that features paintings of Castas, as those works are covered in this course.

AP Spanish Literature focuses on themes and sociocultural context/time period which will relate to these 5 analysis questions. The theme can fall under reference as it relates to what it is about, and the time period falls under context. A sample theme would be “Societies in Contact”, as the Castas are about the sociocultural context that occurred during the 16th century, la época de la conquista. The agency of this is to maintain the hegemony of the Spaniards during the time period by creating class divisions through racial construct. The structure of the artwork will serve as “textual” evidence. How do different elements support the development of the theme (reference) and the context? Interest is based on the intended audience. Casta paintings upheld ideologies of race and social status that were imposed by Spaniards in Latin America.

As emphasized by my department, it is important to use common language for students across content. Therefore based on working through my thoughts above, I will use the following terms for students’ art analysis. Note: Theme was changed to message because topic and theme are the same words in Spanish.

1. Sociocultural context (What is the cultural and social environment that influences this work?)
2. Agency (Who or what drives the creative choices?)
3. Audience (What is the intended audience?)
4. Topic (What is this about?)
5. Message (What does this teach us about?)
6. Design & Structure (What creative choices are made to support the work’s message?)

1. Contexto sociocultural (¿Cuál es el entorno cultural y social que influye en esta obra?)
2. Agencia (¿Quién o qué impulsa las decisiones creativas?)
3. La audiencia (¿Que es la audiencia destinataria?)
4. Tema/topic (¿De qué se trata la obra?)
5. El mensaje (¿Sobre qué nos enseña? ¿Cuál es el tema/theme?)
6. Diseño y estructura (¿Qué decisiones creativas se toman para respaldar el mensaje del trabajo?)

Here is a link to the worksheet in progress that is aimed to scaffold the analysis of artwork.

Fig. 1: Andrea Czart, Spanish worksheet. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gERwDx-GPut89o0feHMGe2eXY4ztfPB8S03g64b7DoU/edit?usp=sharing

Linked here is the English translation of the worksheet design.

Fig. 2: Andrea Czart, English translation of the worksheet. https://docs.google.com/document/d/10SgG5T0oXkfOehan2LwqguRDErCTQ0CbcP7G_JdcFJM/edit?usp=sharing

This semester, I utilized the worksheet to scaffold my own image analysis that I wrote for my EPOL 523 course. This helped me put myself in my students' shoes to be able to see how this could guide my own critical thinking but also aided me in my writing of a more traditional essay. This allows me to envision the impact that this can have on students' own critical thinking abilities along with the impact on their linguistic repertoire.

Fig. 3: Andrea Czart, Image Analysis applied to photographs for EPOL 523. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dwzb59o5mPCC7jNDMl7p9qyaduJJOAPIvcFpvIqn284/edit?usp=sharing

Fig. 4: Andrea Czart, EPOL 523 Image Analysis. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KlW3qT0-WvuLDQNS95DwdTzypNuFPfzb5HG8G0exNVE/edit?usp=sharing

Figure 3 is a worksheet that displays how the theoretical functions can be utilized to scaffold the written image analysis of multimodal work, as displayed in Figure 4. In these Figures, I analyze photographs and their sociocultural context to tie them to the theme of involuntary migration and analyze how the choices of the photographers portray the experiences of migrants and how they appeal to an intended audience to spread awareness and advocate for migrants, particularly child migrants. Utilizing the worksheet I created helped me to analyze the photographs and helped me develop my academic writing. However, the worksheet is just one way to consider the functions and can be utilized to scaffold critical thinking and can be applied in different ways to encourage students to analyze meaning across different purposes and encourage them to make their own creative choices within different thematic units.

One of the limitations regarding the application of these functions is that I have not yet had a chance to scaffold the analysis in this way and to implement this with my students to see the impact this could have on their perspectives of art created by Spanish speakers. However, last year, students created a piece of artwork where they discussed symbolism and reflected upon it as the culminating presentation project for the art unit. For example, one student drew grapes to represent New Year's traditions while another illustrated Messi to discuss his impact on soccer as a part of his culture along with the value of hard work and determination. Another student discussed how her experiences in the U.S. served as a contrast to her lived experience in Colombia where she felt the people were more outgoing and welcoming. They did well on the reflection component, but I believe that more scaffolding is ideal for students to be able to consider their artistic agency through metalanguage, and I would like my students to be more prepared for this once they get to this point of the uni. I would like to do this by scaffolding students' ability to analyze the artwork of others before doing so on their own. A limitation to my planning is that prior research has focused on presentational projects but not detailing much of the scaffolding prior to the project.

A limitation to multimodal learning, in general, is the time it takes to prepare such lessons in order to engage students, especially when wanting to scaffold but still leaving room for student choice. However, different blogs like the Comprehensible Classroom aim to help teachers with templates and ideas for engaging learners. For example, the game "Caption This" could serve as a way to introduce multimodal creations to then engage in analysis guided by the 5 functions (Cope & Kalantzis, 2021).

Fig. 5: Martina Bex, Comprehensible Classroom. https://comprehensibleclassroom.com/blog?refinementList%5BblogCategories%5D%5B0%5D=blogCategories_games

Fig. 6: Comprehensible Classroom, Caption This. https://comprehensibleclassroom.com/blog/caption-this-activity-to-provide-secret-input

Limitations to implementation may also be context-specific. Prada (2022) researched the meaning-making process of a collage in a university Spanish composition class for heritage speakers. Some of the challenges that were experienced were due to unexpected circumstances (remote learning due to COVID). Overall, the project seemed to be successfully turned into practice, and I like that there was mention of scaffolding through tutorials and “traditionally formatted” writing prompts to help build up to the project. What, to me, really solidified the success of this project is the student reflections, as they discussed their choices and how their choices related to the assigned theme (related to experiences impacted by COVID). The reflections were impactful and some unique to the experiences of heritage speakers, and I would actually like to use the products of their perspectives as examples for my students. I also read about an art project that gave more options for themes and art forms than Prada (2022). The project was for a heritage Spanish course at Harvard, and the course was inspired by the book A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Learning by Design and discussed student choice and input in the curriculum. Part of that choice came in the form of reading software from UNAM that was edited to fit course themes and length (Parra et al., 2018). This was also implemented with success, and simply stated that since there was so much that they wanted to cover, student choice and input helped narrow it down. These projects align with my goals, as my own students have a multimodal project similar to both of these, as it is an art project with a reflection component. I simply want to help students analyze artwork before we get to that point, to help them reflect on their own creative processes. I believe transpositional grammar theory (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015) serves to scaffold this.

Fig. 7: La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, reading software. http://librosoa.unam.mx/handle/123456789/1296.

Prior to their final unit project, I plan on having students create an advertisement to consider design choices such as color as a way of allowing students to practice analyzing their own creative process and considering their audience. One thing to consider based on the work by Parra et al. (2019) is that students have an interest beyond learning content goals (e.g., analyzing artwork) but want to be aware of the language goals and tools that allow them to analyze artwork (e.g., specific vocabulary, sentence frames, grammar, etc.). The students in the study make it clear they want to expand their linguistic repertoire and have an explicit awareness that they are developing their language skills throughout their thematic units (hence the reading software). While the studies that I could find focused on the university level, I find this to also be relevant at the high school level.

As this paper is primarily theoretical (as the unit has not yet started for me to apply this), future research that describes the implementation of multiliteracies practice through case studies and/or action research at the high school level would be beneficial. Studies at the high school level with the discipline of teaching Spanish do not always seem to have an explicit focus on multimodal learning (Lacorte, 2018), and while some do, that does not mean the work focuses on heritage language learners. Comparative/experimental studies that contrast multimodal pedagogy with unimodal pedagogy could also be beneficial in understanding the potential benefits of multimodal pedagogy and explicitly describing the application of multimodal learning in the classroom.

When I was in high school, I was enrolled in Heritage Spanish courses and am now a high school teacher. I am of mixed heritage (Mexican mother and Polish-German-American father). This research has stemmed from the units and courses I teach (more detail in the application section). As a high school Spanish teacher, I have affirmative beliefs regarding translanguaging and the use of multimodality through the implementation of Universal Design for Learning. This work on multimodality and art had a foundation in a pedagogy development course that I took this spring called "Worlds of Experience for Language Learning" (WELL) that was offered by the University of Arizona. This helped grow my knowledge of digital multimodal learning. I used this course to apply my knowledge to improve my spring art unit and am continuing to do so through this course. As a second-year Spanish teacher, this upcoming spring will be my second time teaching this unit.

Fig. 8: Worlds of Experience for Language Learning, Summary of my WELL project. https://sites.google.com/arizona.edu/home/participant-pages/andrea?authuser=0

Fig. 9: Andrea Czart, Virtual Field Experience. https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1838252197268161380

Fig. 10: Andrea Czart, Video explanation. https://www.loom.com/share/fd60e97ff7e3416e8b7c269166d32b7e?sid=3e1a6a01-f544-4376-b0ee-554002976a59

Fig. 11: Andrea Czart, Supplemental Game. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hmRxtOTP7WmO4Bqmh10kIWJdLmk8cmFGNggTWgwcDsw/edit#slide=id.g2c249782619_0_0

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Halliday, M., Matthiessen, C. M., Halliday, M., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203783771

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2021). Pedagogies for digital learning: From transpositional grammar to the literacies of education. In Sidoni, M.G. Editor & Moschini, I. Editors (Eds.), Multimodal literacies across digital learning contexts (pp. 34-53). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003134244-2.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2015). The Things You Do to Know: An Introduction to the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies. In Cope, B. Editor, & Kalantzis, M. Editor (Eds.), A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Learning by design (pp. 1–36). Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539724_1

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Escobar Zelaya, S. (2021). The remains of castas in Latin America. Global Insight: A Journal of Critical Human Science and Culture, 2. https://doi.org/10.32855/globalinsight.2021.002

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2020). Adding sense: Context and interest in a grammar of multimodal meaning. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108862059

Lacorte, M. (2018). Multiliteracies pedagogy and heritage language teacher education: A model for professional development. In Multiliteracies pedagogy and language learning (pp. 197–225). Palgrave Macmillan.

Lim, F. V. (2021). Book review: Making sense: Reference, agency and structure in a grammar of multimodal meaning and Adding sense: Context and interest in a grammar of multimodal meaning. Multimodality & Society, 1(1), 119–123. https://doi-org.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/10.1177/2634979521992025

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Prada, J. (2022). Approaching composition as showing–telling through translanguaging: Weaving multilingualism, multimodality, and multiliteracies in a digital collage proyecto final. Languages, 7(1), 1–70. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010070

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