Graduate Student Research Symposium 2026

My self-study explores how implementing multimodal literacy practices influences my teacher identity and perspectives as a middle school English Language Arts teacher. Guided by my research question, How does experimenting with visual texts change my perception of myself as a teacher of literacy?, this study examines my instructional practices during a unit incorporating visual and multimodal texts in a middle school classroom. Through reflective analysis of classroom experiences, I examine how integrating visual storytelling and creative composition reshaped my understanding of literacy instruction. My findings focus on shifts in my beliefs about what counts as literacy, how students engage with visual forms of expression, and how multimodal approaches can expand opportunities for meaning-making in the classroom. This presentation discusses how experimenting with visual texts influenced my teaching identity and broadened my conception of literacy instruction.