DEVELOPING the STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING OF A NARRATIVE FILM TEXT through integration

As mentioned in the rationale of Lesson 1, as part of an extension of the Learning by Design Framework with pedagogical features in the systemic functional approach (Lim, 2018), the teacher will focus on facilitating the acquisition and understanding of how the different semiotic modes can work together in a narrative film text through 4) Integration (Lim & Tan, 2018). 

In this lesson, the students will learn to examine the relationships between the visual, gestural, spatial and audio semiotic modes and the affordances of the integration of semiotic modes by viewing artefacts (a Spotify soundtrack and a Youtube video with no sound) which were created without one or more of the semiotic modes. This allows them to understand how the integration of semiotic modes can create coherence in the overall meaning of the multimodal text and thereby achieve its purpose.


critical viewing of a narrative film 

Through the reflexive pedagogy of blending both inquiry-based learning and didactic teaching, an inductive learning approach is achieved (Lim, 2018).

The students engage in inquiry-based learning through the interaction with their peers in their expert groups and collaboratively derive meaning from viewing the multimodal text (their assigned scene of the narrative film). Thereafter, when they share their knowledge with their peers in their home groups, they will be able to summarise their learning experiences and seek clarification from the teacher if necessary. As the students work through the tasks in their home groups, this "collective negotiation of meaning, argumentation and citation of evidence to defend their interpretation" gives the students an opportunity to develop a more "robust analysis of the multimodal texts they view and a deeper appreciation of the multimodal composition" (Lim, 2018). 
 
Didactic teaching took place in Lesson 1, where the students are directly taught the meta-language to describe narrative film texts.

The use of educational technology platforms, such as VideoAnt and Padlet, facilitate the collaborative annotation and analysis of multimodal texts.

As a dimension of the Learning by Design Framework, the students are also engaged in the critical framing process as they interrogate the narrative film text and examine the relationships between the different semiotic modes and their functions in the meaning-making process (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015). This will enable them to formulate logical reasonings which are affirmed and reinforced through explicit instruction by the teacher (Lim, 2018).        


evaluation of the choices made in a narrative film                  
Learning is recursively co-designed when the teacher and the students participate in the co-creation of the class rubric.

The class rubric focuses on the evaluation of the relevance, effectiveness and creativity of the use of the audio semiotic mode because of its connection to the activity in Lesson 3, where students have to create a digital storyboard. Thus, the students will be able to apply the the class rubric that they have created together to make meaning of the connection between the audio and visual elements.

When the teacher collaborates and interacts with the students during the co-creation process, the students play a part in contributing to the content and develop a sense of self-ownership as a result, which is a balancing of epistemic agency (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015a, 2019; Montebello et al., 2018a; Smith, McCarthey, & Magnifico, 2017; van Haren & Harroun, 2019). Moreover, the students engage in authentic learning because they get to make decisions in the creation of their own assessment tool. As such, students will gain a deeper understanding of what is required in the assessment and be more responsible for their own artefacts. 

Last but not least, the students will apply the class rubric independently. As they are only expected to assess the effectiveness, this task is not too demanding and at the same time, it allows the teacher to check if the students are able to provide suitable reasonings to support their evaluation ratings before they move on to Lesson 3, which would require them to be familiar with the class rubric.