INTO THE MULTIVERSE – STUDENTS COMMENTING ON AUDIO-VISUAL SIMULTANEITY

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the results of a qualitative study that investigated how a class of seventeen fourth graders (aged 10 to 11) from a primary school in Lower Saxony verbalize and construct the actions, feelings and perspectives of characters in the same shot by relating it to different soundtracks. The lesson was video- and audio recorded. The transcribed conversation was examined with qualitative content analysis. The results indicate the potential for Multimodal Literacy and Literary Learning that lies in the development of narrative interactions between image and sound in their simultaneity. They encourage examination of whether such approaches can effectively combine the dimensions of Frank Serafini's theoretical framework for Multimodal Literacy. They further suggest that the models of progressive literary competence acquisition still give too little consideration to the didactic potential of film in its media-specific multimodality.