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 * Resource Four ** __Example of Multimodal Text- Cities for Forests campaign__

Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBh5uYYKX7E

**__Evaluation:__**  The ‘Cities For Forests’ multimodal text is a national campaign to raise awareness about India's local forests and human well- being amongst the urban youth. The campaign was devised by World Wildlife Fund India in July 2011. Even though this resource does not explicitly concentrate on community responsibilities to a site, the resource is still relevant to HSIE KLA focus outcome of: __SSS2.8 __ Investigates rights, responsibilities and decision-making processes in the school and community and demonstrates how participation can contribute to the quality of their school and community life.

This is because the resource covers one aspect of the community responsibility: environmental conservation of local community. The Environment is one area of research that one out of the four student groups will need to address in their multimodal text. So for this particular group, the benefits will lie with how the resource is attempting to address environmental aspects of conservation in the format of a multimodal text. The resource consists of images of local forests (flora and fauna), video footage of protests and campaigning, as well written text supported by audio to educate and encourage viewers to support the cause of the campaign. 'Cities For Forests' was particularly chosen for Lesson 8- ‘The campaign trail Part 2’ as an example of a persuasive multimodal text.

A multimodal text is described as text, which uses a combination of two or more different types of semiotics (ACARA, 2011). The types of semiotics or communication modes include linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial (Anstey & Bull, 2010). This resource was chosen particularly because it appears to encompass all five of these different semiotics. It gives the students opportunities to explore the five semiotics working together and how they can be used in the form a persuasive text. Anstey and Bull (2010) also suggests the use of advertisements in exploring multimodality because of its ability to encompass a lot more than just two combining semiotics. Considering that this resource encompasses all semiotics, it provides a rich springboard of analysis for students to draw from. Therein lies the resources potential to explore visual literacy and written literacy design. The combination of semiotics such the combination of written text, complimenting the imagery, which also compliments the audio in the one shot provides the teacher with opportunities to help students to analyse how the design of the text combines the semiotics to make meaning. Walsh (2010) states that "As students produce multimodal texts they need to consider and understand features of design such as layout, composition, use of text and image or graphics – including aspects such as colour, size, medium, angles – and the way these would suit a specific audience."(p.215). The 'Cities For Forests' is works well in addressing and manipulating these aspects of design to achieve the purpose of persuasion. An example of this is in the texts usage of the colour green to highlight specific words that are more emphatic of the message they were trying to portray throughout the clip. As per written text types, students prevail when they are given examples of text types as guidelines to kind of text type they are working towards. The lessons in this unit of work are all geared towards students completing a final product of a multimodal text, which is aimed at persuading it's audience to help conserve 'Graithwaite Park'. Lessons 5 and 6 particularly focus on the use of language and visual literacy to persuade viewers to a particular point, therefore this lesson aims to consolidate the knowledge of these lessons to produce a multimodal text that inhibits these qualities. The 'Cities for Forests' resource becomes the example of language and visual literacy synthesised to provide a persuasive text to help conserve a local community. The National Australian Curriculum for English Year 4 refers to students engaging in a variety of texts for enjoyment. This includes texts such multimodal text which are designed for aesthetic function as well as to inform and **persuade**. Students are to specifically engage with such texts as "models for constructing their own work"(ACARA, 2011 ). This further solidifies the need for students to have an example text to work towards and analyse so that they are to better understand how to make their own multimodal texts persuasive and effective in communication. __References__  Anstey, M. & Bull, G.(2010). Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts. __Curriculum Leadership__. 8(16).   Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority.(2010). English. Retrieved September 29, 2011 from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/English/Curriculum/F-10. Walsh, M.(2010) Multimodal Literacy: What Does It Mean for Classroom Practice?. __Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, The__, 33(3). 211-239.