‘You Really Have to Get in There and Actually Figure It Out’: Engaging Pre-Service Teachers in Children’s Literature Through Transmodality

Transmodality—the process of transforming a text or section of a text into another mode or modes—enables readers to engage deeply and imaginatively with literature through interpretation and response. It is a valuable pedagogical approach in initial teacher education, where pre-service teachers are developing dispositions towards reading and cultivating knowledge of literature. In this article, two case studies are presented of undergraduate and post-graduate courses that aimed to engage pre-service teachers with children’s literature by asking them to respond to texts through embodied and multimodal modes. The work is underpinned by theories that highlight the role of semiotic modes in reading and writing, with a focus on the gestural, spatial, and auditory modes. The first case study examines the ways in which gesture and space worked to create multimodal ensembles that communicate and make meaning. The second case study considers pre-service teachers engaged in transferring meaning across linguistic and aural modes as they read a classic literary text and composed a soundscape. In both cases, we consider how mode-switching developed and demonstrated pre-service teachers’ aesthetic, cognitive, and affective engagement as part of their embodied experience with literary texts. This research has implications for the way teachers and teacher educators can inspire engagement with children’s literature through embodied and multimodal ways in English curriculum contexts and initial English teacher education.