Why teachers and literacy educators should read this book
What influenced me to write this book
How this book is organized
Part I: theoretical and instructional foundations
So what exactly is a multimodal ensemble?
The discovery of the obvious
Why should educators care about multimodal texts?
2. Visual literacy, media literacy, and multiliteracies
3. Foundational processes
Frameworks for interpreting visual images and multimodal ensembles
4. Understanding multimodality
Sociocultural dimensions of multimodality
Research on multimodality
Essential aspects of multimodality
5. Elements of art, design, and visual composition
Elements of multimodal ensembles
Elements of visual grammar
Part II: curricular frameworks and pedagogical approaches
6. Picturebooks and picturebook theories
Postmodern influences on the picturebook
7. Exploring multimodal ensembles: an example
Piggybook from a perceptual analytical perspective
Piggybook from a structural analytical perspective
Piggybook from an ideological analytical perspective
8. Curricular and pedagogical frameworks
An instructional template
Exploring postmodern picturebooks
Exploring wordless picturebooks
Exploring historical fiction picturebooks
Exploring informational picturebooks
Exploring illustrated novels
Exploring graphic novels, comics, and cartoons
Epilogue: to see or not to see
Developing and enlightened eye with our students
Words and pictures and something in between
Interpretation and representation
