Multilingual, Multimodal, and Multivocal Creative Songwriting based on Tomi Ungerer’s Picturebooks

Abstract

Abstract:

As creative writing research has shown, literary education in the context of teacher education at university greatly benefits from the collaborative practice of creative forms of literary expression for the development of creative literacies and imaginative agency. Accordingly, this study analyses the creative processes and outcomes of a bilingual songwriting workshop that was carried out in 2022 at the University of Strasbourg with 18 bilingual student teachers, in collaboration with the Franco-German world hip-hop artists Zweierpasch. This creative action research was guided by the following research questions: What are the pedagogical affordances of translingual creative writing for the acquisition of multiliteracies in bilingual education? What are the impacts of this creative writing workshop on the bilingual student teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards creative pedagogical approaches in bilingual education? What are the effects of this workshop on the development of their linguistic, cultural, and professional identities?

This study presents a literary analysis of the poetic outcome of this creative action research, as well as an evaluation of the workshop in the form of a qualitative content analysis of the student teachers’ reflections and perspectives. Overall, the student teachers considered creative writing as a valuable pedagogical approach for multimodal literacy teaching and learning in bilingual education. Their discourses reveal the transformation process of their attitudes and beliefs towards creative pedagogical approaches, and the enrichment of their linguistic and cultural identity through multilingual creative writing.

Keywords:

Creative writing; multilingual writing; multiliteracies; creative literacies; Tomi Ungerer.