Papers by Ka Yan Lam (Annise)
System, 2024
(Abstract ONLY) Digital multimodal composing (DMC) is the production of texts using multimodal se... more (Abstract ONLY) Digital multimodal composing (DMC) is the production of texts using multimodal semiotic resources and digital tools. This study integrated critical literacy pedagogy into DMC in an EFL context through both course design and task design, proposing digital fairy-tale rewriting (DFTR) as a genre of DMC for critical literacy practices. Taiwanese university students in the study created multimodal videos of retold fairy tales addressing social issues to promote critical literacy. The study adopted a conceptual framework of DMC affordances to examine the possibilities afforded by DFTR. Affordances refer to the potential and limitations of a mode for meaning representation and communication, as perceived by teachers and students. Data collected included participants’ surveys, reflective writings, and analysis of the DMC artifacts. Results indicated substantial evidence of technological, educational, and social benefits of DFTR compared to past learning experiences, with enhanced affordances including transmediation, multiliteracies, creativity, and civic participation. Digital skills and multimodal literacy were developed to strengthen critical literacy learning across four dimensions, enriching prior studies on DMC affordances and critical literacy scholarship. The study also contributed a refined conceptual framework of DFTR affordances, expanded by new affordances of generating interest, nurturing creativity and multiple perspectives, and promoting more active civic participation.
Comparative Literature Association of the Republic of China - E-Newsletter, 2024
Original Traditional Chinese title: 重寫的藝術：從《夢迴藻海》回憶和夢見《簡愛》(Vol. 46, p. 39-43)
Fairy Tales in the College Classroom: Essays to Spark Lesson Plan Ideas Across the Curriculum, 2024
Book Chapter
Language, Culture and Curriculum , 2024
(Abstract Only)
This study introduces a pedagogical framework incorporating multiliteracies, a ... more (Abstract Only)
This study introduces a pedagogical framework incorporating multiliteracies, a new literacy concept proposed by the New London Group (1996, A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u), and glocalised marketing, the adaptation of marketing strategies to fit local markets, within an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) setting. The article first reviews ESP research that adopts a multimodal approach and outlines the main features of a multimodal pedagogical framework, which is then expanded to encompass a pedagogy of multiliteracies and glocalised marketing for an English for advertising and marketing curriculum. In doing so, the framework is further connected with disciplinary literacy, a subject-specific skill set combining knowledge construction and language communication that can be cultivated through the pedagogy. The study presents findings from multimodal projects and surveys completed by 28 university students from a university in Taiwan. Using case study analysis, the study investigates the effectiveness of the pedagogical framework in promoting multimodal meaning-making practices and assesses participants’ perceptions of the learning benefits of this approach. The study hopes to provide pedagogical insights for ESP teachers to cultivate learners’ communicative competence in a digitalised and globalised society.
Comparative Literature Association of the Republic of China - E-Newsletter, 2023
Language, Culture and Curriculum, 2022
(Abstract Only)
This article presents the findings of a university reading and writing workshop... more (Abstract Only)
This article presents the findings of a university reading and writing workshop on fairy-tale reimaginations. Fairy-tale reimaginations, understood as rewriting fairy tales using alternative narrative techniques, can be introduced into a literacy classroom where learners read reimagined fairy tales that stimulate their critical response and subsequently reimagine new stories that interrogate presumptions in the traditional tales. To justify the design of the workshop and its effectiveness in enhancing student learning, I combine restorying and critical literacy as the theoretical framework. By theorising fairy-tale reimaginations as a form of restorying, I foreground fairy-tale reimaginations as acts of resistance that reflect more diversifying perspectives in the society (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016). I have chosen the four dimensions of critical literacy (FDCL), synthesised by Lewison et al. (2002) to illustrate how the workings of fairy-tale reimaginations befit the general principles of critical literacy. For a fuller realisation of critical literacy through consumption, production, and distribution of texts, understood as action and reflection upon the action, I contend to develop a reading/writing pedagogy that places emphasis on reading and rewriting followed by sharing and reflection. To this end, I hope to offer teacher-researchers insights to bring the fantasy genre into their literacy classroom.
Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture, 2021
This essay offers a gendered, psychoanalytical reading of the supernatural story “Oke of Okehurst... more This essay offers a gendered, psychoanalytical reading of the supernatural story “Oke of Okehurst; The Phantom Lover” by Vernon Lee, drawing on Lee’s insights into psychological aesthetics in terms of the empathic forces in art contemplation and her individualized, female voice. The haunted qualities of the portraits arouse the Freudian uncanny, and empathetic aesthetic contemplation involves aesthetic responses to the artwork in the narrative. The frame-tale structure is significant in that it creates a scenario for the painter’s contemplation of his own drawings and allows for comparison of his relationships with the four sitters. The possible psychological harm that resulted from the accusation of artistic ineptitude makes apparent the sexual charge inherent in the return of his repressed desire to revive his own reputation. His desire for vengeance is read in tandem with the sexual drive operating through a focalization of a male painter who has trouble drawing a female subject. A re- examination of the power struggles regarding gender and sexuality places Lee’s impressionistic approach to empathy within the larger framework of the sexual politics adopted by female writers on art and history who struggled for recognition among the male-dominated British aesthetic circle.
Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 2020
Hwa Kang English Journal, 2018
If we situate the major works of Jane Austen chronologically based on the time of composition, th... more If we situate the major works of Jane Austen chronologically based on the time of composition, the last published novel Northanger Abbey (1818) becomes her first finished novel. The thirteen years that bridged the completion and the publication informs changes in the contextual and literary circumstances between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Northanger Abbey adopts an authorial narrator whereas authoriality was not the literary trend when the work was published. At the time of composition, because of their female gender, women writers experienced difficulties when negotiating with the publishers and explicitly making social criticism. When they employed an authorial stance in their writing, it was preferred that the authority of the voice should be appropriately mitigated. Developing on Susan S. Lanser’s arguments, my essay explores the narrative strategies adopted in the creation of an authorial narrator. Taking the view that cultural construction of gender can affect narrative form and production, I would enhance the reading of the novel from a feminist narratological perspective. I shall first delineate how the use of paratextual texts reveals the conditions of female authorship and the position of women novelists of Austen’s time. Then I draw on Claudia L. Johnson’s argument that Austen employs understatement as a form of overstatement to minimize the overt authority of the narrative voice. Focusing on the discourse of negation and narrative refusals, I will account for how what appears to be understated and disnarrated is a disguise of its opposite meaning.
IAFOR Journal of Literature and Librarianship, 2018
The very nature of the historical novel that rests on the ambiguity between history and fiction c... more The very nature of the historical novel that rests on the ambiguity between history and fiction contributes to the obscure boundary between fictional and historical discourses. Using a historical setting with people and events of historical fact, female historical novelists are capable of articulating their feminist concerns and making social protests on forbidden modern-day issues. While historical discourses mirror literary writing, the value of narrativity in historical representations of reality is merely as an aesthetic effect. Many authors of historical discourses interpret and report their materials in narrative form, in the process of which the representation is governed by certain factual criteria but also some degree of imagination. The resulting ambivalences create a space of ambiguity for women writers to address gender inequality and questionable social practices. Although Enchi Fumiko's Namamiko monogatari (A Tale of False Fortunes) has been regarded by critics as a historical novel, the objective of this essay is to defend her novel as a work of feminist historiographic metafiction. Enchi intertextually incorporates fictional and historical texts to expose the problematic conventions of the historical novel. Whereas emplotting the chronicle and the romance structures adds plausibility to the narration, the metafictional narratorial interventions undermine the truthfulness of the narrator's recounted tale. Hence Enchi has created a new form of historical fiction that uncovers a different, more inclusive version of Heian women's 'history'.
Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese, 2017
The Journal of Popular Culture, 2016
RAISING THEIR COLOR-CHANGING GLOW STICKS ABOVE THEIR HEADS, thousands of fans packed the stadium ... more RAISING THEIR COLOR-CHANGING GLOW STICKS ABOVE THEIR HEADS, thousands of fans packed the stadium for an extraordinary concert of lighting and animation. The crowd consisted of many elaborately dressed supporters resembling their Japanese rock, or J-rock, diva. As soon as the lights went out, they screamed synchronously and waved their wands as if they were casting a magic spell for the long-awaited entrance of their super idol. When the live band struck the first chord of the opening song, a humanoid persona popped up on the massive screen on the stage in her signature costume , a stylish school uniform with a neck tie. Thanks to advanced projection technology, this computer-generated idol continues to feature the innovations of Vocaloids, a music composition software, in live performances. The translucent image of the idol was holographi-cally projected to support an impression of three dimensional realism. She grabbed her virtual microphone and moved her long, greenish ponytails along with the rhythm. She elevated the spirits of the crowd with her super-high vocals and rapidly articulated syllables, accompanied by her uninterrupted dancing sequences beyond the ability of any real human performers. This live concert, held in Shanghai in 2015, belonged to Hatsune Miku, the avatar icon of a music creation technology that combines real voices with computer-synthesized speech. Miku's show was as entertaining as the popular concerts with a live band of guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards. Hat-sune Miku has gained international popularity through her highly successful world tours, including the show in Shanghai. Miku's performances have postmodern and feminist implications that enhance our understanding of the virtual celebrity phenomenon.
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Papers by Ka Yan Lam (Annise)
This study introduces a pedagogical framework incorporating multiliteracies, a new literacy concept proposed by the New London Group (1996, A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u), and glocalised marketing, the adaptation of marketing strategies to fit local markets, within an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) setting. The article first reviews ESP research that adopts a multimodal approach and outlines the main features of a multimodal pedagogical framework, which is then expanded to encompass a pedagogy of multiliteracies and glocalised marketing for an English for advertising and marketing curriculum. In doing so, the framework is further connected with disciplinary literacy, a subject-specific skill set combining knowledge construction and language communication that can be cultivated through the pedagogy. The study presents findings from multimodal projects and surveys completed by 28 university students from a university in Taiwan. Using case study analysis, the study investigates the effectiveness of the pedagogical framework in promoting multimodal meaning-making practices and assesses participants’ perceptions of the learning benefits of this approach. The study hopes to provide pedagogical insights for ESP teachers to cultivate learners’ communicative competence in a digitalised and globalised society.
This article presents the findings of a university reading and writing workshop on fairy-tale reimaginations. Fairy-tale reimaginations, understood as rewriting fairy tales using alternative narrative techniques, can be introduced into a literacy classroom where learners read reimagined fairy tales that stimulate their critical response and subsequently reimagine new stories that interrogate presumptions in the traditional tales. To justify the design of the workshop and its effectiveness in enhancing student learning, I combine restorying and critical literacy as the theoretical framework. By theorising fairy-tale reimaginations as a form of restorying, I foreground fairy-tale reimaginations as acts of resistance that reflect more diversifying perspectives in the society (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016). I have chosen the four dimensions of critical literacy (FDCL), synthesised by Lewison et al. (2002) to illustrate how the workings of fairy-tale reimaginations befit the general principles of critical literacy. For a fuller realisation of critical literacy through consumption, production, and distribution of texts, understood as action and reflection upon the action, I contend to develop a reading/writing pedagogy that places emphasis on reading and rewriting followed by sharing and reflection. To this end, I hope to offer teacher-researchers insights to bring the fantasy genre into their literacy classroom.