INTRODUCTION: Reading Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times

Readers will encounter several kinds of content as they move through the pages and screens of this project. Perhaps most immediately familiar will be the alphabetic text in which some of the project's content is presented. However, much of the information we include and many of the arguments we hope to convey are represented in modalities other than printed words.

Click on image to preview a sample of the type of content that appears in the book <transcript>.

Centrally important to the research are the video clips of some of the participants' interviews, literacy narratives, and writing process representations, as well as audio clips and other digital content that complements and extends the alphabetic text. These multimodal extensions are taken from interviews we conducted and also from writing process videos authored by participants that are part of the narratives these individuals relate about their own digitally-based literacies. As such, the clips serve not only as evidence for the study's claims, but also as a key means by which readers can assess the validity of these claims for themselves (Pea and Lemke, 2007).

Importantly, we also hope readers will use the video clips and still images to construct a richer, more triangulated understanding of the arguments we make here than is possible through printed words alone, and perhaps to formulate their own arguments about the literacies of students with transnational connections. We ask that viewers be patient as they access the chapters and the various videos. Although the material is readily available, hovering over the selected part or waiting for the video to load will ensure a better viewing.

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