Multiliteracies-oriented materials often over-utilize activities that emphasize "experiencing" texts, creating less opportunities for conceptualization and analysis (Menke & Paesani, 2019). I present findings from the implementation of multiliteracies-informed Digital Social Reading (DSR) and face-to-face interactions in an intermediate German course and discuss how to create balanced multiliteracies curricula using DSR.
Despite the proposed ability of multiliteracies frameworks to encourage more critical knowledge processes, multiliteracies-oriented instructional materials have been shown to engage language learners in activities devoted to "experiencing" texts more often than those that involve conceptualization and analysis (Menke & Paesani, 2019). Digital Social Reading (DSR) has been suggested as a way of creating these kinds of opportunities for conceptualization and analysis through collaborative annotations and collective meaning making (Blyth, 2014; Thoms & Poole, 2017; Thoms & Poole, 2018; Thoms, Sung, & Poole, 2017). This paper presents findings from one portion of a larger study on the implementation of a multiliteracies-based simulation in an intermediate (i.e., fourth-semester) German course. This simulation required students to adopt a fairytale persona and engage in several interactional activities. The second unit of this simulation involved participation in a hybrid book club, during which participants read an excerpt from the novel "Momo" by Michael Ende, engaged in DSR activities with an openly available online tool called Classroom Salon, and conducted face-to-face meetings with their book clubs during class. Data consisted of the comments and annotations that participants created in the private Classroom Salon as well as 12 recorded and transcribed book club meetings (i.e., 3 recordings from 4 book club groups). Post-simulation written reflections were also used to triangulate findings from the analysis and self-reported descriptions of participants' experience. Coding and descriptive analysis of these interactions was primarily informed by Discourse Analysis, Conversation Analysis (Cameron, 2001; Schiffrin, 1994), and the Affordance construct (van Lier, 2004; Thoms, 2017). This study sought to respond to two primary questions: 1)What are the interactional affordances of multiliteracies-based activities that emphasize interpersonal language use? and 2) In what ways does digital and face-to-face interaction during these activities facilitate movement to and from one knowledge process to another?
