Genre and Multimodal Literacies: Analyzing Design and Usability of School Textbooks in Pakistan

Abstract

This research paper explores the organization and layout of multimodal resources in secondary-level English medium social science and pure science textbooks used in Pakistani schools. The purpose of the study is to describe the differential use of multimodal resources and the rhetorical patterns of the page layouts of the textbooks of social sciences and pure sciences. Criterion sampling techniques were used to select textbooks. The data was analyzed using Bateman's GeM (Genre and Multimodality) framework. The findings show the configurational nature of the multimodal artefacts and the categorization of the multimodal resources into page-flow and text-flow. The findings provide insights for textbook publishers, syllabus designers, and teachers in developing effective multimodal artefacts for English medium school learners.