This volume offers an approach to language and literacy instruction that brings together theoretical concepts of multiliteracies and second language acquisition. This approach is illustrated through examples of innovative teacher-generated action research conducted in Indigenous and English, dual language and immersion classrooms, all situated in the context of language and cultural maintenance and revitalization. These examples of praxis help to bridge the gap between theory and practice in Indigenous language and literacy teaching.

The volume draws on critical theories of praxis and the concept of multiliteracies and multimodalities, with specific attention to the design cycle as a way to conceptualize and engage in praxis through research and pedagogy. The authors trace teacher trajectories relating to (language) teaching and their positionalities in language revitalization and maintenance efforts by using a participatory teacher action research approach. The final chapter brings together Indigenous and western onto-epistemological and methodological perspectives in a conversation among two western and an Indigenous scholar, who have been working together with the teacher-researchers whose stories are presented in this volume.

This volume is of interest to scholars, graduate students, educational practitioners and educational leaders interested in multiliteracies, multimodalities, teacher action research, and Indigenous pedagogies.

Sabine Siekmann is Professor of Linguistics and Foreign Languages at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She holds a PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Instructional Technology from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include bilingualism at home and at school, Indigenous language maintenance and revitalization, sociocultural theory and second language teaching, technology integration in language learning and teacher professional development. She has been involved in a series of large scale federally funded grant projects supporting Alaska Native (language) education through graduate education and materials development.

Dr. Joan Parker Webster is a retired Associate Professor of Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), where she developed the Reading Endorsement for Alaska state licensure and the Master's of Reading and Literacy program at UAF. Specializing in literacies and cross-cultural communications, she also taught courses in qualitative methodologies. Currently she is affiliated faculty in the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies at UAF. She also works as an educational research consultant, primarily as an evaluator for federally funded grant programs. Parker Webster continues to conduct ethnographic research and publish in the areas of qualitative and online research methodologies, multiliteracies, cross-cultural communication and Indigenous education.

Foreword

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Part I. Entangling Indigenous-western Onto-epistemological-methodological Frameworks

1. Entering the Field: Teachers Doing Research in Indigenous Classrooms

2. Tracing the Development of an Indigenous-western Pedagogy

3. Participatory Teacher Action Research as Design Process

PART II: Stories of Praxis

4. Multimodalities in Yup'ik Immersion

5. A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

6. Designing Past-Present-Future: Traditional Funds of Knowledge through Modern Technology

7. Reclaiming and Reinventing Indigenous Ways of Being-Knowing-Doing

Part III. Ciuliamta Uyangtakut as Praxis

8. Toward Indigenizing Pedagogies in western schooling: A Conversation