Representation and communication of knowledge in secondary school: multimodal discourse analysis of school teaching materials of history and biology

A Multimodal perspective recognizes that teaching materials make meaning upon the integration of multiple semiotic resources such as writing, drawing, pictures among others. From a Social Semiotics scope, learning in school curriculum needs the interpretation of disciplinary knowledge based on the pedagogic and multimodal discourse that has been stabilized by each social group into semiotic artifacts used for teaching. The objective of this study is to describe from a multimodal view the materials for teaching employed in school lessons of three teachers of Biology and three of History for first year of secondary school. A Multimodal Discourse Analysis was applied to the semiotic artifacts identified in the development of school lessons. Among the findings, what can be highlighted is the co-deployment of the same semiotic media between teachers, with different combinations of resources in the specific teaching moments. Pictures and other images fulfill different roles for teaching Biology and History, consistent with the nature and characteristics of the disciplinary knowledge.