Kress, Gunther.

Kress, Gunther. (1997). Before writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. London: Routledge.


socially and culturally situated activities that change over time.
Based on this perspective, Kress outlines four characteristics for the “necessary theory of meaning making for the new literacy curriculum”(pp. 152–153). The first is that individuals have an understanding of and control over the numerous meaning-making resources used for communication (writing, drawing, speaking, coloring). The second is that people always communicate in a number of modes of representation, each with its strengths and weaknesses. He argues that present literacy curricula pay no attention to this multiplicity, as the visual modes of representation are not developed in children. The third characteristic relates to the first two: multimodality. Children must learn which modes best communicate information, and why. Design is the fourth and final characteristic. Kress is effusive on this characteristic, positing that an emphasis on design “changes the valuation
of the maker of a message or a text, no matter in what mode” (p. 154). Design
embraces the transformative, innovative capabilities in people. In particular, design looks ahead to the future, toward producing change. Design asks: “what do we need in order to act productively?” (p. 156).
Perhaps out of necessity, Kress paints in broad strokes. He offers few particulars when he looks ahead. It should also be noted that he is not arguing for the backgrounding of reading and writing; rather, he argues for an expanded notion of these actions, one that addresses the modalities in a changing world. Moreover, he recognizes the limits to what he discusses here—namely the absence of gender and cultural influences—and so Before Writing might be seen as a first step, and a bold one at that. Ultimately, Kress’ provocative book argues that we need to pay more attention to the multimodal paths that children take in their journey toward literacy, especially as it becomes increasingly clear that future societies and technologies will employ many other modes of communication besides written language.