Annotated Literature Review

Author(s) & Year	Title / Focus	Type of Study or Work	Key Findings or Arguments	Relevance to Current Study	Critical Notes
Apple (2004)	Ideology and Curriculum	Theoretical / Critical Pedagogy	Argues curriculum reflects ideological control and reproduces class relations.	Frames curriculum as a site of ideological struggle.	Highlights how “best practices” can be mechanisms of control under neoliberalism.
Giroux (2011)	On Critical Pedagogy	Theoretical	Links teaching to democratic struggle and critiques market-driven schooling.	Grounds the study’s conception of pedagogy as political practice.	Emphasizes the role of teacher agency and civic responsibility.
Lipman (2011)	The New Political Economy of Urban Education	Empirical / Urban Policy	Shows how neoliberal policies restructured Chicago’s public schools.	Provides sociopolitical context for Thorndike Academy’s conditions.	Illustrates racialized inequality in Chicago’s education system.
Boyles (2005)	Schools or Markets?	Policy Critique	Examines privatization and commercialization in education.	Contextualizes corporate incursions like ALEKS and Verizon VILS.	Warns of education’s shift from public good to private enterprise.
Bruner (1966)	Toward a Theory of Instruction	Foundational Cognitive Theory	Defines learning as progression through enactive, iconic, and symbolic representation.	Establishes theoretical foundation for multimodality (beyond “learning styles”).	Reinterpreted here as intellectual pluralism rather than modality preference.
Mayer (2009)	Multimedia Learning	Cognitive / Empirical	Demonstrates that learning improves through coordinated multiple representations.	Empirical grounding for multimodal design principles.	Requires reinterpretation within critical pedagogy to avoid technocratic reduction.
Durlak et al. (2011)	Meta-analysis on SEL	Meta-analysis	Finds SEL programs improve achievement, motivation, and engagement.	Supports integration of emotional development with cognitive learning.	Critiques of corporate SEL underscore risk of depoliticization.
Paris & Alim (2017)	Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies	Theoretical / Empirical	Advocates sustaining linguistic and cultural pluralism.	Frames multimodality as culturally rooted practice.	Connects pedagogy to identity, community, and resistance.
Roseth, Johnson, & Johnson (2008)	Promoting Early Adolescents’ Achievement and Peer Relationships	Meta-analysis	Cooperative learning improves academic and social outcomes.	Reinforces group inquiry and collaboration as rigorous multimodal methods.	Counters individualistic, competitive classroom models.
Reckhow & Snyder (2014)	The Expanding Role of Philanthropy in Education Politics	Policy Analysis	Maps influence networks of corporate and philanthropic education reform.	Contextualizes MSI, Verizon, and similar actors in school policy.	Clarifies tension between public goals and private governance.

Taken together, these works reveal a profound tension between the emancipatory potential of so-called multimodal instruction and its commodification under neoliberal educational reforms. The critical literature (Apple, Giroux, Lipman, Boyles, Kincheloe) situates pedagogy within systems of power that privatize and depoliticize schooling. The empirical research (Bruner, Mayer, Durlak et al., Roseth et al., Paris & Alim) demonstrates that authentic multimodal teaching, anchored in multiple representational systems, collaboration, and cultural responsiveness, has potential to enhance learning outcomes. Finally, the methodological and policy analyses (Kemmis et al., Reckhow & Snyder) provide a framework for action research as resistance: teachers reclaiming freedom of conscience through reflective, collective inquiry. This synthesis grounds the present study’s effort to reimagine multimodal learning not as differentiated instruction for compliance, but as praxis for social and cognitive liberation.