detailed analysis of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ presented in this chapter. The medium
of the CD-ROM explicitly frames the novel as a pedagogic text and the effects of this
re-framing on the entity character and novel are discussed throughout the analysis.
The transformation of the novel, Of Mice and Men, from printed page to electronic
screen via the medium of the CD-ROM draws on the modal resources of image,
sound, and action in three ways. First, it involves the transformation of writing into
multimodal video clips using voice, music, movement, body-posture, gesture, clothes,
composition, and editing. Second there is the inclusion of still image throughout the
‘Novel as CD-ROM’. Third, there is the addition of the video character guide,
‘Bindy’, to the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’. The modal resources reshape the students’
‘reading’ of character.
The analysis presented in this chapter describes the meaning potentials made
available via the multimodal transformation of the entity character from the novel in
the medium of book to the novel in the medium of CD-ROM. My analytical focus is
at two levels. First, at the level of the resources of the CD-ROM as they appear on
screen; and second at the level of a reader’s interaction with these resources. I focus
on Chapter One of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ to describe these modal changes in
detail. Chapter One introduces the characters Lennie and George and narrates their
journey to the Speckle Sugar ranch. This chapter is typical of the relationship of the
original novel to the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’. The chapter is also typical in its use of
modes and organisational structure (shown in figure 4.3). The opening screen is a
multimodal video clip consisting of speech and the visual representation of gesture
and movement, the screens are realised through the modes of image and writing, and
the character guide bindy is represented through the modes of speech, music, gesture
and movement.
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