Culturally Grounded Literacy & Media

Sankofa Multimodal Media Proficiency™ (SMMP™) Framework

Reclaiming literacy as cultural archive, digital agency, and communal design.

Sankofa Multimodal Media Proficiency™ (SMMP™) is a culturally grounded framework that repositions literacy as a living archive, digital authorship, and communal design. It emerges from the study of Black communities and is framed for universal application, integrating multimodal and media literacy with the Sankofa principle of reclaiming the past to inform the future.

Part I

Origin story

The study of Black communities

The framework is rooted in the study of Black communities, their literacies, oral traditions, and the ways they have sustained identity and knowledge through storytelling, ceremony, and collective memory.

The theorization process

The theorization process draws on Community Cultural Wealth, New Multiliteracies, and affinity-space research, alongside culturally sustaining pedagogy and critical media literacy.

The problem it addresses

It addresses three interconnected problems: passive consumption (learners as recipients rather than authors), identity erasure (curricula that omit or distort Black and marginalized histories), and digital inequity (access without agency, tools without critical purpose or cultural grounding).

Why Sankofa

Sankofa, the Akan symbol of the bird that looks backward while moving forward, anchors the framework. It signals that reclaiming and honoring the past is essential to designing the future; literacy is thus both archival and forward-looking, personal and communal.

Literacy as cultural custodianship and forward design.

Not skill acquisition. The Sankofa Spiral treats the archive and the author as the same work.

Part II

The SMMP™ cycle

Sankofa at the centre. Five proficiencies around it, worked as a recursive spiral rather than a ladder.

The SMMP cycle Sankofa sits at the centre. Five proficiencies are arranged around it in a ring: Reading and analyzing multiple modes; Critical reflection and ethics; Production and composition; Context and audience awareness; Collaboration and community. A dashed arc shows the ring is recursive, returning to the beginning. Sankofa look back to move forward 1 2 3 4 5

1

Reading & Analyzing Multiple Modes

Analyze multimodal texts across platforms.

2

Critical Reflection & Ethics

Interrogate power, bias, and representation.

3

Production & Composition

Compose through digital authorship.

4

Context & Audience Awareness

Calibrate communication to context and audience.

5

Collaboration & Community

Collaborate within affinity-based communities.

The bird that looks backward while moving forward.

Sankofa, the Akan symbol at the centre

The Sankofa Spiral

SMMP™ advances a recursive Sankofa Spiral through which learners:

  • →Analyze multimodal texts across platforms
  • →Interrogate power, bias, and representation
  • →Compose through digital authorship
  • →Calibrate communication to context and audience
  • →Collaborate within affinity-based communities

This spiral reframes literacy as more than skill acquisition. It positions literacy as cultural custodianship and forward design.

Part III

The conceptual foundation

The five theoretical terrains that ground the framework.

Affinity spaces & digital literacies

Research on affinity spaces and New Literacies shows how learning flourishes in interest-driven, often digital, communities. SMMP™ draws on this to design for peer-led, multimodal participation.

Black digital identity work

Scholarship on Black digital practice centers how identity is negotiated, asserted, and archived in digital spaces. The framework positions such identity work as literacy.

Structural inequities & digital divides

Critical perspectives on the digital divide (access, participation, design, ownership) inform how SMMP™ addresses equity and who gets to author and preserve stories.

Teacher beliefs, technology integration & identity modeling

Research on teacher beliefs and technology integration shows that pedagogy shifts when educators see themselves as co-learners and identity models.

Resource-rich contexts & collaboration

Community Cultural Wealth and resource-oriented framing emphasize the knowledge and strengths that marginalized communities hold. The framework treats community and collaboration as central to literacy.

Part IV

Application across contexts

Community

  • Alumni associations
  • Oral history projects
  • Cultural ceremonies
  • Intergenerational storytelling
  • 1907 Collection as wearable archive

School

  • Literacy curriculum redesign
  • Professional development
  • Media ethics integration
  • Digital identity modules

Classroom

  • Multimodal analysis assignments
  • Critical media deconstruction
  • Podcast production
  • Digital storytelling
  • Affinity-based peer review

Digital tools

  • Platform-aware composition
  • AI as co-designer, ethically
  • Archive-building tools
  • Student-authored media ecosystems

Part V

What transformation occurs?

Students who engage with SMMP™:

  1. See themselves in history
  2. Develop critical consciousness
  3. Build digital authorship skills
  4. Understand literacy as identity work
  5. Participate in communal knowledge design

Intellectual property

Sankofa Multimodal Media Proficiency™ (SMMP™) and associated marks are used under license. Framework language, diagrams, and downloadable materials are protected intellectual property. Unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, or institutional implementation without written permission and licensing is prohibited. Sankofa Multimodal™ and Sankofa Multimodal Media Proficiency™ are also variation protected. © Dr. Mistoria Brown. Licensed through GOYE LLC.

Literacy as custodianship.

SMMP™ is available for licensed institutional implementation. Enquire about licensing.

© Dr. Mistoria Brown. Licensed through GOYE LLC. GOYE AI is a trade name of GOYE LLC.