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This presentation will begin by reviewing important changes in texts and literacy over the past few decades, consider a few existential questions for teachers in the era of AI, discuss some of AI’s limitations and risks, and lay out some ideas for working creatively with AI in ways that further learners’ literacy as well as language abilities. 

Teacher identity serves as a prism to understand teachers’ pedagogical practice, professional development, and wellbeing. Following the ‘discursive turn’ in educational research, teacher identity has emerged as a site of complex negotiation that can be unravelled through a discourse approach. In this presentation, we will introduce the theoretical foundations and emerging frontiers of teacher identity research, and propose a four-dimensional theoretical framework for understanding teacher identity construction from a multimodal discourse perspective. The framework deconstructs identity into four analytical dimensions: semantic features, symbolic construction, communicative purpose, and sociocultural context. By synthesizing multimodal discourse analysis with sociocultural perspectives, this framework promotes a holistic view of teacher identity. It recognizes that teachers negotiate their professional and personal selves through a complex web of semiotic resources that are situated within broader social structures. Theoretically, the framework helps to elucidate the complexity, dynamism, and negotiation strategies of teacher identity; practically it provides teachers with a metacognitive tool for professional reflection and identity management. In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping the educational ecosystem, this framework offers a clear pathway for exploring how teachers reconstruct their professional identities through multimodal discourse practices.