The author calls for incorporating into English classes what he calls museum-based pedagogy, arguing that it enables the teaching of multiple literacies: verbal, visual, technological, social, and critical. In part, this pedagogy consists of classroom instruction that enables students to understand the persuasive nature of museum displays--the ways in which digital technology mediates, powerful interests influence, social agents negotiate, and multimodal texts communicate meaning. Moreover, this pedagogy has students evaluate a local museum; they argue the need to redesign it to represent better both the subject matter and the community's needs, and they realize their proposal in virtual form using multimedia technology. The author analyzes a particular course he taught that included both of these activities. (Contains 24 notes.)