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Abstract
This study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds—school and creative multimodal production. In a microanalysis of two focal students’ multimodal processes and products, I trace how pedagogical, interactional, and semiotic resources both reified and challenged students’ developing identities as multimodal composers. This research illustrates the necessity of critical perspectives on the design and implementation of multimodal composing activities for academic purposes.
The vast and rapidly changing technological landscape has broken down old boundaries for literacy learning and presented new conundrums. Researchers suggest that multimodal composing practices, which involve creating and representing meaning using multiple modes, such as images, sounds, alphabetic text, color, and movement, can enable a pedagogical reimagining of existing educational settings (Vasudevan & Campano, 2009). However, the challenges are complex and multifaceted; teachers and students must navigate an ever-growing repertoire of digital tools, in addition to new interactional relationships, identities, and purposes for multimodal composing.
This qualitative study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998): school and creative multimodal production. The goal of this work is (1) to examine the development of students’ identities as multimodal composers and (2) to analyze how pedagogical, interactional, and semiotic resources reified and challenged these identities. In an in-depth analysis of two focal students’ multimodal composing processes and products, this article examines how situated identities emerge, come into conflict, and influence students’ understandings of themselves and their literacy competence.
Looking Across Multimodal Processes and Products
Multimodal communication is not a new phenomenon. Cultural groups such as the Egyptians and Aztecs (Boone, 2000) created and read texts where the interplay of words and letters, images, and color created meaning; words alone could not carry the weight of representation. More recently, literacy scholars have argued for the importance of conceptualizing literacy as a multimodal practice (Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984).
Even if we see the history of human communication as multimodal, the theory is increasingly prominent in today’s world, where people are continually constructing meaning from modes shaped by existing and emerging technological innovations. More than two decades of sophisticated and wide-ranging literacy research suggests that multimodal composing can motivate disengaged learners (Smith, 2014), develop critical representation and presentation skills (Ranker, 2015), and give students tools to navigate and critique 21st-century communicative material (Jewitt, 2008; Kress, 2003). However, many teachers and administrators, faced with the challenges of meeting strict state and national standards, believe that the “institutionalized structures of schools are often incompatible with the purposes and enactments” of digital literacies (O’Brien & Scharber, 2008, p. 67).
In classrooms, the debate over the place of multimodal composing in connection to rigid accountability structures continues. Teachers and students must navigate competing demands for classroom time, such as reinforcing traditional literacy practices; reimagining textual interpretation, critique, and creation according to the unique demands of verbocentric and multimodal texts; and developing key 21st-century skills (e.g., collaborative thinking, creativity, and innovation; International Society for Technology in Education, 2014). If students are to engage in authentic literacy practices that reflect a connected, collaborative, and multimodal 21st-century world (Ito et al., 2013), we must first understand how students and teachers make sense of these contradictions and how their interactions either support or undermine the development of multimodal literacies.
Figured Worlds and Positional Identities
Building on the work of Bourdieu, Foucault, Leontiev, and Vygotsky, among others, Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain (1998) define a figured world as a “socially produced and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which a particular set of characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others” (p. 52). It has proven to be a persistent theory for education researchers (Luttrell & Parker, 2001; Rubin, 2007) who have documented specific expectations, norms, and practices typically found within the figured world of school: (1) Classrooms are populated by teachers and students (often labeled as “smart,” “dumb,” “good,” or “bad”); (2) the primary goal is to complete assignments and earn good grades; and (3) the most valued artifacts are unimodal, written, and “objective” (i.e., standardized tests).
The relationship between students’ identities and the figured worlds in which they participate is complex and dialogic (Luttrell & Parker, 2001). A good student within the figured world of school has developed a repertoire of persistent practices; when composing, for example, this student creates verbocentric text, revises, and produces a final draft. Likewise, a good student within the figured world of creative multimodal production remixes genres and cultural referents, moves between and among composing tools, and juxtaposes modes to craft complex meaning (Vasudevan & Reilly, 2013).
Within these figured worlds, examining how individuals position themselves (reflexive positioning) and are positioned by others (interactive positioning) allows us to understand the intended and unintended consequences of discursive practices (Davies & Harré, 1990). As students and educators collaboratively construct and inhabit figured worlds, which “take shape within and give shape to the coproduction of activities, discourses, performances, and artifacts” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 51), certain activities and practices are valued and reinforced. However, means of expression, such as multimodal composition, can provide participants with opportunities to offer, take up, discard, and revise flexible identity positions. This study illustrates how focal students navigated multiple and hybrid contexts, histories, experiences, interactions, and resources for meaning-making within and across the figured worlds of school and creative multimodal production.
Method
The context for this research was a 6-week workshop in which nine rising fifth-grade students analyzed and created multimodal texts. Research was conducted within a summer academic enrichment program at the Westlake Community Center (all location and participant names are pseudonyms), located in an urban area in the southeastern United States. In order to enroll in the program, students had to reside within a specific geographic area and qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Researcher Positioning
Throughout the course of the study, I navigated several intersecting identities—teacher, researcher, course designer, and provider of technical support. These negotiations created a unique opportunity to investigate multimodal composing from an insider’s perspective, but I often struggled with balancing my teacher and researcher roles. For example, there were several occasions when I had to step away from critical conversations with students about their composing processes in order to attend to procedural questions or malfunctioning hardware. Due to the unpredictable nature of technology and my students’ relative unfamiliarity with multimodal and digital composition, these incidents were semifrequent occurrences.
In many ways, this study fits within the tradition of self-study research, which involves the systematic examination of one’s own practices to rethink interpretations, build on previous theoretical and methodological work, and improve teaching practices (Zeichner, 2007). Critiques of self-studies have outlined guidelines to enable researchers to establish quality and validity: the utilization of established research traditions (Zeichner, 2007), detailed descriptions data collection and analysis methods, the construction of multiple representations, and the provision of evidence to demonstrate changes in teaching practice (Feldman, 2003). In this study, I have adhered to several principles of qualitative research: providing explicit descriptions of research methods, engaging in persistent observation, attending carefully to context, utilizing a peer debriefer, and triangulating across data sources and methods (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Further, by situating students’ multimodal composing practices in different figured worlds, the findings of this study explore multiple representations that “support and challenge one another” (Feldman, 2003, p. 28).
I also believe that my navigation of multiple identities calls attention to the difficult and complex work that teachers must do on a daily basis. As Canagarajah (2013) argues, “certain insights into the negotiations of meaning among interlocutors in contact situations are only available to insiders” (pp. 45–46). In taking on a teacher–researcher role, I was able to be present in the moment—to feel students’ frustration, to share their pride in their work, all while I developed embodied understandings of the myriad challenges teachers face when implementing digital, multimodal learning experiences.
Participants
Nine rising fifth-grade students, with ages ranging from 10.2 years to 12.3 years, participated in 19 sessions and created 10 final multimodal products. Students self-identified as follows: six (66.7%) Black, one (11.1%) Hispanic, one (11.1%) White, and one (11.1%) Other (Mixed).
In order to microanalyze students’ multimodal processes and products, I selected a purposive sample, which focuses attention on the population “from which we can learn the most” (Merriam, 1988, p. 48). Two focal students, Eric and Davonte, were chosen because both were present for all sessions, each composed five “individual” multimodal projects, and they collaborated on five final multimodal projects and daily activities.
Eric and Davonte also represented an interesting series of contrasts in relation to their previous experience with digital tools, attitudes toward school, and modal preferences. Eric, a 10-year-old Black male, reported spending 2 hr per day on his computer, had created PowerPoints in school, and described himself as a “kid who loves school.” Davonte, an 11-year-old Mixed Male, did not have home Internet access, had never created multimodal products, and repeatedly stated that he “hated” school.
Instructional Focus
While the expressed goal of the Westlake summer program was to increase academic achievement, students also engaged in a variety of traditionally nonacademic activities—basketball, African drumming, yoga, ballet, and gardening. Our “classroom,” located on a gym stage, gave us a firsthand look at many of these activities. The workshop sessions were a microcosm of the larger program’s dual goals: While students participated in traditional literacy practices (reading and responding to verbocentric texts), they also engaged in more “creative” multimodal production activities.
For each session, I selected a poetic focus, such as imagery, rhythm, or metaphor, that aligned with students’ analysis of Love That Dog (Creech, 2001) and supplemental texts (e.g., poems, websites, news stories, film, essays, music, and art). Each session followed a semistructured format—students created vocabulary videos (Dalton & Grisham, 2011), discussed and analyzed texts, created multimodal products, and presented their work in digital and face-to-face forums. Multimodal composing activities included the following: All About Me videos, PowerPoint collages documenting “found objects,” music videos featuring onomatopoeia, neighborhood story videos, and video poems documenting the people and places of the Westlake Center. During each session, using an online forum called VoiceThread, students also shared video, audio, and annotated responses to their peers’ multimodal compositions.
Data Collection and Analysis
Primary sources of data included video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, video-recorded interviews, multimodal artifacts, surveys, and a reflective teacher’s log. I also used screen-recording software to capture each keystroke, file revision, and multimodal draft.
Data analysis proceeded in three overlapping and recursive phases: initial coding, multimodal product analysis, and multimodal process analysis. First, in order to identify overarching themes and patterns, qualitative data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I reviewed the video data from all 19 sessions, wrote theoretical memos, and then used open coding to identify themes and axial coding to organize and integrate categories. Themes relevant to this analysis included the following: modal preferences; composing pathways; teacher-created models; student-created models; and indirect and direct imitation of peers, audience, tone, and mood.
Multimodal product analysis: Transcription and selection of focal projects
My first step in the multimodal product analysis was to create multimodal transcripts for Eric and Davonte’s individually created compositions (5 transcripts for each student; 10 total). The multimodal transcription process (Jocius, 2013) documents the diversity of modes existing in each composition, each scene, and each moment. Transcripts were used to identify which modes Eric and Davonte used most often, modes that were deemphasized or ignored, and how composing preferences stayed consistent or changed throughout the workshop (see Figure 1 for sample transcript frames from the All About Me videos).
Multimodal process microanalysis
The goal of the multimodal process microanalysis was to gain an in-depth understanding of verbal and nonverbal interactions (student–student, student–screen, teacher–student). Using video and screen recording data, I documented the time Eric and Davonte spent on each composing activity for each student’s five individually composed projects: creating modes, selecting existing modes, composing, editing, revising, consulting with other students, consulting with the instructor, and other. Data were microanalyzed using the multimodal discourse analysis approach, which assumes that social interactions necessarily rely on forms of communication beyond language (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). This approach allowed me to explore how social positions were created, offered, and/or denied by participants (Davies & Harré, 1990).
Findings
Findings are arranged in two sections that situate Eric and Davonte’s multimodal composing practices within the figured worlds of school and creative multimodal production. The goal of this framing is not to create an artificial divide between these two figured worlds but rather to highlight the interactional and representational tensions inherent when students compose multimodally for academic purposes. In each section, I draw on examples from two focal projects, All About Me videos and Westlake Poems, which were chosen for three reasons: (1) Eric and Davonte composed both projects individually; (2) both projects were created using the same digital tools—student cameras, video software, the Internet, and Microsoft Movie Maker software (version 2012); and (3) the All About Me videos and the Westlake Poems were the first and last projects completed, respectively, and represented the development of students’ multimodal composing skills over time. The All About Me videos required students to represent their interests, hobbies, and personalities, while the Westlake Poems incorporated the poetic terms we studied (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphor, imagery, and tone) while documenting the people and places of the Westlake Center.
Identities Within the Figured World of Workshop as School
In many ways, the Westlake program replicated the “typical participants, activities, forms of language, and environments” of the school setting (Gee, 2011, p. 70). For example, students engaged in activities, including reading and responding to written texts, which echoed well-established practices. Particular outcomes, such as the production of artifacts that demonstrated students’ burgeoning knowledge of poetic forms, were valued over others (e.g., students’ transformation and manipulation of modes). As the next sections will demonstrate, Eric and Davonte’s histories with the practices, people, interactions, and tools of the figured world of school shaped how identity positions were offered, taken up, and recreated.
Good Student
I’m a kid who loves to learn, which is good, because I want to become a doctor—an ophthalmologist—and I have to go to school for a really long time.
Eric entered the workshop with skills any English Language Arts teachers would covet—intellectual curiosity, an extensive understanding of poetic devices, and remarkable talent for interpreting written texts. One of his most impressive assets was, as he described, his love of learning—he was generally the first student to volunteer to read or to ask probing questions. For example, during a discussion about what poetry is and isn’t, one student said that poetry “always has to rhyme.” Eric challenged this conception: “It doesn’t have to rhyme. Poetry is a genre. Poetry is expression. But it doesn’t have to rhyme.”
During in-process and final interviews, Eric used the term “good student” to describe himself, creating a reflexive position as an accomplished reader and writer. He viewed the workshop as an opportunity to build academic skills: “I think this was very fun and exciting, and I liked learning new things, especially when I was using PowerPoint. I can use PowerPoint in my school work.” As the teacher, I played a key role in reinforcing Eric’s position; from the first day of the workshop, I praised his diligence and often asked him to assist other struggling students. As a result of this reflexive and interactive positioning, other students recognized Eric’s academic prowess. “Eric’s smart,” Davonte told me. “He always know the words and what…they mean. He also got that music thing and how to get the songs in.”
Modal preferences
Across all projects, Eric included substantial sections of alphabetic text to convey much of the meaning-making weight (see Figure 2 for a comparison of screenshots from Eric and Davonte’s Westlake Poems). This modal preference (Pacheco & Smith, 2015), or modes composers tend to use or ignore, was intrinsically tied to his good student identity—within the figured world of workshop-as-school and traditional literacy classrooms, written text is most valued. In a sentiment he echoed throughout the workshop, Eric recognized the primacy of verbocentric text within the workshop-as-school: “That’s [pointing to a caption] like the main part. Now I’m going to play with my music.” By anchoring each session around a specific poetic element and consistently listing “text” first in project guidelines, I (unconsciously) reinforced Eric’s understanding of the goals for the workshop-as-school—to demonstrate writing ability.
Multimodal composing pathway
Across all of the workshop projects, Eric’s deployment of modes followed a linear progression—first alphabetic text; then images, special effects, and other modes; and finally music. In addition, Eric followed a cyclical pattern of drafting, revising, and then editing compositions. During one memorable session in which every other student took their cameras to capture the (very loud) African drumming rehearsal that interrupted our classroom-gym space, Eric continued to edit his work, saying, “It has to be perfect. The editing…it’s like, in writing, when they make you do it over and over and over.” I praised his work and his persistence, thereby reinforcing his focus on crafting “perfect” compositions.
Utilization of teacher-created scaffolds
From the earliest stages of the workshop, Eric relied on teacher-created models and templates. For instance, after sharing a first draft of his All About Me video, he asked, “Does it look right? I want mine to have all of the right ones.” I responded, “It looks great! You have everything you need.” As a result, while most other students excluded the captions included in the teacher-created model, Eric’s video exactly mirrored the structure and format of the teacher sample. In fact, he was so concerned with getting it “right” that for each project, he created checklists, made notes about each component (e.g., number of poetic devices, images, music), and then checked off completed categories. I again used praise to solidify his position as a good student: “What a great strategy to keep organized.”
Bad Student
Davonte reported that he “loved” basketball, music, and hanging out with his friends. He had never used digital tools for multimodal composing, but he did spend about an hour a day texting, and he was an experienced photographer and videographer. While he told me that he “sort of” liked reading, he repeatedly said that school was “boring” and that he didn’t “learn nothing.” While he was an active participant in the workshop, he often disengaged from reading activities and discussions—the question he asked most frequently was, “When do we get our cameras?”
Modal preferences
Davonte was reluctant to use alphabetic text and often omitted it from his compositions altogether. For his All About Me project, for instance, he neglected to include any captions or titles. In place of the opening frame reading “All About Me, by [Student Name],” which every other student used, Davonte included an image of himself. His avoidance of alphabetic text persisted throughout the workshop; for example, during the second day of the Westlake Poem project, he announced that he was “finished” and shared a draft, which contained more than 200 images, but no alphabetic text. I praised his work but reminded him that one of the goals for the project was for students to “show off what they learned about poetry.” By reinforcing the primacy of verbocentric text (within a multimodal composing workshop), my comments served to position Davonte as a bad student. Eventually, he reluctantly agreed to add poetic text to a single, final frame, which met my expectations but didn’t “mess up” his Westlake Poem.
Composing pathway
Davonte’s composing pathway was nonlinear; there were no consistent patterns in mode use and revision. For some projects, such as his Westlake Poem, he began by selecting images, but for others, such as his Fireworks Poem, he chose music first. Generally, he only completed one draft of any given composition, although he would often revise in the moment—adding new layers of sound, music clips, or image filters. On a few occasions, after he asked to capture more images, I would encourage him to check his work instead—a suggestion that he (politely) declined to take up.
Use of teacher-created models
Unlike Eric, Davonte chose to ignore the teacher-created models. As he composed his All About Me video, he asked, “I just put my pictures and the stuff I like, right? So everyone can see? That’s it?” In response, I opened my model All About Me video and pointed out modes I used—sound effects, music, text, background color, font, and special effects. I then shared a folder containing tutorials and templates. Smiling and shaking his head, he refused: “I don’t like it. I want my own.” Although I agreed that he could use “his own” template, I left the tutorial folder conspicuously open on his screen. As I walked away, he closed the folder and continued to add images. He never again opened or referred to any teacher-created templates, models, or tutorials.
Summary
Throughout the workshop, reflexive and interactive positioning shaped the identity positions that Eric and Davonte created, took up, and revised within the figured world of workshop-as-school. Eric, who had confidence in his ability to craft and respond to verbocentric text, positioned himself as a good student who was well-versed in the techniques of exceeding teacher expectations. The creation of multimodal artifacts that drew upon his understandings of writing in the figured world of school served to further stabilize his identity. As the teacher, I reinforced his position through affirmation and praise.
Davonte, on the other hand, saw himself as a bad student, one who hated school and “didn’t learn anything.” I recognized his position by offering scaffolds for using verbocentric text within his work. When Davonte refused these scaffolds, his position as a bad student, one who ignored the rules, became stabilized. As he introduced his final Westlake Poem, he apologized, recognizing that his work didn’t conform to the unspoken and unwritten expectation of including poetic text throughout the project: “I…it’s not like it supposed to be. All the words are at the end. Not like everybody else. Sorry.”
Good Student/Bad Student: The Figured World of Creative Multimodal Production
Because means of expression give students the power to reshape and create identity positions (Holland et al., 1998), students’ engagement in multimodal composing practices simultaneously disrupted the dynamics of more traditional academic contexts, including the figured world of the workshop-as-school. Within the figured world of creative multimodal production, students were expected to shape, rework, and remix material, in a process akin to the reimagining of themes in the work of artists, poets, filmmakers, and musicians (Ranker, 2015). Particular outcomes, such as students’ production of nuanced, multilayered compositions that demonstrate an awareness of audience, aesthetic, and mood, were valued over others, such as the use of poetic text to carry meaning-making weight.
Good Student
Although Davonte recognized and was recognized by others as a bad student within the figured world of the workshop-as-school, his ability to create collaboratively and remix genres carried tremendous value within the figured world of creative multimodal production. From the very first sessions, he demonstrated sophisticated skills in combining and contrasting modes, remixing and adapting composing practices, and enacting a media-centric vision. Of particular note was his awareness of audience—his work reflected his vision of Westlake and the world around him, unlike other students, like Eric, who often looked inward to create representations of themselves.
Davonte’s All About Me video, for instance, featured more than a dozen photographs of Westlake students and staff, an extended video clip of his peers, no alphabetic text, and only one abstracted picture of himself. Other students responded with excitement and praise, pointing out pictures of themselves and asking questions: “When did you get me?” “How do you take the colored one?” and “Can I have that picture?” Davonte became increasingly aware of his shifting position within the workshop, often calling my attention to his influence on others’ work: “Did you see? Did you see? Gabriel got my picture in his video…. He like[d] how I did it.” I reinforced this position, naming Davonte “our photographer” and praising his talent for thinking critically about his audience.
Modal preferences
Davonte’s composing process and products were driven by photographic images (see Figure 2). He captured hundreds of images, perspectives, and angles. To outside observers, many of his final shots appeared almost identical, but Davonte argued that variety was essential to his composing process: “I want the best one. I maybe need one that…look a little different so that it fits right in the video. I don’t know ‘til I get back to the computer to see.”
Although Davonte took far more photographs than the other students, he was never satisfied with the amount and quality of his images. For example, after he finished adding images, music, and special effects to his Westlake Poem, he fiddled with his camera, clearly impatient to get back to Westlake’s campus. Eventually, he jumped up and said, “I need more pictures. I gotta get back to the hallway.” Because he didn’t want to “waste” his pictures, his PowerPoint presentations and digital videos were longer than average; for example, his Westlake Poem had a run time of over 2 min, significantly more than the project average of 1:08.
Composing pathway
While Davonte didn’t follow any persistent patterns in drafting, editing, or revising, he did consistently employ a collaborative entry into composing, seeking numerous viewpoints before composing. After a Westlake Poem photography shoot, for instance, he looked through every other student’s photographs. When I approached, intending to prompt him to get started, he cheerfully informed me that while his peers “got Westlake,” they had failed to capture the workshop—“the pictures and the reading and the video and the music stuff…. It needs to be like Westlake…like, how it is, in person, with noise and stuff. That’s why it gotta be like it.” I agreed, and then we engaged in a conversation about how best to depict our workshop. He proceeded to take photographs and video clips of his peers working on their own Westlake Poems, many of which featured prominently in his final product.
Use of student-created models
In the very first session, after talking with me, closing the tutorial folder, and spending about 10 min with a blank screen, Davonte got up, watched his peers, and began asking questions. Student-created models, by virtue of having many different composers, each with different modal preferences and composing identities, provided a much wider range of options than the teacher-created models. For example, when he saw another student using a neon image filter, Davonte asked her to explain the image manipulation process. Then, he took the new technique and experimented with other filters. By the second week, other students recognized his expertise and he was often consulted about image manipulation software and filters.
Bad Student
For Eric, who saw multimodal composing as analogous to the writing process, the figured world of creative multimodal production presented new challenges. For example, when faced with collaborating and innovating new composing techniques, many of the strengths that supported Eric’s position as a good student (e.g., using alphabetic text to carry meaning-making weight; drafting, revising, and editing; and using teacher-created models) instead became weaknesses. As other students began to create more complex, multimodal work, Eric recognized his shifting position and sought out opportunities to return to practices valued within the figured world of the workshop-as-school—as he asked me, “when do we get back to regular writing?”
Modal preferences
As students grew more comfortable with using digital tools, I began to emphasize the importance of using multiple modes to tell a cohesive story. Many students, like Davonte, became more selective about mode use, focusing instead on how modes work with and against each other to convey meaning. In contrast, Eric added more and more modes; for example, in one frame of his Westlake Poem, he used several lines of written text, four images, three image filters, three sound clips, two transitions, three music clips, and voice-over. He grew frustrated when prompted to explain the use of specific modes, and his explanation focused instead on his desire to demonstrate his new knowledge to me, his teacher: “I want to show you that I…got how to do all the different stuff.”
Composing pathway
Eric’s single-minded focus on creating perfect compositions also elided opportunities for meaning-making in the latter stages of the workshop. He tended to capture only the photographs that he needed for any given project, while other students documented not only the workshop setting but also the larger Westlake Center and their neighborhoods. By the time students composed their Westlake Poems, most had amassed visual libraries containing hundreds of photographs. While Davonte boasted of having nearly 2,500 images, Eric had only 83 pictures. Ultimately, most students’ Westlake Poems revealed candid portraits of people, spaces, and experiences—poetic text was subsumed by image, sound, and movement. However, Eric persisted in emphasizing the primacy of written text: “That line has both rhyming and alliteration, so I wanted to show that you could use multiple devices at the same time.”
Use of student-created models
Eric preferred the teacher-created models, rarely soliciting help from his peers. On a few occasions, he did seek out “expert” advice—when he composed his Westlake Poem, for instance, he asked Davonte about the neon image filter. However, when I asked specifically about the filter in the final interview, Eric either didn’t recall or failed to acknowledge Davonte’s assistance: “I didn’t need help…. I mean, he would have…but I didn’t need it.” He was also hesitant to use student-created models that departed from the “official” guidelines. For example, when he asked about video transitions, I suggested consulting another student who was experimenting with fading and shuttering. Eric’s responded that since the student didn’t have the right poetic devices, “it’s not a good idea to ask him.” Unfortunately, this was another instance when I failed to recognize and challenge his conception of the right poetic elements.
Summary
Like the figured world of school, the figured world of creative multimodal production shaped and was shaped by the identities that students created, took up, revised, and rejected. As Davonte combined and transduced modes to innovate new composing techniques, engaged in collaborative composing practices, and created his own, unconventional composing pathway, he carved out an identity position as a good multimodal composer, which became stabilized as others, including his peers and myself, recognized his talents and developing expertise.
In contrast, Eric’s preference for using verbocentric text, his desire to “show off” his academic skills, and his imitation of teacher-created models undermined his position as a good student. Because he viewed multimodal composing as closely linked to schooled writing practices, his ability to utilize the full potential of digital tools was limited. In short, he “had difficulty understanding how to use the multiple semiotic resources afforded through multimodal composition to their advantage” (Depalma & Alexander, 2015).
Turning a Critical Eye on Multimodal Composing
Over the past two decades, the literacy research community has amassed an impressive body of work celebrating the affordances of multimodal composing for identity construction and reconstruction (Smith, 2014). However, as literacy researchers continue to explore “what new and multimedia do for learners” (Mills, 2010, p. 358), I think it’s just as important to call attention to what digital, multimodal literacies don’t do, at least not in and of themselves.
It is my hope that this article serves not just as celebration but also critique. While the multifaceted nature of the workshop provided some students, like Davonte, with opportunities to reimagine their identity positions, there were also a number of moments in which my focus on schooled literacy practices served to marginalize students. For example, in conceptualizing multimodal composing as an academic practice—prompting Davonte to use verbocentric text within his compositions—I played a key role in reinforcing his position as a bad student within the figured world of the workshop-as-school. Likewise, by providing too many scaffolds and teacher-created models, I unintentionally restricted students, like Eric, from engaging with creative, multimodal practices.
Throughout much of this article, I’ve framed Eric and Davonte’s multimodal composing processes and products in terms of conflicting relationships: good student versus bad student, unimodal versus multimodal practices, and school versus creative multimodal production. In setting up and breaking down these dichotomies, my goal was to demonstrate how different pedagogical goals, biases, and learning preferences shape students’ development as multimodal composers. As a proponent of multimodal composing who has led numerous workshops for students and teachers, it was both illuminating and deeply painful to reflect on the ways in which my own conscious and unconscious positioning shaped students’ literacy practices and identities across different figured worlds.
It is my hope that this critical examination assists other educators in designing and supporting transformative multimodal learning experiences that give students the power to reshape their own literacies and identities. This study demonstrates the necessity of turning a critical eye on our own practices to reflect on how words and actions can shape students’ developing understandings of themselves as readers, composers, and human beings. Future research must also address the power and peril of scaffolding—how pedagogical structures both support and constrain students as they create, compose, and interact with digital, multimodal tools.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biography
Robin Jocius is an assistant professor of literacy education at The Citadel. Her research focuses on young adolescents’ digital literacy practices and the development of instructional contexts that support culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
