As multimodal composition is gradually integrated into STEM learning, research is needed to examine how to fully connect multimodal composing practices and STEM practices to support students' STEM identity exploration. To fill in this gap, we conducted a design-based research project to investigate how students explored STEM identities in a…

This paper extends research that looks at the intersection of multimodal composing and maker education. We present findings from a fourth iteration of a multidisciplinary classroom design study in which high school youth made digital comics based on literary novels in an 11th grade language arts classroom in a predominantly Hispanic, low-SES,…

This study relates the transformation of one student's narrative identity (stories told about the student by himself and others) which took place over four months as he engaged in the pedagogy of multiliteracies while creating a multimodal book with his favorite images of family and school; videos and images of his favorite activities at home and…

Today's students live within a world filled with complexity, uncertainty, and misinformation; thus, educators need to help all learners, including students with learning disabilities, how to comprehend complex information about the natural world and make credible evidence-based claims. Our study is a first step in making this possible. In this…

Drawing on experiences from a large-scale Nordic co-design research project, this paper explores the development of cross-border blended education with the aim to strengthen students' Nordic identity and knowledge of neighboring Nordic languages illuminating the flow of didactical designs students were offered to engage in, i.e. the knowledge…

This study examined 94 bilingual and emergent bilingual 10th grade students' perspectives on multimodal composing for academic purposes in their English Language Arts class. A social semiotics theoretical framework was employed to understand students' views of the affordances and constraints when composing three digital multimodal projects--a…

The challenges inherent in mastering academic content in a new language are many. When it comes to learning science in U.S. high schools, English learners (ELs) confront these on a daily basis. In an effort to document expert language/content instructional strategies, we analyze Mrs. B's sheltered high school biology class, made up of ELs from…

Purpose: This study was conducted in ninth- and tenth-grade classrooms with the goal of studying effective scaffolding for improving argumentative writing, both conventional and digital/multimodal. Design/methodology/approach: The author conducted a formative experiment in two high-school classrooms to study ways teachers integrated forms of…

Multimodal texts are now part of the curriculum for school English, but they are by their nature inherently complex, and pose many challenges for the classroom. Not least is finding a way to manage the technical complexity of accounting for these texts, as well as finding a way to move students beyond simple observation and description to critical…

A vibrant theory of change capable of fueling critical practice may be an indispensable feature of teaching argument in secondary education. According to the PIE model (Perception, Interpretation, Expression), layers of experience build a cognitive scaffold to support the development of critical skills. In addition, incorporating works of art and…

In this article, Joshua Block states that his high school students are creators discovering how to express their ideas and emotions in multiple, complex ways. He teaches students who write their lives through words on pages as they fill journal after journal. There are others who constantly write and create in the form of tweets, photos, videos,…

This article reports the results of an ethnographic research about the multimodal science discourse in a sixth-grade sheltered classroom involving English Language Learners (ELLs) only. Drawing from the perspective of multimodality, this study examines how science learning is constructed in science lectures through multiple semiotic resources,…

Contemporary curriculum guidelines, such as those provided in the incoming Australian curriculum, call for English to attend to multimodal forms of text and literacy as well as more traditional forms. Students are expected to become capable and critical readers, users and creators of texts and forms of literacy that span everything from newspapers…

This article argues that theoretical understandings of multimodality have enormous potential for assessment purposes in secondary school contexts. Informed by the work of three researchers in three North American high schools, the article offers vignettes of the effective assessment of communicative competence in English classrooms that draws on…

This descriptive study investigates what happens when an English Language Arts teacher implements multimodal instruction in his senior-level World Literature course. The study is grounded in theories of transmediation and New Literacy Studies and examines the following research questions: (1) What does multimodal instruction enable students to do…