Questions:
How do we build students’ confidence to engage with different modes of displaying mastery of content?
Ball discusses how the multimodal projects in her class followed the same five-paragraph structure. Here we see clearly that bad habits transfer. Are students more likely to fall back on learned bad habits when engaging with new modes of constructing a text? If so, how would we combat this?
Response:
Multimodality is increasingly important for teaching and learning in our digital world. Journet et al. and Braun show how multimodal composition can be used to change the nature of reflection, practice in demand skills, focus more on experimentation and play, and allow students to confront anxieties they have about operating in different modes. Selfe and Cedillo’s work builds on these ideas and shows how multimodality can be used to subvert dominant ideas of literacy and expand on notions of how students demonstrate learning. Ball’s work very bravely attempts to put some of the ideas outlined above and attempts to put them into practice, documenting her few successes and, even more valuable, her failures so that we can learn from the difficulties of turning theory into practice. These artifacts showcase the way that multimodality can function as a liberatory pedagogical tool that casts a wider net, brings in more students, and introduces them to skills that are more relevant outside of the university.
My experience with multimodality in class has come in the form of choice. As both teacher and student, I have offered and have been offered many, many times the opportunity to utilize different modes to demonstrate knowledge. However, I have rarely seen students take advantage of it, and I can’t remember a time when I have ever personally taken advantage of it. The farthest I have gone outside of my comfort zone was creating a PowerPoint or throwing a couple of photos into a written essay. It has at best been like the experience of Ball, where one or two students really excel while the rest of the students give it their best shot or stick with writing (26-27). This makes me think of how bellhooks discussed students being resistant to non-traditional pedagogies: “the urge to experiment with pedagogical practices may not be welcomed by students who often expect us to teach in the manner they are accustomed to” (142). Selfe discusses the way that different communities participate in different literacies (634-636). However, experimental pedagogical practices are a privilege not afforded to most. Therefore, most students, including students from non-traditional backgrounds, expect education to look a certain way. How do we get students to come out of their comfort zone and embrace the benefits of multimodality?
The most important way to get students to embrace multimodality is to focus on how undervalued multimodal skills are and the reasons why. As Braun says, “in order to be effective communicators in an increasingly global and digital environment, students will need to be able to work within digital environments as well as reflect upon and shape them” (1). Practicing the construction of multimodal texts is incredibly important. This is important to reflect upon. The world is changing, which means that education and composition need to change to keep up. Saying that this is so doesn’t necessarily make it true in students’ minds. To get this point across, it might be beneficial to examine why multimodality is undervalued. There are many reasons why, but I will focus on the two that I think are the most significant. First, by privileging writing over multimodal forms of communication, a gate is formed (Gee 8). This ensures that all ideas must be funneled and filtered through this literacy, allowing power structures to be more easily maintained. Second, I will return to bellhooks “conservative thinkers have managed to make their argument outside the university and even persuade students that the quality of their education will diminish if changes are made” (143). This familiar conservative attack has been coupled with an increasing attack from the tech-bro-right that higher education can’t keep up. These critiques seek to hold the university in place while diminishing its real-world value by defining it as out of touch. By rhetorically (not actually) diminishing the value of higher education, it is seen as a less attractive option, particularly when considering the enormous investment that higher education has become. The goal is to maintain the privilege and power of the ruling classes and to create more workers who can be exploited.
Knowing the way that power structures seek to enforce hegemony is one thing, but making the move to construct a multimodal text is another. It is one thing to acknowledge our successes, but it takes an immense amount of bravery to display where one tried something new and didn’t succeed. Ball’s article gives some great ideas about introducing multimodality into the class and some areas that can be refined. “Students indicated in their numeric and narrative evaluations that despite the teacher’s enthusiasm for the course material, the syllabus lacked organization and focus” (Ball 20). It is important to remember that when introducing students to new pedagogical practices, we are experimenting. Science students aren’t released into the lab and given dangerous chemicals to mix up without a proper introduction. The same is true for introducing students to multimodal composition. The process should be done slowly and grounded in multimodal theory (Ball 32), not because students don’t have access to these literacies, but because they might lack the confidence to utilize these literacies in an academic setting. Students engage with multimodal texts constantly. Having this grounding allows the students to have the confidence to try out new things and to operate in the newfound freedom that multimodality in education can offer.
Works Cited
Cedillo, Christina V. “Diversity, Technology, and Composition: Honoring Students’ Multimodal Home Places.” Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society, Issue 2, Vol. 6 (9 August 2017).
Journet, Debra, et al. “Digital Mirrors: Multimodal Reflection in the Composition Classroom.” Digital Mirrors – Multimodal Reflection in the Composition Classroom, University of Louisville, cconlinejournal.org/Digital_Mirrors/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.
Selfe, Cynthia L. “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 60, No. 4 (June 2009), pp. 616-663. National Council of Teachers of English.
Jordan Cagle 