ABSTRACT
The growing population of multilingual students attending U.S. institutions and the increasing emphasis on multimodal composition have amplified the need for conversation between the often disconnected fields of second-language writing and multimodality. Our chapter aims at bolstering connections between these fields by exploring the theoretical, cultural, and pedagogical implications of asking multilingual students to compose multimodally. Using a survey of 80 international students who completed a multimodal project for a U.S. composition class and qualitative analysis of their projects, we investigate students’ rhetorical choices, composing processes, and prior experiences with multimodal communication. We explore how such assignments require students to conform to both cultural and genre conventions, and we examine how instructors can help students become not only effective “code-switchers” between languages and cultures but also successful “mode-switchers” in multimodal projects. Finally, we recommend pedagogical practices to help students communicate meaningfully within increasingly multicultural, multilingual, and multimodal contexts.
