Multimodal Writing

Multimodal Writing is texts that exceed the alphabetical and may include still and moving images, animators, color, words, music, and sound (Gagich, Melanie. An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing, Parlor Press LLC, 2020). Put simply, multimodal writing is a daily occurrence in our lives that takes the form of many types of writing that include various modes of communication.

For example, posting an image to Instagram using an image that was taken by your phone and then edited by an app that is then posted is a form of multimodal writing. Another example could be a written text that is visually designed and posted on a board (The New London Group, A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies Designing Social Futures, 1996). This means multimodal writing does not need to be online or used with technology. Rather, multimodal writing is a combination of various forms of communication, including visual, audio, spatial, etc, that are combined. A multimodal text combines various modes of communication (hence the combination of the words “multiple” and “mode” in the term “multimodal”). Cheryl E. Ball and Colin Charlton draw from The New London Group in their argument that “[a]ny combination of modes makes a multimodal text, and all text—every piece of communication a human composes—use more than one mode. Thus, all writing is multimodal” (42).

Multimodality is sometimes associated with technology and/or digital writing spaces. [C]reating a multimodal text does not require the use of digital tools and/or does not need to be shared in online digital spaces to make it “multimodal.” The article “Multimodality” by Kress talks about how terms in literacy can become complex when the word is used in multiple disciplines. It becomes complex as the words can have variations of application to their discourse community and this is what the authors define as a mode. A word can have multiple modes of significance, so it requires constant specific use in each representation. Modes are defined as “socially shaped and culturally given semiotic resource for making meaning” (Kress, 2009). [W]hen you communicate using an essay, you are actually using three modes of communication: linguistic, spatial, and visual. The words represent the linguistic mode (the emphasized mode), the margins and spacing characterize the spatial, and the visual mode includes elements like font, font size, or the use of bold. (Gagich, Melanie).