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Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

Taking stock: Multimodality in writing center users’ texts

Jennifer Grouling ∗ , Jackie Grutsch McKinney
Received 3 January 2016; received in revised form 28 March 2016; accepted 4 April 2016
Available online 11 May 2016

Abstract
Though much scholarship exists suggesting why multimodal writing should be taught at the college-level and how it might be
addressed in writing and multiliteracy centers, no previous studies have tried to document to what degree students are bringing mul-
timodal texts to the writing or multiliteracy center. This article is a first attempt to study writing center users’ texts for multimodality.
We find through studying users at a university with required multimodal instruction in two required first-year writing classes and
advertised support for multimodal writing that few students bring multimodal texts to the writing center, few know what the term “mul-
timodal” means, and none in the sample bring in texts composed in more than two modes. In the conclusion, we offer suggestions based
on these findings for first-year writing instructors, writing center professionals, and for faculty teaching writing across the campus.
© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: multimodality; writing center; multiliteracy center; student texts; textual analysis

One day, after we added the question “Is this a multimodal project?” to our writing center registration form,
Jennifer peeked at what the students currently in the center had selected. Two students were there to work on
the exact same first-year writing assignment for the same professor. Their assignment seemed to be called a
“web text,” yet one student clicked “yes” it was multimodal and the other did not. As the weeks went by, nearly
every walk-in appointment looked puzzled when they got to that question on the form, and asked, “What’s
multimodal?”

1. Introduction

For over a decade now, discussions of multimodal composition have figured largely in writing studies and writing
center scholarship. The question of why we should incorporate multimodal analysis and production into writing
classrooms (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Handa, 2004; Hobbs, 2004; Wysocki, 2004; Davis & Shadle, 2007; Yancey,
2008; Kress, 2010; Shipka, 2011; Arola & Wysocki, 2012; Bowen & Whithaus, 2013; Lutkewitte, 2013) and into
writing/multiliteracy centers (Sheridan, 2006; Grutsch McKinney, 2009; Sheridan & Inman, 2010; Balester et al.,
2012; Lee & Carpenter, 2013) has been—we might even say definitively—answered. As a results of this scholarship,

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jgrouling@bsu.edu (J. Grouling).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2016.04.003
8755-4615/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67 57

the practice of multimodal critique and production is largely advocated as necessary for students in first-year writing
and feedback on multimodal projects is seen as appropriate and necessary within writing centers.
Most of this existing multimodal scholarship is of the evangelical vein: scholars writing to compel others to adapt
new strategies in response to new literacies practices and to do so sooner rather than later. Our own program was highly
influenced by such scholarship. We took up, for instance, Cynthia Selfe’s (2004) charge that “English composition
teachers have got to be willing to expand their own understanding of composing beyond conventional bounds of the
alphabetic. And we have to do so quickly or risk having composition studies become increasingly irrelevant” (p. 54)
in our work at Ball State University, where our writing program and writing center were relatively early adopters
of multimodal composition in 2006–07. At this time, a survey conducted by Anderson et al. (2006) showed that
multimodality was becoming common in individual classrooms (84% of universities surveyed said that individual
faculty used it), but was far less common (24%) as a part of the overall curriculum (p. 69). Our program did decide
to require multimodal production in all of our first-year writing courses; most of our 18,000 undergraduate students
take two first-year writing courses. Faculty and teaching assistants were (and are) given professional development in
teaching multimodal writing. The same year, our writing center began training our tutors to work with multimodal
texts. Thus, in theory, virtually all of our undergraduates are introduced to multimodal production in their first year,
and supported in production through the writing center throughout their years. In brief, we built the kind of writing
program and writing center that is often advocated in the scholarship on multimodality, and when the program received
a Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Certificate of Excellence in 2007, reviewers noted
the curricular focus and professional development for teachers and tutors on multimodality as significant.
What is less prevalent in existing scholarship, particularly within writing center scholarship, are studies on multi-
modality, especially in terms of how teachers or tutors teach multimodality and the degree to which students choose
multimodal composition as they write.1 Such studies can move us beyond why we should teach and tutor multimodal
writing towards a different question altogether: what is happening (here) with multimodal writing? This new question
will escort us from think pieces on multimodality to qualitative and quantitative studies that will lend us a different
vantage on the teaching and tutoring of multimodal writing by helping us see what happens when theories of mul-
timodal teaching and tutoring turn to practice in specific contexts. We see the future of multiliteracy/writing centers
depending more on qualitative and quantitative studies to shape and revise practices and pedagogies.
This article is a small start in this direction. We sought to take stock of how many students bring multimodal texts
to our writing center, what modes are used in their texts, and whether they label their texts “multimodal.” Multiliteracy
centers and writing centers that support multimodal composition rest on the assumption that students will learn how
multimodal writing affords different types of expression than monomodal writing, and, once introduced, we suppose
that students will use multimodality in their writing as they progress through their degrees and that we’ll see these
texts in our centers. Yet, these assumptions that (1) students will be prompted or allowed to use multimodality in
future writing, (2) that students will recognize their work as multimodal, and (3) that we will see a great degree of
multimodality in the writing center have not been confirmed through empirical research at our institution or elsewhere.
We felt our own university was a rich site to study students’ use of multimodal writing and the presence of such
texts at the writing center, as there has been programmatic and curricular support here for multimodal composition for
nearly a decade now. Because major changes, such as the change from alphabetic literacy to multiliteracies within a
curriculum, take time to ripple through an institution, we thought our site would provide a good place to take stock of
the state of students’ multimodal texts more so than a university where curricular or programmatic changes were only
recently made or not yet in place.
Specifically, we sought to address three research questions through an artifact analysis study:

1. Are collected texts from writing center users multimodal?

2. What modes do students use in creation of their texts?
3. Do students call their texts multimodal?

In addition to being useful to us institutionally, this study will be part of the shift from scholarship that merely
proselytizes multimodal writing to scholarship that studies multimodal writing in situ. In answering these questions,

1 One recent exception to this was DePalma and Alexander (2015).

58 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

we can take stock of what has amounted from our efforts to introduce and support multimodal writing on our campus. We
believe that what we found has significant implications for writing/multiliteracy centers, writing program teachers and
administrators, and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)/Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC) advocates
beyond our campus for how we teach writing and multimodality.

2. Methods

We had two main data points for this study. First, we collected student texts. For two weeks of the 2014 spring
semester, tutors asked each student who came to the writing center if we could retain a copy of their text to use in the
study. Jennifer provided the tutors an overview of the study at a staff meeting and printed out handouts that described the
study that tutors could give to students. If students agreed, the tutor would make a photocopy or obtain a digital copy of
the text depending on which was available. Our administrative assistant removed identifying information (names) and
uploaded the texts into a shared digital folder. In total, we collected 81 (38%) student texts from the 214 appointments
these 2 weeks. We used these student texts to answer both our first research question: Are collected texts from writing
center users multimodal? and our second research question: What modes do students use in creation of their texts?
Second, for 7 weeks of the spring semester of 2014—the 2 collection weeks and 5 additional weeks—we asked
every writing center visitor when they were making an appointment directly: Is this a multimodal project? Users could
answer yes, no, or not sure. Students who made appointments online completed this questions on their own and students
who made an appointment at the writing center or by phone would be asked this question by the receptionists; as we
noted in the introduction, when this happened many students asked what multimodal meant. The receptionists were
directed to not provide a definition to students but to urge students to just answer as best they could. We pulled data on
this question for 7 weeks of the term, so we could compare the data from our collection weeks with other weeks in the
term in order to ascertain if our collection weeks were somehow anomalous—say, in one week 80% of students said
their projects were multimodal versus 20% in another week. Overall 213 out of a total of 214 appointments during
the 2 weeks answered the question, allowing us to answer our third research question: Do students call their texts
multimodal?
In addition to data collected specifically for this study, we were able to use existing system data to help situate our
findings. Such data includes the students’ year (first-year, sophomore, etc.), course, and assignment. This data is all
aggregated and not correlated to specific students. The system data use in our study was limited but still helpful in seeing
larger picture trends. For example, we could see from data collected on the appointment system that asked students
“type of writing task/assignment” that out of the nearly 1300 appointments in Spring 2014, most reported coming in
for help on “papers” or “essays;” only four mentioned the word “multimodal” in their assignment description. Thus,
this informal data helped give us an idea how our findings fit with everyday practice at our writing center.
To move from data collection to data analysis, we had to operationalize the term multimodal. This presented some
difficulty because, like many terms in writing studies, there is no singular definition (for more on this see Lauer, 2012).
Shipka (2011), for example, told us that all communication practices have multimodal components—meaning both
that the process of getting to the product is often multimodal (lists, sketches, outlines, and so forth) and that even very
traditional academic writing (double-spaced, 12 pt. font, 8½ by 11” white page) contains design elements that convey
meaning, such as word placement. She drew on Paul Prior who said multimodality is a “routine dimension of language
in use” (as cited in Shipka, 2013, p. 74). Although we acknowledge the importance of this perspective, if we were to
work with Shipka and Prior’s conception, we’d have to conclude a priori that all writing is inherently multimodal and
could not get at what we wanted to know very well.
Other scholars have emphasized the conscious layering of multiple modes in the produced text as the defining feature
of multimodality. Bowen and Whithaus (2013), for example, said multimodal composition “involves the conscious
manipulation of the interaction among various sensory experiences—visual, textual, verbal, tactile, and aural—used
in the process of producing and reading texts” (p. 7). We agree with this definition of multimodality, but without
interviewing student writers, we could not judge how conscious their use of multimodality was (more on this later).
So, we settled on Bowen and Whithaus’ more succinct definition; multimodality is the “designing and composing
beyond written words” (p. 7). This definition allows for a clearer distinction between multimodal and monomodal
texts; multimodal texts, for the purpose of this study, have more than one mode, in our case, more than written words.
As we took our first reading pass through the collected texts, we realized we needed a coding scheme that represented
a continuum of multimodality rather than a binary of multimodal or not. It was pretty easy to determine which texts
 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67 59

Code Criteria

0 One mode, typically text; includes textual manipulation such as bolding, highlighting,
spacing, italics, and underlining

1 Text with bulleted lists

2 Text with simple tables or lines

3 Two modes (e.g. text plus charts, graphs, color, or images)

4 More than two modes (e.g. video with images, audio, and text)

Figure 1. Multimodal coding scheme.

had only one mode (in all cases for our sample, only written words however manipulated); we would assign these
texts a 0 for “monomodal.” However, we questioned whether or not textual manipulation like bulleted lists or tables
represented either a visual mode or a textual one. We determined both to be in a grey area, although we felt that lines
and simple text-based tables that help signify how readers should navigate texts are, thus, extratextual. Thus, we gave
texts with bullets Code 1, texts with lines and tables Code 2 on our scale, and called this grey area “elements of graphic
design.” Texts that combined more than one mode would be coded a 3 or 4 (depending on number of modes used), and
were considered “multimodal” (see Figure 1.)
Once in place, we conducted an artifact analysis of the 81 collected texts to see where student samples would fall in
this scheme. This required scanning each text visually to see what elements and modes the texts contained. Separately,
we assigned each of the 81 texts a number based on our coding scheme, and then met to discuss our differences. Out of
81 codes, we matched on 79 projects in our first round of coding. The 2 we disagreed on were both unfinished drafts
with notes, and after agreeing that we should view all the texts as they were instead of trying to guess what the finished
product would be, we reached agreement on their codes as well.
When coding was complete, we created a table with the name of the file, our codes, and how the student answered
the question of whether the text was multimodal. We tabulated the number of texts we saw as multimodal, monomodal,
or having elements of graphic design. We then used data to tabulate how many students from the 2-week collection
period and from the entire 7-week study period said their texts were multimodal, not multimodal, or they were unsure.
We compared this to the types of assignments students reported bringing in over the course of the semester and what
courses these assignments were from. This data helped us determine how our selected weeks corresponded to the other
weeks in the semester.

3. Findings

Our first research question was: Are collected texts from writing center users multimodal? On our 0–4 scale of
degrees of multimodality, we did not code a single text with a 4 (more than two modes used). Eight texts were coded as
3 for using 2 modes; thus, just 9.9% of collected texts were multimodal. Eight texts were coded as 1 (for bulleted lists)
and another 8 texts were coded as 2 (for having text-based tables or lines), meaning 19.8% of texts contained some
element of graphic design. Most texts, 57 out of 81 (70.4%) of our collected texts, were coded as 0, or monomodal.
(See Figure 2.)
Our second research question was: What modes do students use in creation of their texts? For the 8 collected texts
that were coded as “multimodal,” all included text plus some visual element; 5 included some type of chart or graph;
the other 3 included a photograph or image of some sort (See Figure 3.) None of our collected texts included audio,
animation, or video. As the multimodal PowerPoint we collected was likely to be used as a part of a speech, we can
assume that audio and gestural modes would be a part of the final product, but that they were not reflected in our data
collection. Though it was outside of the scope of the study to weigh how much of the message was carried by each
mode (if it were indeed possible to separate and measure in such a way), in each of these 8 texts, written word could
easily be argued to be primary. For several of these texts, there was only one visual element.
Of course, our study did not take into account how well multimodality was used or if that use was intentional, only
if it was present. However, on this note, we offer a few further observations. First, although we cannot say for certain,
the visual elements in the students’ multimodal texts did not always seem to be created by the student. One of the
60 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

OUR CODING OF COLLECTED TE XTS

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
1 (contains 2 (contains table 4 (more than two
0 (monomodal) 3 (two modes)
bullets) or lines) modes)
# of texts 57 8 8 8 0

Figure 2. Coding of collected texts.

charts seemed to have been copied from source material and digitally placed in the paper, and one of the images was
clearly clip art. Second, we could also not ascertain whether the choice to incorporate multimodality or graphic design
in a text was made by the student, the instructor, or the template or program the student was using. As we noted earlier,
Bowen and Whithaus (2013) stated that multimodal composition ought to involve “conscious manipulation” (p. 7);
we could not say definitively that the texts in the study were consciously manipulated by the students because intent
was outside the scope of this study. For example, we collected several of the same assignment for which it appears
the instructor required a table of contents, because all of the students with that text included one. Some students chose
to use lines in the table of contents; however, this may have been simply a choice in the template used rather than a
well-thought out (i.e. conscious) design choice.
Finally, we had to analyze the text as it was presented to us without considering how it might shift later. The two texts
that we initially struggled to code involved work that was clearly in a drafting stage (which makes sense because these
were texts brought to the writing center for feedback). One student used multiple colors to highlight portions of the text,
it seemed to us, as an in process reminder to finish or ask a question about that section. Both had lists that appeared to
be notes for further developing the paper. The second was handwritten with arrows and lines marking certain portions
of the text. These did not seem like graphic design features of the text that would remain when finished. However, the
presence of these texts suggests that the author of a monomodal text may still use elements of multimodality or graphic
design during drafting. They may manipulate textual elements to visually set off places for expansion or improvement.
The handwritten text with arrows allowed the author to visually represent to themselves how text needed to be moved
around during the revision process.
Our final research question was: Do students call their writing multimodal? The short answer is not usually. Out of
637 appointments during the 7-week period, only 6% (41) said their texts were multimodal, 71% (450) said they were
not, and 23% (145) said they were not sure. Likewise, among our 81 collected texts, only 6% (5 students) of students
said, yes their texts were multimodal, 67% (54 students) said they were not, 23% (19 students) said they were not sure;
thus our 2 collection weeks proved not to be anomalous to the other 5 weeks in the study (see Figure 4).
Interestingly, students in our sample who called their texts multimodal were rarely coded by us as multimodal. Of
the 5 students who provided a copy of their text for the study who said yes their text was multimodal, we only agreed in
1 instance. This text was the only PowerPoint file in the data set; it used photographs, color, lines, and text so we coded
it a 3. Of the other 4 texts identified as “multimodal” by students, we coded 2 texts as 0 and 2 texts as 1. Likewise, the
8 texts we coded as multimodal were rarely called multimodal by students. Only the PowerPoint student said yes this
text is multimodal, 4 students answered not sure, 2 said no, and 1 response was not recorded. (See Figure 5).
However, we had a much higher agreement rate with students on texts we did not code as multimodal. Out of the
70 texts that we coded as not multimodal (codes 0–2), 73% (51 students) also said they were not multimodal. Perhaps
what can be said about this is that our students know what multimodal is not, but are less sure what it is. Then again,
almost a quarter of students in the study, 23%, were not sure if their text was multimodal, which could imply that they
J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67 61

Figure 3. Pages from multimodal projects that include multiple modes.

62 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

WE ASK STUDENTS: IS YOUR TEXT MULTIMODAL?

500
450
400
# OF STUDENTS 350
300
250
450
200
150
100
145
50
5 41 54 19 3 3
0
Yes No Not Sure Not Recorded
Collected Texts 5 54 19 3
Total Study Period 41 450 145 3

Figure 4. Is your project multimodal?.

too see a grey area between monomodal and multimodal, or as supported by our casual observations, that they are
unfamiliar with the term.
Student responses for this data point were surprising to us given our institutional context. We understand that
multimodal text production might not yet be widely encouraged across the curriculum; however, as we noted, we work
in a university that has required multimodal text production in both sections of required first-year writing since 2006.
Though it is true that some students transfer in credit or place out, the vast majority of current undergraduate students
have taken at least one writing program course. As most first-year students are urged to take the first-year writing
during the fall (and our study was in the second half of the spring semester), even newer students would likely have
had exposure to the term multimodality and practice in multimodal production by the time of our study. Based on this
context, we expected that students would know enough about multimodality to assess if their own text was multimodal
or not.
The argument could be made that it does not matter if students understand the word “multimodal,” which would
agree with to a degree—the term “multimodal” after all is not sacrosanct—it might not even be a term that carries
into the next decade within our field. If we had found that most students used multimodality and there was just some
confusion about the term, we might suggest that students understand how to do multimodality even if they use a different
vocabulary. But, we found that most students are not using it and many do not understand the term as they mislabeled
their own work or said they did not know if their work was multimodal. We suspect that there might be higher rates of
multimodal production if students understand multimodal writing as something that they can do in various rhetorical
situations.
We wondered, too, if whether using the term multimodal was related to the course the students were coming from,
because students in the writing program should be currently learning it. The system data helped us gain further insight
into this question. During the first week we collected sample texts, 35% of students came for first-year writing, and

Student Said Student Said Student Said Missing

Multimodal NOT Not Sure Response
Multimodal

We Coded 3 1 3 4 0

We Coded 2 0 5 2 1

We Coded 1 2 4 2 0

We Coded 0 2 42 11 2

Figure 5. Agreement: Is this project multimodal? (shaded area indicates agreement).

 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67 63

the next highest was 15% for a class in family and consumer science that was working on a career research paper. In
the second collection week, we still saw the most students from first-year writing classes (28%) than other classes,
with a speech pathology and audiology course coming in second (14%). In collection week 2, we saw slightly more
multimodal texts (5) than week one (3), which corresponded with our perception of when in the semester first-year
writing program teachers incorporated a multimodal project in composition. However, 2 of these 5 projects were clearly
from courses outside the first-year writing program. One was labeled a family genogram project and included a family
tree, and one was labeled as a biology paper and included both a table and a graph. Students not naming these texts as
multimodal may indicate that they are not aware of their rhetorical choices in terms of modes, but it may also mean
that they are unsure how or if the term applies outside of composition courses.

4. Implications

Though this study was local to our context and cannot be generalized from, we believe this study has lessons and
questions for multiple audiences: writing program faculty and administrators, faculty across the curriculum and writing
across the curriculum administrators, and writing center professionals, whom we address in this section.

4.1. For writing program faculty and administrators

Even though the requirement and support of multimodal production has been relatively long-standing at our particular
institution, this study supported our sense that the full integration of multimodal composition in first-year writing and
beyond was spotty. From the vantage point of the WPA office, Jackie noticed that multimodality often manifested
in course syllabi as one assignment. That is, the programmatic goal of teaching students how to decide for each
composing task which modes and media were best utilized to reach specific audiences and purposes was seemingly
abandoned for expediency of checking off the multimodal requirement by telling students which composing task called
for multimodality and, often, which medium and tools to use. More often than not, the efficient “multimodal project”
outlined on the syllabus was a presentation, requiring students to use a slideshow (like PowerPoint or Prezi) and to
present orally to the class; these presentations were often remediations of earlier essay assignments. We suspect the
same may be true at other institutions with a multimodal component required in their first-year writing courses.
One of the problems with this one-shot “multimodal project” is that students may only see those specific projects as
multimodal, and may not realize that multimodality is a choice for many different genres and disciplines. Thus, they
may not find the term useful in their overall understanding of writing. Although we cannot say for sure that this is the
reason that students in our study who brought multimodal texts to the writing center did not call them that, we suspect
it is a part of the underlying issue. The future of multimodal pedagogy needs to focus on multimodality as a rhetorical
choice, and not as a requirement for an assignment. This may mean changing assignments to be more open, so that
students can choose to incorporate different modes as they see fit for a particular audience and purpose. It may also
mean taking a look at overall programmatic requirements. For example, our program still specifies a number of pages
that must be completed in writing, and because text is more easily quantifiable this way, it supposes the primacy of text.
Because the biggest surprise in this study is the students’ uncertainty with the term multimodality, the first take-away
from this study is for writing programs where students should be introduced or reintroduced to multimodality. Teachers
in writing programs need to ensure that students know what this term means. We worry that because many instructors
reduce the goal of a rhetorical, multimodal sensibility into a singular assignment (where medium and technology are
often decided for them), students might have a narrow understanding or misunderstanding of what multimodality means.
If they are assigned a PowerPoint, they might think only PowerPoints are multimodal. Shipka (2011) said it is challeng-
ing for students but important for faculty to move away from these kinds of “highly prescriptive assignments;” she wrote:
Making the shift from highly prescriptive assignments to those that require students to assume responsibility for
the purposes and contexts of their work can prove challenging for students unaccustomed to thinking about and
accounting for the work they are trying to accomplish in curricular and extracurricular spaces. (p. 104)
When students understand multimodality as a concept, it will underscore the choices present in every communication
situation.
Second, writing program administrators need to think about how to assess programmatically, not just if multimodality
is taught but whether or not students are learning what multimodality is and how to compose in multiple modes. This
64 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

type of assessment could be rolled into ongoing programmatic assessment or measured separately. When teachers are
teaching it and the learning of it can be measured in programmatic assessment, the groundwork is in place for the
transfer of the term and strategy for faculty across the curriculum. Though scholarship on addressing how instructors
can evaluate multimodal writing exists (see, for example, Murray, Sheets, & Williams, 2010; Reilly & Atkins, 2013;
Wierszewski, 2013; Delagrange, McCorkle, & Braun, 2013), there are fewer pieces that address multimodality and
programmatic assessment. As multimodality becomes more of a staple in first-year writing courses, we need ways to
study it in our programmatic assessments.

4.2. For WAC/CAC faculty and administrators

Nationally, the WAC/WID movement has shifted and grown, giving rise to the CAC/CxC movement that goes
beyond the written text to stress the importance of visual and oral modes of communication (Jackson & Morton, 2007;
Allan, 2013). In 2007, Rebecca Jackson and Deborah Morton claimed that, “WAC ha[d] gone multimodal” (p. 43),
noting it was a popular topic at the 8th Annual WAC conference as far back as 2006 (p. 48). Thus, multimodality is no
more new to many WAC professionals than it is to writing programs. Although this corresponds with the introduction of
multimodality in our first-year writing program, Ball State does not have a WAC or CAC program, and thus professional
development for faculty in teaching writing—multimodal or otherwise—has been spotty. As such, it would not be a
big surprise to learn that faculty across campus do not know what we (in the writing center and writing program) mean
by multimodal.
Still, students in our study were creating multimodal texts in other classes, and they were not calling that work
multimodal even though, theoretically, they were taught this term and strategy in first-year writing. Allan (2013)
argued that knowledge of multimodality from composition may not transfer to other disciplines that have “different
rhetorical values regulating the relationships among verbal, visual, and other modes” (The Crit as Multimodal Rhetorical
Performance Section, para. 5). There are several reasons why this transfer of knowledge and terminology may not have
occurred. Although she did not specifically look at multimodal composition, in her study on transfer, Wardle (2007)
found that students did not often feel like they needed the skills they used in first-year writing in other college classes
(p. 73). Students may not recognize that they are using skills from first-year writing in these later multimodal projects.
However, equally possible is that even when the skills do transfer, the term does not. Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, Powell,
& Choplin (2009) went as far as to say that, “every discipline or profession in higher education demands more advanced
levels of multimodal and technological communication skill” (Multidisciplinary Arguments for Multimodality section,
para. 2). Just as disciplinary writing conventions become more nuanced in upper-level coursework, so too does the use
of multimodality. For example, Archer (2011) explained that architecture might privilege black and white drawings
whereas other disciplines might value color photography or other types of images (p. 13). As with writing, tutors must
direct students to focus on the conventions and needs of their audience. They should encourage students to think about
what modes are available to them within their majors and how to use this to their rhetorical advantage.
Allan (2013) warned that we need to recognize that our perspectives on multimodal composition and communication
may not be shared across campus. She advised when talking with students about multimodal writing: “using plain
language or their discipline’s own terms to articulate the rhetorical strategies they value is more helpful than asking them
to translate what they do into our own specialized vocabulary” (Implications for Supporting Academic Multimodal
Composing section, para. 7). Instead, we suggest that “multimodal” or “multiliteracy” may be seen as disciplinary-
specific language, but we do not think it needs to stay this way. We should take a look at what counts as multimodality in
a particular field and pay attention to the words that those disciplines use when talking about multimodal composing, but
the conversation should not end there. If we are truly to connect what we are doing in writing studies with coursework
across the disciplines, both faculty and students need to be aware of how work done in their courses builds on work
in first-year writing. Introducing them to the terminology of multimodality and multiliteracies is an important step in
redefining this discussion and connecting it to student’s prior knowledge.

4.3. For writing/multiliteracy centers

In this study, we were particularly interested in what students were bringing into our writing center to test the
assumption that inviting multimodal projects into the center by advertising or by name changes (e.g. to Multiliteracy
Center) would result in (more) multimodal texts in the center. Our findings showed that during collection weeks,
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about 10% of student texts were multimodal. If we believe that students are writing multimodal texts more than 10%
of the time, we could use what we found in this study as a baseline and try further interventions to invite more
multimodal composing to the center. We could make more of an effort in class presentations, promotional material,
and communication with faculty to spread the word on the types of feedback the writing center offers. However, we
cannot say with any certainty that students are asked or independently take on multimodal writing more than 10% of
the time.
Interestingly, in this study, 20% of students brought in texts with graphic design elements. Though we have spent
time training tutors to respond to monomodal and multimodal texts, our findings suggest we should consider working
with tutors on those texts with graphic design elements, adding training in basic principles of document design, such
as readability and layout. Further, in the writing center, we can continue to reinforce student learning of multimodality
by using the term “multimodal” with students and asking about what composing choices are open to students when
they are working on an assignment. Tutors can ask what part of a text’s message might be best carried by which mode
to prompt students to explore different options, when possible, to avoid defaulting to monomodal writing.

5. Conclusion

When looking at the number of multimodal texts brought to the center, we began to have conversations about what
would be ideal: do we expect half of all projects in the center to be multimodal instead of the just under 10% we
found? No, we do not. We are not actually disappointed with the number of multimodal texts we found, even though
we firmly believe that college should be a place where student practice the sort of communication that students will
enact after college in their professional, civic, personal, and academic writing, and those communications will likely
be multimodal. Although we could always do better (students will not gain mastery of multimodal composing if only
asked to do it once or twice in their college careers), we were pleased to see at least some multimodal projects coming
to the center.
The larger concern raised by this study is the integration of the modes in the multimodal texts in the sample. We
do not simply want students to do multimodal composition for the sake of doing so. Multimodal composition can be
more powerful in making arguments or in expression than monomodal texts, but is not inherently so. We want students
doing rhetorically sound, effective composing. In texts we coded as multimodal, students did not fully answer George’s
(2002) call to move from analysis to design. Rather, we saw students simply incorporating the object of analysis into
the text of the paper, like when they added an illustration from a source to write about it. This type of incorporation
is valuable, yet it does not exploit what multimodal composition can do. In other instances, we would conjecture that
students were not making composing choices; instead, instructors, templates, and applications seemed in charge of
design. We suspect our students, like the students in DePalma and Alexander’s (2015) study, find writing in multiple
modes difficult conceptually and technologically.
Additionally, this study illustrated for us the degree to which students use elements of graphic design and mul-
timodality not just for their final projects, but also for drafting. We should consider how we can help students use
multimodality in the writing process, such as using color or images or lines, or even audio or video to plan a paper.
For example, in a guest presentation for our writing program, Rodrigo (2015) talked about using Google image search
during invention to see where visual representations of a topic may take the writer. Another activity is for students to
highlight the use of each source in a different color to get an idea of whether they are overusing or underusing sources.
These writing activities can be done either in the classroom or can be done the tutoring session. In addition, we call
for further research in this area. Shipka (2011) said, “In addition to examining writing as ‘the thing,’ meaning final
products, that may be entirely or even partially comprised of alphabetic text, we need to investigate the various kinds
of writing that occur around—and surround—writing-as-the-thing” (82). A future study of multimodal composing in
writing/multiliteracy centers ought to take up Shipka’s charge and investigate the ways that students use multimodality
to compose even when the final product is monomodal. Thinking of multimodality as not just ‘the thing’ will be a
fruitful new direction for research and pedagogy in the classroom and the writing center.
This study aimed to take stock of multimodality in writing center users’ texts in an empirical way. As is the case
with many studies, we found ourselves with more questions at the end then we had at the beginning. For one, we would
like to know what we would find if we repeated this study at other contexts or in the future. We would also like to know
what students, faculty, administrators, and writing center tutors at our institution and elsewhere know about the term
“multimodal,” a question that could be answered with interviewing or surveys. Our hope is that as we move out of the
66 J. Grouling, J. Grutsch McKinney / Computers and Composition 41 (2016) 56–67

evangelical phase of multimodal writing, we ground our ideas about how to teach and tutor multimodal writing more
in research studies of particular contexts.
Jennifer Grouling is an Assistant Professor of English and former Writing Center Director at Ball State University. Her work on graduate teaching
assistant identity in writing programs has been published in Composition Forum. She is also the author of The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop
Role-Playing Games, which deals with issues of genre, media, and narrative creation. Her current research focuses on writing assessment, particularly
the use of rubrics across the curriculum.
Jackie Grutsch McKinney is a Professor of English and Writing Center Director at Ball State University. She is the author of two books, Strategies
for Writing Center Research and Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers, which won the International Writing Center Association Outstanding Book
Award in 2014.

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