Writing assets: Multimodality’s role in

academia
Contributed by: Cameo Flores

Why multimodality is useful

With increasingly different types of communication used
today, we must meet the demand of our society’s diverse
communication styles. Mass education systems were
founded on a factory model of education, which gives
individuals a consistent education for basic factory job
functions. Now that society is moving away from factory-
based jobs, creative jobs that require a different type of
education are in higher demand. Multimodal composition has
been designed to accommodate the creative ways of thinking
needed in education today. Multimodal communication
ranges from visual movement to audio recordings (Mehu,
2014).
Diversifying the writer

Writers who partake in multimodal assignments are shown to

be more fluent in a wider range of communication,
diversifying how they approach their education. Diversification
from multimodal composition include but are not limited to the
following areas of academic improvement (Marchetti &
Cullen, 2016).
• Lexis— an increased vocabulary, which is appropriate to
the new medium style and its audiences.
• Jargon— a specialized vocabulary range is increased
while writing in non-essay modes.
• Technology— an increased fluency in various
technological mediums are typical of multimodal
composition transfers.
Uses for multimodality

Clarifying thoughts: Using a drawing to convey an idea

instead of an essay can help visual learners clarify their
thought processes.

• If you cannot get your thoughts across in a paper, try

drawing the idea or talking about the idea with a friend.
This is multimodalism at work!
Creating an effect: conveying some ideas through images or
spoken words can be more effective than writing these ideas
down.

• Reading a play and watching a play create two different

experiences and create different effects on their
audiences where reading a play can create a mental
image, but staging can be difficult to imagine. A stronger
visual and aural effect is created when acting out a play
because you don’t have to imagine a scene happening.
Multimodalism is very useful for ELL/ESL individuals because
the ways in which we communicate are diversified through
multimodalism, breaking down language and translation
barriers.

• An image may help an ELL writer convey their ideas

more effectively than words can because images can
eliminate language barriers.
Multimodal composition allows for more creativity and
flexibility for multimodal writers and their compositions
(Marchetti & Cullen, 2016).

• By turning an essay into a video or podcast, the writer is

forced to look through different mediums and points of
views on the same topic.
Increased awareness
 • Genre— Reworking the essay medium through other
modes creates a higher awareness of how a genre
works rhetorically because creative and critical thinking
is required.
• Audience— Target audiences can potentially shift
between different modes. Increasing your awareness of
an audience shift will help you understand who is
viewing your composition.

References
Cullen, P., & Marchetti, L. (2016). A Multimodal Approach in the
Classroom for Creative Learning and Teaching. In CASALC
Review: (Psychological and creative approaches to language
teaching). Retrieved from https://www.cjv.muni.cz/cs/wp-
content/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/cr-11516-marchetti.pdf.
Mehu, M., & van der Maaten, L. (2014). Multimodal integration of
dynamic audio–visual cues in the communication of
agreement and disagreement. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior,
38(4), 569-597. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10919-014-0192-2