Multimodal composing practices of first-year writing students

This project investigated the composing practices of students in a first-year writing course when they were asked to create multimodal, nontraditional pieces of writing. This investigation tracked the individual processes of three students through the use of activity logs, screen capturing software, interviews, observations, and textual analysis. Using a case study approach, this paper traces the composing practices of these students in order to make student processes more visible to teachers and researchers. This project considers the tools, strategies, and resources that students utilized, the ways students reflected on their own processes, and the learning goals that students identified throughout their composing processes. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the results from the project and speculation about implications for research and teaching.