Bilingual Adolescents' Collaborative Multimodal Composing Processes

• In Event: Practices Promoting Emergent Bilingual Composing Skills

Abstract

This presentation examines how 38 bilingual 10th-grade students collaboratively made meaning across multiple modes and languages in their English Language Arts class. In particular, social semiotics and sociocultural theories of composition were employed to understands how students worked together when creating a hypertext, podcast, and video. Qualitative analysis of screen capture video and student interviews revealed how students scaffolded their peers’ multimodal composing processes related to the use of digital tools, academic content, and language use. In addition, collaborative composing led pairs to translanguage not only to scaffold their peers’ language use, but also throughout different phases of conceptualizing and designing phases of their projects. This presentation will conclude with implications for scaffolding bilingual students’ collaborative multimodal composing processes.

Authors

• Blaine E. Smith, University of Arizona

• Natalie Amgott, University of Arizona