The Social Drama of Digital Multimodal Composing: A Case Study With Newcomer Students

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Media Practices and/as Identity Work

Abstract

This multi-year, ethnographic, qualitative case-study contributes a novel analysis of nine adolescent newcomer students’ engagement in a digital multimodal composing (DMC) project as a social drama. Employing reflexive thematic analysis, it explores the following possibilities afforded by in-school, dramaturgically-structured DMC processes for the students’ engagement in classroom learning: (1) reshaping the definition of the situation; (2) reinforcing impression management to gain social and economic capital; and (3) creating bonds of reciprocal dependence and familiarity. The study helps language and literacy researchers, educators, and teacher-educators better understand emergent bi/multilingual newcomer students’ engagement in DMC processes through the sociological perspective of dramaturgy, suggesting how DMC might deepen learning while valuing the assets of culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse newcomer students.

Author

• Amir Michalovich, The University of British Columbia