The Multimodal Writing research area is founded on the assumption that all writing is already multimodal—even traditional or analog writing. “Multimodal writing,” then, is not simply the practice of remediating text or supplementing it with additional media; rather, the DWRL sees “multimodality” as being at the core of writing itself—a potential site of interaction between analog and digital writing technologies and between human and nonhuman actors.
In this research area, DWRL staffers explore the multiple “modes” of traditional composition and consider how these modes are shaping or could shape the practice and pedagogy of digital rhetorics. To this end, researchers in this area will ask, for example: “How can I use familiar modes of composing to familiarize (or, perhaps more interestingly, defamiliarize) digital composition practices? How can digital modes of composition help expose the essentially multimodal character of writing in general?”
