Multimodal learning is a topic that has been widely explored and has become extremely popular in the twenty-first century. Researchers have addressed the various uses for multimodality in the classroom, whether it be the teacher incorporating multimodality during instruction, or how students can use their multimodal skills to display their learning.  In particular, the use of multimodal projects as an assessment has been well-researched. The current research has primarily focused on collegiate, TESOL, and elementary settings, with less focus on college preparatory and gifted high school students, and how multimodal projects can be used to enhance student learning. Because of the incorporation of out-of-school literacies, and the emphasis on considering the context students approach their learning from, culturally relevant pedagogy is a topic that emerged as being relevant to my research alongside multimodal learning and assessments. My research is focused on the various uses of multimodal projects and how they can be applied to high school students in either general level or gifted/honors classes. I focused on looking for the benefits of multimodal projects for students in the established research to determine how applicable the results are to high school level students. 

The first research component is semiotic modes. Graham refers to semiotics as “sign-making systems” (94).  His definition includes all of the ways one can make meaning, whether it be verbal, written, or body movements, drawing, using images, or video. Kress further explains, “Mode is used to refer to a regularized organised set of resources for meaning-making, including image, gaze, gesture, movement, music, speech, and sound-effect” (1). These various modes offer many options to be creative when making meaning.  In the high school English classroom, traditional modes, like writing, are often valued more than other modes. Hafner points out, "writing remains a culturally privileged semiotic mode in important contexts like the academy, with the genres of the research article and dissertation dominating. Therefore, the "traditional" concerns of English language education, especially as they relate to literacy practices in the written mode, remain” (656). Writing is still the most valued semiotic mode in the world of literature. As a result, the other modes can be neglected.  Teachers must consciously structure their practice with multimodality as a priority to ensure they provide students with the option to use various modes to make meaning. Yi explains, “a multimodal approach or practice ‘allows students to tap into the different semiotic possibilities for meaning making and communication. ” (Yi 842).  Multimodal methods in the classroom create options for students when learning and displaying their learning. 

Acknowledgment of the various semiotic modes is important to students’ ability to display their learning using the modes that best suit them.  Kress states, “Signs are not viewed as arbitrary. Rather, signs are viewed as constantly newly made, in a process in which the signified (what it is to be meant) is realised through the most apt signifier (that which is available to give realisation to that which is to be meant) in a specific social context” (10). As students use the various modes to make meaning, they create their signs. Teachers must be able to interpret these signs as students create them.  Kress also advocates for the exploration of the possibilities of meaning. He states, “One of the present tasks of a social semiotic approach to multimodality is to describe the potentials and limitations for meaning which inhere in different modes. For that, it is essential to consider the materiality of modes” (Kress 112). While the acknowledgment of semiotic modes in education affirms that students have options when making meaning, there are still limitations.  However, allowing semiotic modes to be a part of the classroom is a step toward improving students’ ability to be successful.

Authentic assessment is another theme present in the research. In this context, authentic assessment is defined as assessments with real-world applications that require students to use their judgment to apply their learning to a new situation to create a final product reflective of their learning. According to Bryer, “the complex ways in which learners’ spoken words, gestures, and bodies combine in the processes of shared meaning-making, …tend to be ignored in official accounts of classroom literacy” (1). This reality has caused authentic assessments to be less popular than other forms of assessment. As a result, teachers are not always able to include them in their teaching context. Authentic assessment incorporates all the modes a student can use to make meaning, which is reflective of the real world. Kohnke mentions, “It is equally important to create authentic assessments that relate to learning and working in the graduates’ professional disciplines (Mueller, 2010). …“authentic assessment” is a “meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills” (L. Li, 2018, p. 15) incorporating real-life tasks” (2). Incorporating  “real-life tasks” in a literature classroom include activities such as using social media platforms, building a kite, or painting an image.  Lawrence iterates, “Each day, children walk into classrooms, bringing with them dispositions, beliefs, skill sets, and practices that assist them in making meaning of their worlds…children deserve to see their lives outside of school reflected in the teaching and learning taking place in school” (136). The inclusion of all the aforementioned components creates a level of personalization for students that must extend to classroom assessments. More specifically, students should have the opportunity to be summatively assessed in a way that allows them to incorporate the modes that are best for them. 

21st-century students live in a tremendously different world from previous generations. Technology has provided students with flexibility when making their meaning, or when they are analyzing the world around them. As a result, multimodality is now deeply ingrained in how our society communicates (Tierney, Bond, and Bresler 359).  Thus, it may be possible to draw on students' out-of-school literacies to help them perform better in our classrooms… not all of our students are proficient in multimodality (Mills 36); thus, they need training as well as access to technology to become competitive in the workforce on graduation from high school. (Sewell 61)

Multimodality is a key component of authentic assessments because it is something that students and adults engage with in non-school environments. Students can use their multimodal skills to be creative with how they display their skills when given a multimodal-based assessment. Having this option benefits them, as both students and growing young adults. The skills they will learn as a student will translate directly to their life, as both a child and an adult, outside of the classroom. Authentic assessments provide students with multimodal options that reflect the modes they use when they are not in a school setting. They also provide students with a means to practice the skills they must have when they progress to adulthood.  As  Kohnke explains, “Hafner and Miller (2018) suggested that multimodality has become an integral part of the workplace, and the students supported this”’ (Kohnke 7). Because students are aware of the connection between multimodality and the real world, authentic assessments have the potential to be appealing to them. Authentic assessment allows students to make meaning using the modes they are most comfortable with. This increases their chances of being accurately judged on their literacy and skills. Lawrence states, “the narratives generated from standardized assessments painted misleading narratives about these children as literate beings” (140). This is what often happens to lower-level writers and students who do not test well.  They are incorrectly placed in remedial classes, or classes that are less challenging, because they were never allowed to display their literacy through a non-standardized authentic assessment. While some of these students may have been placed correctly, others would benefit from being able to use various modes to make meaning.

Another research component related to multimodal projects is new literacy. This is a term used to describe 21st-century literacy which incorporates real-world skills. Oldakowski argues,  

 While it’s important to value language and for students to read and write,  

   it is also urgent that we provide our students with means of    

            communication that represent real-world ways of thinking, or what Brian 

            Street (1984) calls ‘New Literacy Studies. The use of multiple modes in 

            learning doesn’t replace reading and writing; it enhances these skills 

            through a combination of approaches. (71)

While reading and writing have traditionally taken precedence in high school English classrooms, students must still be exposed to multimodal learning. By combining them, students can maximize their skillset and increase their chances of academic success. Students’  out-school-literacies have become an important factor in their day-to-day education. As Miller states,  “Multimodal Literacy Practice reframes pedagogical goals to focus on connecting out-of-school literacies of students through purposeful multimodal design activities in social spaces that engage student life worlds and transform classroom learning” (62). When students are allowed to bring their out-of-school literacies into the classroom, their level of engagement increases. Sewell reiterates that “Multimodal literacy recognizes that for many children, knowledge construction has shifted away from static, printed text to dynamic texts supported by sounds and pictures. Furthermore, knowledge construction is much more social and, hence, bound upon situational contexts” (61). The social aspect of a child’s life is relevant to their learning process.  New literacy acknowledges this fact along with the importance of teachers incorporating dynamic texts. 

The context a student comes from is highly important in how they learn and how they approach their academics. Serafini explains, “The challenge for literacy educators today is to balance the skills and strategies readers use to decode and comprehend written language while still attending to other systems of meaning, specifically the visual images and design features in the multimodal texts students encounter in contemporary classrooms and out-of-school contexts” (286). In the English classroom, students must be taught how to engage with written language while simultaneously learning how to engage with other modes. McGrail further discusses this when she states,

Over the last few decades, the field of English teacher education has embraced the idea that literacy involves the social practices and abilities that enable readers and writers to understand multiple ways of representing, communicating, and interpreting texts and ideas from different contexts and in different modes… ‘Literacy means literacies’ (p. 307) in today’s world.” (McGrail 277).

McGrail emphasizes the idea that students must employ multiple literacies in the modern-day classroom, as opposed to only focusing on reading and writing. Their social practices have relevance and should be acknowledged by the classroom teacher to increase students’ success and ability to perform well. 

The use of multimodal learning and assessments also lends itself to incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy. Culturally relevant pedagogy consists of "using the experiences and perspectives of children and their families as a tool to support them" (Milner 421). A multimodal assessment can be built to allow students to include their own experiences and perspectives when making meaning.  

Culturally relevant pedagogy as a field coincides with students using their out-of-school literacies (Hamel), which is a staple of multimodal learning and assessment. It's use entails "expanding what we view as literacy, texts, and experiences, as well as valuing aspects that come out of the silenced experiences of marginalized groups" (Sosa 212).  Because "students are secure in their knowledge and understanding of their own culture -language, traditions, histories, culture" (Ladson-Billings 71), they are able to bring that information with them to the classroom and utilize, learn and/or make meaning. 

Similar to multimodal learning, culturally relevant pedagogy validates the student, is empowering, is transformative, and can often be emancipatory (Milner 422).  Teachers are also given the opportunity to feel validated and learn from students. (Milner 425). Culturally relevant pedagogy can also lead to teachers and students uncovering personal biases and assumptions, which would then lead to a better understanding among the various cultural groups in the classroom (Price 39).  A culturally responsive educator understands how learners construct knowledge, knows about students' lives, are socially conscious, have positive views about diversity, use appropriate instructional strategies, and advocate for all students ( Hollie 35).  Through the use of both culturally relevant pedagogy and multimodal learning and assessments, a teacher can provide students with a satisfying and valuable educational experience.