Multimodal Student Voice Representation Through an Online Digital Storytelling Project

Abstract

A thriving body of literature has identified student voice as being vital to education and literacy development. However, the understanding of multimodal student voice representation is still modest in literacy-based pedagogical practices. Thus, this article presents a study that examined the development of students’ multimodal authoring through the inclusion of multiliteracies in the higher education foreign language curriculum based on design analysis (Kalantzis et al., 2016) and the protocol Voice and Choice (Sheya, 2018) as a way to aid student voice representation. Specifically, the article describes the qualitative analysis of the design choices resulting from the collaborative work of three students during an online course project (CP) implemented in an intermediate intensive L2 Spanish undergraduate hybrid course. The CP was based on the tenets of (1) multiliteracies and (2) digital storytelling in combination with (3) a protocol that guides students to look into the voices and perspectives of specific content. The results showed that participants described the elements of digital storytelling design in depth, monomodally, and multimodally. Also, when creating their digital story, they expanded their authorial choices, honed their sensitivity in selecting fitting voices and perspectives to express an intentional message, and reflected on whose voices were missing from the content. This investigation offers insight into and advances understanding of the existing body of literature on multiliteracies, multimodal authoring, and student voice representation.