Multimodal Writing in Multilingual Space

Abstract

This conceptual review article explores the intersection of multimodal writing and multilingualism in a contemporary educational context, with a focus on both secondary and post-secondary classrooms. As digital tools, media platforms, and global communication in interconnected spaces reshape literacy practices, students increasingly communicate and express themselves through a range of modes—visual, audio, textual, and gestural—often in more than one language. This article argues for reimagining and reconceptualizing writing to be a multifaceted literacy practice that integrates multimodal digital tools and that invites multilingual literacy opportunities. Drawing on classroom examples and current research on multimodal writing and translanguaging practices in multilingual spaces, the article explores how educators can support students in developing critical literacy skills through multimodal projects that honor linguistic diversity, cultural identity, and multiple means of expression. The article offers practical strategies for scaffolding multimodal writing in multilingual space, creating inclusive literacy environments where multilingualism and multimodality are seen as a resource, not a barrier.

1. Introduction

In today’s digitally mediated and globally interconnected society, the nature of writing and literacy practices is undergoing rapid transformation. The traditional conception of writing as linear, monolingual, and print-based is giving way to dynamic, multimodal, and multilingual practices shaped by digital technologies, transnational identities, and the creative remixing of multiple meaning-making resources. Students in both secondary and post-secondary levels are increasingly engaged, in and out of school, in dynamic and adaptive communication practices, often spontaneously and simultaneously drawing on a wide range of meaning-making resources (e.g., linguistic, graphical, visual, audio, gestural). These practices unfold within multilingual spaces where students fluidly move across languages and language varieties and draw on diverse linguistic repertoires in a contextually responsive way. As a result, there is a need for both researchers and practitioners to rethink what it means to write and to (re)conceptualize writing as a dynamic, multimodal, contextually responsive practice. Wei and Lee (2024) argue that such reconceptualization is necessary “as a consequence of the diversification of media and resources” contemporary students are exposed to and draw upon in order to meet the evolving communicative demands (p. 874). Here, I am using the term writing more broadly to encompass expressions, productions, compositions, and communication, particularly in connection to multimodality and multilingualism. This choice reflects my argument for the need to reconceptualize writing. Accordingly, I will use such terms as multimodal, multilingual expressions, and communications throughout the manuscript as more inclusive and interchangeable alternatives to multimodal writing.

Conceptualizing writing as a dynamic practice means to see it not as fixed but rather a flexible and evolving process that changes depending on audience, purpose, context, and medium. Researchers have long emphasized this dynamic nature, asserting that the act and activity of writing have continually evolved in response to shifting societal needs and technological developments (Bazerman et al., 2017). The dynamic nature of writing has also been extensively explored in second language (L2) writing research, which highlights the adaptive and flexible writing practices of multilingual students and speakers, particularly in contexts where translanguaging (see García & Wei, 2018; Vogel & García, 2025) is common within hybrid multilingual spaces. According to Choi and Tai (2025), such spaces are characterized by fluid communicative practices, where students can draw on their diverse linguistic and multimodal resources to construct meaning. In essence, writing is not a static act but a recursive and innovative process characterized by a series of ongoing decisions, adaptations, revisions, experimentations, and negotiations that are shaped by shifting societal and rhetorical circumstances.

In the ever-evolving digital landscape of the 21st century, writing also needs to be reconceptualized as a multimodal act to reflect the changing nature of communication, literacy, content creation, and information dissemination. This multimodal reconceptualization parallels the principles of multilingualism, as both involve negotiation of various linguistic and semiotic resources and highlight the interplay between languages, modes, and cultural contexts. As such, composition scholars have long emphasized the need to expand the definition of writing as a multimediated practice to more accurately reflect the complexities and diversities of communication in today’s digital and global environment (Kress, 2010; Lunsford, 2006; Palmeri, 2012; Takayoshi & Selfe, 2007; Yancey, 2004). Whether it is a blog post, infographic, video essay, or social media feed, content creation increasingly relies on a range of modes, languages, digital tools, and media platforms to reach diverse audiences and to enhance communicative power, impact, and effectiveness. More recently, digital multimodal composing (DMC) has gained prominence in both in- and out-of-school multilingual spaces, aligning with the “trans” turn (see Hawkins & Mori, 2018) in applied linguistics, which redefines language as a fluid, dynamic, and socially situated system rather than a static and monolithic entity (Ho, 2022; Wang, 2024). In light of these emerging perspectives and practices, viewing writing as a multimodal and multilingual act reflects the realities of contemporary communication and broadens our understanding of what it means to communicate across different contexts.

The dynamic, multimodal, and multilingual nature of contemporary communication underscores the need to reconceptualize writing as a contextually responsive practice that is shaped by the specific social, cultural, rhetorical, and technological contexts. In his Writer(s)-Within-Community (WWC) model of writing, Graham (2018) points out that writing is a multidimensional process that involves interactions between social, cultural, and historical dimensions and that is “simultaneously shaped and bound by the characteristics, capacity, and variability of the communities” (p. 258). Graham’s WWC model is in alignment with the framing of writing as dynamic social participatory performance (Bazerman, 2016) and socially situated activity whose object is socially productive practice (Engeström, 2015). As such, it entails learning to adopt and adapt social practices that respond to specific social and cultural contexts (Beach et al., 2016). Contextually responsive writing, therefore, requires writers to make strategic choices about language, structure, tone, and mode based on their purpose, audience, and medium. Examining contemporary youths’ multilingual and multimodal communication practices, Jiang (2023) observed that multilingual youth used digital, multimodal, and multilingual composing to engage in social justice-oriented literacy actions, responding to emerging issues within their specific contexts. Positioning writing as contextually responsive recognizes it as an adaptive and flexible process that is informed by and responds to the immediate conditions, changes, and expectations of communicative contexts.

Building on these reconceptualizations of writing as a dynamic, multimodal, multilingual, and contextually responsive practice, this conceptual review article offers a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations and current research on writing at the intersection of multimodality and multilingualism. It explores the pedagogical significance of these perspectives and emphasizes their relevance to contemporary teaching and learning. The article outlines practical strategies and activities for classroom implementation grounded in this framework. It concludes with a discussion of emerging trends and the evolving nature of communication in the era of generative AI, highlighting the need for continued adaptation in literacy education.

2. Theoretical Foundations and Research Overview

2.1. Multimodality and Digital Multimodal Composition (DMC)

Multimodality refers to the ways communication and meaning are realized through the interaction between and orchestration of multiple semiotic resources or modes (e.g., language, image, gesture, sound, spatial layout). It has gained prominence since the New London Group (1996) (NLG) introduced multimodal design as an integrative process that connects a variety of modes. In line with NLG’s call for a writing pedagogy that “accounts for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies” (New London Group, 1996, p. 61), Kress and colleagues have long emphasized the importance, as well as the affordances, of multimodality and multiple modes of meaning-making by arguing that meaning is constructed through the orchestration of multiple modes, not just language (Bezemer & Kress, 2016; Kress, 2010; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). Similarly, Gee (2003) highlights the role of semiotic domains, which he defined as “any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities” that carry different meanings, in contemporary digital environments (p. 20).

Building on these seminal works, composition scholars have responded to the evolving landscape of literacy by advocating for a shift away from alphabetic, print-based writing toward digital multimodal composing (DMC) that incorporates visual, audio, spatial elements (Alexander & Rhodes, 2014; Lunsford, 2006; Selfe, 2009; Yancey, 2004). At the same time, writing instructors and their students have recognized that “old and new technologies have enabled, and even demanded, the use of more than one mode to communicate, entertain, solve problems, and engage in deliberation” (Lutkewitte, 2014, p. 2). Shepherd (2018) further argues that digital platforms and social networks not only encourage but require multimodal communication to effectively reach diverse audiences. Other proponents contend that the process of constructing meaning, in and of itself, is multimodal, and the affordances of multiple modes, including visual, auditory, and other semiotic forms, help construct meanings and communicate messages more effectively (Kress, 2000; Palmeri, 2012; Smith et al., 2017).

Recent research on multimodal composition highlights its wide-ranging benefits for students in secondary and post-secondary contexts, both within and beyond the classroom. Studies have shown that engaging students in multimodality and DMC projects enhances their engagement (Callahan & King, 2011; Harman & Shin, 2018), fosters a stronger awareness of audience and purpose (Cimasko & Shin, 2017), cultivates agency and ownership (Hepple et al., 2014), deepens understanding of semiotic resources and affordances across modes (Shivers et al., 2017), and promotes social and civic engagement (Mirra & Garcia, 2017). Students who engage in such practices demonstrate heightened rhetorical awareness and an ability to communicate meaning effectively through diverse modalities (Takayoshi & Selfe, 2007). A research review on DMC in middle and high school classrooms further found that students’ multimodal remixing experiences can transform their attitude toward literacy, shifting their thinking about communication, school-based writing, and their own identities as writers (Nash, 2018).

While studies highlight the transformative potential of integrating multimodality, several caveats surround its implementation. Not all educational contexts are equally receptive to multimodal practices due to institutional constraints, standardized assessments, and unequal access to digital tools. In some multilingual classrooms, language and writing instruction prioritize students’ linguistic development, as writing courses tend to serve as a platform for fostering linguistic skills (Belcher, 2017; Casanave, 2017). Thus, although multimodality opens avenues for creative and inclusive meaning-making, its benefit and potential are contingent on the pedagogical conditions in which it is enacted.

Despite these challenges, research, in general, illustrates how multimodal practices support the development of metalanguage and “intermodal awareness between words and images” (Shin et al., 2020, p. 12). When multilingual students engage in DMC, they not only build rhetorical and semiotic awareness but also deepen their engagement with literacy in transformative ways (Harman & Burke, 2020; Unsworth & Mills, 2020; Zeng, 2024). Creative, multimodal literacy practices allow multilingual students to immerse themselves in knowledge construction, take up agentive civic roles, and develop a richer understanding of the world around them (Harman & Burke, 2020). Along the same line, Zeng (2024) argues that “inviting multimodal resources into the writing process expands flexibility and engagement for multilingual learners,” creating a space “to reveal, track, and build upon [their] often unseen resourcefulness and agency” (p. 112). Taken together, these findings suggest that multimodal writing is not simply a technical skillset but a transformative practice that reshapes how multilingual learners understand writing, communication, and their roles as meaning-makers in contemporary contexts.

2.2. Multilingualism and Translanguaging Practice

Multilingualism, broadly understood as the ability to use and navigate multiple languages, has long been a feature of human communication. In a multicultural, interconnected global context, multilingual speakers often engage in dynamic languaging practices as they “shuttle between communities and enjoy multiple memberships” (Canagarajah, 2002, p. 35). However, traditional approaches to multilingualism often treated languages as separate, fixed systems, reinforcing hierarchical distinctions between dominant and non-dominant languages, as well as “standard” and “non-standard” language varieties. In response, scholars have increasingly turned to translanguaging as a more dynamic and inclusive framework for understanding the fluid languaging practices of multilingual individuals. As both a theory and practice, translanguaging posits “a unitary linguistic repertoire” (Vogel & García, 2017, p. 1) rather than separate, bounded language systems and describes the dynamic process by which multilingual speakers draw on their full range of linguistic and semiotic resources to make meaning across contexts (García & Wei, 2014; Wei, 2018).

Originally coined by Williams (1994) in the context of Welsh bilingual education, the concept of translanguaging has since been expanded to challenge monolingual ideologies and reconceptualize multilingualism as a fluid and agentive use of language resources. It has gained recognition not only as a naturally occurring phenomenon in a linguistically pluralist society but also as a pedagogical orientation to transform language education. Recent scholarship further emphasizes translanguaging as a decolonial and emancipatory practice that resists dominant language hierarchies and affirms the identities and lived realities of multilingual learners (García et al., 2021; Wei, 2022). Rooted in both classroom practice and critical theory, translanguaging offers a critical lens through which to reimagine equitable and inclusive language education in contemporary classrooms. The translanguaging framework affirms students’ linguistic identities and envisions multilingual spaces as sites of agency and possibility (García & Kleyn, 2016; Wei, 2022). As such, it plays an increasingly central role in research on multilingual learners and in the design of linguistically responsive pedagogies.

A systematic review of 111 empirical studies on translanguaging in U.S. PK-12 classrooms demonstrates that translanguaging is increasingly recognized not merely as a strategy, but as a natural and purposeful practice among multilingual learners (Hamman-Ortiz et al., 2025). The review highlights its role in supporting sense-making, improving collaboration, fostering a sense of belonging and identity affirmation, and promoting more asset-oriented teacher beliefs. Hamman-Ortiz et al. (2025) concluded that context matters significantly, as the transformative potential of translanguaging varies across sociopolitical and educational settings. Echoing these findings, Hernandez Garcia et al. (2023) found that when teachers adopt a translanguaging stance, encouraging students to draw on their full linguistic repertoires, emergent bilinguals are better able to engage in inquiry-based learning, particularly in areas such as social studies. Their research underscores the ways schools, educators, and community members can actively cultivate translanguaging spaces to support students’ learning and empower their development as multilingual citizens (Hernandez Garcia et al., 2023). Extending this to science education, Charamba (2023) shows that, in a multilingual South African classroom, translanguaging serves as a powerful resource, rather than a hindrance, to help students generate scientific explanations, engage with disciplinary discourse, and negotiate meaning in complex content-rich contexts.

Recent research on translanguaging in multilingual classrooms has explored its impact on students’ perceptions, teachers’ beliefs, and overall classroom climate. For instance, a large-scale study conducted in multilingual spaces in Germany involving 48 classes and 865 students found that integrating translanguaging into classroom pedagogy positively influenced students’ perceptions of teaching quality and contributed to a more supportive and inclusive classroom climate (Decristan et al., 2024). Similarly, a review of translanguaging studies in Indonesian multilingual classrooms reported that translanguaging enhances the comprehensibility of learning activities and fosters students’ multilingual and linguistic competencies (Sutrisno, 2023). The review also emphasized the strategic use of code-switching and code-mixing to balance instruction across the three languages commonly used in those multilingual spaces, highlighting their importance in effective pedagogical planning.

While translanguaging practices in multilingual classrooms have been recognized for their benefits in promoting linguistic inclusivity and leveraging students’ full language repertoires, challenges exist in effectively implementing these practices due to teachers’ experience and professionalism, the linguistic needs of multilingual students, and teacher’s varying levels of familiarity and comfort with multilingual pedagogies (Ticheloven et al., 2019). For example, a study conducted in Islamic independent schools in Australia adopted a multidialectal and multilingual translanguaging perspective to examine the relationship between teacher beliefs and actual classroom practices in L2 Arabic instruction (Kawafha & Al Masaeed, 2023). The findings revealed a disconnect between teachers’ stated beliefs about the role of English and their actual use of it in the classroom. This misalignment underscores the need for targeted teacher training that demonstrates how to purposefully and strategically implement multilingual and multidialectal translanguaging to enrich students’ language and literacy development. Such practices reflect the sociolinguistic realities of today’s globalized world and, when used intentionally, can deepen students’ knowledge and enhance their language learning and literacy outcomes (Al Masaeed, 2020; Littlewood & Yu, 2011; Zhu & Vanek, 2017).

Taken together, the growing body of research on translanguaging affirms its value as both a pedagogical orientation and a transformative framework in multilingual contexts. Contemporary classrooms, as well as digital spaces, are shaped by the dynamic interactions of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. As these sociolinguistic realities of multilingual spaces continue to evolve, translanguaging theory and practice provide educators with an informative lens for designing instruction that affirms linguistic diversity, challenges dominant ideologies, and prepares students to thrive as multilingual, multiliterate citizens. Realizing the full potential of translanguaging in education, however, requires sustained professional development and an orientation toward linguistic justice and equity.

2.3. The Intersection of Multimodality and Multilingualism

The research at the intersection of multimodality and multilingualism draws on several theoretical traditions and pedagogical shifts, including social semiotics, the multilingual turn, and the multiliteracies approach. Social semiotics, which is rooted in Halliday’s (1978) conceptualization of language as a social semiotic system, is both a theoretical framework and an approach that seeks to understand how people use a variety of meaning-making resources in specific social contexts. A shift from an exclusive emphasis on language as social semiotic to the inclusion of other semiotic systems was pioneered by Hodge and Kress (1998) and later expanded by van Leeuwen (2005), who put forward the argument that meaning-making in human communication is not mediated only by language but through multiple semiotic modes—visual, spatial, gestural, and auditory—each of which has its own affordances and constraints. This theoretical stance offers a basis for thinking about communication more holistically.

Parallel to this broader view of communication, the multilingual turn in applied linguistics has further challenged traditional, monolingual conceptions of language use. Coined by May (2014), the multilingual turn represents a paradigm shift in language education and research that recognizes multilingualism not as a problem to be remedied but as a valuable and dynamic resource. It critiques the dominance of “native speakerism” or monolingual norms and calls for approaches that reflect the lived realities of speakers who draw on multiple linguistic resources fluidly in everyday interactions. In an increasingly superdiverse, globalized society, this shift foregrounds “the dynamic, hybrid, and transnational linguistic repertoires of multilingual (often migrant) speakers” (May, 2014, p. 1). Central to the multilingual turn is the concept of linguistic repertoire—the total set of semiotic and linguistic resources multilingual speakers use to make meaning rather than discrete, bounded language systems. This concept aligns closely with theories of translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014), which emphasizes how multilingual individuals mobilize their entire semiotic and linguistic repertoires across contexts in flexible, agentive ways. In this view, multilingualism is not just a matter of code-switching between “stable systems” but of meaning-making across a spectrum of languages and modes. Thus, the multilingual turn provides a critical foundation for understanding how language and other semiotic resources interact, setting the stage for a more integrated perspective on multilingual and multimodal communication.

Alongside social semiotics and the multilingual turn, the multiliteracies approach offers another foundational lens for understanding the intersection of multimodality and multilingualism. Originally proposed by the New London Group (1996), the multiliteracies framework expands the concept of literacy beyond the traditional focus on reading and writing in a single, “standard” language. It emphasized two key shifts: (1) the multiplicity of communication channels, forms, and modes, and (2) the growing diversity of digital, media, and technologically mediated forms of communication that demand new forms of digital and media literacy. This shift reflects the realities of a digitally saturated world in which students engage with digital tools and complex multimodal texts that combine linguistic resources with images, sounds, animation, and hypertextual elements. The multiliteracies approach, therefore, calls for an instructional focus and pedagogy that equip learners with the critical thinking and creative skills necessary to access, analyze, and produce digital and media texts. It also foregrounds the importance of critical media literacy and encourages learners to question the ideologies and socio-political implications embedded within digital content (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009). As such, the multiliteracies framework remains central to what it means to be literate in contemporary society, where digital fluency, multimodal competency, and multilingual proficiency are essential for full participation in civic, professional, and social life.

Together, the frameworks of social semiotics, the multilingual turn, and the multiliteracies approach offer a foundation for reimagining writing, literacy, and learning in ways that center accessibility, inclusion, and multiple means of meaning-making and expressions. These theoretical insights align closely with principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and asset-based pedagogies, both of which advocate for flexible, responsive, and equitable educational practices that honor diverse learners’ strengths, languages, and modes of expression. In this vein, digital tools and platforms become not just technological conveniences but critical affordances that enable learners to represent and negotiate their identity, knowledge, and experience through multimodal and multilingual forms of expression and representation. By integrating these perspectives, teachers can foster more equitable and participatory learning environments that embrace complexity, diversity, and the full range of communicative potentials.

Based on the theoretical foundations and extant research discussed above, this paper proposes an integrative conceptual model of multimodal–multilingual meaning-making in translingual multiliteracies communicative contexts (Figure 1). The model brings together the intersecting dimensions of multimodal composition, translanguaging practices, and multilingual competence by positioning them as complementary processes through which learners construct and negotiate meaning. It also aims to serve as a pedagogical guide for implementing multimodal–multilingual practices in the classroom.

3. Pedagogical Implications in Contemporary Teaching and Learning

The theoretical and empirical research on multimodality and multilingualism underscores the pressing need to reimagine traditional pedagogical approaches to literacy and learning that privilege monolingual, alphabetic, print-based forms. This body of work challenges monolithic views of language and literacy by highlighting the diverse ways meaning is constructed across modes and languages. It calls for teachers and educators across varied contexts to respond to the evolving literacy needs of diverse student populations by adopting more inclusive, expansive, and culturally responsive pedagogies that reflect the realities of contemporary communication. As classrooms become increasingly diverse and digitally mediated, the pedagogical landscape must evolve to reflect the complex, multimodal, and multilingual ways students make meaning and communicate ideas. In this vein, Selfe (2004) reminds us, “if our profession continues to focus solely on the teaching of alphabetic composition, we run the risk of making composition studies irrelevant to students engaging in contemporary practices of communicating” (p. 72). Contemporary pedagogies, therefore, must foreground the fluid cultural and linguistic practices of multilingual (often minoritized) students while supporting them in “building up their rhetorical, civic, and academic repertoires within their new cultural context” (Harman & Burke, 2020, p. 18).

3.1. Toward a Multimodal-Multilingual Pedagogical Ethos

The implications of research on multimodality and multilingualism call for a broader shift in mindset—a pedagogical ethos that recognizes and values the dynamic, hybrid, and contextually responsive nature of writing and meaning-making in contemporary classrooms. This ethos calls on teachers and educators to move away from deficit perspectives of multilingual learners and devaluation of non-alphabetic literacies toward cultivating learning environments where linguistic diversity and multimodal expression are recognized as valuable resources rather than barriers to learning (Seltzer et al., 2025). In doing so, the multimodal–multilingual pedagogical ethos challenges the dominance of monolingual and monocultural norms in education, advocating instead for pedagogies that honor students’ full range of communicative resources.

Teaching with this pedagogical framing requires teacher reflexivity—a conscious and critical examination of one’s own linguistic ideologies, pedagogical assumptions, and the power dynamics at play in classroom discourse. Reflexivity is integral to equitable teaching because the ways educators teach for and respond to learner diversity have a lasting impact on students’ educational experiences and career pathways (Lunn Brownlee et al., 2022; Groundwater-Smith et al., 2011). According to Archer (2012), reflexivity involves internal conversations through recursive phases of discernment, deliberation, and dedication; it prompts teachers to engage in critical reflection and self-examination to inform their pedagogical decision-making. Drawing on their research into how educators navigate social justice agendas in teacher education programs, Lunn Brownlee et al. (2022) argue that “the pursuit of social justice requires an evaluativist epistemic stance” and that epistemic reflexivity supports teaching for diversity by challenging systemic inequities and critically evaluating the beliefs and attitudes that sustain them (p. 685).

3.2. Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Practices

The multimodal–multilingual pedagogical ethos also calls for culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) practices, as educators navigate and respond to the semiotic, cultural, and linguistic complexities that students bring into the learning environment. The CLR pedagogical approach requires both flexibility and willingness to adapt teaching practices, curricula, and expectations in response to students’ diverse ways of knowing, expressing, and communicating (Paris & Alim, 2017). In linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, this means moving away from rigid, one-size-fits-all models of instruction and assessment toward a responsive pedagogy that views learning as emergent, situated, context-dependent, and shaped by students’ lived experiences.

Enacting CLR practices requires teachers to go beyond static, surface-level understandings of culture and language and instead recognize their dynamic, layered nature. Hammond (2014), in her work on culturally responsive teaching, highlights the Culture Tree as a framework for examining the three layers of culture—surface culture (the leaves or the observable patterns), shallow culture (the trunk or the unspoken rules), and deep culture (the roots or the collective unconscious). This stance urges educators to consider not only what students bring linguistically and culturally to the classroom, but also how to create learning environments that support their ongoing growth, identity development, and transformation. In essence, CLR approach is not merely an instructional strategy but a pedagogical stance that attends to context, cultivates deeper cultural understandings, and honors the complex realities and intersectionality of identity, language, and communication in contemporary classrooms.

3.3. Culturally Sustaining Systemic Functional Linguistics

Culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics (CS-SFL) offers a well-grounded pedagogical framework for centering the dynamic cultural, linguistic, and multimodal practices of minoritized students while expanding their access to academic, civic, and disciplinary discourses (Harman & Burke, 2020). Drawing from culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP; Paris & Alim, 2014, 2017) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL; Halliday, 1994), CS-SFL pedagogy promotes heteroglossic language practices, linguistic pluralism, and semiotic awareness. Such pedagogy invites students to build upon their full communicative repertoires, including home language, visual design, and media and popular culture content. One key implication for teaching is creating a classroom space and designing assignments that invite students to integrate their home and community languages and dialects, as well as multimodal ways of meaning-making.

CS-SFL-oriented instruction not only emphasizes linguistic diversity and cultural sustenance, but also promotes critical inquiry into language use, communication practices, and digital media. Developing students’ critical language and semiotic awareness is essential in interrogating how language and other modes of communication (e.g., visual, gestural, audio) are used to reproduce and resist systems of power and inequality. Alim (2005) contends that critical inquiry is of paramount importance to “confront the issue of language discrimination and marginalization in schools and society” and, therefore, educators need to “help students read not just the word but also the world” (p. 29). This means teachers need to plan instruction that support students in interrogating and analyzing how meaning is constructed not just through words but through multimodal and multilingual texts and discourses that circulate in digital, academic, and social contexts. Teaching students how language and other semiotic resources can either marginalize or empower helps students become critical consumers and producers of content in digital, social, and professional spaces.

3.4. Shared Responsibility for Educational Equity

Nurturing a multimodal–multilingual pedagogical ethos grounded in equity, inclusion, transformation, and innovation requires shared responsibility and a collective effort. Such transformation cannot rest solely on individual classroom practices; rather, it demands coordinated and sustained action across multiple levels of the education system to create environments where diverse semiotic and linguistic resources are recognized, valued, and effectively supported. As Cochran-Smith et al. (2016) argue, achieving educational equity involves systemic commitment to rethinking teacher preparation, curriculum design, and policy frameworks to address structural inequities. Collective effort is necessary not only for enacting inclusive and innovative practices but for challenging deficit discourses and institutional norms that have historically marginalized multilingual learners and non-dominant literacies.

As technologies evolve and new forms of communication emerge, educators need on-going, sustained professional development to learn to integrate and effectively use digital tools and multimodal elements to support learning in multilingual spaces. Teacher educator programs must prepare pre-service teachers to work effectively in culturally and linguistically diverse settings, equipping them with pedagogical knowledge, cultural understanding, and technological tools to support student agency, identity, and critical engagement through multimodal design (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015; García & Kleifgen, 2018). It is important to acknowledge that structural barriers, including rigid curriculum standards, high-stakes testing, and monolingual assessment frameworks constrain innovative and responsive teaching practices. Thus, institutional support, curriculum design, and assessment systems that reflect the socio-semiotic and sociolinguistic realities of the 21st century are essential for empowering educators to implement multimodality and multilingualism.

4. Practical Strategies and Classroom Implementation

Grounded in theoretical and empirical work on multimodality and multilingualism, this section turns to practical strategies and classroom implementation. It explores how the multimodal–multilingual pedagogical ethos can be enacted through concrete, classroom-based practice that (1) promotes a diversity of voices, perspectives, texts, and assignments; (2) centers students’ agency, voice, and ownership; (3) fosters critical thinking and creative remixing. The key goal of this section is to illustrate adaptable and practical strategies that promote diverse linguistic, cultural, and semiotic resources.

By intentionally integrating multiple modes of communication in both curricular materials and authentic assignments, teachers can create learning experiences that are accessible, engaging, and representative of how meaning is constructed in different ways and forms and that allow students to express their ideas and stories through a range of semiotic forms. This positions the classroom not just as a site of academic learning but as a space for the co-construction of knowledge, experimentation, creative remixing, tinkering, and risk-taking.

4.1. Diversity of Voices, Texts, and Assignments

An essential component of implementing a multimodal–multilingual approach is the intentional inclusion of diverse voices, genres, and media forms within classroom instruction (Figure 2). Prioritizing diversity means curating texts and materials that represent a wide range of cultural, linguistic, racial, and gendered perspectives. This includes works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) scholars, writers, artists, and creators whose lived experiences offer critical insights into identity, power, and language. By engaging with these varied perspectives, students are exposed to complex, intersectional ways of understanding the world and meaning-making that prepare them to think critically, communicate across differences, and participate thoughtfully in diverse academic, civic, and professional contexts.

This diversity of instructional materials also extends to the forms and modes of text presented in the classroom. Rather than centering only on alphabetic, linear texts, instruction can incorporate short- and long-form reading, photo essays, video and digital media content, audio materials such as podcasts, oral history projects, speeches and talks, traditional and popular music, spoken word performances, multimodal compositions, and so on. This breadth of material supports entry points for engagement and affirms that meaning-making happens across many semiotic channels, not just through written language.

The diversity of meaning-making can be exemplified by presenting students with a model that demonstrates the intentional remixing of multiple languages and modes of communication. To illustrate this, an excerpt from a bilingual, multimodal work by a London-based multilingual author and nutritional journalist is featured here (Figure 3). Writing for teenagers and young adults to explain a scientific concept, Enkhzul Lonjid employs a multimodal and multilingual approach that integrates English and Mongolian, as well as visuals and words. Through accessible linguistic choices in both languages and the combination of visual and audio elements, Lonjid’s work engages learners across different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Her rhetorical choices are deliberately made to reach diverse audiences, enhance accessibility, and promote understanding of a complex scientific topic to young audiences.

Critical inquiry and rhetorical analysis of these diverse materials are essential for helping students develop deeper awareness of how language, multimodal texts, and cultural representations shape meaning. Integrating activities that prompt students to examine the rhetorical strategies, language choices, visual elements, and cultural assumptions embedded in texts—whether written, spoken, visual, or digital—can foster critical thinking and media literacy. For instance, students might analyze how a multilingual speech uses code-switching to appeal to multiple audiences, or how an ad campaign uses color, font, movement, gesture, and sound to reinforce a particular message. These practices not only sharpen students’ analytical skills but also help them interrogate how race, gender, class, sexual orientation, language and other identity markers are constructed, circulated, and contested in discourse. Embedding critical inquiry within multimodal and multilingual instruction moves beyond surface-level representation toward a more transformative pedagogy that empowers students to question dominant narratives, recognize their own positionality, and use language and semiotic resources to imagine more equitable futures.

Writing assignments and opportunities are similarly designed to reflect this multimodal and multicultural ethos. Offering opportunities to compose in a variety of forms, and formats, such as digital storytelling, source-based arguments, critical reflections, personal stories, and counter-narratives, in multimodal and multilingual remixing taps into students’ creativity and innovation. Such assignments not only promote rhetorical flexibility but also create space for students to explore their identity and voice, express complex ideas and experiences, and experiment with a wide range of modes and meaning-making resources. Even when writing about themselves, students are encouraged to connect their experiences to broader cultural, social, and political contexts in ways that promote critical engagement with questions of identity, community, and discourse.

Cultivating a multimodal–multilingual pedagogical ethos calls for more than adopting new tools. It requires rethinking whose voices are heard, what forms of expression are valued, and what counts as knowledge. Teachers can begin by taking several purposeful steps:

• Create a space for multiple languages and semiotic modes in both teaching and student expression, welcoming multilingual and multimodal meaning-making as valid and valuable means of communication.
• Broaden curricular content by intentionally including authors, speakers, content creators, and artists from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds and by integrating varied genres.
• Design learning experiences that promote critical inquiry, engaging students to examine how language and representation relate to power, identity, and inclusion.
• Build reflective practices into instruction, guiding students to consider how they use different modes and languages to construct meaning and express their perspective in different contexts.

These steps serve as crucial foundations for cultivating multilingual and multimodal literacy practices that prepare students to thrive in increasingly complex and diverse communicative landscapes.

4.2. Centering Student Agency, Voice, and Ownership

Centering students’ agency, voice, and ownership is integral in creating equitable, inclusive, and engaging learning environments. In multimodal–multilingual classroom space, student agency can be cultivated by providing students with meaningful choices that allow them to take an active role in shaping their own writing, self-expression, and authorial voice. Teachers can invite students to select topics, genres, and inquiries that resonate with their own interests, identities, and communities. For example, when engaging students in analytical work, teachers and students might co-create a curated list of diverse texts across genres and media formats that reflect different cultural perspectives and voices. When students are given opportunities to choose topics, genres, formats, or media that resonate with their own interests, strengths, and experiences, they are more likely to take intellectual risks and produce meaningful work (Krishnan et al., 2021).

Open-ended assignments are a powerful strategy for supporting student voice and ownership. Giving students flexibility in forms and formats (e.g., a podcast, a zine, a video essay) enables them to choose the modes of expression that best suit their ideas and assets. For instance, in a personal narrative unit, students can decide whether to write a traditional, linear narrative, produce a spoken-word piece, or design a digital story incorporating visual and audio elements. The goal is to empower students to make intentional choices and explore what style, genre, language, or mode best amplifies their message and perspective. The following excerpt from a multimodal memoir project created by Olivia Nowowiejska in a first-year seminar class best illustrates intentional authorial choices through the creative remixing of multimodal elements and multilingual meaning-making (Figure 4). Through her multimodal memoir, Nowowiejska explores the topic of mental health. She writes, “For a long time, I thought I was defined by the hurt. It took me a long time to discover the falsities in that statement. My journey is not over, but I am forever proud of the progress I have made.”

Beyond the written word, Nowowiejska skillfully remixes a variety of modes—juxtaposing black-and-white and color photographs, layering handwritten notes, and weaving together the stylistic elements of prose and poetry. Through this rich tapestry of visual and textual forms and genre-meshing, she not only tells her own story effectively but also gives voice to the mental health struggles faced by young adults. Her work is further deepened by her intentional use of translanguaging practice, as she experiments with writing in two languages—English and Polish—that highlight her personal, cultural, and linguistic identities on the page. In doing so, Nowowiejska asserts her agency as a multilingual storyteller and takes ownership of both content and form to craft a piece that is deeply personal, culturally resonant, and rhetorically powerful.

When students are given the opportunity to make meaningful decisions about what they read, create, and write, they are more likely to invest in their learning, take intellectual risks, and develop stronger, more confident voices (Hepple et al., 2014). To center student agency, voice, and ownership, teachers can take several purposeful steps:

• Provide students with an opportunity to choose topics, modes of expression, and project formats that promote the pursuit of inquiries that reflect their identities, interests, and lived experiences.
• Design open-ended assignments that have multiple pathways, giving students the flexibility and freedom to determine how they want to approach the task.
• Invite students into curricular decisions by co-creating class norms and writing assignments and assessment criteria. These practices signal to students that their voices matter in shaping their own learning experience.
• Support metacognitive reflections through journals, check-ins, and reflections to help students track their growth, articulate their learning goals, and take ownership of their creative and intellectual process.
• Create opportunities for students to draw from their cultural, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds as sources of insight, knowledge, and authority.

Centering student agency, choice, and ownership can foster deeper engagement and a sense of belonging within the classroom community of writers.

4.3. Fostering Creativity and Criticality

In today’s diverse and digitally saturated writing spaces, fostering creativity and criticality is not optional but essential. Multimodal writing in a multilingual space is, in and of itself, a creative process, as students imagine, design, and combine multiple modes and languages to express ideas in novel and personally meaningful ways. Criticality can enable them to question dominant narratives, unpack systems of power, and analyze the social and political implications of texts, language, content, and information dissemination (Alim, 2005). Thus, a pedagogy that fosters both creativity and critical thinking has the potential to challenge reductive and passive learning by positioning students as engaged, reflective, and responsible meaning-makers. When students are encouraged to remix genres, modes and languages and interrogate texts, they can simultaneously develop academic skills and cultivate a deeper sense of purpose and audience (Lunsford, 2006).

Cultivating creativity and criticality means creating conditions in which students are encouraged to use a range of linguistic and semiotic repertoires to challenge norms and biases. One compelling example that exhibits creative and critical thinking is a multimodal interactive book created by Maddie Bisiules, a student in a first-year seminar class (Figure 5). This multimodal work, titled Tilly’s Hands Can Talk and Yours Can, Too!, centers the story of a young deaf girl who wears a cochlear implant to help her hear sounds. The book not only tells a meaningful personal narrative but it also serves as a tool for educating readers about the complexities and nuances of identity, ableism, and the lived reality of a young girl. By combining written English text, interactive American Sign Language (ASL) components, images and illustrations, and design elements, Bisiules uses multiple semiotic resources to challenge misconceptions and promote awareness around linguistic diversity and access. This project exemplifies how creative expression can be deeply intertwined with critical inquiry. The student author here is not simply telling a story but rather inviting the audience to engage with questions of communication, inclusion, identity, and ableism. By including the ALS alphabet and inviting readers to practice how to sign names and common phrases, Bisiules creates an interactive, multimodal, and multilingual work that serves to educate and raise awareness. It allows and invites readers to reflect on their own assumptions about language and communication while developing a more comprehensive understanding of diverse communicative forms and contexts.

From a pedagogical perspective, this project highlights the importance of designing assignments that leave space for student-led inquiry, personal relevance, and multimodal expression. The student author had the freedom to choose the topic, audience, and modes of expression. It also illustrates how creative risk-taking can open up possibilities for who and what is represented in classroom discourse. Thus, encouraging students to take creative and critical approaches to storytelling or advocacy can provide opportunities to imagine new futures while critiquing present injustices.

To foster creativity and criticality in multimodal–multilingual writing spaces, teachers can take the following steps:

• Integrate inquiry-based learning by posing essential, open-ended questions that ask students to investigate real-world issues, challenge dominant narratives, and reflex on their positionalities and language practices.
• Provide models of creative–critical texts and multimodal works that blend genres, modes, and languages to inspire students and expand their understanding of what academic work can look and feel like.
• Build in opportunities for peer dialogue and collaborative meaning-making, where students can share drafts, exchange feedback, and reflect critically on both their creative choices and their rhetorical impacts.
• Prompt students to interrogate linguistic, cultural, and multimodal representation by analyzing how different voices, languages, dialects, and sign systems are privileged or marginalized across communicative contexts.

Fostering creativity and criticality in this way helps students not only to express their unique perspectives but to develop the critical awareness and rhetorical agency needed to navigate and shape the world around them.

5. Conclusions

As educators across the world prepare students for a digitally literate and globally connected future, the importance of multimodal and multilingual pedagogies cannot be overstated. The evolving landscape of digital communication, marked by rapid technological advancement, AI innovation, and diverse media platforms, demands that writing is understood as not just a linguistic and rhetorical act but a dynamic, multimodal, contextually driven process that integrates multiple semiotic and linguistic resources for meaning-making. This reconceptualization foregrounds how learners construct, negotiate, and circulate knowledge across languages, modes, and communicative contexts that reflect the complex realities of contemporary digital and global environments.

The integrative conceptual model of multimodal–multilingual meaning-making offers a theoretical synthesis that connects three key dimensions: (1) multimodality as semiotic resources, (2) translanguaging as a meaning-making practice, and (3) multilingual competence as a dynamic, adaptive resource. Together, these dimensions form a pedagogical guide and framework that situates writing as an inherently dynamic and hybrid process that bridges the cognitive, cultural, rhetorical, and technological domains. The model aims to serve as a guide for the classroom practice of designing tasks that engage multiple semiotic resources, leveraging learners’ full linguistic repertoires, and engaging students in creative design and critical inquiry.

It is important to address the rise of AI tools, ranging from generative text systems based on large language models to visual and audio content-creation tools. Generative AI tools, including those that can generate text (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini), image (e.g., DALL-E, Canva), and audio (e.g., Voice Engine, ElevenLabs), not only challenge the traditional approach of teaching writing and literacy but, importantly, amplify the urgency of a pedagogical shift.

The pedagogical shift toward multimodal–multilingual meaning-making necessitates attention to several key areas of instructional practice in the era of generative AI. First, educators must prioritize process over product. Writing should not be treated as a one-time performance, but as an iterative process of exploration and reflection. Accordingly, assessment practices, including rubrics and grading criteria, need to be reoriented to evaluate the process rather than a polished final product. Second, teachers need to find innovative ways to integrate AI tools to support teaching, learning and differentiated instruction. When thoughtfully incorporated, AI technologies can serve as mediational and assistive tools that can enhance learning. Third, it is essential to promote the responsible and ethical use of AI tools. Teachers should guide students in critically examining both the affordances and limitations of AI tools to help them discern what aspects of the process can be supported by AI and what should remain the work of the human writer/creator.

While emerging technologies offer exciting opportunities for creativity, collaboration, and access to global audiences, they also raise critical questions about equity, access, inclusion, and responsible use. A multimodal, multilingual approach to literacy instruction must therefore be grounded in both critical pedagogy and social justice. We need to ensure that all students, regardless of their linguistic, cultural, socio-economic, and technological backgrounds, are provided with meaningful writing opportunities and can participate fully in innovative and transformative content creation.

Looking ahead, the theoretical model outlined here invites empirical research that examines how multimodal–multilingual pedagogies can be enacted across diverse educational contexts. Future studies might investigate, for instance, how diverse students’ engagement in multimodal–multilingual writing and content creation might improve intercultural communication and critical digital literacy. In essence, reconceptualizing writing as dynamic, multimodal, and contextually responsive mirrors the diverse ways people learn, think, and interact. Through this integrative model, we can better prepare students to participate creatively, critically, and responsibly in the evolving and interdependent global communicative landscape.