| This ethnographic study examined the composing processes of novice multimodal composers as they developed digital autoethnography videos for an assignment in a first-year writing course at a large southeastern university. Participants included six student volunteers from a single section of the university's required first-year writing course. The research questions focused specifically on the processes the students engaged in when composing multimodally, how they made rhetorical choices and decisions, and how they navigated the use of various technologies as they composed. Data was collected over a seven-week period (the duration of the students' work on the project) through classroom observation, interviews, written reflections, collection of project artifacts, and screen capture recording. The data indicate that students engage in two phases of intellectual work as they compose multimodally. While the phases are distinct in the types of actions and operations involved, they are recursive, intertwined, and interrelated. Students' choices and decision-making are influenced by a wide range of textual and contextual factors, including the mediating nature of their tools of inscription. Students use trial and error as well as resources such as YouTube and Google to navigate unfamiliar technologies as they compose. The results suggest a new model of composing involving phases of conceptualization and actualization, and indicate that further study is needed into the roles of technological anxiety, off-task activity, and procrastination in composing. Further, results indicate that multimodal assignments do address the goals of first-year writing courses as defined by the WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition. . |
