Digital Writer Self-Portrait
Students apply the five modes of communication to their own identity as writers, for an audience they choose.
Multimodal
Process: Directed draftingFirst draft
- Length
- 1,500 words or the equivalent (5–10 slides, or 7–10 minutes of audio or video)
- Modes
- 3–5 of the five modes
- Done
- Individually
- Citation
- MLA or APA, for primary and secondary data
Of the multimodal projects I assign, this is the most personal. Students make a portrait of themselves as digital writers: the memories, tools, rules, and metaphors that make up their writing life on screens. It’s based on the Writer Self-Portrait sample assignment in Writing About Writing, carried into digital form.
What students make
- A piece that integrates three to five of the five modes “synergistically,” not language with pictures added.
- For an audience they choose: me and their classmates, themselves, their family, or a future, public version of themselves.
Formats and tools
Students choose one of these or propose another for my approval:
- Website or digital portfolio: Adobe Express, Canva Website
- Video essay or digital story (5–10 minutes): CapCut, iMovie, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro
- Interactive presentation: Prezi, Canva, or PowerPoint or Keynote with hyperlinks and embedded media
- Multimedia blog post or hypertext essay, with embedded video, audio, and images
- Multimodal paper in Word or Google Docs
How it runs
The unit opens with a lecture on multimodality built around Robert Frank’s photographs, then Lyiscott, Gagich, and Hancock. Students get a session in the campus digital media lab and a lecture on citing primary and secondary data. In a 15-week course, the draft is due in Week 10 and the revision in Week 11.
Where it sits
It comes right after the personal essay, so students carry the same “I” into the other four modes before they turn outward to scholarship. If you want a multimodal project that turns outward sooner, a group project or a genre analysis does that. The pathway map shows where each one is used.
Readings
- Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Writer Self-Portrait sample assignment, Writing About Writing, 5th ed.
- Melanie Gagich, "An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing"
- Jamila Lyiscott, "3 Ways to Speak English" (TED talk)
- Leslie Hancock, "From Noob to Veteran in League of Legends: Activity Systems and Genre Analysis in Video Games"
- Robert Frank, photographs (used in the multimodal lecture)
Part of
Where I've used it
- First-year writing II · 15 weeks, in person · Spring 2026