Assessing multiliteracies: a systematic review and a perspective from Singapore

Abstract

ABSTRACT The literacy demands on our students in the contemporary digital age goes beyond the reading of linguistic texts to include the viewing and representing with multimodal texts that make meanings across semiotic modes. Students need to possess multiliteracies to navigate the complex multimodal communication landscape and schools are responsible to both teach and assess multiliteracies. In this paper, we perform a systematic review of studies from 2013 to 2023 on multiliteracies and assessment in the English language classrooms and identified the themes of the importance of a metalanguage of multiliteracies for assessment, the productivity of multimodal analytical frameworks for assessment of students’ artefacts, and the preoccupation with language and print literacies in multiliteracies assessment. We reflect on these themes in relation to our multiliteracies project in Singapore and discuss how we have engaged with the issues on multiliteracies and assessment. Our findings attest to the need for a commonly shared pedagogic metalanguage to assess students’ learning of multiliteracies and the need to move beyond the focus on language and print literacy in assessment. Our paper contributes towards initiating a conversation on how multiliteracies can be equitably assessed in anticipation of the changes that must come in today’s digital age.