Digital multimodal composing and investment change in learners' writing in English as a foreign language

Abstract

Situated in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context, this study navigates the processes of investment change in learners’ writing when a digital multimodal composing (DMC) program was implemented in a university-based EFL curriculum in China. Using data gathered from observation, interview, and student-authored multimodal texts, this study presents three patterns of change with three focal cases. In the first pattern, the student repositioned himself from a resistant writer to an active composer, while in the second, the student evolved from an exam-oriented writer and textbook-decoder to a multimodal designer during DMC. Yet the third case displayed a pattern of little change in his investment in English writing. These results suggest that while DMC expanded the range of identity positions for EFL learners, students differed in responding to these positions, leading to varied impacts on their investment. The findings also reveal that these individualized responses were directed by students’ commitment to various positions in their self-valued identities and mediated by larger ideological structures associated with the high-stakes testing regimes. The paper concludes with implications for second language writing regarding ways to promote and sustain learner investment through DMC in digitalized instructional landscapes.