“The lay of the land”: exploring the diverse ways English Studies lecturers use digital multimodal projects

Traditionally, university students in English Studies write essays, but digital technologies have provided students with new tools to respond to texts. This study is about doing English Studies differently through using multimodal composition (composing using images, written text, sound, etc.) to respond to literary, TV/film, and theoretical texts. Using a multi-method qualitative study, I interviewed, collected documents, and analysed online student examples from 10 English Studies lecturers at five universities in the UK who use multimodal approaches. My aim was to investigate the types of digital projects they used, and the processes involved, as well as explore the unique aspects multimodal projects bring to English Studies. The findings were that a wide variety of projects (video essays, films, podcasts) were used across participants, suggesting that multimodality expands the possibilities for textual responses. Also, the multimodal projects provided a unique form of textual exploration through transmediation (the translation of content from one sign system to another), and they enabled critical insights through creative production. Recommendations are made based on the processes my participants used.