Seeing in Writing: A Case Study of a Multilingual Graduate Writing Instructor’s Socialization through Multimodality

Abstract

With growing numbers of multilinguals becoming writing instructors and scholars in the U.S. composition context, it is urgent to understand how multilingual graduate instructors of writing socialization processes are mediated by multimodal elements rather than just textual forms of language. This article reports on an ethnographically-oriented case study to respond to the following questions: (1) Does multimodality contribute to a multilingual graduate instructor’s socialization into writing and the teaching of writing? If yes, in what ways does multimodality interact with the writer’s language repertoire? (2) How does the multilingual graduate instructor’s multimodal writing and teaching of writing impact other academic practices? Through systematic thematic coding and multimodal textual analysis of questionnaires, a classroom observation, writing materials, and a semi-structured interview, the study reveals that the participant, a graduate teacher of writing, transitioned from isolation to socialization through multimodality while developing a gendered consciousness. In addition, her identity shifted in power hierarchies as socialization enabled researching and teaching through multimodal and multisensorial identity.