What is Multimodality?

Literally, “multimodal” means more than one mode. For your purposes, that means the process of changing the form of an idea you’ve written in an essay.

• Multimodal composition asks you to think “outside the box”—in other words, you must make rhetorical considerations beyond static words on a printed page.
• Multimodal composition helps you develop a better sense of a real audience—it’s easier for you to conceptualize the audience for a video or a podcast than an audience for a typographic essay.
• Multimodal composition gives you more a versatile and real-world skill set that is applicable outside of college.
• Multimodal composition forces you to “remediate” content. Remediation is everywhere—think about online newspapers, or e-books. We now see remediated content remediated further—think about “video podcasts.”

Department of Writing and Rhetoric Writing Skills Lab on Multimodality

Faculty at the University of Mississippi have created a module for writing students to explore different modes of communication. Link to Writing Skills Lab Multimodality Section

Department of Writing and Rhetoric Multimodal Resource Guide

The resource guide below contains links to resources and tutorials for students to begin to explore different modes of composition.