Week 8:Children Writing: Multimodality and Assessment in the writing classroom by:John Vincent

Vincent examines a very critical problem in our curriculum which is the lack of an assessment models for multimodal work. He uses a case study from his own classroom to demonstrate the importance of providing students with the chance to work multimodally. Through the work of Student B, we are able to see how a student that is typically not successful becomes engaged and creates a very well thought-out multimodal piece. Vincent looks towards other assessment models to mark this type of work and shows us that such models are non-existent or are not fully prepared to assess these types of texts.

Vincent leaves you with the impression that there is little to no multimodality work going on in our schools because of the lack of assessment tools that exist. He could have strengthened his piece by providing some examples where multimodal work is happening in the schools. Vincent also limits his study to one individual in his own classroom. It would have been beneficial to examine the work of other students in his school or from other classrooms. He then could have talked and incorporate other teachers and students opinions of working multimodally and for teachers, how they assess this type of work. Although Vincent examines Student B’s work in detail, he provides on example of Student A’s work and there is no further information about it. His paper could have been strengthened to include a follow through examination of Student A’s multimodal piece.

Overall, this research is somewhat limiting as it is a case study, it still raises awareness on the important fact that more assessment tools are need for multimodal pieces before this type of work starts to be the normal practice in all classrooms. It also needs to become part of our standard curriculums so that we can provide students with multiple opportunities to work in these multimodal settings as it is more true to the world that exists beyond the four walls of our classrooms. Hopefully, raising awareness can help activate the changes that are needed in this crucial subject area.

Overall, I feel that my seminar went well. Having the opportunity to be able to discuss assessment with other peers was helpful since everyone comes from a different wealth of experience. I am hoping that this seminar starts to generate some thought into how to assess multimodal work. The Ning will provide a great opportunity for those that do have some experience in assessing this type of work to be able to share with others. It would be very useful to look at assessment in multimodal work in a collaborative way since it is something that still needs much work done on it. Hopefully, through experience, more schemas will be developed in order to assess this type of work which should help inspire more teachers to utilize this type of work in their classrooms.

Vincent J. (2006). Children Writing: Multimodality and Assessment in the Writing Classroom. Literacy, 40(1), 51-57.