Driven by the digital revolution in second language (L2) classrooms and broadened views on literacy, digital multimodal composing (DMC) has gained a robust growth of interests in the past decade. To illuminate the empirical landscape of this budding field, this paper provides a substantive and methodological review of 60 empirical L2 studies on DMC in tertiary settings from 2005 to 2020. Each study was coded for characteristics regarding research context, methodology, study setup features, analyses performed, and the methodological practices. Our findings suggest that with a combination of flourishing qualitative observational research and emerging interventionist studies, this domain features (a) great attention to DMC in language classes, (b) an underrepresentation of non-English classrooms, (c) a preference for video projects over visual projects, and (d)immense efforts in exploring the potential of DMC from learners’ perspectives. Also, using a broad range of data sources, this domain relies on analytic frameworks distinct from traditional monomodal L2 writing. Methodologically, we found a strength in the use of two validity strategies (i.e., a thick description and triangulation) and less-than-ideal practices in reporting reliability and learners’ proficiency level. We conclude the paper with a number of empirically grounded recommendations for future research efforts. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1942068.

This article reviews 26 empirical studies on digital multimodal composing (DMC) published in well-established journals between 2010 and 2020. It provides a holistic overview of these studies in terms of context and participants, multimodal tasks, technology, and research data. Research strands and themes are also identified. This review shows that most studies on DMC were conducted in tertiary ESL/EFL contexts. The research was informed by various theoretical/pedagogical frameworks across multiple disciplines. The multimodal writing tasks included digital storytelling, digital video production, and multimodal presentation. Data were analyzed to address three main strands: 1) L2 students' DMC process, 2) students' perceptions of DMC, and 3) effects of DMC. Of note, DMC practices were reported to have benefited L2 students, such as enhancing audience and genre awareness, learner autonomy, language learning investment, identity development, multimodal communicative competence, and L2 competence. This article ends with pedagogical recommendations and directions for future research.

This chapter begins with a general overview of collaborative multimodal writing which arose in response to the social turn (Trimbur, 1994) and visual turn (Li & Storch, 2017; Purdy, 2014) in writing studies occurring during this decade. A plethora of empirical evidence indicates that collaborative writing (CW) fosters language negotiation and mutual scaffolding (Li & Zhu, 2013; Storch, 2019; Swain & Lapkin, 1998) and improves writing development (Bikowski & Vithanage, 2016; Strobl, 2014). Meanwhile, multimodal writing (MW) heightens students’ awareness of the metafunctions of semiotic modes (Shin & Cimasko, 2008; Shin et al., 2020), improves their multiliteracy skills, motivation and autonomy (Hafner, 2014, 2015; Jiang & Luk, 2016; Yi & Angay-Crowder, 2016), and affords multiple opportunities for self-expression, identity development, and language development (Belcher, 2017; Jiang et al., 2020; Vandommele et al., 2017). Despite flourishing research on CW and MW in L2 contexts, little research has explored CMW using digital technologies (Smith, 2019). A collaborative approach towards digital multimodal texts is likely to foster the development of learners’ collaborative skills and L2 digital literacy skills, both considered indispensable for learners to complete authentic tasks in the digital world (Li & Zhang, 2021). Therefore, our study aims to examine how French FL learners in a university Elementary French class jointly produce MW via Google Docs, focusing on both writing processes and products. To echo the themes of this book (e.g., contextualization and socialization), this chapter also discusses how technologies are adopted and writing tasks are devised to meet learners’ needs in the specific context; how technologies and learning environments afford meaningful interaction, particularly interaction amongst learners. The chapter concludes by re-addressing the “smartness”-related themes, pedagogical implications, and future research directions.

Digital multimodal composing (DMC) and study abroad have each been valued for their potential to facilitate second language (L2) development, yet their intersection remains underexplored, particularly regarding willingness to communicate (WTC). Drawing on Norton’s (2000, 2013) investment theory and MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) WTC framework, this study investigated how Instagram-based digital storytelling about host families shaped WTC and creative expression among five intermediate American French learners during a four-week study abroad program in France. The study addressed two research questions: (1) how host family interactions shaped through multimodal storytelling influenced WTC, and (2) how multimodal affordances (visual, audio, and textual) scaffolded learners’ creative expression and WTC development. Data included semi-structured interviews, weekly reflection journals, stimulated recall sessions, and Instagram artifacts. Two distinct patterns emerged according to learners’ investment levels. For high-anxiety, lower-investment learners, multimodal affordances served primarily compensatory functions, distributing communicative load across modes when linguistic resources proved insufficient. For high-investment learners, these same affordances functioned as sophisticated tools for cultural interpretation, enabling increasingly complex creative expression and sustained WTC development. These findings suggest implications for task design in short-term study abroad programs, particularly regarding how structured digital storytelling tasks may support authentic host family engagement and communicative risk-taking.