ABSTRACT

This article urges reconsideration of the traditional essay in undergraduate education. Despite renewed critiques of its efficacy as a pedagogical tool, the essay stubbornly retains primacy. As studies confirm the learning benefits of collaboration and highlight the potential of multimodal composition to challenge and expand forms of knowledge production, the collaborative digital multimodal essay offers an alternative to the traditional essay. This study focuses on 35 students in two advanced undergraduate literary studies courses who were assigned a collaborative digital multimodal composition project in the online publishing platform Scalar. Thematic analysis of student reflections following the project indicate that students perceive collaborative digital multimodal writing to offer opportunities for more creativity and autonomy and to challenge conceptions of academic writing forms, conventions and practices. Collaborating to develop complex and coherent arguments remained a significant challenge as did the technical demands of the digital writing platform.

摘要

本文敦促重新考虑本科教育中的传统论文。尽管对其作为教学工具的功效再次提出批评，这篇文章仍然顽固地保持着首要地位。研究证实了协作的学习益处，并强调了多模式写作挑战和扩展知识生产形式的潜力，协作数字多模式论文提供了传统论文的替代方案。本研究的重点是 35 名修读两门高级本科文学研究课程的学生，他们被分配在在线出版平台 Scalar 上进行协作数字多模式作文项目。对项目后学生反思的主题分析表明，学生认为协作数字多模式写作提供了更多创造力和自主性的机会，并挑战学术写作形式、惯例和实践的概念。与数字写作平台的技术要求一样，协作开发复杂且连贯的论点仍然是一项重大挑战。