Multimodal Assignments and Disability

Welcome! 

This website serves as a resource to Writing Program Administrators, interested in integrating multimodal  assignments into their writing program curriculum with accessibility in mind (or redesigning multimodal assignments with accessibility in mind). This website may also be useful to composition instructors, who want to develop an accessible pedagogy for teaching multimodal composing.

This resource recognizes that multimodal assignments offer an opportunity to make the composing process accessible to a range of students (disabled and currently abled). However, it also recognizes that mutimodal composing inherently engages multiple sensory experiences, when one or more of a composer’s senses might be impaired. As such, this resource offers flexible and adaptive approaches to integrating multimodality into the curriculum, using the principles of Universal Design.

This resource is unique given that scholarship in the field of Composition Studies has not yet offered accessible approaches for engaging students in multimodal composing. Nevertheless, the field of Composition Studies has offered substantial scholarship on disability and writing, embodied writing processes, and Universal Design approaches for the composition classroom. As such, this website draws extensively upon this foundation of scholarship as well as scholarship in the field of Disability Studies to offer informed approaches for designing multimodal assignments and curricula with accessibility in mind.

This website offers information about:

• Understanding Universal Design;
• Applying the Principles of Universal Design to multimodal composing;
• Resources for additional research, including
  • scholarly articles and book chapters,
  • advocacy centers and organizations, and
  • books;
• Frequently Asked Questions