L2 Students’ Gradeless Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composing: Unlocking Multiliteracies Through Rubric-referenced Multisource Feedback

Abstract

While a body of literature highlights the positive effects of digital multimodal composing (DMC) on second language (L2) writing, research into DMC assessment practices remains few and far between, particularly when scholars pay little attention to L2 learners’ perceptions towards DMC assessment. The current DMC assessment is largely confined to linguistic modes, leaving other multimodal semiotic modes almost unaddressed. This article, therefore, presents a learning-oriented assessment strategy to involve L2 writers in evaluating their digital storytelling videos through rubric-referenced multisource feedback. This gradeless DMC assessment practice encompasses three key features: (1) a tailored genre-based feedback sheet that provides students with standardized guidelines to deliver ungraded comments on their videos; (2) two hands-on workshops that offer foundational support and ‘just-in-time’ scaffolding for DMC creation and evaluation; and (3) the integration of self- and peer feedback, placing L2 students at the center to assess and reflect on their videos. The analysis of students’ group reflective journals, student-authored videos, and feedback sheets revealed that the rubric-referenced self- and peer feedback created a complementary process for DMC assessment. This approach facilitated the employment of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to self-regulate feedback and video revisions, promoted multimodal metalanguage development, and enhanced multiliteracies. Pedagogical implications for implementing multisource feedback to assess DMC in L2 contexts were discussed.