Abstracts Category : Other

Digital Literacy and Composing Practices of Second LanguageStudents: A Student Perspective on Writing, Technology, andPrivilege

by Jeffrey Salem Moore

Although a substantial body of research exists withrespect to the digital literacy practices of the traditionalAmerican college student, research relevant to the English LanguageLearner (ELL) population in American institutions of highereducation has not developed as extensive a corpus. Some, like AishaWalker and Goodith White, advocate for greater integration ofdigital tools in ELL instruction, but only look to convinceinstructors to consider new methods. Others, Bruce Horner, CynthiaL. Selfe, and Tim Lockridge, call for more acceptance ofnon-standard communication practices, but focus more oninstitutional pushback to change. Still others, like Dana R.Ferris, take a more traditional approach and advocate for strictadherence to grammar instruction. Those researchers who advocatefor greater use of digital instruction and communication often donot consider the student perspectives on digital literacy,multimodal composing practices, or the technological preferences ofELLs. This study aims to address this gap by seeking to betterunderstand how ELLs use and interact with technology to help themwrite, and to explore how the digital literacy preferences of ELLsinfluence their understanding and use of multimodal composingpractices. The ultimate goal of this project is to help thoseinstructors who work with ELLs better understand the needs of thisstudent population. I attempt to address this goal by introducingstudent voices into the conversation surrounding their digitalliteracy practices through the collection and analysis of surveyand interview data.Advisors/Committee Members: Blair, Kristine (Committee Co-Chair), Nickoson, Lee (Committee Co-Chair).