Interactive Fiction (IF)--a digital form of non-linear narrative writing--requires readers to respond, to make choices that shape their reading experience. I argue that such choices can be put to use in the classroom, helping teachers to facilitate metalinguistic talk. In this article, I offer a clear conceptualisation of metalinguistic talk,…

This qualitative study aimed to investigate adolescent English learners' multimodal communicative competence. Grounded upon a social semiotic approach with the concepts of affordances and transmediation, this research was carried out in an after-school programme at a secondary school in Korea. Three high school students participated in the…

The current study presents results from students' engagement of composing print essays and composing across modes on the same topic. It builds on the premise that print-based reading and writing should complement and coexist with multimodal pedagogy. A group of Taiwanese adolescent students were invited to complete one print essay and one…

This qualitative case study documents a secondary English teacher's making, writing and teaching. The focal teacher engaged in diverse making practices -- including composing, crafting and digital fabrication. She also participated in a National Writing Project (NWP) Summer Institute that focused on both teacher writing and digital composing. Data…

Although a large body of research emphasises the collaborative nature of adolescents' multimodal composing processes in and out of school, little is known about how or why collaborative partnerships might differ across composers or digital tools. Integrating sociocultural and social semiotics theoretical frameworks, this study examined how three…

This article describes the outcomes of a research project conducted at the Ministry of Stories (a London-based writing centre) which sought to develop an online, mentor-assisted, writing platform. Across a 3-month period, at four different sites across the UK, more than a hundred Year 7 pupils took part in the project, using the platform to write…

In recent years, plagiarism has been on the increase across the Western world. This article identifies Internet access as a contributory cause of this trend and addresses the implications of readily available Internet sources for the teaching and assessment of writing in schools. The basis for the article is a previous study showing a wide…

Effective writing is to some degree characterised by the ability to use complex grammatical structures. However, grammatical complexity is poorly defined in linguistics and related disciplines such as literacy. This empirical study examined the notion of grammatical complexity and its relevance to literacy. Complexity is multifaceted, so for…