Young adolescents are immersed in 21st century literacies in their daily lives, and they bring into schools a level of appreciation and expertise that often goes untapped. This article presents an eighth-grade English classroom's experience with digital video composing and informal classroom drama as multimodal literacy practices. Students in this urban setting developed deeper understandings of literary issues such as characterization and theme while working through dramatic activity and movie-making processes. Responses to literature became deeper and more nuanced as students brought elements of the text to life through dramatic video. New literacies can be infused into formal study of more traditional aspects of English language arts, and have the potential to position students as actors, experts, and active producers of multimodal texts.