More Than Words

More Than Words

Alex stared at the blank screen. The cursor blinked. And blinked. And blinked. The ideas were there. Alex knew they were there. But somehow, turning those ideas into the “right” academic words felt harder than understanding them in the first place.

Around Alex, keyboards clicked. Classmates seemed to know exactly what to say and how to say it. Alex looked at the nearly empty screen and wondered, “Maybe I’m just not good at this.” But was struggling to put an idea into one particular form really the same as not understanding the idea?

The next day, the professor surprised the class. “For this assignment, I don’t only want you to tell me what you know. I want you to think about the best way to show what you know.” Words could be part of it. But so could images, diagrams, color, audio, video, and other ways of making meaning. Alex paused. “Wait...those count?”

Alex decided to experiment. A picture could show context. A diagram could reveal a relationship. Color could draw attention. And words could explain what an image could not. Each mode could do something a little different. When the modes worked together, they could create meaning together (Walsh, 2006). For the first time, Alex wasn't asking, “What am I supposed to write?” Alex was asking, “What am I trying to communicate?”

Alex quickly discovered something important: multimodal did not mean easier. It meant different. Now every choice required a reason. Why use this image? What does this color add? Would a diagram communicate the idea better than another paragraph? Creating in multiple modes pushed Alex to think more deeply about both the content and how to represent it (Oldakowski, 2014). The assignment was not asking Alex to think less. It was asking Alex to think differently.

As the class worked, Alex began noticing something else. One student explained ideas clearly through spoken words. Another saw connections best through images and diagrams. Another carefully combined words and visuals to communicate an idea neither could express as well alone. There wasn’t just one “right” way to show understanding. Different students could draw on different strengths while still doing thoughtful, rigorous work. Maybe giving students more ways to communicate also meant giving teachers more ways to see what students know.

But Alex discovered something else, too: words still mattered. A strong paragraph could develop an idea in ways an image could not. An image could communicate something immediately that might take many words to describe. Neither had to replace the other. Research comparing traditional essays with digital multimodal composing suggests that each can offer different strengths for learners and communication (Kim & Belcher, 2020). Maybe the question wasn't “Which way is better?” Maybe it was, “Which way helps me communicate this meaning to this audience?”

Presentation day arrived. Around the room, ideas appeared in words, images, colors, diagrams, and voices. When it was Alex’s turn, the class could see how each part of the project contributed something different. The words explained. The images showed. The design connected the ideas. Then a classmate looked at Alex’s project and said, “Oh! Now I see what you mean.” Alex smiled. That was the point. Not the technology. Not the colors. Not even the assignment. The point was meaning.

Later, Alex opened another blank page. The page was still blank. The cursor still blinked. But now the possibilities felt bigger. Words still mattered. They always would. But meaning could also live between words and pictures, voices and spaces, colors and sounds. Writing hadn’t become smaller. Alex’s idea of writing had become bigger. Sometimes showing what you know takes more than words.

References Kim, Y., & Belcher, D. (2020). Multimodal composing and traditional essays: Linguistic performance and learner perceptions. RELC Journal, 51(1), 86–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688220906943 Oldakowski, T. (2014). A multimodal assignment that enriches literacy learning. InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, 9, 70–77. Walsh, M. (2006). The ‘textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(1), 24–37.