The uses of writing for digital video

In this essay I view writing as a communicative practice, and ask how and in what ways teachers and students define the role of writing in relation to digital video composition. While there is much research on the importance of multimodal composition, and teachers are being encouraged to incorporate more digital making into their curricula, we need to more fully examine children's classroom writing and meaning-making practices as they work in newer modes like video. I use a sketch of the work of one student to examine what I see as the continued primacy of paper-and-pencil or computer-screen writing even in a digital video making process. I also discuss the ways children saw writing along a continuum of utility, from more to less useful, depending on their own perspectives on writing in general and on writing's role in the production of videos. I show how the boundaries that teachers maintain between writing and speaking matter less to some students than they do to teachers. I close with some suggestions for how we should approach the theoretical and pragmatic challenges of writing for digital video production in school.