Towards an evaluation of students' digital animated multimodal narratives

The evaluation of multimodal texts, particularly work created by school-age students, has been a topic addressed by academics and teachers alike. However, the very diversity of perspectives and approaches which can be brought to this task is both a strength and a limitation. A project to prepare students to be effective authors in a world which is increasingly digital, multimedia and online has needed to develop an approach to evaluation in order to be able to identify, describe and report on the quality of student-created texts. For that, an instrument which takes the perspective of the use of meaning-making resources in multiple modes and the appropriate deployment of these was required. Such an instrument needs to be both theoretically sound and user-friendly for both academics and classroom practitioners. This paper will describe an evolving form of such an instrument and how it has been used to discern work that is 'of quality'.