This article argues that theoretical understandings of multimodality have enormous potential for assessment purposes in secondary school contexts. Informed by the work of three researchers in three North American high schools, the article offers vignettes of the effective assessment of communicative competence in English classrooms that draws on…

This article builds upon the concept of hybridity to affirm the relevance of poetry, music, and other forms of popular culture in the lives of urban youth. Its focus examines the blending of seemingly disparate forms to understand how young people, in particular young people of color, negotiate their multilayered social worlds. One of these worlds…