This dissertation, "Old Constraints, New Possibilities: Genre Theory, Student Reflections, and ePortfolios in the First Year Writing Classroom," explores the findings of an IRB-approved study on the reflective practices employed in FYW multimodal ePortfolios. The University of Alabama (UA) FYW conducted an ePortfolio Initiative in 2019 and 2020. This study employs a mixed methods approach including interviews, surveys, and assessments of student artifacts. The purpose of this research is to explore how instructors experienced teaching and assessing student-generated reflections housed in UA FYW multimodal ePortfolios, how students experienced composing those reflections, how an outside reader/rater experienced those reflections as artifacts, and how administrators from outside of UA FYW describe their experiences with reflections housed within ePortfolios. I argue that the FYW multimodal ePortfolio should be viewed as a genre system that depends upon the student-generated reflection as a connective thread that informs and represents each layer of the entire system, which includes academic writing, outside influences, multimodal texts, and assessment. As I will argue, understanding FYW ePortfolios as a genre system is a "pragmatic" and "rhetorical" framework that can augment and sustain student engagement, faculty buy-in, and programmatic values. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]