Quilts of authorship: A literature review of multimodal assemblage in the field of literacy education

This literature review and narrative vignette draw on Social Symbolic Mediation, Social Semiotics, and Discursive Positioning theories to explore a theoretical model I call Authorship as Assemblage. Specifically, this paper challenges linear pathways to meaning-making by comparing authorship to quilt-making. Quilts afford unique arrangements of assemblage, including the capacity to embed, layer, interweave, and hybridize material. Here, I argue educators need to re-evaluate linear notions of literacy paths in today’s participatory culture