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Educators need to create opportunities to develop English language learners’ (ELLs’) language skills through creative multiliteracy projects, identify ways to avoid summer loss, and harness the potential of parental engagement. The authors propose the use of a creative digital storytelling (DST) project to achieve these goals. The present case study draws upon a new literacy perspective to examine the impact of a DST project on a group of Latinx students in a summer literacy camp. Through examining the process of designing their own family‐inspired digital story, the present study investigates whether a DST workshop, taught within a multiliteracies framework, can (a) serve as a creative space to encourage language use, (b) foster multimodal communicative competence, and (c) engage parents during a summer literacy camp for Latinx students. Specifically, we take multiliteracies as the pedagogical foundation guiding the DST project.

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Digital storytelling has made its way into second language classrooms due to its great potential in promoting linguistic and non-linguistic outcomes increasingly recognized by second language educators. However, the links between digital storytelling and second language learners’ willingness to communicate still remain largely unknown. The present thematic review first presents an introduction to digital storytelling and then elucidates its critical roles in promoting second language willingness to communicate traced to four aspects: creating ample opportunities to practice the second language, negotiating aspired identities, engaging learners with cultural and multimodal resources, and constructing communities of shared interests. Finally, directions for future research are discussed.

As technology is increasingly adapted for educational purposes, previous research has confirmed the impact of technology on English learners' (ELs') literacy development. Given the increased attention to self-based studies in second language acquisition, this paper explores how ELs are motivated to learn a second language by pursuing the imagined selves, investing in the target culture, and negotiating identities in digitally mediated contexts. The motivational capacity of identity is discussed from cognitive/psychological, social/psychological, and sociocultural perspectives. Pedagogical implications about the use of technology to facilitate L2 literacy development are discussed.