“You Don’t Know What I Went Through”: Adult Learners Healing Through Multimodal Play

There is a growing trend of states offering alternative pathways towards a high school equivalency outside of the traditional standardized test.Amidst this landscape, this study utilizes elements of teaching inquiry, participatory action research, and qualitative methods, to investigate the outcomes of using multimodal play in a composition unit within an adult high school equivalency classroom.Findings from this study suggest that multimodal play creates opportunities for students to make choices about the stories they tell and make connections as a way to feel a sense of belonging in education spaces, both of which act as a source of healing.