Composing identities: using digital documentary shorts to explore social issues

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of using digital shorts (Pytash et al., 2017) focusing on social issues in social studies classrooms. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative case study is used in this study. Findings Digital shorts focused on important social issues, and included their beliefs and perspectives about their social issue, as well as insights into their developing identities as citizens. The authors’ findings demonstrate how this assignment can be the gateway for discussions regarding social issues, how students perceive their identities tied to contemporary social issues, and how they make sense of these issues within multimodal compositions. Research limitations/implications The findings from this research have implications for researching the effectiveness of digital media production analysis for students’ learning of social issues. Practical implications The findings from this research have implications for exploring how digital media production analysis can be incorporated into social studies courses. Originality/value Although the push for social studies teachers to provide spaces for students to demonstrate these capacities, few examples exist in the literature.