  Voice, the discursive construction of the writer's identity, has been
extensively studied and theorized in composition studies. In multimodal
writing, students are able to mobilize both linguistic and non linguistic
resources to express their real or imagined identities. But at the same time,
when students are limited to choose from available online resources, their
voices might be compromised due to the incompatibility between their authorial
intentions and the existing materials. This study, therefore, investigates
whether the use of generative AI tools could help student authors construct a
more consistent voice in multimodal writing. In this study, we have designed a
photo essay assignment where students recount a story in the form of photo
essays and prompt AI image generating tools to create photos for their
storytelling. Drawing on interview data, written reflection, written
annotation, and multimodal products from seven focal participants, we have
identified two remixing practices, through which students attempted to
establish a coherent and unique voice in writing. The study sheds light on the
intentional and discursive nature of multimodal writing with AI as afforded by
the technological flexibility, while also highlighting the practical and
ethical challenges that could be attributed to students insufficient prompt and
multimodal literacy and the innate limitations of AI systems. This study
provides important implications for incorporating AI tools in designing
multimodal writing tasks.
