In this case, I discuss my progression from ethnography toward multimodal ethnography as a necessary methodology to study multiliterate and multimodal lives. I view daily life, social interactions, and meaning-making practices as inherently multimodal. By multimodal, I mean that individuals continually read, interpret, and create meanings that necessitate integrating multiple modes (e.g. speaking, written word, images, gesture, and/or music). This designed combination of modes composes multimodal meaning for particular audiences. I show how I considered my research principles through literacy research needs in contemporary society and schools and the multimodal and traditional methods that I designed to conduct this inquiry. Furthermore, I discuss how multimodal ethnography influenced researcher and participant relationships, roles, and the need to position participants as co-constructors of data analyses and interpretations when incorporating complex multimodal compositions. I provide examples from my recent multimodal ethnography of adolescent literacy to illustrate research practicalities, methods design, data collection, and data analysis. I also discuss lessons I learned related to the challenges of project scope, research relationships, and writing about long-term inquiries. [This content is provided in the format of an e-book.]