Millennials, typically defined as people born between 1982 and 2004, will become the nation's largest living generation (Fry, 2015). More importantly, they are our current students. Millennials are socially and demographically defined as confident, connected, and agile; they use multiple modes of self-expression, have good relationships with their parental figures, and are poised to be the most educated generation in American history.Millennial students are immersed in a digital world governed by codes and scripts. Coders create programs from scratch. We interact with code when we launch most programs like Microsoft Word or a web browser. Alternatively, scripting uses programing environments (or middleware) in which combinations of stock commands are used. Many applications are created in JavaScript, for instance, which allows designers to combine ready-made scripts to produce unique experiences. Coding gives ultimate control but is laborious; scripting is less open-ended but is quick and nimble. The difference in coding and scripting is a meaningful metaphor through which educators can understand millennial students. Stated simply, our students increasingly use scripting as a guiding metaphor for life. Rather than building knowledge from scratch, they are more likely to repurpose, recycle, and reuse information from others for their own creative purposes. We expand on this observation and discuss implications for both teaching and research.Instructional communication researchers typically use a rhetorical or relational approach to guide their research, and either approach can focus on linear or singular cause-and-effect outcomes (Mottet & Beebe, 2006). These approaches have spurred meaningful research in our field; however, implicit metaphors within each approach guide curricular choices that differ from the expectations, or needs, of students in our classrooms. We interrogate two traditional metaphors for teaching and learning before turning to our discussion of the scripting metaphor.The information processing metaphor views students as processors of information, akin to how a computer takes in information and produces output. Information processing is related to the rhetorical perspective of instructional communication (see Mottet & Beebe, 2006), which suggests that teacher behaviors (i.e. the process) impact student learning (i.e. the product). Scholars who critique the process-product metaphor argue that it provides an incomplete picture of learning because it devalues the complex relationships in the learning environment (Hendrix, Jackson, & Warren, 2003)-relationships that are likely to become more complex for millennials and their teachers.The constructivist metaphor highlights how teachers and students cocreate learning environments, and it most closely relates to Mottet and Beebe's (2006) relational perspective on instructional communication. Through learning experiences, students and teachers share meaning in ways that allow them to arrive at mutual understanding of information. While this metaphor ...