Week 6: Experimenting with Alternatives

I very much enjoyed the introduction to Jody Shipka's "Toward a Composition Made Whole."  She discusses her experience presenting a "Writing in Many Modes" workshop to a group "that catered to students who favored creative, hands-on approaches to instruction and were open to diverse kinds of learning experiences" (1).  I would place myself in a similar category in that I too favor "creative, hands-on approaches to instruction" and learning.  Shipka discusses the writing project she presented at the workshop that was completed by a student who wrote the words on a  pair of ballet shoes.  What she discusses following her presentation of this project seems to be a typical response to multimodal composing.  A man in the audience asked, "'I have a question.  So where did she put her footnotes?  On a shirt?'" (2).  Shipka goes on to comment, "Despite being phrased as a question, his tone, facial expression, and body language suggested this was not a genuine question or attempt at a clever pun so much as his way of signaling his discomfort with the kinds of texts I was proposing students might produce" (2, emphasis added).  I think the key here is discomfort.  

I admit that I too experience a bit of discomfort when I think of completing assignments with the use of some multimodal forms (mostly involving the use of some piece of technology that is foreign to me, like DreamWeaver).  However, I do have experience with other forms of multimodal composing and I have been able to create projects and assignments for classes as an undergraduate and graduate student utilizing multimodality that have communicated my goal better than any written assignment could have. 

As I stated before, my thesis project for graduate school was very nontraditional.  I wasn't in an MFA program; I was in an MA program where the focus was general English.  However, the program offered two tracks - creative writing and literature - and I chose to pursue the creative writing concentration (I had also minored in creative writing as an undergraduate).  The creative writing professors in the English department at my small school knew me and my interests well.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I was able to complete my graduate thesis as a creative writing project, but it wasn't poetry or fiction.  What resulted was a hybrid of poetry, prose, art, photography, and more - a project I refer to as a narrative collage, a story told through the use of text and image.

Dr. Kelcey Ervick, my thesis committee chair, taught a class on narrative collage that I took as an undergrad.  She understood the importance of multimodal composing like Shipka discusses in her article.  My project told the story of a young girl caring for her younger brother and I don't think the story could have been adequately told through text alone.  The anatomical images and diagrams, the drawings and paintings, and the original photographs I used contributed to a sense of pathos that I couldn't have accomplished otherwise.  I'm thankful for Dr. Ervick and her willingness to let me take on this project as an MA student; this experience has allowed me to see the true value in multimodal composing and the stories it can tell.

However, I think there was a sense of "discomfort" among the rest of my committee and the department as a whole since I was required to turn in a lengthy context essay with my project.  I think this is what Shipka is talking about when she discusses her workshop experience; while so many modes of composition exist, there is still a tendency to value the alphabetic text and forget that there are so many other approaches available to students.

This concept of acceptance applies not only to us as students, but as instructors of composition.  Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes discuss this in On Multimodality when they quote DeVoss and colleagues:  "English-composition teachers and programs must be willing to address an increasingly broad range of literacies - emerging, competing, and fading - if they want their instructions to remain relevant to students' changing communication needs and experiences within the contemporary cultural ecology" (35).  I would love to support a student's creative endeavors the way I was supported in graduate school. 

If a student has the "courage to experiment with alternatives," we as instructors should help to support and encourage them (Shipka 4).

A multimodal project I created as an undergraduate student titled Baby.  The assignment was intended to be multimodal and this project showcased the "heart" and personality of my younger brother.  

This multimodal collage project I created was published in the Spring 2015 edition of Harbinger Asylum (along with two pieces from my graduate thesis and another original collage).  This collage includes acrylic paint on canvas with Harter's images, paper, and quotations from a Stephen King short story called "Everything's Eventual."  I called it Maybe the Cleaners.

This multimodal collage is forthcoming from Plath Profiles:  An Interdisciplinary Journal for Sylvia Plath Studies.  I created it after my favorite poet, Sylvia Plath, and it includes acrylic paint on multi-media paper, Harter's images, and quotes from Plath's collection of letters, Letter's Home.  I called this piece Relentless Cage.

Week 5: Sound

As I was reading Cynthia Selfe's "The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning:  Aurality and Multimodal Composing," I first thought of our technology literacy narrative projects and the studio review we did in class during Week 4.  As I was watching/listening to/reading my classmates' projects, I couldn't help but be more engaged by the projects that included sound.  Stephen's project on VoiceThread helped me to understand and relate to his story more because it was told through his own words/voice.  Soha's audio file not only included her story as told through her own personal experiences, but it contained background sounds, music, and noises that helped engage the listener and give them a better understanding of the narrative.  Marshall and Lauren S. shared projects that combined image, audio, and video.  There were several other students that included audio in their projects, as well.  Listening to these helped me to understand why Selfe puts such an emphasis on sound in her article; it communicates in a way that the written word cannot.

Selfe states, "I argue that a single-minded focus on print in composition classrooms ignores the importance of aurality and other composing modalities for making meaning and understanding the world" (618).  I think most students (including myself) don't have much experience in the classroom with multimodal composing (because, as Selfe explains, there is so much emphasis placed on print and alphabetic text), but the studio review we did in class helped me to truly see and understand the importance of utilizing other modes of communication in academia.  The projects utilized a number of modalities to tell stories in a way that couldn't have been communicated through text alone.  The audio and video components helped me gain a better understanding of each of my classmates' experiences and the world of technology that is unique to them.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't think scholars are advocating for less writing, but rather are seeking to implement writing alongside other multimodal components so the two can work together to increase a student's understanding of a topic or to help a student communicate a topic more fully.  As Selfe writes, "I suggest we need to pay attention to both writing and aurality, and other composing modalities, as well.  I hope to encourage teachers to develop an increasingly thoughtful understanding of a whole range of modalities...and then to provide students the opportunities of developing expertise with all available means of persuasion and expression" (618).  Sometimes a story/topic/narrative can't be effectively communicated through written text alone.  I certainly wouldn't have had such a good grasp on Lauren S.'s upbringing and background with technology without the photos of her and her father, the photos of her with old computer equipment, or the photos showing her love of taking something old or worn out and making it new.  Each of these contributed to her overall story, a story that wouldn't have been fully told without the use of multimodal composing in her project.

I'm looking forward to implementing audio, video, and visuals (along with written text) into my own literacy narrative utilizing Instagram.  

As a poet, I often participate in readings and regularly submit my work to journals and magazines in the hope of being published.  I've had the privilege to have my poetry appear in several journals, but I'm increasingly impressed with the way digital journals and magazines are implementing multimodality into their issues.  This summer, I had two poems picked up by Turk's Head Review.  The editor asked that I send him audio files of me reading the two poems to accompany the written text.  The poems can be read/heard here: 

http://turksheadreview.tumblr.com/page/2 

Did the audio files add anything to the experience?  I enjoyed listening to the other poets in the issue read their poetry.  Even though I don't know them and I can't see them, hearing them read their poetry seems to make the pieces mean more.  It helps me to understand the emotions they felt when writing that poem; the way they say the words communicates more than text on a page ever could.

Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes in On Multimodality:  New Media in Composition Studies seem to echo what Selfe is saying in her article: "In the process [of treating new media as new], the multiple rhetorical capabilities of media--sound, visuals, video, and other multimodal media--have been elided, and the rich histories of those capabilities with them" (3).  Students are trying to communicate through their work; how can we know the whole story if we can only read it on a sheet of paper or on a computer screen? 

thewheelhousereview.com

Week 4: Montage

As I was reading through the Palmeri selection for this week from the Remixing Composition:  A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy text, I was struck by his discussion of "blend[ing] images, words, and sounds in associative ways" (87).  I started thinking about implementing multimodality in the classroom as an art form - a process of combining multiple mediums to create a complete educational experience.

As an undergraduate student, I became very interested in art and started creating my own artwork.  I took a class during my senior year of college entitled "Narrative Collage."  This class focused on the Dadaist and Surrealist movements of the 1910s and 1920s and how artists were creating works that combined multiple mediums.  Art wasn't so straightforward anymore; it was becoming difficult to categorize something as just a painting or just a drawing or just a photograph.  Dada and Surrealism contributed to a combination of different forms and found objects in each individual work of art.  The art movements didn't seek to devalue traditional art forms like paintings and drawings, but rather sought to combine multiple forms so as to encourage audiences to think and interpret art in new and different ways.  Also, the world was in the midst of chaos brought on by war, so these works of art that implemented image, text, and more helped artists and viewers alike to cope with a tumultuous time in history.

Palmeri's discussion in Part 2 of Remixing Composition about implementing multimodality in the composition classroom is like a narrative collage.  Print/alphabetic text is not dead and I don't think any proponent of multimodal texts would advocate for that; rather, alphabetic text serves a new role in a classroom environment where technology is brought in alongside traditional writing.  When the two are brought together, one isn't devalued over the other.  They both work together to create something beautiful - a new educational experience where students are led to think and examine in new and exciting ways.

Palmeri writes, "A few compositionists of the early 1970s suggested that the electronic revolution necessitated a rethinking of the field's conventional privileging of linearity and originality in print texts, arguing instead that writing teachers should engage students in analyzing and/or producing participatory, associative texts that made meaning through juxtaposition, incorporated found images and words, and enabled audience interaction" (88).  Multimodal composing seeks to accomplish the same goals as works developed in the Dadaist and Surrealist movements.  As stated previously, alphabetic text still serves an important role in composition and art.  It seeks to give meaning to those works created through the use of multimodality.

After college, I went on obtain a graduate degree in English and creative writing.  My thesis for grad school was a narrative collage that told a story through the use of anatomical images, diagrams, and text (along with several other mediums).  I enjoyed this combination of materials in art so much that I went on to teach art courses at the college level after grad school.  Thinking about multimodality in terms of a work of art (that only gains more meaning the more that it is incorporated into it) makes multimodal composing seem less challenging and more like an opportunity to think about technology and academia in new and exciting ways.

Here's a few pages from my graduate thesis/narrative collage:

Palmeri claims that "we as compositionists [are] crafting new media texts that blend words, images, and sounds in associative ways" (89).  Palmeri later discusses a textbook called Montage that pushed the boundaries of traditional texts to become something more interactive for readers (101).  Multimodality, like narrative collage, works to push the boundaries of traditional text and create something new altogether. 

Week 3: Change as Progress

As I was reading through Palmeri's prologue and introduction to Remixing Composition:  A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy, I couldn't help but relate to his narrative.  I previously taught at Indiana University South Bend and Indiana Institute of Technology before coming to Ohio.  At both institutions, I taught my students the way former teachers and professors taught me - I focused on traditional alphabetic assignments and paid little attention to the growing technologies available around me. 

At IU South Bend, we used a service called OnCourse and at Indiana Tech, we used Blackboard.  I used these sites as ways to record grades and keep track of attendance, but never had students turn in assignments online.  A fellow instructor at IU South Bend once saw me grading papers the old-fashioned way (with a stack of printed essays and a red pen) and said, "You still grade papers like that?"  It was the only way I had ever graded papers, so I had never put much thought into it before.  "It's just easier than teaching the students to submit online and it's easier than having to grade online."

But was it?

When I began my GSW training at Graduate Student Orientation during the week of August 17th, I was informed that we were required to have our students submit all assignments online.  I admit that I panicked a bit.  I used OnCourse and Blackboard minimally at my previous institutions, and now I was required to run my class without print format!?  I realize how backwards this sounds in our modern society, but I was afraid that my lack of experience with technology in the past would make it extremely difficult for me to not only teach my students to use these new technologies, but to teach myself.

So far, it hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be, and my students are on-board with using Canvas to turn in assignments (and they know how to use the technology better than I do).  The online forum makes class resources readily available to everyone, saves ink and paper (which can be expensive, especially if using a printer at home), and allows me to grade essays more quickly and give students feedback more efficiently.  As Palmeri mentions, I felt like I too was "venturing into uncharted pedagogical waters" (2).  While I opposed these "changes" in the past, experiencing Canvas, learning how to use new technologies in our ENG 7280 course, and reading about Palmeri's struggle in implementing multimodality into his classroom has helped me to recognize technology for what it is - "progress" (Palmeri 5).  Embracing multimodal texts "requires us to move beyond our past" and gives us the tools necessary to teach students to not only be aware of available technologies, but to use them effectively in school and later in their careers.  The world is changing; fighting against technology only hinders me and my students.

As Bolter mentions in the beginning of his article "Introduction:  Writing in the Late Age of Print," the printed book was once thought of as a thing that would bring an end to institutions as people knew them.  Clearly, printed books have only increased the delivery of knowledge and information and have allowed people all over the world to enjoy the same texts and learn and think in new ways.  Technology is the same - it will not bring an end to traditional composition, it will join with it and allow us to experience writing in new and exciting ways.

Source:  thenextweb.com