Post #2

NCTE Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies: Having taught high school for two years, I think it’s possible I may have related to this piece in a different way than some of my peers. There are a lot of good points in this section; students are growing up in a world full of around-the-clock technological advancements. It is extremely important to incorporate them. While I had some classes in my teacher prep program that went over technology and creating assignments for all learners, much of this was not available once I was in the rural school I taught at. I felt like I was reinventing the horn and doing only a mediocre job.

Metadata: Author: National Council of Teachers of English Purpose: Defining and integrating multimodal literacies in the classroom. Length: 5 pages Genre: Education Audience: Teachers and instructors

Contending with Terms: “Multimodal” and “Multimedia” in the Academic and Public Spheres: The similarities between multimodal and multimedia are not surprising to me; however, their differences when it comes to uses is something I had never thought about (academic vs. nonacademic/industry). ­I think the easiest way to differentiate modes and media (based on this piece) is to think about modes as design/process and media as production/distribution (36). Lauer does a great job of explaining the ways these terms are both different and similar, their importance, and how they work together. She writes that “multimodal is a term that can support an understanding of design-as-process and the situated choices and strategies students need practice developing” (38). I believe this is something we should all keep in mind.

Metadata: Author: Claire Lauer Purpose: Provide definitions of multimodal and multimedia that can be used to better curriculum. Length: 20 pages Genre: Education Audience: Teachers, instructors, and composition scholars

The Still-Unbuilt Hacienda: It took me maybe a little longer than I should have to understand where Sirc was going with continued references to the happenings, which he states, “were all about blurring the boundaries between art and life” (48). However, it seems his point is that they were trying something during that era: they were attempting to revive the old and help it find its place in modern times. Sirc’s point seems to be that rather than trying to bridge some gap between the old and the new, we should attempt to understand why we’ve moved on from the old forms and use that knowledge to create an understanding of multimodal composition techniques.

Metadata: Author: Geoffrey Sirc Purpose: To discover what went wrong with past curricula and use it to improve new curricula. Length: 20 pages Genre: Education Audience: Teachers, instructors, and composition scholars

Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key: Throughout her four quartets, Yancey reiterates the phrase “We have a moment”. What she means by this, I believe, is that we are sitting in a place in time where we can change and where we need to change for our students. What stuck with me throughout this article are the following two questions: “writing is interfacing?” (64) and “Suppose that if instead of focusing on the gatekeeping year, we saw composition education as a gateway?” (70). By thinking of composition in terms of multimodalities, we are bringing together, working with, and utilizing many different things (for lack of a better word at the moment). And these things can help us develop our curriculum, its implementation, and how we think about it. If we limit our students, they will not compose.

Metadata: Author: Kathleen Blake Yancey Purpose: To show educators how to create a curriculum that will students find new ways of composing and excel in them. Length: 27 pages Genre: Education Audience: Teachers, instructors, and composition scholars

From a Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures: The New London Group devotes much of their article discussing the relationship between visual and linguistic design in relation to multimodal compositions. Grammar is important because it has different meanings for spoken and written language, meanings that affect interpretation and understanding. Because “Our view of mind, society, and learning is based on the assumption that the human mind is embodied, situated, and social” (202), our interactions are already collaborative and enmeshed in a way similar to that of multimodal compositions. I do appreciate the way this article seems to be tying social/cultural experiences and backgrounds into pedagogy.

Metadata: Author: The New London Group Purpose: To show how to design multiliteracy curricula and how to include it in teaching pedagogy. Length: 18 pages Genre: Education Audience: Teachers, instructors, and composition scholars

From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing: I found it intriguing that in 1961 the television was referred to as the “primary source of literary experience”. But then when I think about it, here we are almost 60 years later, and this idea has only progressed. In my English 102 curriculum, I used the Netflix docu-series Making a Murderer to help students think about rhetoric in a different way – a way that might be more beneficial to those who will not spend their lives reading and critically analyzing written language. While my students still did end up writing about it, they were so engaged by the discussions surrounding the show that they were able to create (and improve upon) well-written essays, as well as a multimodal composition.

Metadata: Author: Diana George Purpose: To discuss the history of designing curriculum that incorporates visual communication. Length: 22 pages Genre: Education and History Audience: Teachers, instructors, and composition scholars