The texts that interested me most throughout our course are those related to post-process pedagogy and the push for multimodality in the classroom. For my extended analysis, I research Iowa State University's first year composition program, ISUComm, and their WOVE (Written, Oral, Verbal, Electronic) pedagogy that guides their writing coursework. I was especially excited to see that there are first year writing programs embracing multimodal communication as a legitimate form of communication on its own, not necessarily accompanied by a reflective or expository text that justifies it. (Discussions of Yancey and Breuch might be relevant here, as well as a brief discussion of that paradigm shift - Kuhn and Selfe.)
Despite this seeming embrace of multimodal pedagogy, composition scholarship still often reflects the values of a more traditional, perhaps solely process pedagogy. The vast majority of composition scholarship remains purely written, with the occasional image or graph. Scholarship has made a move toward multimodality in the form of web texts and podcasts, for example, but that move has been slow in the face of more traditional work. How do we measure "successful" scholarship? Are multimodal forms of scholarship given a legitimate space in the field of rhetoric and composition? Are they treated with the same sense of legitimacy as written texts? This may lead to a discussion of how we might legitimize these texts and theorizing of the future of multimodal scholarship.
I'm still tossing around specifics, but for my final paper, I'd like to examine the significance (or lack) of multimodal composition scholarship, particularly in light of an increasingly multimodal approach to writing instruction. I'm thinking particularly of web texts, although I'll bring in other forms as necessary. (Some examples of web texts: The New Work of Composing, Digital Mirrors, Techne, ConJob. An examination of texts published in Kairos may also be helpful.)
So, as we discussed during class today, what's the angle regarding multimodal scholarship?
ReplyDeleteYou brought up several helpful ideas today that I'm going to try to incorporate into my final paper. For example, I might consider the official stance of organizations in the field of rhet/comp on multimodal works: NCTE has a stance published on their website (http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/multimodalliteracies). You mentioned that MLA has one as well but I haven't been able to find it yet.
DeleteI might consider it from the perspective of what we should be teaching in composition classes.
It's also worth considering how we "equally" grade students' multimodal works (say, a podcast versus a photo essay). If we're to encourage multimodality in the classroom, how do we measure these projects?
In addition to the references I address in my blog, I'll also bring in Marshall McLuhan's and "the medium is the message." We tossed around a few more names I'll look into for their work in multimodal scholarship: Ann Wysocki, Stuart Selber, Cheryl Ball, Jonathan Alexander, James Inman, and Madeleine (last name?) at University of California. (Maybe Sorapure?)
You mentioned that multimodal scholarship has been around for about ten years now, but I still question whether its existence is as valid or as "scholarly" as more traditional written works. Your anecdote about fighting for the validity of multimodal scholarship (on a track to tenure) matches my idea of how multimodal scholarship is still viewed as in some ways "less scholarly." (Didn't we just say discuss the stigmatization of visual rhetoric last week - "crayons are juvenile"?) Even if I'm wrong and the research demonstrates that multimodal scholarship is rampant and respected, this might lead to a discussion of how this scholarship compares to the work we're asking students to do in writing courses and how these might influence the other.
Leah and Justin are currently in the office with me and assure me that this is way too much to take on (woops). Justin is going to send me some links on assessing multimodal work in the classroom.