New Media Looks Better Now Than Last Week

While I am not yet sold on using multimodal assignments in my own classes the chapters in Multimodal Composition brought me a little closer. One thing I really appreciate from these chapters (and in Writing New Media) is that the authors really address the question: How do I implement new media assignments in the classroom? The sample assignments in Chapter 2 and the advice on designing multimodal assignments in Chapter 3 helped me feel more comfortable with the idea of implementing such assignments in my classes. Too often, I am discouraged by abstract theory that gives me no practical advice on what I can do in the classroom and how to deal with some of the challenges. (Of course, I should hope this book would be helpful on this, as its subtitle is “Resources for Teachers.”)

I find it interesting that in these chapters only really address new media composition in terms of audio and video. While these are the first two things I think of with new media composition, it is certainly a sharp contrast with Wysocki, who looks at new media so broadly that it might even include non-digital composition. Are audio and video composition the only real multimodal composition forms that most of us think of in terms of new media? While they are the first that come to mind for me, what about webpages, blogs, wikis, photos, etc. (many of which have been addressed in some of our other readings so far)?

The practical advice this book gives on assignments and implementation of audio and video multimodal assignments is great, but the fact that they leave out other forms of new media is puzzling to me. Now we can feel more comfortable (maybe) with implementing these kinds of new media assignments, but where is all the practical advice on giving students a blog assignment? The omissions make me wonder if the authors think audio and video are the real substance of multimodal composition that we are going to assign our students.

To shift gears a little…

On the positive side, in addition to being happy about the practical content of these chapters, I am especially interested in the idea of composing with audio, as discussed in Chapter 2 (and in some of our readings last week). Having done some audio composing myself in the past (not for class, just for fun), I know how much writing is an essential component. So, this helps alleviate my initial fear that new media might push away the writing component of composition. To me, this kind of composition brings back oral delivery that we don’t focus on in our classes, but that is an important part of rhetoric. So, in some ways this kind of new media really could be a return to oral rhetoric.

At the same time, the assignments offered in Multimodal Composition helped me see a little better how such assignments (while including some writing, such as a script) can make our composition classes more engaging and enjoyable for our students, without resorting to neo-avant-garde. The idea of my students first composing a text (perhaps an argument) and then delivering it through sound or video is appealing to me. As Hess says in Chapter 3 of MC, with such assignments, students’ work has a wider audience, perhaps being published online, and so their motivation and interest in the project might be greater (35).