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).

I don’t see myself as really adopting Geoffrey Sirc’s “pedagogy of the box” (121), perhaps because I don’t really want to infuse my “composition instruction with a spirit of the neo-avant-garde,” which is what Sirc wants to do (146). At the same time, however, like Sirc, I want to make my classes more interesting for my students, and perhaps some kind of new media project is the answer. But I don’t want to completely abandon “the essay.”

Sirc rejects the traditional essay point out that “the falseness of a unified resolution gets prized over the richer, more difficult, de facto text” (123). At the same time, however, I see a lot of value in the “traditional essay,” and I think making composition more interesting for students is just as possible with the essay.

My concern with the box pedagogy is that if we adopt it, the entire goal and purpose of first year composition will change, and so must everything else. Sirc asks, “What is essential to composition? What are the inescapable, minimal institutional constraints that must be considered?” (126). And a little earlier he states, “So the two basic skills I focus my course around are practicing search strategies and annotating materials” (122). So, are research and annotating two of the inescapable essentialities of composition? There must be more than that.

Sirc’s composition course is radically different from what we teach. If we all changed to the “pedagogy of the box,” could we still see our courses as composition classes? Sirc wants his students to be “designers” rather than “essayists,” which I like, but will the composition class become a design class instead? So, right now I am not sold on "Box-Logic" "Box Pedagogy" "Box Students" or just plain "Boxes." (I have too many boxes in my garage already. Perhaps I should bring them in to my English 151 class...) Some other "new media" such as the online articles we have read so far, blogs, wikis, etc are, I think, very useful tools for composition. However, Sirc's class is a little too "neo-avant-garde" for me.

Reading New Media

I enjoyed reading Ball and Moeller’s web article. Sorapure’s annoyed me. Each of these was a new media text and reminded me of one aspect of new media that I do not worry about (as much) when I read a regular old hard copy ink on paper book: design. I liked Ball and Moeller’s design (for the most part), but I hated Sorapure’s design. The different fonts Ball and Moeller used and the mixing of textual voices in their introduction impressed me and was a great demonstration of the potentialities of new media. While I continually forgot which block of the alphabet I had last clicked, the content of each “block” kept me reading. The intertextual links were effective (mostly).

Sorapure, on the other hand, had a design that was extremely distracting from the content of the words (which might have been the intention). I did not like being required to click something every three seconds to read the next two sentences. This, as well as the puzzle keyboard, seemed to be there only because she thought it was cool and wanted it to be unlike other reading experiences. (Again, this may have been her intention, then). However, whether it was her intention or not, the distracting and frustrating nature of her web design, for me, made it a very ineffective piece of new media. (Unless, of course her idea of effective was to frustrate and annoy her readers). Is this the future of academic articles? I hope not, if they follow Sorapure’s design.

Now that I have ranted a little at my dislike of Sorapure’s website, I did take a few other things from the experience of reading multimodal articles. (If we can still call them articles). As I read, I thought, “This would be a great way to read all the writing center articles I used to read (and all the other articles that spend an inordinate amount of time on describing what might have been more easily seen in a video clip of a video-recorded interview).” Some articles I’ve read (and no, I can never remember exactly which ones off the top of my head . . . it’s been a little while) have struggled with the medium of paper and ink. When a study depends on transcripts and visuals and the only medium of publication is a limiting hard copy journal or book, then something more freeing, like a new media digital article with lots of bells and whistles, would be a lot more effective. When Ball and Moeller describe the students’ projects, I did not have to sit and wish I could see them or go to the trouble of finding a computer and typing in a web address to see it. All I had to do was click, download, and watch the student projects they were talking about.

I have come this far without addressing the words of their arguments. Much more than hard copy books, of course, these online articles made other, visual and layout arguments that were prominent. While there was a lot of text, the layout and appearance was another layer to be looked at rhetorically—something I pay less attention to with old media texts. While this can certainly be a benefit and can add something to the argument while giving rhetorical choices that were not available before, this new media kind of text could be a problem for some academic articles. If all articles used the layout of Sorapure, I would pay much less attention to the content of the argument. While I like all the new rhetorical choices available with new media, I don’t think we should forget the challenges that such rhetorical possibilities can bring with those choices.

Can You Read This?

"New" Media Texts

Anne Frances Wysocki defines new media texts as “those that have been made by composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight the materiality: such composers design texts that help readers/comsumers/viewers stay alert to how any text—like its composers and readers—don’t function independently of how it is made and in what contexts. Such composers design texts that make as overtly visible as possible the values they embody. . . . Under this definition, new media texts do not have to be digital” (15).

I was genuinely surprised by Wysocki’s definition, and found myself rereading it several times to be sure that I was understanding what she was saying. If her definition is accepted as true and accurate, and if new media texts do not have to be digital, as she asserts, then, I wonder, how are new media texts new? If it does not have to be digital, does it still have to be technology-based? In my reading of the text, it does not, and so are all new media texts really new? Have there been no composers who were “aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight[ed] the materiality” until recently?

Perhaps this would be clearer to me if Wysocki had unpacked her definition more, with some specific concrete examples of what she sees as “new media texts.” Perhaps someone can help me sort out her definition? Does anyone have some specific examples that would make her definition clearer? I pondered through the activities at the end of the chapter and was still a bit uncertain. (I also had a very difficult time imagining that I woke up one morning and found myself “and everyone else in the world—with the body of a giant cockroach.” No, I do not know how to design a computer desktop so that cockroach bodies could use it.) (See page 28).

So, despite my initial adverse and confused reaction to Wysocki’s definition, I am also intrigued by the idea that new media texts do not have to be digital. (I’ll ignore, for now, my inclination to think that if it’s not digital or technologically based, it might not really be all that new). The idea of the composition classroom going all digital seems overwhelming to me now, and so something that is not digital sounds more doable, inasmuch as I might not have to become a technological expert, which I am still working at. Of course, I wonder, having not yet read extensively on the topic, how many others also believe that new media texts do not have to be digital.

Introduction

I am Matthew Nunes, and I am a first-year PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Ohio University. In May of 2010 I completed my Master’s degree (in the same subject) at the University of Louisville. My research interests include the history of rhetoric, 19^th-century American rhetoric, classical rhetoric, metacognition in composition, and probably a few other things. It’s all interesting to me. I also love literature, especially 19^th century and before, mostly American and British. Additionally, I also dabble in creative writing (or at least have quite a bit in the past). I am currently teaching English 151, which is a lot of fun.

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About me (non-academically): Aside from the academics, I have two adorable children. My son is almost two, and my daughter was born just over two months ago. They are lots of fun. In my younger days I competed in gymnastics and then equestrian eventing. I am originally from California, the land of everything and expensive living. My hobbies include old-time radio drama and reading. I am also a big fan of my San Francisco Giants, and proudly wear the Giants 2010 World Series Champions t-shirt.

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I am looking forward to the Computers and Composition class, although I am a bit nervous about some technology. Although I have done some audio and video editing before, using this technology in the classroom as a teacher and student is a bit daunting.

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