In the first chapter of Cynthia Selfe's Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers, the author gives five reasons for giving multimodal assignments followed by five questions that composition teachers are likely to raise about such compositions. Selfe's reasons include the fact that multimodal texts are often more engaging and more practical to today's students than are simple print texts, in addition to the fact that multimodal texts can be used to teach rhetorical devices in the same way that they are taught using text. In fact, I've often found that multimodal texts are better examples for teaching about rhetorical analysis, rehtorical decision-making, and rhetorical appeals than are print texts. Indeed, the authors of both texts seem to suggest that digital, or multimodal texts, may simply be more rhetorically effecitve in some contexts. Indeed, Beach, Anson, Breuch, and Swiss argue that "digital writing tools...encourage students to learn to voice their ideas on their own initiative" (13), and Selfe asks, "When was the last time you or anyone in your class was moved to tears by a student composition" (4)?
Although I admit that a student composition from last semester did move me to tears, a more moving moment occurred in my ENG 104 class at the end of Fall semester 2009. Just beginning to incorporate digital and multimodal assignments into my classroom, I allowed my students to use a multimodal platform for their position piece. Only one student took me up on it, and she produced a musical slide show to advocate her position that Americans are too obsessed with the media. To the background of a emotional melody, she juxtaposed photos of starving children with those of stars like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. She used text to incorporate statistics about the number of starving people on earth and the amount of money spent on movie productions. Both my students and I found this presentation moving, and it suggested that incorporating multimodal texts into my classroom would inspire more authentic expression.
But then, in the spring of 2009, I tried to integrate blogs, and the results weren't positive. Before integrating the blogs, I asked one of Selfe's five key questions. I wondered what I would give up by allowing my students to do blogs, and the answer was the traditional thinking and writing journal entries I had done in class. However, I thought my blog posts would be better because they would allow the students to engage in real reflection and analysis since they knew I would be reading the blogs from time to time, and they knew that their classmates would also be reading the blogs. But I found that the students didn't do real reflection. Instead, they just tried to get assignments out of the way, were too caught up on the logistics, and in the student evaluations repeatedly told me that they did not like the blogs. Incidentally, I am not blogging this semester.
I am not blogging this semester, but I am still integrating online discussion (Blackboard) and the option to make certain assignments multimodal assignments in my English 104 class. In my advocacy writing class at Portage Christian School, since I've written the curriculum myself and I only have two students, I am hoping to add a unit on multimodal writing. This shows that I still have faith in this type of writing even if it didn't work for me the first time. Why, you ask?
- Everything I've read has suggested that multimodal writing can be intellectually challenging, stimulating, and enhancing to students. The research I've seen also suggests students create more authentic texts when they have a real audience. In 2009, I participated in the NWIWP writing project, and I studied multigenre writing. My research paper (published here, though it seems not to be completely functional at the moment. I have a FB in about it: http://nwiwp.pbworks.com/Multigenre-Writing-2009) was written in multigenre form, and it was a lot of fun for me to write poems, articles, and menus about the research rather than just another research paper. I imagined that it would be fun for my students to do this as well.
- I wish someone had taught me more about multimodal composition in college. Much of it, I've had to figure out on my own, and because I do a lot of computer aided teaching/teaching online, writing for the web, and I'm the sorry excuse for SADC's web master right now, that's been imperative. My students, when they get out into the real world, will find it imperative to be technologically literate as well.
Perhaps part of what you might have been experiencing with the blog assignment was a lack of exigency on the part of students. If students view the blog as a "school literacy" task, they probably will respond to it with the same degree of enthusiasm as they would other types of tasks.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, I'm not sure if Web 2.0 tools are somehow magical; rather, it's the tasks for which they are used.
Also, it's a common misconception that by focusing on multimodal affordances that you are somehow giving up composition instruction. In fact, it's all "composing," just in different media.
I wonder if one of the problems with your attempt at using blogs in the classroom happened to be that your students were reluctant to fully express themselves in a blog that fellow students would be able to read. Most people who write blogs or create other digital compositions do so with total anonymity. The idea of having a faceless audience can be quite freeing. Your students, however, knew exactly who would be reading their material which injected classic classroom social awkwardness back into the mix. Perhaps your students were not prepared to cut loose and delve into their blogs.
ReplyDeleteMiranda, I think an issue that you might have had with the blogs is the audience.
ReplyDeleteYou mention that your students knew you would be reading the blogs from time to time. What do you think the difference would be if you were actively participating in the blogs with the students? By that I mean commenting on each blog the students made and offering guidance for their writing tasks.
What do you think the difference would have been if you had tried using the blogs as a directed, private conversation between you and your students? Or if you had used them not as a reflection tool, but as a tool to drive their upcoming writing tasks?
Doing so ties into what Mark said about exigency - if the students have no real purpose for blogging, they're simply not going to do it. Classmate comments simply do not have the same impact as instructor input.
Assessment is also important. I use a qualitative assessment method involving a plus, check & minus system to assess blogs. Students do not receive the coveted plus unless they have fully responded to the blog prompt, and have fully responded to my questions in regards to their initial responses. Thus, the blog becomes an ongoing, private conversation between the students and me.
And Mark is also right about not giving up composition instruction when incorporating technology. In truth, you’d be doing your students a disservice by not incorporating technology with composition instruction.
I mean, really..where else outside the academy are students going to write a linear, double-space, five-page, hard copy essay?
Back in 2000, I was taking a college literature survey course and the professor decided to experiment with classroom discussion via computer rather than watching us all lower our eyes every time she asked a question.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember what we were using, but it was like a chat room. The prof had created several topics for us to discuss, and told us to have at it.
What was remarkable about this set-up was that we were anonymous to one another. No one knew who had typed which responses because we were assigned random numbers. The professor was able to identify us, however, and grade us on our participation. She also would enter the conversation as necessary to guide us or to correct misconceptions.
All 28 or so students were in the room, perfectly silent except for the gentle patter of the keyboards, but the anonymity made it possible to be honest and forthcoming about our opinions on what we had read. Furthermore it exposed the ones who had not completed the reading and forced us to practice writing. We were editing our own responses before clicking enter because the teacher was reading these and because it was immensely frustrating to be misunderstood (the result of muddled prose).
Perhaps blogging could still work for you, but you could allow students to choose their own identities (give you the name confidentially), and as Rebecca suggested, enter the discussions yourself more frequently. Students respond strongly to teacher interest.
Thank you all for your comments.
ReplyDeleteAs I explored the issue of blogging in my class, I thought of a lot of the things you brought up. I can say that my first attempt, like so many others, was ill-formed. I was trying to add blogging into a packed curriculum. My intentions in making it a reflective tool were good, but I failed to consider the fact that one can only do so much reflection. I have also thought about the concept of anonymity, and I am currently using Google Docs in a way similar to that which Laura described. My students are being tasked to edit the same document anonymously, though they can choose to name themselves if they wish. The document contains an article I wrote, and I've asked them to add comments and to respond to each other's comments. I'm excited to see how this turns out, as using Google docs as collaboration tools in class has so far worked well. As most of you probably realize by now, I'm a big advocate of technology in the classroom, but making it work with each class and in each situation is a challenge. I'm not done with blogging, but I definitely think I need to do a little more thinking before I do it again!