As an entirely multimodal person, who has spent many years unsuccessfully trying to bend myself into one mode, I find that I am still mildly conflicted by the ideas presented in Takayoshi and Selfe’s piece. Although the digital world has become all-encompassing, and obviously more so in the past year and change, the attitude that language, and purely “alphabetic” writing, is somehow passé doesn’t feel comfortable. Obviously this is not a zero-sum game, and multimodal seems to imply that we embrace a multiplicity of viewpoints. Paper and books were once state-of-the art technology. The study of rhetoric, as the authors point out, began by looking at oral communication, not written. Multimodal education can honor and respect the traditions, just as it seeks to incorporate new ideas and modes.

With my caveat in place, I see no reason why standards, elegance or literary ideals need to be compromised when working this way, and personally I like it, though with a little less focus on the digital world as such. We can bend technology to our will just as forcefully as it can bend us. Technology was invented by humans, choices were made, and perhaps we can apply a critical eye to the technology itself, not just to what was produced with it. As the authors say, “Grounded in the knowledge that comes from authoring multimodal compositions themselves, students can constructively respond to audio and visual compositions, developing critical perspectives that will serve them well as citizens who respond to any texts” (3). These critical perspectives should be applied to all the world, and especially the digital world, an artificial place that was created with an uneven application of art and care.

A few years ago, I read Lynda Barry’s book Syllabus and jealously considered her work. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a “professor of interdisciplinary creativity” and has put out a few books about her strange and novel approach to the classroom. Art, research, science, and writing are interwoven in idiosyncratic and delightful ways. Granted, what she talks about is all on paper, and I realize that that’s not exactly what’s being discussed here. Still, in my own work and education I’ve always tacked in the direction of the gray area between modes, like William Blake’s illustrated poems. I like that gray area best, and have always taught it enthusiastically in my own way.

I’ve always snuck in some multimodal assignments along the way, though again tacking towards paper, but was a bit sheepish about it, and never pushed it as far as I would have liked. We’ve spent time looking at and analyzing comic strips over the years (Krazy Kat and Little Nemo in Slumberland in the context of Modernism and Surrealism, looking at the rhetoric of the genre). We’ve always listened to podcasts and watched short art films to look at their construction: diegetic and non-diegetic music, use of voice-over etc. This semester I’ve introduced some small drawing projects as well based on our reading, but over the years we’ve always returned to the five-paragraph essay, as was the standard. The purpose of looking at these things was always to write about them in the end.

There are many multimodal ideas I would like to introduce in the classroom, though not all of them are digital. I always wanted to have the students create zines, for instance, collective zines using artwork and their writing, or individual thematic works. I’m sure there are ways to think about that project both in analog and digital terms. I’m also eager to explore making podcasts and sound recordings with my students. Some of the podcasts out there are beautifully written and hold to the highest standards of composition. I’ve had a number of students interested in using that genre for their unit 3 project and one who made a podcast last semester, and would like to delve into that a lot more.

A multimodal environment that fully embraces the multiplicity of modes is delightful to me, as it leads me to a teaching life more integrated with the rest of my work, education, and interests.

In the 1121 class I’m teaching right now the students are working on the “Documenting Your Life: Multimodal” assignment (unit #3). I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the process of helping them choose the modality for the assignment. We spent part of a class brainstorming the types of modalities they could choose, then I had them type up a brief proposal which included the reason that modality was the right fit for their story. Since the assignment is a personal one, no one would know better than them the best way to tell their own stories.

During the pre-post chat, the students were definitely participating more than usual. It was nice to see them enthused. And the students seemed eager to help each other as well; one person, for example, asked if she could do a TikTok (For the record, I don’t know TikTok at all – I’m not even sure if the correct terminology is a “TikTok” or a “TikTok video”). I asked the class what they thought about the student’s idea. After a bit one of them suggested that the student make a series of TikToks to tell her story. I thought that was a great idea.

In this instance, I feel like I’m learning from the students, and maybe it’s selfish of me, but I like learning from them. They seem happy to do it as well. So when I read this statement in the Takayoshi and Selfe article, “Students often bring to the classroom a great deal of implicit, perhaps previously unarticulated, knowledge about what is involved in composing multimodal texts, and they commonly respond to multimodal assignments with excitement,” (pg 4)—I found myself nodding along in agreement.

I could imagine some composition instructors, faced with the challenge of teaching multimodal assignments digging in their heels in a sort of “get off my lawn” way … but why? Things change. This is the world now. And have to admit that I love the almost scolding Takayoshi and Selfe give hesitant teachers when they write, “Teachers less than willing to make such a leap might be encouraged to remember that the rhetorical principles currently used to teach written composition are, themselves, principles translated from the study of oral communication.” Like I said: Things change. This is the world now.

One last thing from the article: I liked what the authors said about multimodal composition possibly bringing the “often neglected third appeal—pathos—back into composition classes” and I look forward to seeing how my students do it next week.

The second article, “Teaching Multimodal Composition” from the University of Michigan website, was helpful in affirming that I’m not going about teaching multimodal composition in the completely wrong way. (This is most likely thanks to Carrie’s excellent model classes!). I’ve had my students following this basic scaffolding of analyzing, finding models/mentor texts, proposing the projects, drafting their own versions and then workshopping, finalizing, and finally reflecting. I’ve always had scaffolded assignments, but this is more thorough, with more chances for feedback—which seems more important than ever for catching students from falling through the cracks now that we’re online.

One other thing I like about the multimodal composition assignments is that they naturally lend themselves toward examining a student’s purpose and audience. I think it’s built into the question of why this modality for this project?

I’m really happy with the changes to composition this year (okay, aside from the online aspect, which to be honest, I truly don’t mind much). I feel like the past years I was doing the same thing each semester, never quite sure if my students were learning anything. Now I feel like they are. And I know I am!

In our “new normal” (I hate saying that), I think that multimodal writing and communication is important more than ever. We are living in an increasingly digital world, and the ways that we communicate on a daily basis have changed drastically. I agree with Takayoshi and Selfe’s article that there is an urgent need for more multimodal writing assignments.

As someone who teaches business writing, my main goal is to give the students the confidence to be flexible when faced with new challenges in their writing at work. I try to give them many different assignments, both short and long form, that will help for larger assignments but those don’t necessarily address the daily needs of communication. As I write this, I’m receiving emails, getting Microsoft Teams messages, and will eventually prepare a PowerPoint presentation for an upcoming account meeting. While I dream of writing beautiful essays and letters, the reality of my work life is multimodal in so many different ways.

I think I look at multimodal writing skills as separate from the general writing skills I am hoping to teach: organization, transition, traditional formatting. In reality, these are the same skills, just executed in a new format. While I have students mainly work in PowerPoint for certain presentations, I’m always impressed by the students who use Prezi, or create another type of presentation. I think it would be important for me to open up assignments for different forms like podcasts or videos. The process to create a cohesive narrative or argument remains the same- the students now are executing the very core of what I hope to accomplish as a teacher: flexibility in different formats. I found Sweetland’s multimodal guide incredibly helpful for planning future assignments that can incorporate multimodal writing.

For Weds, April 28: Please read this article by Takayoshi and Selfe  and look over these resources on teaching multimodal writing from the Sweetland Center for Writing. Both are on teaching multimodal writing in FYW classes.

Then write a blog post about your thoughts on the articles and how you feel about teaching multimodal writing: Have you done it? Do you like it? What are your concerns? Do you have good ideas? Things you would like to try?

For May 5, we will meet on zoom. Before we meet, please familiarize yourself with Unit 3 of 1121 HERE . Please also look at the handout HOW TO MAKE A PODCAST THAT MATTERS from the New York Times

And…. here are a couple of resources for teaching generative grammar. These are just here for you to use if you want to

First, this site on strengthening sentence variety from the Texas Gateway is very useful. Remember to follow up immediately with exercises in which students look at their own writing!

Second, an excerpt from my friend Martin Brandt’s book on generative grammar is below. I think sentence focus is often quite a complex issue, but I do like this chapter and look forward to reading the rest of Marty’s book!

Download (PDF, 1.57MB)

Though the word “grammar” conjures images of kids gripping #2 pencils as they diagram sentences in sullen and silent classrooms, I actually like thinking about grammar in terms of my own writing. I enjoy deciding between a semicolon or an em-dash; I like reading things out loud to see if I’ve used too many commas (which I almost always have). This, though, is about my own writing and not about teaching.

Teaching grammar is another animal, and one that I don’t like. When I first began teaching at City Tech in 2015, comp classes had an additional 45-minute lab each week and somehow I had the impression that that’s when we were supposed to teach grammar … I can’t remember if the English Department Chair at that time told me that, or if I just guessed. I’d already been teaching creative writing for a decade at that point, but hadn’t taught first year writing, and had never taught grammar. Occasionally I’d come across run-on sentences in the short stories my students turned in, and sometimes I’d point them out, but that was as far as I’d gone grammar-wise.

What I tried to do in the lab portion of the comp classes at City Tech – and I’m so glad those lab portions are gone – was use examples from either student texts or things I found online to gently point out problems and have the students work together to fix them. For example, one exercise I did was project (onto a screen at the front of the class) a paragraph where I’d taken out all the punctuation. Then the students would work in groups of four (my in-person students LOVED doing group work, so I tried to incorporate them into classwork as often as possible) to revise the paragraph with punctuation included; they were also free to change word order or revise the sentences completely if they wished. Then one person from each group would go up to the board and write one of their sentences and the class would discuss the choices they’d made and why.

Honestly, the students seemed to enjoy this. There was usually a bit of good-spirited laughter. It was a team effort, and no one was ever singled out. I didn’t hand out worksheets or define grammatical terms, but rather had them practice them. I made a point to tell them that they know more about grammar than they think they do, simply by reading.

So when I read about the term COIK in Muriel Harris’ piece, I felt a bit relieved. Perhaps I haven’t been as terrible to my students with regard to grammar as I’ve feared these last few weeks. (Also, I love the example of defining physics that Harris uses.)

I think the Dunn article relates a lot to what we’ve been talking about in terms of genre, and I like the point Dunn makes when she says “Every writing project is constrained by previous iterations of that type of writing.” This reminds me of another exercise I’d have students do in-person: Have them write a text to a friend asking what they’re doing that weekend, an email to me asking for an extension for a paper, and a cover letter for a job. Then I’d have them share them with the class – it was just a way to illustrate the different ways we use language in different situations.

All of this is making me think about how much I miss in-person classes! Looking forward to seeing you all later today.

Jessie

As a student, I LOVE grammar. I love thinking about it- I find diagramming sentences one of those eerily calming things to do in my mind. It’s like my version of a rubik’s cube. I went to Catholic school all my life, and those nuns and brothers really held “proper grammar” next to godliness. For me, these lessons just clicked. I was also a native English speaker, an avid reader, and had a mother as an English teacher. I very clearly see that my elementary and secondary education was rooted in a white, religious, middle-class experience.

Therefore, I cannot in good faith use my experience of learning grammar as a measure for my students. I believe that using my narrow definition of what I was taught was “proper grammar” would be a racist, classist, xenophobic way of teaching. Besides, who wants to be that person on Facebook who tries to end an argument by saying “you’re*?” As Dunn stated, “As a recent rhetorical analysis of grammar rants has demonstrated, many such rants are laced with moral judgments about the departure from allegedly proper grammar. In a disturbing, repeating trend, the offending speaker or writer is seen as uneducated and lazy, the latter judgment being connected not too subtly to one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Sloth).” I certainly don’t want to lay a curriculum’s foundation on being a jerk.

That being said, as I teach business writing, grammar is part of many different lessons. As we discuss the proper tone and formality for an external business presentation, or an email to your boss, grammar inevitably comes into play. Dunn’s quote of Elizabeth Wardle really put my teaching into perspective when she says “’There is no such thing as writing in general.’ Every writing project is constrained by previous iterations of that type of writing. Is it a memo, résumé, game manual, business plan, film review?” Since there is no such thing as writing, can there even be such thing as proper grammar in general?

Similar to Dunn’s point above, I try to focus on how writing will need to ebb and flow to accommodate different audiences and different workplaces. My goal is to make flexible writers- and their flexibility will make them strong writers, and good writers. We talk endlessly about industry terminology, similar to Harris’s note on COIK. We address those challenges together and make sure when we are reading student writing that they define any acronyms or industry terms that the other students wouldn’t know. It’s a collective learning- a future lawyer can learn more about a future computer engineer’s world, and the engineer can practice being explicit in different formats, and making their writing clear for a lay audience.

I took a grammar class in college and was super proud of an essay I wrote entitled “I Give a Fuck About an Oxford Comma,” just to come to realize that it truly does not matter. When ESL students are working so hard to move from one language to another, they’re doing four times the work I will ever do to express myself in English. That by itself is cause for celebration and acknowledgment. Instead of saying “this is a run-on sentence” I try to say things like, “this sentence isn’t clear to me. How can we rephrase what you’re trying to say?” so that they can think through how to improve their writing in real time.

While I don’t grade based on grammar, I do have a PowerPoint presentation of grammar memes. It’s a list of 20 common grammar mistakes, and we talk about them as a class, and then work it out in sentences. Many students find it mildly entertaining, and have a moment of clarity with at least one, but I’ve long since abandoned my thought that seeing one meme will change a writing style that is years in the making. Instead, my hope is that by encouraging them to read and assigning them different types of writing throughout the semester, they will naturally experiment with different types of writing and their grammar will develop as well.