So yeah, I'm literally aswim in thoughts tonight about this project. I discovered a pretty good wealth of resource material today that I need to "unpack" and sift through, to mix my metaphors some.
First of all, I'm thinking of Paranormal Activity and poetry tonight. I'd like to submit something poetic to LRR soon and I think I've figured out what I'd like to do. I'm thinking of a faux letter from Stalin's Russia circa 195- where the letter has been massively censored and blacked-over in huge swathes so that only a few words per line are visible. I'm toying with the idea here that, like in Paranormal Activity (or any good suspense / horror movie) the viewer is forced into a critical relationship with a) what is on screen, b) what is NOT on screen, and c) what could be onscreen. In my poem example, the reader would have to deal with the words of the poem, the formal convention of the poem as its presented, and the context of the letter's missing parts. The title in my head is something like "A Doggerel of Censorship: Moscow, 195-." If you steal this idea from me, I'll know it was you :{ and I'll find you. I will.
Anyway . . .
I spoke with the assistant director of U.C.'s Composition Program today and she was kind enough to forward to me the blank syllabi for their Comps I & II courses. I also tracked down similar information from U.K. and Thomas More College. Reading NKU's "Writing Goals for Students" against these makes NKU's sound downright anarchist but compared to the WPA's statement of 1st year composition goals, NKU's still sounds pretty traditional and even a little backwards. My work is definitely going to have to be framed as something of an intervention of the status quo.
I'm working / processing through Kathy Yancey's "Writing in the 21st Century" tonight and am surprised by both how much I am enjoying it and how really interesting it is. Once I finish it tonight, I'll do the entry for it on my Annotated Multimodal Bibliography for the Pedagogy Theory course that I am taking and then I'll be over half done with the assignment. Woot!
23 October 2009
22 October 2009
Regarding Assessment of Multimodal Projects
I asked Suzanne Soled, Chair of the Department of English at NKU and specialist on educational assessment strategies, if she had ever heard of multimodal literacy and/or composition but she hadn't (which really isn't much of a surprise to me at this point in the game.)
On the other hand though, she did offer some interesting input into assessment strategies based upon my explanation of multimodality to her.
More importantly though was that by listening to my explanation of multimodality, she immediately hit upon the metaphor of an academic presenting at a conference. Possibly this was because she had just returned from a week and a half of conference attendance - who can say? - but I'm not sure I can think of a more appropriate metaphor for multimodality than that. When an academic goes to a conference to present, they have the decision of in which mode should they present their "papers". Clearly, the delivery of a formal academic paper will acrue more cultural capital in some circles than a poster exhibit. Possibly, the results of a round table discussion will be result less deep connections to the topic of delivery than the other two, but will lead to a broader range of information being disseminated as well as a construction of social ties that otherwise would not have been developed in alternate modes. In some conferences, the mode could be imposed while in others it could be left open to the presenter. The rhetorical moment must be defined, the conventions must be adhered to (or at least navigated whether that means by accepting and then following them or by rejecting and subverting them) and etc.
I told her I was going to steal this for my own use.
On the other hand though, she did offer some interesting input into assessment strategies based upon my explanation of multimodality to her.
More importantly though was that by listening to my explanation of multimodality, she immediately hit upon the metaphor of an academic presenting at a conference. Possibly this was because she had just returned from a week and a half of conference attendance - who can say? - but I'm not sure I can think of a more appropriate metaphor for multimodality than that. When an academic goes to a conference to present, they have the decision of in which mode should they present their "papers". Clearly, the delivery of a formal academic paper will acrue more cultural capital in some circles than a poster exhibit. Possibly, the results of a round table discussion will be result less deep connections to the topic of delivery than the other two, but will lead to a broader range of information being disseminated as well as a construction of social ties that otherwise would not have been developed in alternate modes. In some conferences, the mode could be imposed while in others it could be left open to the presenter. The rhetorical moment must be defined, the conventions must be adhered to (or at least navigated whether that means by accepting and then following them or by rejecting and subverting them) and etc.
I told her I was going to steal this for my own use.
Wanda Crawford and Her Interview Assignment
I had a really intersting conversation with my boss, Wanda Crawford of the NKU Learning Assistance Center, today about her unique ENG090 Interview Assignment.
I was drawn to Wanda's assignment in particular because of it's subtly difference instruction and end results for her students' papers. Students from her courses were encouraged to interview a relative or friend and then create something of a transcript of the interview (though they weren't necessarily trying to "transcribe" verbatim the interview so much as convey facsimile of the spirit of the speakers' words) and additionally to include editorializations in the forms of an introduction, conclusion, and some parenthetical interjections when applicable. As an ENG080 instructor, I've been in a position to see some extraordinary feedback from the students regarding Wanda's assignments.
Being interested in multimodal composition and literacies and seeing in the assignment something of a mediated form of a traditional academic interview, I was curious to find out from Wanda what her inspiration in developing the assignment was. During a brief discussion this morning, Wanda explained that she is a frequent NPR listener and developed the assigment after listening to several on-air episodes of StoryCorps and its corresponding book, Listening is an Act of Love. According to its website,
"StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. It is a project of Sound
Portraits Productions in partnership with the Library of Congress, NPR, and
public radio stations nationwide."
Wanda also spoke to the fact that by asking her students to editorialize and thus contextualize their interviews, they are forced to begin to address the rhetorical nature of the assignment in different ways than a traditional interview format. She said that she was also driven to develop the assignment as a means of trying to make the material fresh for herself. She noted that, possibly at some point, the assignment could incorporate some sort of audiotaping component or something more akin to a complex rhetorical event but at this time she feels more comfortable investing class time to developing a broader range of expertise in her students.
On the whole, my talk with Wanda was excellent though short. I intend on incorporating her interview assignment anecdotally into both my pedagogical class work as well as into my ongoing thesis work.
I was drawn to Wanda's assignment in particular because of it's subtly difference instruction and end results for her students' papers. Students from her courses were encouraged to interview a relative or friend and then create something of a transcript of the interview (though they weren't necessarily trying to "transcribe" verbatim the interview so much as convey facsimile of the spirit of the speakers' words) and additionally to include editorializations in the forms of an introduction, conclusion, and some parenthetical interjections when applicable. As an ENG080 instructor, I've been in a position to see some extraordinary feedback from the students regarding Wanda's assignments.
Being interested in multimodal composition and literacies and seeing in the assignment something of a mediated form of a traditional academic interview, I was curious to find out from Wanda what her inspiration in developing the assignment was. During a brief discussion this morning, Wanda explained that she is a frequent NPR listener and developed the assigment after listening to several on-air episodes of StoryCorps and its corresponding book, Listening is an Act of Love. According to its website,
"StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. It is a project of Sound
Portraits Productions in partnership with the Library of Congress, NPR, and
public radio stations nationwide."
Wanda also spoke to the fact that by asking her students to editorialize and thus contextualize their interviews, they are forced to begin to address the rhetorical nature of the assignment in different ways than a traditional interview format. She said that she was also driven to develop the assignment as a means of trying to make the material fresh for herself. She noted that, possibly at some point, the assignment could incorporate some sort of audiotaping component or something more akin to a complex rhetorical event but at this time she feels more comfortable investing class time to developing a broader range of expertise in her students.
On the whole, my talk with Wanda was excellent though short. I intend on incorporating her interview assignment anecdotally into both my pedagogical class work as well as into my ongoing thesis work.
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