Multimedia/Multimodal Composition

Discussion and Examples of Multimodal Composing
Resources for Multimodal Composing
Multimedia/Multimodal Assignment
Other Links

A multimodal composition is one that uses more than one modality to achieve its intended objectives. These modalities include, but are not limited to: visual, audio, gestural, spatial or linguistic means for meaning-making. As students learn to compose in the new media age, professors should encourage multimodal composition so that students can explore all available means to composing.

Discussion and Examples of Multimodal Composing:

• Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog." The Atlantic, Nov 2008. 
  Writer and columnist Andrew Sullivan created one of the first blogs.  Here he talks about how blogging changes the nature of writing as well as the writer’s relationship with his audience.
  
  

• Puschak, Evan. (TEDx Video) "How YouTube Changed The Essay" 
  Puschak (aka The Nerdwriter), a video essayist, talks about the origin of the essay, why academic essays aren’t particularly useful in most of the world, and how the video essay opens up possibilities for exploring subjects and reaching audiences that aren’t possible in print.
  
  

• Puschak, Evan.“How Louis CK Tells a Joke”   
  A great example of what the video essay can do--here Puschak dissects how a joke works in a way that has a lot in common with the sort of analysis of a text that we do in English courses but that uses techniques only possible with video.  (There are also many other great video essayists on YouTube.)
  
  
• Wesch, M. (2010, October 12). TEDxKC- Michael Wesch- From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able. Tedx Talks.
  In this 18-minute, 2010 TEDx talk, Anthropologist Michael Wesch (who has studied YouTube since 2002) examines two big ideas. First he considers the complex possibilities and constraints of online collaboration to change the world in real ways on giant global social media platforms like YouTube. Second, echoing both John Dewey and Paulo Freire, he critiques models of college learning that continue to focus on merely acquiring knowledge instead of learning how to navigate an ever changing world by adapting to new composing media, tools and platforms.
  

Resources to Help Students and Teachers With Multimodal Composing:

• Multimodal Composition: Resources for Faculty and Students 
  A great link with resources to developing teaching practices that utilize multimodal projects. These resources include multimodal assignments, sample rubrics and assessment suggestions.
  
  

• DWRL Lesson Plans 
  A library of innovative technology-based lesson plans and classroom assignments created by DWRL Instructors.
  
  

• The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy 
  A source for open scholarly discourse around critical and creative uses of digital technology in the classroom, emphasizing multimodal composition assignments.
  
  

• OWL - Visual Rhetoric 
  This page defines visual rhetoric and provides elements of analysis within a visual text.

Recommended Assignment:

Three Minute Movie Version of a Text Essay
(Sean Molloy  21 Aug. 2014.)   
Students apply the same thesis question they have developed for a text essay to a three minute movie version which they publish to an internet platform. The link above leads to assignment information on the CUNY Composition Community website. 


Please click through these links to explore the other suggested readings categories:

• The Writing Process
• Rhetoric, Genre, and Discourse
• Research as Inquiry

Click here to return to the ENG 1100-College Writing main page

Click here to view recommended assignments for ENG 1100

Click here for information on how to build a syllabus for ENG 1100