Researched Reflection for Multimodal Literacy: Casting Off Fear and
Addressing the Digital Queequeg
Fear. It drives so much of the human psyche. It causes action, and, even worse, it causes inaction. In Chapter 3 of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Ishmael explains that “[i]gnorance is the parent of fear” (Melville 48). At this point, he is scared to death of Queequeg, his “savage,” tattooed, and enormous Kokovokian roommate, a man whose presence frightens him to hide under the sheets, “not game enough...to address him” (48). Such fear of the unknown spawns a paralysis in humanity, both in our personal and professional lives.
This, I believe, is why educators like myself shy away from technological advancement that might positively impact our students - we are afraid. Not afraid necessarily of the technology. Afraid that we won’t have the time to execute it properly. Afraid that it won’t impact our students the way we hope. Afraid that our ignorance about multimodalities will illuminate a crack in our teaching armor. Therefore, instead of throwing back the sheets, standing up, and addressing the tattooed and prodigious cannibal in the room, we hide, allowing that ignorance to dictate our teaching. While there are still those who will argue that educators don’t have the training, time, or need to tackle multimodal teaching in the classroom, it is time to morph that mindset and embrace multimodalites as our “bosom friends” (Melville 81).
In Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice, Douglas Eyman suggests in Chapter 1 that “digital rhetoric is not yet a field.” However, given the nuances of the discussion in all of our readings, it sure feels like it is. Maybe that is where the fear comes in though. Most high school ELA or CCP Composition teachers don’t have much access to these discussions - unless they choose to embark on certifications programs such as this. Most stick to professional development that only scratch the surface of digital mediums like Google, or they look to PD that directly addresses the insanity of the testing and data age to which we belong. In addition, when we look at the definition of rhetoric, we often only look to the classical definition that Eyman suggests, which is the “good man speaking well”; and to that I would add writing well. This ethical definition of rhetoric is one I try to teach, especially since many students hear rhetoric and think only of the negative connotation. And while I certainly try to teach an ethical approach as they respond to one another in Blog format or in peer editing, I never really considered that aspect as digital rhetoric - just as proper online decorum. Now, with Eyman’s definition of the “application of rhetorical theory to digital texts and performances,” I can begin using new terminology and a new perspective with my students, which is exciting.
The theory of effective rhetoric is not enough though when considering this monumental shift; to suppress the fear, teachers need to understand the “why” of teaching digital rhetoric. It is more than a theory. It is a necessity. As Kristin Arola, Jennifer Sheppard, and Cheryl Ball assert in Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects, “multimodal texts have become an essential part of communication in nearly every arena of contemporary culture” (vi). To ignore that fact would be to do a great disservice to our students as they venture into the collegiate and professional realm, where such digital communication will be expected. Since “digital media has increased opportunities to convey information and has also changed the expectations of readers” (vi), students need to learn to navigate this new realm. Too often, they recognize this digital world not as a rhetorical tool but only as a simple means to link to assignment on Classroom, to connect with their friends on various forms of social media, and to get the dirt on their favorite celebrities. In order to alter their oversimplified thinking, “a new set of canons is needed to re-situate rhetoric in complex socio-historic worlds and to realize” that embracing multimodalities can help create “a deep orientation to mediated activity and agency” (qtd. in Eyman) that will strengthen communication and connection.
Perhaps one of my favorite ways to describe this need is how Eyman outlines digital ecologies “as a metaphor for complex, interconnected relationships [which] has a rich history in writing studies.” Usually we see only traditional text that connects us. However, as the digital age took off at the end of the 20th Century, we began to recognize this connectivity through technology. One of the ways I have tried to impress this upon my students is through a mini multimodal unit at the beginning of the year, highlighting Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. Through text excerpts and a TED talk, we explore how the world became so much smaller with the advent of powerful technological platforms and how we need to learn to navigate that world to create positive relationships, collaborating with one another, ultimately strengthening the whole. In Eyman, he uses the words of Walter Ong, who asserts that “everything on the earth, and even the universe, is interconnected with everything else, not only in itself but, ideally, in human understanding and activity.” Therefore, as part of this digital ecological perspective, regardless of our current ignorance, we need to teach “design and aesthetics, and how... aspects of writing can be used toward rhetorical goals in the digital environment” (Morey 24).
The key word there is TEACH. While I have been much better at using various modes of digital access in my classroom, I haven’t really done as much as I need to help students see how THEY can use multimodalities as “the site of reinvention of life” (qtd. in Eyman), impacting those around them through their own digital choices. If I can do more to teach the “value of learning-by-doing through writing for authentic audiences and purposes” (Arola vii), my classroom can be a place where kids can be “presented with a new screen of interactive possibility” (Eyman). Instead of teaching that composition must only be typed words in a Google Doc, as Arola, Sheppard, and Ball suggest, I must begin to incorporate more useful “multimodal composition projects,” which will provide “valuable avenues for students to explore all available means of persuasion” (vii). Up to this point, Google Slides have been my main shift in this direction. However, in exploring Rachael Ryerson’s Prezi titled Multimodal Composition in Kairos: A Rhizomatic Retrospective, she suggests that such simplistic slide presentations created by students are “rhetorically unsuccessful, creating constrained texts.” To be honest, this fact made me feel guilty. I have to become more cognizant of the changes that must be made in my room - regardless of the constraints.
We need to begin the assault with the constraint of teacher mindset, one that keeps us shuddering under the covers, unable to act. Historically, tradition has said that arguments are “associated with printed text” (Eyman) only. However, according to Eyman, we need to break this mindset and, “for digital rhetoric…, see text in a more expansive light” instead of “neglect[ing]” other composition mediums that can “bridge print and oral literacies.” If we expand in this way, educators at all levels will be able to create the “potential for building [new] social communities” (Eyman) that can have far reaching impacts outside of the classroom. If that is going to happen though, my colleagues and I must first provide the opportunities for our students to make “deliberate modal considerations” (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball 4) outside of the traditional oral, written, or typed composition. The problem though, as is always our argument, is time; “good multi-modal projects don’t just happen - they involve planning, researching, drafting, and revising (xxiii) - just as any traditional composition would. So where does that fit with the Standards? Or the State tests? Or the ACT test? Or the AP test? Or TBT data acquisition? I would argue that, if we stop saying, “That’s not tested!” then maybe we could lift the veil of our ignorance and just do it already! Good technique is good technique. Good rhetorical analysis, whether print or digital, is good rhetorical analysis. I am so tired or talking about the tests and the standards. Good teaching is good teaching. So...I am committed to the fact that “[l]earning to communicate persuasively in any situation requires sustained opportunity to practice this kind of composition” (vii); and I am going to give my kids that opportunity. That does not mean I am going to abandon tradition. That is insane, too. However, there is room for tradition and for a more powerful and more globally impactful mode of rhetorical communication.
In the upcoming year, it will be my job to expand the constraint that will certainly exist with student mindset when considering multimodal literacy . While “[i]t may not be a kind of writing that [they] recognize or that [they] would ‘court’ as acceptable writing in a professional setting such as school or work” (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball xxiii), I need to break the prejudice and show them how much communication has expanded over the years through my own example. That is why I chose to focus this digital portfolio of with multimodal examples and assignments that can be used by students this upcoming year. If I model good practice, and give them the opportunity, with effective rhetorical and digital choices, to create their own examples, I will have done my small part in shifting the conversation with students as well. As a wise county liaison once told our department, “There’s more than one way to get to New York City.” Kids need to know that they don’t always have to create a traditional text composition to be heard. As Sean Morey asserts in The Digital Writer, “[a]s just another skill or tool, [students] should be proud of the ability to create savvy, rhetorically sound [digital] arguments to persuade an audience of [their] point of view” (15).
While there are certainly some roadblock in our way to eradicating ignorance as related to multimodalities in the composition classroom, educating ourselves and our students to its possible power is the first step. It will not be a smooth process; we will all want to hide under the covers, allowing our fear of the time and energy it is going to take consume us. However, I am willing to accept the challenge and hug that behemoth Kokovokian unknown, an unknown which is just waiting to expand the educational, professional, and cultural possibilities of my students, carrying them far behind the walls of my classroom.
Works Cited
Arola, Kristin L., Jennifer Sheppard, and Cheryl Ball. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making
Multimodal Projects. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.
Eyman, Douglas. Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press, 2015.
%20text;view=toc;xc=1;g=dculture. Accessed 12 July 2017.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003.
Morey, Sean. The Digital Writer. Fountainhead Press, 2017.
Ryerson, Rachael. Multimodal Composition in Kairos: A Rhizomatic Retrospective. Kairos, Issue
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