June 25 2018

Multimodal projects are projects that combine the various modes (Visual, Aural, Linguistic, Spatial, and Gestural) together in order to to communicate a particular rhetorical point. I think that thinking about writing from a more multimodal, and interdisciplinary perspective challenges our notion about what an effective “academic” communicator is. In my last post I referenced Palmeri’s argument that “We must recognize that alphabetic writing remains a valued form of composing that we are institutionally and professionally mandated to teach” (Palmeri 8). However, after having some time to think about and process, I wonder if this claim limits our ability to ultimately be the most effective in what we argue as it fails to recognize that other modes can be equally, if not more effective than the linguistic approach. I also wonder if this tends to limit the the scope in which we process and communicate as it “privileges linearity and originality in print texts” (qtd Palmeri 88). Multiple examples have been given when pictures, videos, and graphs/charts, which use more than one mode to communicate, are more effective than just an linguistic response / argument. In my case, the gatekeeper (state tests, ACT, AP and college entrance) measure success based on a students alphabetic response. thus this tends to be the primary focus of my instruction time.

I have noticed however that when I ask students to complete an assignment requiring multiple modalities it really forces them to slow their process down and think about the effectiveness and continuity of their argument. In turn, I feel like I have ended up with a product that is more analytical because students looked at, and created various texts which made them come to a better and more critical understanding through the juxtaposition of images words and graphs and thus the audience (me) was more engaged in the text as well (Palmeri 88). In my case this came about by accident and I’m afraid that the amazing critical thinking that was accomplished in my multimodal projects had very little transfer into the criticality I wanted in my students writing. For this to occur I think that there needs to be some intentionality in terms of teaching the process and then some time for students to reflect on the rhetorical choices students made as well as how multimodal projects and linguistic products should essentially follow similar processes.