Fulwiler Middleton Response

"Nowhere does this new media epistemology beckon more compellingly than in the arena of digital video, which may be the paradigmatic example of a multimodal text with the potential for wide-ranging cultural, aesthetic and social implications" (Fulwiler and Middleton 40). 

I wanted to talk about this quote from Fulwiler and Middleton's article because it particularly resonated with me. The other day when I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed, I noticed that about 15 posts in a row were videos. This included a Tasty recipe for french toast, a live New York Times feed of Central Park, a "fail" video from a comedian's page, a DIY clip for a cat-shaped garden planter, and more. What really stood out to me was that everything was moving, and the effect was overwhelming in its novelty. Even just a few months ago, I feel like the majority of my newsfeed was stationary (life updates, links to alphabetic text articles, images). But today, what readers seem to demand (or, more importantly, what they share on social media) and as a result, what writers supply, is video content.

This is significant because, as the authors of this article point out, our techniques for teaching students to produce videos are largely based on outdated technology and thus "may no longer be sufficient" (Fulwiler and Middleton 40). In an increasingly digital, technological, and fast-paced world, maybe we need to better prepare our students to produce the quick and concise videos that have become so popular.

 

Shipka Response

In this article, Jody Shipka explores how composition instructors can adapt and improve their teaching methods by shifting their focus from monomodal projects to more innovative, multimodal techniques. She argues that "the norm for student work is equated with linear, argumentative, thesis-driven print texts that are passed forward in class and geared primarily, if not exclusively, to an audience of one (the instructor)" (282). In this article, she examines how to shift this norm to help students adapt to a changed composition landscape.

Shipka hopes to improve upon the outdated monomodal composition system by helping her students  "(1) demonstrate an enhanced awareness of the affordances provided by the variety of media they employ in service of those goals; (2) successfully engineer ways of contextualizing, structuring, and realizing the production, representation, distribution, delivery, and reception of their work; and (3) become better equipped to negotiate the range of communicative contexts they find themselves encountering both in and outside of school" (284). These goals reflect the differences between her multimodal practices and the linear, alphabetic practices of the past.

In general, Shipka proposes these changes because she believes monomodal/traditional assignments limit students' creativity, predetermine their goals, and force them to use only one type of technology. She argues that multimodal projects are better because they are goal-oriented and flexible, so allow students to think rhetorically and make their own decisions about the direction of the project.

Why Is Writing Important?

For my annotated bibliography, I am hoping to find out if traditional writing still has a place in society today. To answer this, I decided to first try to understand why traditional writing matters at all. Once I figure this out, I hope to apply my answer to the multimodal/monomodal debate we've been discussing in class.

This article I found by Steve Graham (called "Writing: Importance, Development and, Instruction") discusses the importance of traditional writing and provides an overview of how teachers can effectively help their students become better writers. Graham begins "Writing: Importance, Development and Instruction" by acknowledging the near universal lack of writing education in our world today, saying "In many countries, little time is devoted to teaching writing or using writing as a tool to support learning" (1). In the U.S., in particular, Graham claims that after third grade, students are taught very little about writing. This serves as a backdrop for Graham's following arguments about why writing should be taught in more frequent and in-depth ways. Because he believes that the ability to write well is important for pretty much anyone, he laments the lack of instruction students receive in this discipline in school.

The author then discusses why writing is such an important skill for you, your grandma, your neighbor, and your best friend's uncle to develop. At a personal level, Graham says writing "provides a medium for maintaining personal links with family, friends, and colleagues," and allows people "to create imagined worlds, tell stories, share information, explore who they are, combat loneliness, and chronicle their experiences" (3). This, he says, is psychologically beneficial for people, because it allows them to develop and uphold personal relationships and process and express emotions and ideas.

In addition, he believes writing is "a powerful tool for influencing others" (3). He cites examples of famous historical pieces of writing that impacted large numbers of people, and argues that writing is an excellent mechanism for persuasion.

Finally, he argues that a writing education is an "indispensable tool for learning" because it improves reading comprehension (3). This can be applied to all areas of study, which extends writing's importance from the confines of the English classroom to the school at large.

Graham then goes into how writing skills can best be developed and taught. He has many suggestions for this, but one of the most interesting and relevant ones (to my topic, at least) is to get students to write frequently and for long periods of time (8). Graham discusses some scientific studies that were conducted on excellent writing teachers that found these techniques to be particularly effective. In addition, he believes that focusing on the overall writing process, in particular, on "writing skills, strategies, and knowledge" will "serve as catalysts to students’ overall writing development" (11).

So, overall, this article is useful to me because it helps me begin to understand why writing matters in the average person's daily personal, professional, and educational life. Hopefully, I can find some other good sources that help me apply these concepts to the discussion about the changing writing environment and answer whether traditional alphabetic writing still is something that matters.

Article URL: http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.scu.edu/docview/1270350174?accountid=13679

Citation: Graham, Steve, Amy Gillespie, and Debra Mckeown. "Writing: Importance, Development, and Instruction." Reading and Writing 26.1 (2013): 1-15.ProQuest. 28 Apr. 2016 .

Is Traditional Writing Still Relevant?

Many of the readings and discussions we've done in class have centered around the idea that changing technology calls for a shift towards a more multi-modal English education to prepare students for the expectations of the modern day writing industry and allow them to express themselves effectively with the tools we have at our disposal. Along these lines, other research I've done in previous classes has suggested that an intense focus on traditional grammar in the English classroom (and by extent, a focus on traditional/standard writing) can be stifling and limiting to students as well.

So my research question is as follows: Is there still a place for traditional, alphabetic writing and writing education in today's world? Or is the technology revolution going to make it completely irrelevant?

In the following video, popular satirical singer Weird Al certainly advocates for the continuing necessity of promoting standard English and traditional grammar.

However, many others disagree. The following image could imply that traditional writing, literature, books, etc. could follow the fates of the VHS, analog TV and print newspapers.

So what I want to answer, with my research, is if we still have a place in society for traditional writing (like Weird Al believes), or if this type of writing is doomed.

BEAM Summary

Shakespeare In The Classroom: Response To Selfe Article

In this reading, Selfe discusses how English classes have evolved to use silent, writing-based techniques to teach their students about compositions that once were performed aurally. When discussing about this change, Selfe says, "Written literature, although including artifacts of earlier aural forms, was studied through silent reading and subjected to written analysis, consumed by the eye rather than the ear" (Selfe 623).

This reminded me of the classes I've taken on Shakespeare. Throughout high school and college, I have studied numerous Shakespeare plays. One thing that consistently has stood out to me is how much more clearly I can understand and appreciate the plays when I see them performed, instead of just reading them in a book.

Take scene 1.5 from Romeo and Juliet, for example. First, read it here (starting at line 97).

Then, watch this YouTube clip:

With this scene, I think the meaning and beauty of the characters' lines can be much better understood in the video. This is because Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, not read. So, when modern English classes teach Shakespeare as written literature (as many do), students will not get as much out of it as they could.

Communicating With Emojis: Kress Ch. 3 Response

In this post, I want to focus on Kress' discussion of how styles and features of writing develop around the medium they are written in, and how, then, changing technologies result in changed writing. Kress talks about how the prominence of the physical book shaped the way we’ve written for centuries. For example, he says the confines of the size of the paper and the way the pages are bound together have caused the “logic of writing” to be “temporal/sequential” (Kress 14).

However, as books are increasingly replaced with screens, Kress predicts the way we write will significantly change alongside our communication technologies. To illustrate this, I want to include a screenshot I took once of a text I received from my dad:

The Kress reading reminded me of some grumblings I've heard from pro-alphabetic text traditionalists that kids these days are ruining the English language with their outlandish use of emojis (and general text lingo). Some people seem to fear our speech will be completely taken over by emoji use, and we'll digress to a society where everyone communicates via cute images of bald, round heads that express our feelings and thoughts.

Kress highlights this fear in a general sense through his discussion of how screens are changing the way we communicate. When I received that text from my dad I couldn't stop laughing, largely because I never thought I'd live to see the day when he used a smiley face in a text, but also because the way he referred to his smiley face as a "non alpha numeric character" seemed to completely counteract the progressiveness of using one.

I'm not sure I agree we will one day digress to communicating solely through emojis, but Kress does have a very valid point when he talks about the emerging centrality of the image in writing. Perhaps emojis are simply an extension of this phenomenon.