Multimodal texts are texts that integrate words, sound, images, and video. As Cynthia Selfe and Pam Takayoshi point out, "whatever professional students hope to enter in the 21st century--game design, archeology, science and engineering, the military, the entertainment industry, and medicine--they can expect to read and be asked to help compose multimodal texts of various kinds" (3). We are proud to offer a composition curricula that engages students in the production of traditional print texts as well as multimodal texts like PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, and other audio and visual compositions. Our goal, however, remains the same: to teach students to make use of any and all available rhetorical means to write. Sometimes these means include digital technologies.
Many first-year students bring some digital composing skills to the classroom. For other students, the transition is more difficult. Our department supports multi-modal composing in first-year composition through the Digital Composition Studio (DCS), a multimedia composing space in which students can receive expert advice and instruction on how to create multimedia texts. For more information on the DCS, contact Coordinator Heather Caldwell.
Works Cited:
Selfe, Cynthia, and Pamela Takayoshi. “Thinking about Multimodality.” Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers.Cresskill (NJ): Hampton Press, 2008. 1-16.
Other Resources on Multimodal Composition:
Anderson, Robert, et al. “Integrating Multimodality into Composition Curricula: Survey Methodology and Results from a CCCC Research Grant.” Composition Studies (2006): 59-84.
Selber, Stuart. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
Selfe, Richard J. “Sustaining Multimodal Composition.”Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Ed. Cynthia J. Selfe. Cresskill (NJ): Hampton Press, 2008. 167-180.
Sorapure, Madeline. “Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions.” Kairos 10.2 (2006): 1-15. http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/10.2/binder2.html?coverweb/sorapure/index.html