Our project, as I see it, is to improve the Persuasive Brochure assignment in a few different areas. First: teacher prep. Second: assignment design (the rhetorical situation, which Brian knocked out of the ballpark here). Third: applicability and transferability.
We can (and should) fix the first two regardless of the medium we decide on--even if we stick with a persuasive brochure.
The third realm for improvement is where the door is opened to a lot of possibilities. Below are musings on some potential assignments and their effects on the third area of improvement:
1) Keep the persuasive brochure. With better prepared teachers and a more solid rhetorical situation, the persuasive brochure could be a successful assignment to teach skills of visual + textual rhetoric, document design and layout, visual persuasion, and multimedia rhetoric.
Medium: Traditional. Even though computers would most likely be used to design and print the document, this counts as a Traditional assignment because the presentation of the composition does not take place on a computer.
Upside: Strong focus on visual rhetoric and document design. Potential for very specific rhetorical situation.
Downside: Persuasive brochures, while still in use, are less than applicable. The pb's biggest strength--a big focus on visual rhetoric in a specific rhetorical situation--can be reproduced in many other assignments without the biggest pb weakness: very few people will ever produce a persuasive brochure in their lifetimes, and if they do they'll probably be given a template or a prior example to mimic.
2) Persuasive poster, which would be significantly more applicable and potentially useful for students, thus engaging them more and helping them learn composition skills that will be directly transferable to future poster-making endeavors.
Medium: Traditional: Again, computers would be used to design the composition, but the presentation would be on an easel rather than on a computer.
Upside: More used than a pb. Strong focus on visual rhetoric and document design.
Downside: If the greatest weakness of the pb is that very few people will ever make a poster again, the greatest weakness of the poster (at least in my mind) is the limitations of the medium. Posters are still incredibly useful (a short walk through the Wilk will show the current perusasive firepower held by genre of poster), but are also limited in audience and don't make use of many technological resources.
3) Presentation (powerpoint/prezi) would require grading both a performance and an artifact, and is also the most widely-used of any of the multimodal compositions considered so far. Academic conferences, business meetings, and church talks on Sunday all make use of some version of the performance/artifact combo.
Medium: Techie -- While with digital presentations we have taken a bold step from the Traditional world of composition into the Techie world, we are definitely leaving one foot comfortingly deep in tradition. This assignment is nowhere near Web 2.0, but we have incorporated the use of technology to house--not just produce--a multimodal composition of persuasive power.
Upside: Chances are, everyone will have to make a presentation at some point in their lives. Everyone is familiar with the genre (even if they need a primer on powerpoint/prezi basics). Visual rhetoric and document design are a focus. The introduction of oral performance provides an option for the final exam (although, Brian's point at the end of this post introduces the idea that grading a ppt and an oral presentation might be a little much for the last two weeks of the semester).
Downside: While very applicable, this assignment still relies significantly on the technologies of yesteryear. The audience is very limited--just to those in the room during the final, for example--and does not take advantage of any web 2.0 technologies.
4) A narrated digital presentation: Powerpoint + Slideshare or Prezi
A combination like this would turn a static class presentation into a potentially dynamic project that can be shared online and graded as a single unit. A short written proposal would be submitted, explaining exactly who the target audience is, how the author will get the presentation to be seen by the target audience, and the desired effect of the presentation.
Medium: Web 2.0 if it is built to include requirements for comments (get at least 10 different individuals to comment on your presentation) and/or sharing (post this to a pertinent group or page on Facebook, email this to all of your friends who care about this issue, etc).
Upside: This assignment could require groups of students to write text, design a visual presentation, compose an audio accompaniment, and enter the realm of social media. It would get them engaged in a real discourse community rather than a classroom-invented situation. It would help them see how the classroom (design principles, rhetoric, etc) and real life (technologies they actually use in daily life) can intersect to be productive.
Downside: Students would need help with video and audio editing, along with the possible powerpoint/prezi primer. The idea of assigning a percentage of the final project grade to a minimum comment requirement is also risky, as it would give students points for actions that are somewhat out of their control. At the same time, a good presentation will stimulate discussion if it takes advantage of good rhetorical principles, is well-planned, and submitted to the correct audience.
5) A persuasive webpage
This assignment would require some strict guidelines about what is required (a short video clip, at least 2-3 charts/graphs/infographics, at least 500 words of text, an audio clip, a slideshow, etc) as well as a powerful-enough web hosting program to allow each group to have its own web address. Neither of these would be very difficult, meaning that the persuasive webpage is full of potential. The medium is applicable and very "real-life" for today's digital native students.
Medium: Web 2.0 only if the assignment included comment, rating, or sharing requirements.
Upside: Students are familiar with the webpage genre. The assignment would incorporate a significant block of written text with another multimodal composition (we could give each student/group the flexibility to choose what they put on their website, provided it met minimum word length requirements. This would allow students to learn how to choose from the available means of persuasion, as Brian mentioned here). The assignment would be built to teach visual rhetoric, document design, audience awareness, and the persuasive power of the internet. The technology used would be simple enough that most students (and teachers) would not need much technical help. Assignments could be graded based on a formal proposal, which would include target audience, goal of argument, and intended effects.
Downside: No oral performance element. More difficult to grade an assignment with more open-ended requirements.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Three different levels of multimodal composition
1: Traditional Composition
These assignments are the physical compositions that involve multimedia in it's most physical sense: posters, presentations, brochures, etc.
2: Techie Composition
These assignments move into the realm of technology, taking advantage of computer programs and internet resources to create compositions involving Text+ (text and audio/visual): powerpoints, web pages, Prezis, blog posts, etc.
3: Web 2.0 Composition
This category is a bit more fluid and unpindownable. The key with Web 2.0 is the idea of crowdsourced feedback, interaction directly within specific rhetorical situations, and the ability to easily share compositions with--and get responses from--a select range of people.
An example of this kind of assignment would be a Traditional composition captured and posted on a social networking site, such as Facebook, with the goal of stimulating debate or inciting to action. Another example of this kind of assignment would be a "Techie" assignment (such as Prezi or Powerpoint) with a goal of seeking comments and discussion from the author's target audience. Finally, a 100% Web 2.0 composition could be a collection of microblog posts (Twitter or Facebook) including links to images, video, and text.
These assignments are the physical compositions that involve multimedia in it's most physical sense: posters, presentations, brochures, etc.
2: Techie Composition
These assignments move into the realm of technology, taking advantage of computer programs and internet resources to create compositions involving Text+ (text and audio/visual): powerpoints, web pages, Prezis, blog posts, etc.
3: Web 2.0 Composition
This category is a bit more fluid and unpindownable. The key with Web 2.0 is the idea of crowdsourced feedback, interaction directly within specific rhetorical situations, and the ability to easily share compositions with--and get responses from--a select range of people.
An example of this kind of assignment would be a Traditional composition captured and posted on a social networking site, such as Facebook, with the goal of stimulating debate or inciting to action. Another example of this kind of assignment would be a "Techie" assignment (such as Prezi or Powerpoint) with a goal of seeking comments and discussion from the author's target audience. Finally, a 100% Web 2.0 composition could be a collection of microblog posts (Twitter or Facebook) including links to images, video, and text.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
more thoughts on the option issue
The more I have thought about Kathy's comment, the more I feel inclined to agree with it--to a point. I believe we limit the creativity and learning of the students and teachers if we limit the assignment to just a PPT or a poster. We need to think more about this.
Can we not create learning outcomes and evaluation criteria that would fit a poster and a new new media project? Perhaps we should let Cynthia Selfe's "visual essay" assignment guide us. She proposes they make a poster or a Web page. (Let me interject here to say that I agree with Kristine and Gary: posters are very much a part of academic life across campus.) She has clear criteria that leans on the canons of rhetoric (K.B. Yancey does as well in her chair's address "Made Not Only in Words.") as well as new principles of visual literacy. I think we should experiment with these options.
Yancey also argues that the best way to teach composing is to let students decide "what the best medium and the best delivery for such a communication might be." I understand why we would want to limit the options, but if we have the rhetorical theory and a handful of solid visual rhetoric principles, why shouldn't we let students make infographics or brochures or PPTs or whatever?
I was thinking, too, that instead of a presentation to the imagined audience as the final, each group could give a reflective presentation about multimodal rhetoric--why they chose the modes they did, what models they depended on, how the modes worked together, what it tells us about rhetoric and technology, etc. This final could bring together everything they've learned thus far on argument (claims, reasons, assumptions), the canons of rhetoric, and research.
One more thought on PPT. Grading PPT is difficult unless you grade the presentation at the same time. Many of the best slides make no sense without presentation. (Check out Garr Reynolds' take on PPT slides. This guy's pretty amazing.) I'm not convinced we need to combine a PPT and a graded oral presentation in the last couple of weeks of class. It's too much.
The bottom line, I think, is transfer. We want to teach transferrable multimodal rhetorical skills that will go with students when they leave the class. Many of our students will never make a poster; but if they do, we want them to lean on what they learned about rhetorical situations, arguments, images, sources, and design from this assignment.
Can we not create learning outcomes and evaluation criteria that would fit a poster and a new new media project? Perhaps we should let Cynthia Selfe's "visual essay" assignment guide us. She proposes they make a poster or a Web page. (Let me interject here to say that I agree with Kristine and Gary: posters are very much a part of academic life across campus.) She has clear criteria that leans on the canons of rhetoric (K.B. Yancey does as well in her chair's address "Made Not Only in Words.") as well as new principles of visual literacy. I think we should experiment with these options.
Yancey also argues that the best way to teach composing is to let students decide "what the best medium and the best delivery for such a communication might be." I understand why we would want to limit the options, but if we have the rhetorical theory and a handful of solid visual rhetoric principles, why shouldn't we let students make infographics or brochures or PPTs or whatever?
I was thinking, too, that instead of a presentation to the imagined audience as the final, each group could give a reflective presentation about multimodal rhetoric--why they chose the modes they did, what models they depended on, how the modes worked together, what it tells us about rhetoric and technology, etc. This final could bring together everything they've learned thus far on argument (claims, reasons, assumptions), the canons of rhetoric, and research.
One more thought on PPT. Grading PPT is difficult unless you grade the presentation at the same time. Many of the best slides make no sense without presentation. (Check out Garr Reynolds' take on PPT slides. This guy's pretty amazing.) I'm not convinced we need to combine a PPT and a graded oral presentation in the last couple of weeks of class. It's too much.
The bottom line, I think, is transfer. We want to teach transferrable multimodal rhetorical skills that will go with students when they leave the class. Many of our students will never make a poster; but if they do, we want them to lean on what they learned about rhetorical situations, arguments, images, sources, and design from this assignment.
Friday, October 23, 2009
the challenges of new media!
You may have noticed that I've done the unthinkable on a blog: I've made commenting an option only for those who are members and I've deleted previous comments from those outside the group. I don't mean any disrespect to those who took time to comment. Though I appreciated the feedback, I think we need to reserve comments for those of us working in this specific context, and, as we noticed from last meeting, we have diverse opinions on what we should do with students on this final assignment.
I will, though, note that all eight outside comments argued with Kathy for a new new media project rather than *just* a multimodal project (like a poster) or a PPT. PPT seems to stir up incredible rancor. I'd argue that people should be more frustrated with the way it's used rather than the way it is. Prezi is slick now, but it'll wear soon enough, when everyone at every conference is swooping around on the screen.
Even after the helpful comments, we're still stuck with an administrative question: How do you prepare 50 graduate instructors, some with little experience with new new media, to teach some 3,000 students to do a digital project that must have the following characteristics:
I will, though, note that all eight outside comments argued with Kathy for a new new media project rather than *just* a multimodal project (like a poster) or a PPT. PPT seems to stir up incredible rancor. I'd argue that people should be more frustrated with the way it's used rather than the way it is. Prezi is slick now, but it'll wear soon enough, when everyone at every conference is swooping around on the screen.
Even after the helpful comments, we're still stuck with an administrative question: How do you prepare 50 graduate instructors, some with little experience with new new media, to teach some 3,000 students to do a digital project that must have the following characteristics:
- clear universal achievable outcomes tied to English 150 and university aims
- clear, teachable principles that can be used to evaluate what's good and what isn't
- a product that can be evaluated (i.e., graded) using fair standards and the same rubric for every student
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Oct 22 meeting: going forward
We had an excellent discussion today about our multimodal assignment, its limitations, outcomes, and possibilities. Danette gave us four principles of visual communication. Kathy gave us a thorough argument from a grad student perspective on training and other issues. Jeff filled the blog with excellent links to assignments, as did Delys. (You can find these assignments on Google Docs.)
Kristine and Gary helped us focus on the outcomes and the difficulties of training and teaching with too many options. We also re-discussed the difference between new media and multimodal--a distinction we need to keep in mind as we develop outcomes.
When I debriefed Brett about our discussion, he agreed that the assignment should be simplified. In fact, he suggested we assign everyone to compose either a PPT presentation or a poster, and that's it. We'd have to decide whether these two assignments share common rhetorical principles so that posters could be evaluated just as well as PPT presentations. We should also discuss whether it makes sense to grade a PPT document separate from the presentation that would accompany it.
I'm going to take a stab at some outcomes here to give us some focus.
By working collaboratively on a multimodal assignment, students will
Does that sound more manageable to the group?
Jeff & I pointed out that this assignment falls back on old and new media rather than new new media (which is far more user-generated and interactive than these assignments). However, Gary suggested that if we used PPT we could also use something like Slide Share to add a new new media component in the drafting process.
So now what? At this point we may want to work within the boundaries we've set here and see what happens. The assignment is to prepare a PPT (or other form of presentation software?) or poster that responds to one of the three rhetorical situations I set up in the first post (BYU policy change, community advocacy, the class as protopublic for repurposed research). What does everyone want to contribute to the conversation? Should we read something from the presentation zen guy? What specific boundaries do we want to draw, and why? Should we have limited slides, certain kinds of images or data presentation? Kathy & Jeff, If this is the assignment, what do grad students need to prepare them to teach it?
Let's begin by looking together at the Presentation Zen website. Please feel free to volunteer to research some aspect of this assignment.
Kristine and Gary helped us focus on the outcomes and the difficulties of training and teaching with too many options. We also re-discussed the difference between new media and multimodal--a distinction we need to keep in mind as we develop outcomes.
When I debriefed Brett about our discussion, he agreed that the assignment should be simplified. In fact, he suggested we assign everyone to compose either a PPT presentation or a poster, and that's it. We'd have to decide whether these two assignments share common rhetorical principles so that posters could be evaluated just as well as PPT presentations. We should also discuss whether it makes sense to grade a PPT document separate from the presentation that would accompany it.
I'm going to take a stab at some outcomes here to give us some focus.
By working collaboratively on a multimodal assignment, students will
- Recognize the pervasiveness and importance of rhetoric in our society and lives, and understand rhetoric as a means of achieving a purpose through both words and images.
- Appreciate how writing and rhetoric empower them to become influential citizens in a variety of contexts.
- Recognize and assess their onw and others' rhetorical situations.
- Effectively generate and arrange an argument and purposefully address the needs of an audience, using effective ethical, emotional, and logical appeals.
- Learn to compose collaboratively an effective rhetorical message using a presentation medium (like PowerPoint or a poster) and different modes of communication (text, image, graphic, symbol).
- Use design principles like alignment, proximity, repetition, contrast, proportion, and unity to convince a specific audience in a specific rhetorical situation.
Does that sound more manageable to the group?
Jeff & I pointed out that this assignment falls back on old and new media rather than new new media (which is far more user-generated and interactive than these assignments). However, Gary suggested that if we used PPT we could also use something like Slide Share to add a new new media component in the drafting process.
So now what? At this point we may want to work within the boundaries we've set here and see what happens. The assignment is to prepare a PPT (or other form of presentation software?) or poster that responds to one of the three rhetorical situations I set up in the first post (BYU policy change, community advocacy, the class as protopublic for repurposed research). What does everyone want to contribute to the conversation? Should we read something from the presentation zen guy? What specific boundaries do we want to draw, and why? Should we have limited slides, certain kinds of images or data presentation? Kathy & Jeff, If this is the assignment, what do grad students need to prepare them to teach it?
Let's begin by looking together at the Presentation Zen website. Please feel free to volunteer to research some aspect of this assignment.
Assignments, syllabi, rubrics, etc.
First off, check out the Google Docs folder with a selection of rubrics and assignment sheets:
Secondly, I've complied a list of relevant sites. Some of them contain assignments, some rubrics, and others just basic descriptions and instructions. Enjoy!
UT Austin:
A few multimodal assignments collected here
http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/20
List of assignments
http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/2
Description of Graphic Design
http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/386
Assignment sheet: narrated slideshow
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/main/research/narrated-slideshow
Examples
A multimodal essay
http://www.marielagunn.org/cwrl/fall03/yumiko/index.html
Persuasive brochure using InDesign
http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/387
Purdue
Purdue's multimedia writing basics:
http://www.digitalparlor.org/pwenglish/419
An example syllabus based on those instructions:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcsantos/419/syllabus.htm
Three sample multimedia assignments:
(especially check out the "Expectations" under the second assignment)
http://www.digitalparlor.org/courses/soderlund2/projects
David Blakesley's Professional Writing club page (no syllabi or course assignments, but good proof that digital composition is for real)
http://www.digitalparlor.org/pwenglish/
Another online syllabus--be sure to check out "grading procedures" about three sections down.
http://www.digitalparlor.org/courses/reitmeyer2/projects
Kent State
http://www.library.kent.edu/page/10027
Helps for multimedia compositions:
http://www.library.kent.edu/page/14040
University of Houston
An interesting multimedia storytelling site (potential multimodal project idea?)
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/
Other resources
Probably the best online multimodal bible
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
Creative multimodal video presentations
http://stuffmadesimple.com/
Scott McCloud's blog on cartoons
http://scottmccloud.com/
Interesting site about visual persuasion
http://www.thebackofthenapkin.com/
A book of possible interest
http://www.amazon.com/Non-discursive-Rhetoric-Affect-Multimodal-Composition/dp/0791476758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256216008&sr=8-1
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Teacher Training and Technology
For our October 22nd meeting, I've been reading about training teachers to teach multimodal composition. Here's a summary and analysis of what I've found:
1. Teachers need to believe that new media rhetoric is important, or this will fail.
Phrases that circulate around the carrels about the persuasive brochure: "I don't really teach this," "it sort of feels like a throwaway assignment," "I'm not sure how the brochure is useful," "I'm glad I don't have to do this assignment myself," etc.
If graduate student instructors aren't sold on the idea that new media rhetoric is important for our students, and, to a certain point, our responsibility to teach, any training will ultimately fail or be less effective.
Other sources:
2. Infrastructural Support, including Training and Technology
A. Training in theory
Countless sources do not dismay that our jobs are disappearing because of technology; what the teacher has to offer, regardless of the varying technical expertise of the students, is the rhetoric of new media, the theory behind it, an understanding of how to use new media in a conscious, intentional, and critically-informed way.
How could this training occur for English 150 instructors?
The August training seminar can provide a model for theoretical training:
B. Training in the practical
In a 2009 College English, Catherine Gouge, building on Todd Taylor, claims that we must "Invest heavily in hands-on instructor training" (344).
-Goal 1 -- to be able to teach particular programs to the students, like Powerpoint, Flash, etc. This seems to be less important than Goal 2, especially as programs are constantly changing and it's debatable whether or not it's the writing instructor's responsibility to teach these programs (though Simmons and Grabill argue in CCC that it is our responsibility). Regardless, there is the sense that even if an instructor is not going to teach a program, they should have at least some understanding of it. For example, if one of my students is having trouble getting proper formatting in Microsoft Word, then I show them how to fix it.
-Goal 2 -- provide hands-on instructor training because you only truly understand something (and the theory behind it) when you've done it yourself. In a similar vein, you can only teach what you know how to do yourself. We would never let someone teach writing who had only read writing and studied the theories of writing pedagogy; in the same way, it's rather absurd to have a teacher instruct students on new media rhetoric and writing when he/she has never done this sort of writing before.
Technology
As Daniel Anderson argues, it's very possible to transition into technology use, to have a "low bridge to high benefits" which take advantage of technologies students already know and have access to.
Many free technologies are available online. These technologies are often easy to use and yet still powerful. Other technologies are available on campus computers; most have only the lower-end programs, but the Humanities Learning Resource Center and the Multimedia Lab in the HBLL have higher end technologies, the problem being that they would not have the capacity to support all of our students.
Creative Commons images prevent copyright problems for students -- for example, Flickr has an option to search only images that are copyright free; millions of images are already available in this form.
Most students have access to digital cameras, if only on their cell phones. This is still not true of video cameras.
Other sources:
Most instructors don't feel comfortable grading the persuasive brochure at this point, and many feel that trying to grade anything that incorporates visuals is too subjective.
To borrow a phrase from a syllabus of Brian Jackson, just as with grading traditional writing, it is subjective but not arbitrary.
Film, visual arts, and comms professors grade visuals all the time; our instructors just aren't currently prepared to do so. Many sources have proposed grading schemes for new media rhetoric; they just need to be drawn on, and instructors need to be given training.
In addition to rubrics, instructors need to be given new media rhetoric grading practice and grade norming.
Currently, with the persuasive brochure, an instructor receives no training for grading, and then each semester only grades five brochures, for a grand total of 20 brochures over 4 semesters. The same instructor grades 60 full-fledged papers a semester, thus solidifying the training they have received in regards to writing assessment. It's not reasonable to think that an instructor would gain the same amount of experience for new media assessment, but more assessment training and experience is needed for them to be able to do their jobs.
4. Curricular changes needed for graduate (and undergraduate) English classes
Disclaimer: I don't mean to disturb the peaceful waters with this fifth item, especially as I've loved all of my graduate classes and feel like I've received a great education from all of you who have been my professors.
"The focus on the digital in most graduate programs, if it exists at all, continues to be the single technology course, though it is more than possible to foreground the use and application of technology to all aspects of graduate curricula in rhetoric and composition....functional, critical, and rhetorical training in multimodal teaching and research must span all aspects of professional development within the graduate curriculum, from the beginning for one's graduate career to the job search and first position as a tenure-track faculty member." -Meredith Graupner, Lee Nickoson-Massey, and Kristine Blair
"Remediating Knowledge-Making Spaces in the Graduate Curriculum: Developing and Sustaining Multimodal Teaching and Research." Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 14.
Currently, most of BYU's English graduate and undergraduate classes unintentionally devalue new media writing and rhetoric by either ignoring them entirely or by only doing critical analysis without production, and at that during only 1 or 2 days of the semester.
Other sources:
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Re-designing Graduate Education in Composition and Rhetoric: The Use of Remix as Concept, Material, and Method." Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 4-12.
1. Teachers need to believe that new media rhetoric is important, or this will fail.
"Technology is either boring or frightening to most humanists; many teachers of English composition feel it antithetical to their primary concerns and many believe it should not be allowed to take up valuable scholarly time or the attention that could be best put to use in the teaching or the study of literacy" - Cynthia SelfePhrases I remember from the persuasive brochure training: "there's really not much you can teach with this," "it's easier to tell what doesn't work than what does," "it's nice to have an easy assignment right at the end"
“Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention.” CCC 50(1999): 412.
Phrases that circulate around the carrels about the persuasive brochure: "I don't really teach this," "it sort of feels like a throwaway assignment," "I'm not sure how the brochure is useful," "I'm glad I don't have to do this assignment myself," etc.
If graduate student instructors aren't sold on the idea that new media rhetoric is important for our students, and, to a certain point, our responsibility to teach, any training will ultimately fail or be less effective.
Other sources:
- Kellner, Douglas, and Jeff Share. "Critical media literacy is not an option." Learning Inquiry (2007): 59-69. Print.
- Westbrook, Steve. "Visual Rhetoric in a Culture of Fear: Impediments to Multimedia Production." College English 68.5 (2006): 457-80. Print.
- Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.” CCC 56.2 (2004): 297-328. Print.
2. Infrastructural Support, including Training and Technology
"Instructor training and student training—in more than just the technical skills and access required to participate in the courses—are critical to institutional success, especially in the early years of hybrid programs. Although many instructors use email and a course message board to support their on-site courses, most need thoughtful instruction themselves about how to facilitate productive discussion via these course technologies....Institutional success with such programs depends, therefore, on prioritizing and institutionalizing support for the whole institution—not just one subgroup (students, faculty, or administrators). Flexible institutional support is key so that faculty, students, and administrators are able to share resources and information to manage and reflect on the new variables that would no doubt be introduced by such an explicit shift in course and program design. In the absence of such a flexible and dynamic network of support, the outcome is likely to be either stifled (too much institutional control over communication, methods, and resources) or left to a “silent revolution” of inadvertent educational reform and policy change—neither of which are long-term predictors of success" -Catherine Gouge, "Conversation at a Crucial Moment: Hybrid Courses and the Future of Writing Programs." College English 71.4 (2009): 357-8.Training
A. Training in theory
Countless sources do not dismay that our jobs are disappearing because of technology; what the teacher has to offer, regardless of the varying technical expertise of the students, is the rhetoric of new media, the theory behind it, an understanding of how to use new media in a conscious, intentional, and critically-informed way.
How could this training occur for English 150 instructors?
The August training seminar can provide a model for theoretical training:
- Reading for the instructors
- "Viewing" at least 2/3 lesson plans on how to teach it to students
- Providing additional resources for the teachers to draw upon
- Have one, focused theoretical approach, but show an awareness of other approaches and options.
B. Training in the practical
In a 2009 College English, Catherine Gouge, building on Todd Taylor, claims that we must "Invest heavily in hands-on instructor training" (344).
-Goal 1 -- to be able to teach particular programs to the students, like Powerpoint, Flash, etc. This seems to be less important than Goal 2, especially as programs are constantly changing and it's debatable whether or not it's the writing instructor's responsibility to teach these programs (though Simmons and Grabill argue in CCC that it is our responsibility). Regardless, there is the sense that even if an instructor is not going to teach a program, they should have at least some understanding of it. For example, if one of my students is having trouble getting proper formatting in Microsoft Word, then I show them how to fix it.
-Goal 2 -- provide hands-on instructor training because you only truly understand something (and the theory behind it) when you've done it yourself. In a similar vein, you can only teach what you know how to do yourself. We would never let someone teach writing who had only read writing and studied the theories of writing pedagogy; in the same way, it's rather absurd to have a teacher instruct students on new media rhetoric and writing when he/she has never done this sort of writing before.
Technology
As Daniel Anderson argues, it's very possible to transition into technology use, to have a "low bridge to high benefits" which take advantage of technologies students already know and have access to.
Many free technologies are available online. These technologies are often easy to use and yet still powerful. Other technologies are available on campus computers; most have only the lower-end programs, but the Humanities Learning Resource Center and the Multimedia Lab in the HBLL have higher end technologies, the problem being that they would not have the capacity to support all of our students.
Creative Commons images prevent copyright problems for students -- for example, Flickr has an option to search only images that are copyright free; millions of images are already available in this form.
Most students have access to digital cameras, if only on their cell phones. This is still not true of video cameras.
Other sources:
- Anderson, Daniel. “The Low Bridge to High Benefits: Entry-Level Multimedia, Literacies, and Motivation.” Computers and Composition 25.1 (2008): 40-60. Print.
- Atkins, Anthony T. "Writing/Teachers and Digital Technologies: Technology/Teacher Training."
- DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole, Ellen Cushman, and Jeffrey T. Grabill. “Infrastructure and Composing: The When of New-Media Writing.” CCC 57.1 (2005): 14-44. Print.
- Simmons, W. Michele and Jeffrey T. Grabill. “Toward a Civic Rhetoric for Technologically and Scientifically Complex Places: Invention, Performance, and Participation.” CCC 58.3 (2007): 419-48. Print.
3. Teaching Assessment
Most instructors don't feel comfortable grading the persuasive brochure at this point, and many feel that trying to grade anything that incorporates visuals is too subjective.
To borrow a phrase from a syllabus of Brian Jackson, just as with grading traditional writing, it is subjective but not arbitrary.
Film, visual arts, and comms professors grade visuals all the time; our instructors just aren't currently prepared to do so. Many sources have proposed grading schemes for new media rhetoric; they just need to be drawn on, and instructors need to be given training.
In addition to rubrics, instructors need to be given new media rhetoric grading practice and grade norming.
Currently, with the persuasive brochure, an instructor receives no training for grading, and then each semester only grades five brochures, for a grand total of 20 brochures over 4 semesters. The same instructor grades 60 full-fledged papers a semester, thus solidifying the training they have received in regards to writing assessment. It's not reasonable to think that an instructor would gain the same amount of experience for new media assessment, but more assessment training and experience is needed for them to be able to do their jobs.
4. Curricular changes needed for graduate (and undergraduate) English classes
Disclaimer: I don't mean to disturb the peaceful waters with this fifth item, especially as I've loved all of my graduate classes and feel like I've received a great education from all of you who have been my professors.
"The focus on the digital in most graduate programs, if it exists at all, continues to be the single technology course, though it is more than possible to foreground the use and application of technology to all aspects of graduate curricula in rhetoric and composition....functional, critical, and rhetorical training in multimodal teaching and research must span all aspects of professional development within the graduate curriculum, from the beginning for one's graduate career to the job search and first position as a tenure-track faculty member." -Meredith Graupner, Lee Nickoson-Massey, and Kristine Blair
"Remediating Knowledge-Making Spaces in the Graduate Curriculum: Developing and Sustaining Multimodal Teaching and Research." Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 14.
Currently, most of BYU's English graduate and undergraduate classes unintentionally devalue new media writing and rhetoric by either ignoring them entirely or by only doing critical analysis without production, and at that during only 1 or 2 days of the semester.
Other sources:
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Re-designing Graduate Education in Composition and Rhetoric: The Use of Remix as Concept, Material, and Method." Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 4-12.
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