Dr. Cheryl Ball presented this talk on April 22, 2011, at Mesa Community College as part of a Bedford St.-Martin's symposium on 21st century literacies.
15. Reasons for Different Performance? Students Scholars Instructions No Formal Instructions 3-day Assignment Deadline 3-4 week volunteer deadline Students’ first experience helping with a publication Rote, albeit invested, role in helping with publications Required; graded Volunteer; no repercussions
-- Talk about a class & how I came to realize R&R is the new A -- Got there through Kairos…
Nearly 15 years teaching multimodally (and hypertextually) [not as long as some in the room] A pedagogy of multimodality , is based on the New London Group’s (Cope & Kalantzis, 1999) call to teach students to -- pay attention to more than writing -- to design texts that used multiple modes.
Two years ago… rhetorical genre studies approach: These four components of a multimodal pedagogy align with current trends in the teaching of writing: -- real-world rhetorical situations (not academic “mutt genres,” see Wardle, 2009) -- service-learning -- transfer: teaching students to learn how to learn Not focus on theory today, but practice… (for more theory, see Bawarshi & Reiff)
I start with multimodal theory and pedagogy because its history aligns nicely with that of the journal I edit. Trace two tracks in this presentation. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy -- scholarly, peer-reviewed -- 15 years ago by grad students -- mission: transcend linearity of print -- affordances of the Web -- audience (teachers of uni writing) SHOW KAIROS -- 3:00 of Spencer’s piece -- Delagrange (talk about how to read it) In this writing situation, form and content become inseparable—an important concept for students to learn and practice in an age when ubiquitous uploads to Facebook and YouTube pervade their lives.
I’ve taught multimodal and digital texts for nearly 15 years. My first scholarly publication was in Kairos 12 years ago. I’ve been editing Kairos for 10 years. Took me nearly that long to figure out to marry the two. Writing process = editorial/scholarly work.
Thus, it is within this multimodal framework that I teach a course at Illinois State University called Multimodal Composition. -- for undergraduate students (from any major), -- read, analyze, and assess others’ scholarly multimedia projects as well as propose, compose, revise, and peer-review their own scholarly multimedia, which they then can submit to online journals. Talk a little about NWC & why I chose to go in this direction for teaching this class. (Situated practice)
NLG talked about overt instruction, making processes known. Students perform a series of analyses to prepare them to work on the webtext project itself. Scholars already do this work. NOTE: “Don’t grade?!” Assignment series w/in-class feedback. FOCUS: -- Values analysis (DCM) -- peer-review assessment Values turn into peer-review criteria
I’m not going to detail all of these here. (Critical Framing) -- 3 sets of evaluation criteria + their own -- Read, use to analyze already published piece -- make a shortlist (justify) -- Use to assess an in-progress piece (NWC students’ work) -- use for peer-review
Students created this short list, recently. Kuhn + 2 SHOW KUHN’s criteria
Kuhn’s basis for criteria…
Talk about form:content issues with script and videos.
Talk about navigation issues in Prezi.
However, some previous feedback on this presentation suggested that I should let students use whatever criteria they WANT. That is what I did this semester, and the results were as good as previous semesters. Why? Students are constantly teaching me new things about digital media Digital media and scholarly multimedia is always changing. Ed board doesn’t have specific evaluation criteria Students use this criteria to write peer-review letters just like an editorial board would.
Students letters were as good as, if not better (in some cases), than the ed board’s. This was an eye-opener for me. TALK a little about editorial conversations about peer review. (transfer) Annotate peer-review letters.
-- similarity between students’ production values and first-time authors -- My aim in both cases is to have authors receive (at least) a revise-and-resubmittal letter. As an editor, I cannot expect Kairos authors to produce perfect (i.e., accepted for publication) work the first time around, nor as a teacher should I expect students to produce at that level when they are composing multimedia for the first time. SHOW GOTCHA (accepted for publication)
Thus, I end by suggesting that we need to re-examine our teacherly expectations when working in digital media, although that is not to say that we must lower our standards, we just need to make them equivalent to the rhetorical situation. When students taking a multimodal class for the first time can produce work that is on par with much of what first-time Kairos authors produce—a bar-raising event for students—my grading of their work must shift to accommodate what that level of work means in the world of scholarly multimedia. SHOW until 1:26 seconds in