Hey all! I have to say, I had a great time with my multimodal project. This was the first time in my career at Chico State that I was able to use my artistic/creative side to express my work and I loved it! I decided to go with a familiar territory – crafting. So I made a giant book. If you want specific measurements, it has a 33” x 31”  cover and is about 5” deep. However, the cover is just that: a cover for what is inside. I made three pages to go in the book. The first one is devoted to letters. Letters spanning from my childhood to my recent adulthood. The second page is given to my writing, both academic and creative. The final page is a small gallery of my art. The back cover has slots for my present journal, a blank book which I am still working on filling with art, poetry, and collages, and a final slot for a brainstorming booklet with drawings, clothing designs, poem drafts, character outlines, etc. Now that you know what is in the book, why does it matter? Well, it all goes to show how I have developed as a writer, a character in my own story, an idea-maker, creator, designer, and person. Everything in this book is a part of a massive puzzle that is me and how I communicate. I am creative. I love color. People are central in my life and have formed who I am and how I express myself to other people and in different situations. If writing is about communication, then I believe that all forms of writing are important because they all speak to different audiences and situations.

                                         

If were to change the project, I probably would have given myself a clearer picture of where I was going before starting. I knew I wanted to include my writing in its various forms, but I didn’t have specific choices of what to include from the start. I feel like if I had chosen specific pieces before I started making the book, I could have saved myself a whole world of stress and time. I put about 14 hours into just designing and building the book, not including the time it took to choose work to put in it. I let my super-excited-overly-ambitious self take over before considering what that would entail. Thus the giant book. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it and appreciate the time and effort that went into it!

 

What is a Mode?

1. What is a mode and how does it function in communication of meaning? How does this change in different cultures/environments?

2. What role do different parts of a mode (signs, semiotic resources) play in understanding?

 

What is Multimodality?

1. What is the focus/end goal of multimodality and how does can it change depending on the audience and author’s participation?

2. How can the “weight” or “specialization” of a particular mode employed change how an idea is received?

 

Why Adopt a Multimodal Approach?

1. What is the connection between identity and language? By what other means are individual identities formed? How does this relate to multimodality and how it communicates an idea?

2. How do different “toolkits” related to learning function to understand a multimodal presentation of information? Is it important to maintain several “toolkits” for different areas of study or would a universal toolkit be more beneficial in all areas of learning?