Multi-modality is a concept that I am simultaneously frustrated, intrigued, and confused by. I agree with the idea of giving power to students; that part is cool. I’m a big fan of rhetoric and always look for best way to present an argument. So, in that respect, multi-modality is great because it allows you to present your argument through a memorable medium, since essays often aren’t the most powerful format. I would like to allow my students to explore those options.

But writing words on ballet slippers? Just…why? What does that accomplish rhetorically or simply in developing literacy or writing competency. At best, it’s an interesting art project, but ballet slippers are not going to carry any credibility in academic or career settings which is, after all, what we’re trying to prepare students for. I think that if you have to explain why your method of argumentation (such as ballet slippers) is powerful…then it isn’t powerful. The method and content of your message should clearly align with minimal explanation.

Because multi-modality has been such a hard pill for me to swallow, I want to push myself to explore the idea on a deeper level. For my final project, I am not going to take the easy way out and write an essay. Instead, I want to adapt my ideas about what writing is and what it can be to a visual, interactive format.

First, I would like to take the five-paragraph essay that I wrote for the “what I know so far” assignment, glue it to cardboard then hop it into five puzzle pieces in order to illustrate the concept that writing can only fit together in specific ways in specific patterns, to form a single picture. In a puzzle, you can’t have a missing piece or swap pieces out. Everything has to go in its spot. That’s how school’s often treat writing, and I think that is wrong.

In contrast, I also want to illustrate the myriad of possibilities for what writing can be. This is more difficult to illustrate because any medium I use will impose some sort of constraint on writing. I’m thinking about getting a magnetic poetry kit and putting it on a board for people to play with or getting Jenga blocks, writing words and phrases on them, and letting people arrange them however they choose to illustrate the flexibility and creative possibilities of writing.

Oh bloody hell.

I sound like Shipka.

Stress. Anxiety. Even a little fear. You might expect those to be my reaction to a Stephen King novel, but no. Those were my feelings about Shipka’s essay.

I like to imagine myself to be free-thinking, open-minded, and the “cool teacher” who embraces new ideas and non-traditional assignments. Shipka’s multi-modal projects and creativeness should mesh with that identity perfectly, right? That’s what I assumed. But when I tried to think about what I would do if given her OED assignment, I couldn’t think of anything half as creative or rhetorically powerful as the examples her freshmen came up with. Freshmen. I’m a fifth year, and I’ve got nothing. I can write a bomb essay. I can make a hilarious powerpoint. But ask me to leave the firm ground of text based mediums behind in favor of a visual platform and suddenly I’m floundering in deep water with no shore in sight. It would be like asking me to translate Pride and Prejudice into Swahili. Just….how?

It’s not that I don’t like Shipka’s ideas because I do like them very much. I agree that teaching students to organize and revise their ideas, make intentional rhetorical choices, and respond to the needs of different audiences through multi-modal projects is way more useful than merely writing essays. Multi-modal composition is a skill that can be used in many different fields of study and work, unlike essays which lose their usefulness outside of academia. Plus, crafting a multi-modal project seems like more fun for students than writing an essay.

Anyways, that was my gut reaction to the ideas in this piece. However, I tried to move past the initial emotional response to see how Shipka’s ideas relate to ones we’ve talked about previously which I found easier to digest. One particular quote from Shipka’s piece intrigued me: “Given the field’s strong tendency to “equate the activity of composing with writing itself,” thereby missing ‘the complex delivery systems through which writing circulates,’ we need to do more than simply expand the media and communicative contexts in which students work.” I see “the media and communicative contexts” that she talks about as being the same or similar to Russell’s activity systems or Wenger’s “communities of practice.” If that is the case, then Shipka seems to be saying we do need a context and purpose for a student’s project beyond merely a grade for a class for a major for a degree. But she suggests that students also need to be able to express their knowledge in more ways than simply a written text. She focuses less on the context of the assignment and more on the logistics and “how” of the assignment, which is a different perspective than any of the other author’s we’ve read have taken. She points out that many methods beyond the essay can allow students to learn the same thought patterns and organizational skills that they are supposed to learn from traditional writing.

I understand Shipka’s ideas on a theoretical level, but I’m not sure how to implement them in my own work, let alone how to create and grade a classroom assignment that was based on them. Shipka says that students should produce “multipart rhetorical events out of anything.” But I feel like students could take advantage of that loose system really easily. For example, what if some student looked up the word “rock” in the OED and then just made a collage of pictures of different versions of the word “rock” such as a game of rock, paper, scissors; a rockstar; rocking a baby, etc. and then glued them all to a physical rock and then said the project’s purpose is to “rock your world.” Would that count? I mean, it’s multi-modal, but it kinda triggers my bullshit radar. I mean, I could totally see a high school student using a multi-modal project as a way to slip through easily, because you can justify just about anything by calling it rhetoric. Could you give the same grade to that rock project as to the genius who made the mirror test project? I just get stressed out thinking about the logistics of how to implement Shipka’s ideas because I’m so used to the essay structure and am more analytical than creative. Maybe the practicality of Shipka’s ideas will become more clear when we discuss it in class.

It’s 1 am and I’m trying to piece together all of the theories that we’ve learned so far, so this blog might not make much sense. I feel like this class has been a bunch of puzzle pieces, but I don’t know what the big picture is, so it’s hard to fit them together. Still, somehow the colors and shapes on each individual piece (theory) are starting to line up.

One important connection that I’ve made is the one between activity systems and situated learning. I believe it would be correct to say that learning is situated inside of activity systems. By that, I mean learning most naturally occurs in environments that are rich in meaning, stimuli, context, and relevant activities. Basically, learning occurs in the opposite of a classroom.

This brings me to an interesting, though unrelated thought. Ever notice how extremely whitewashed, sterile, and un-stimulating a traditional classroom is? Imagine anything in Tehema. They’re constructed that way on purpose. The goal is to keep students focused on the professor and the professor alone. But how often in real life does one learn in a context void of stimuli and activity systems?

There is a certain irony in the construct of American classrooms. Our education system insists on the importance of general ed, largely because our culture believes in having “well-rounded” individuals who can make connections between multiple disciplines. Yet, the classroom is perfectly designed to reduce any connections, contexts, or meanings outside of what the professor brings to the space. Many professors even dislike the use of technology in the classroom, further limiting the connections students can make with what is being taught and the larger world.

In contrast, the real world is full of interrelated parts that converge in a single space. Imagine an ordinary office. There will be accountants, secretaries, analysts, managers, editors, graphic designers, janitors, etc. all in one place. All of those skills, literacies, and writing purposes converge and individuals are allowed, or rather, expected to connect multiple areas of their lives and understandings in order to complete their tasks. For example, a graphic designer must have not only artistic skills, but also knowledge of marketing, grammar, pop culture, and perhaps another discipline such as science, history, or math, depending on his project. If the real world is like this, how is it helpful for a classroom to limit a student’s access so dramatically?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that life does not occur in a vacuum. There are always extraneous influences that impact individuals. So why do we design our classrooms and our theory of learning as if education was an isolated incident that could only occur in a space as sterile and whitewashed as a hospital? It’s as if our education system sees the learning process as a surgery that must be done in a place where no outside contaminates can infect the learning of each solitary lesson.

You may be surprised to find that Russell’s theory of activity systems does actually tie into my digression. Russell shows that writing is not a hammer that can be pulled out of a bag and pounded onto every single nail that one comes across. Writing is more like a screwdriver; every screw requires a different shape or size screwdriver, just as every discipline and task requires a different style of writing. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing which is why intro composition courses in college are silly. Instead, writing must occur within an activity system–within a meaningful context–just as I believe learning should occur within a meaningful activity system rather than the void that is American classrooms.

If you’ve ever seen the episode of The Office where Dwight sets the office on fire in order to demonstrate fire safety, you’ve seen Legitimate Peripheral Participation in action. For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary. Dwight, as safety officer, fails to effectively teach his coworkers about emergency protocol through a PowerPoint presentation, complaining that power points are boring and that no one can learn from them. So he sets the office on fire, blocks exits, and creates a worst-case scenario emergency in order to teach his coworkers how to escape.

Dwight’s methods are an example of what Wenger’s definition of learning that is situated in real life experiences. Wenger defines situated learning as a perspective that places emphasis on a “comprehensive understanding involving the whole person, rather than ‘receiving’ a body of factual knowledge” (Kindle, loc. 328).  In other words, “People learn in many ways, but experience is the best teacher” (Dwight Schrute).  We can see this played out in Dwight’s “fire drill” during which each individual was wholly involved in the activity. There was no room for bullet points and slides; it was a 100% active, engaged learning session.

Wenger defines Legitimate Peripheral Participation as “the process by which a newcomer becomes part of a community of practice.” In the instance of this Office episode, Dwight seeks to bring his coworkers into the community of practice of fire safety. While the employees rush around in a panic, climbing into the ceiling and battering doors down with a photocopier machine, Dwight remains a calm coach, guiding them through safety procedures (even though no one pays attention to him). We can see this as a hyperbolic example of traditional education methods and assignments which do not prepare students to perform in the real world, just as Dwight’s PowerPoint presentation did not prepare his coworkers to escape a fire.
Students need to be thrown into a burning building (a real, meaningful situation) in order to learn how to handle that situation. With only theory and no lived experience, students will gracelessly battering-ram their way through five-paragraph essays and never learn how to employ writing skills for “real-life” tasks. Legitimate Peripheral Participation in action is not always pretty. It can be chaotic and confusing, but it gives students the opportunity to learn what to do and what not to do by trying, failing, and eventually becoming part of a “community of practice.” Through all of the clumsy mistakes, I’m sure the characters in The Office learned more from participating than they did from the dull PowerPoint.

Wenger emphasizes that LPP is not a new teaching method, but a framework for understanding how people learn. Students will learn to write by actually writing, not doing practice exercises. While setting fire to a building may not be the best way to teach emergency procedures, the scenario does demonstrate the concept that people learn best by participating in a social context rather than being isolated from the world by a wall of scantrons and textbooks.