Classrooms à la (Multi)Mod(ality)

This title may be a bit of a stretch, but I had to go for it. Anyways… I think I’m still trying to get a real grasp on the whole concept of multimodality. If my mind wasn’t originally blown by all the new ways of categorizing and considering literacy, it definitely is now. It kind of feels like a giant umbrella of knowledge and opportunities was just opened under another, bigger umbrella full of knowledge and opportunities? Or maybe it’s more like jumping off the top of the waterfall and finding out there’s also a sinkhole that just appeared at the bottom. Either way, these farfetched analogies aren’t what’s really important. What is important is trying to figure out how it all applies to actual life and actual students. That being said, I’m very grateful that the blog prompt suggestion included “try to make sense of the ideas.”

 

The student examples Shipka featured in her article were so impressive and interesting. It’s clear to see that through the multimodal framework, many students were able to incorporate their own interests and create something they were proud of. A lot of labor went into the projects, but it seems like something they still had fun doing. That concept is pretty remarkable and contrasts so highly with the work that I know my current classmates & I are familiar with. As we’ve learned from numerous articles over the semester, students benefit greatly from doing work that they’re actually invested in on a number of levels. For instance, Prakas developed his technology skills while completing the assignment. Maggie was able to connect with her classmates and hone her own design skills. These are the kind of things that they will probably be more useful to them later in life & other classes than writing a research paper about some arbitrary topic. Also important to mention is the fact that they were probably much happier working on their multimodal projects.

 

Like some of my classmates have mentioned, though, it’s still a somewhat intimidating practice to implement in my own (currently imaginary) classroom. It’s hard to imagine a setting where I don’t have any parents or administrators upset with me, and all of the students put in enough effort as opposed to just bullshitting it, and I can really lay down a fair grading scale that keeps the aforementioned parents & administrators happy, and so on. To be fair, it will require a lot of effort from the students– not just putting something together, but even just thinking of what it should be. Like we’ve discussed, there isn’t necessarily an abundance of creative opportunity for many students, so learning to flex that muscle could be a challenge on its own. Of course, as we’re learning about this right now I can obviously see that it’s all possible. It will just take an equal amount of effort on my end to make sure that the mission is successful. I think this is a bright future for composition classes and am excited to see what comes of it in the future.