We’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. 
#isoundlikeShipka
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.
2 Replies to “#isoundlikeShipka”
This is a really great idea with your use of multimodality, and it does seem that you are getting the idea of it. I always saw multimodal projects as a means to get a message across without the need to use only words. (That’s an essay) but using those words and adding a creative element to them that not only shows how your brain works to process things but can also help the person viewing it possibly see what you see how you see it. Your project example with the 5 paragraph essay and turning it into a puzzle is a creative way to show what you want about the essay and that puzzles are something everyone has seen, they can see it and relate it to their own experiences. It would be a cool idea I think to do the paragraph puzzle and the jingo or magnets. To see the juxtaposition of what is expected of us in writing vs what these writing assignments could become.
Jenga* Sorry ’bout that. :)