Globalization and technology have provided an opportunity for higher educators to rethink literacy and reinvent curricular offerings. We have new layers of literacy which are important to effectively engaging in composition and rhetorical practices, including multiple literacies: cultural, technological, print, screen, digital, and film. Thinking of composition as engaging in multiple literacies and modalities offers a new challenge in the 21st century ready classroom, especially when catching students up to basic kinds of literacy is still needed. New genres and modalities offer us creative tools to engage student writers in composition and “get” more out of their education. It is for this reason, that I enjoy creating group work and collaborative discussion assignments for my 1301 sections. If I had the opportunity to teach some more advanced composition, research, or technical writing courses, I’d like to incorporate a number of assignments including, but not limited to:
- Hosting a blog site for a class wherein students conduct free writes regularly and respond to each other with peer-critique and encouragement;
- Conducting a class project to build a website with multiple pages that has a clear socially relevant and civically minded purpose for a particular audience;
- Having students work together to create class presentations via power point or video projects; and if I ever get the opportunity,
- Rhetorical film analysis through video production, blog or papers.
- Please do not watch if you are offended by strong language.
Some of my favorite and most challenging assignments included working with others and learning how to use new technologies; however, when we have the opportunity to meet these kinds of assignments consistently, it helps prepare us for the kind of rapid technological change that characterizes our new context and will prepare students for the kinds of thinking they will need in the 21st century.
Really fascinating analysis of the Matrix. I learned a lot from it! These connections and readings are certainly not coincidences. Getting students to see beyond reality to the code, the underlying background of how things really work, is important for students of composition. Nice assignment ideas. There are ways to use new media to teach composition that can resonate with students. There's something about writing, though, too, that students need to practice and do a lot of, in order to increase skills in that modality too.
ReplyDeleteI like them to do free writes for the first 5-10 minutes of class based on a quote or topic written on the board. I found that is a good way to get the creative juices flowing....and to free them up from, what some have called in our class, the imaginary writer's block.
DeleteCool post Mary, and I definitely agree in the integration of globalization and multimodality in the FYC classroom. A lot of your post made me think about the Peter Elbow readings we did, and how students come in to classes fluent in their own language. Multimodality's presence in the classroom makes me think a lot about encouraging cognitive diversity and facilitating students to gain more agency over their own talents that they already have.
ReplyDeleteI think I got indoctrinated in Elbow and didn't realize it... hahahahah, I TA'd for a professor at SDSU who had students free write....A WHOLE LOT! I'm pretty sure he was Peter's brother, if Peter ever had one.
DeleteI think I got indoctrinated in Elbow and didn't realize it... hahahahah, I TA'd for a professor at SDSU who had students free write....A WHOLE LOT! I'm pretty sure he was Peter's brother, if Peter ever had one.
DeleteOooo ooooo oooooo... that was cool. "invention writing".... I'm so going to use that. I totally agree with his four rules for teaching writing.... so simple, yet so profound!
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