Reflection on that time we all blogged

Sheridan et al’s book rightfully foregrounds kairos as being especially important to multimodal composition. The synergies that take place through multiple modes invigorate traditional forms of writing/speech/thinking. If those new, invigorated forms are made to interact with other forms, the synthesis creates new ideas. The computer is the first tool that breaks down the production time so ideas can be synthesized during the process of creation. Eisenstein describes the process and material conditions of writing during the rise of the printing press. She also describes the infrastructures necessary to transport these texts to locations where they could be synthesized (ahem, libraries). No single invention allowed the author to draft, synthesize/network, publish, and disseminate until the computer.

            Porter remarks on the uniqueness of the computer’s contribution to writing as he dismantles Dennis Baron’s argument that computers are no different really from pencils. Pencils are a great and revolutionary technology, sure. But Porter says “Rather the revolution is the networked computer and the social/rhetorical contexts it creates and the way its use impacts publishing practices” (384-85). If a pencil could do that, we would have a conference called “Pencils and Writing” like Baron glibly suggests. Computers remove barriers, eliminate time lag, and erase spatial differences. I’ll use an example from my IMS 171 class.

            I made a study guide on Google Docs and asked my students to fill it out collectively. They had a week to do it. So for the first six days the occasional student logged on, dropped in a few notes and signed out. But then, on the night before the exam, 8-12 students (depending on the moment) were chatting, adding notes and editing. (I was in there too, but really being more of a morale booster than a contributor.) The results were not surprising: students who participated in creating the page on the night before did better than the ones who simply dropped in some notes early in the week (or those who only viewed the page).

            [And here I have to stop and go over the rationale for having an exam. The hope is that the students pay attention to the concepts and theories presented in class because the exam will test their knowledge in scary ways. As a teacher I need them to be familiar with the theories and concepts for the second half of the course, which is largely project/application-based.]

            This all brings me to the second question addressed in last week’s blogs. How do we teach multimodal rhetoric? Kathleen I thought really got to the heart of the matter (and gave me some clarity into my own teaching practices) when she wrote, “to create appropriate responses is to first create an assignment that allows students to craft their own responses first.” My study guide was more effective than the exam because it operated in the public sphere in a kairotic way. (What if the study guide was the exam?) In the conversation following Kathleen’s post, the respondents (myself included) discussed what constraints might hinder/aid in the composition.

            In her post on the same question Keely rightly points out the possible anarchy of letting students have free reign over all of cyberspace. She states, “ I think [Sheridan et al] are just asking that teachers offer multiple choices to their students so that they can weigh the potential effectiveness of the different methods with respect to their topics and messages.” In effect, students are being asked to analyze the venue for delivery—since the constraints are often implicit in the venue. (And that’s even a bit of a misnomer as my students really stretched what the Google Doc was originally meant to do.)

            Putting all of these answers together really challenges traditional notions of teaching. Should we be talking about venues as design choice and audience? Do compressed time frames lead to better synthesis and communication between students? (If my experience teaching a compressed summer course is any indication, the answer is yes.) Should we be providing frameworks that are limiting to the students in ways that force them to address the platform? (An essay written via twitter? A public argument made solely through Instagram?) And now I have to turn the question back on our more conventional teaching moments: When we simply assign an essay without venue constraints (and only thoughts of the imaginary audience) are we inviting anarchy in the writing process?