“To Just Make Everything More Powerful”: Why Students Need a Metalanguage to Talk About their Use of Music in Multimedia Composition Image by JAS_photo (CC: BY NC) Crystal VanKooten University of Michigan

Students use music in multimedia compositions, but… Problem 1: They don’t think critically about the music. “I like this song.” “This song goes along with what I want to say.” Photo by Dierk Schaefer (CC: BY)

Problem 2: Students rely only on common ways music is discussed in popular culture and society: to appeal to emotion or to “set the mood.” Photo by Lin Fuchshuber CC: BY “I used serious music for the serious part. For the hopeful part, I used hopeful music.” “When I used a sad song, people felt sad. When I used a happy song, shockingly, people felt happy.”

Problem 3: Students don’t have the specific language to talk about the rhetorical work that music can do. Photo by Feuillu (CC: BY NC) (See problems 1 and 2…)

One example: Kaitlyn Patterson’s video composition To view Kaitlyn’s video, visit Composed for English 125: College Essay Writing Final Course Assignment: The Revision Essay The video uses music written words still images video footage

Writing with Sound: The Rhetoric of Music

Image by Vectorportal (CC: BY) A Hook An upbeat, interesting introduction Lyrics that highlight themes Lyrics that bring evidence in support of an argument Contrast A transitional and organizational tool Lyrics that point out irony Lyrics that argue Plays to audience emotion Evokes cultural themes and associations A conclusion

“I definitely wanted the images to dominate because that was, I thought, the best way to capture my argument. And the words were more of transitional tools to keep the audience up to speed with what was going on so it would make sense. And the music was more for emotional effect and to just make everything more powerful.” Image by Candie_N (CC: BY)

What can I do as an instructor to help students like Kaitlyn develop language to discuss the complex and rhetorical use of music? What can I do to encourage other students to think critically and rhetorically about the use of music? Kaitlyn uses music in complex ways, but lacks language with which to describe these ways. This is not an error.

The New London Group (1996): Pedagogy of multiliteracies includes situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice (7). Overt instruction = scaffolding of learning activities focusing the learner allowing the learner to gain explicit and relevant information (34). Overt instruction includes the use of a metalanguage: a language of reflective generalization that describes the form, content, and function of the discourses of practice (34)—“a language for talking about images, texts and meaning-making interactions” (23-24).

Starting to build a metalanguage for using sound and music: Image by Virgile Vebrel (CC: BY) Clearly articulate goals to students: Become a conscious composer who is aware of all rhetorical choices and makes effective choices based on purpose and audience.

Image by Paul Goyette (CC: BY NC SA) Use rhetorical theory as a foundation: Purpose and Audience Persuasive appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos Redefinitions of rhetoric at the nexus of technology and literacy (Selber 2004)

Image by Cuito Cuanvale (CC: BY) Multifaceted, evolving logics: Wysocki “Unfitting Beauties of Transducing Bodies” 2010 Sirc “Serial Composition” 2010 Rice The Rhetoric of Cool 2007 Welch Electric Rhetoric 1998

Image by Sunday Williams (CC: BY NC SA) Image by sniffles (CC: BY NC SA) Layers of Media “We need to be writers. And we need to name the choices available to writers in order to have power over them. Otherwise, we will be stuck seeing and hearing the multidimensional rhetoric of 21st Century writing as being all there at once—not as layers of discrete rhetorical elements” (Halbritter, Mics, Cameras, Symbolic Action, forthcoming). Expose, analyze, consider, and use the audio, visual, and linguistic layers that can exist in multimedia

Image by Marty Portier (CC: BY SA) Rhetorical and Figurative Devices: Metaphor, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Irony (Sorapure 2006, Horn 2004, Nichols 2010) Juxtaposition and Association (Sirc 2010, Staley 2010) Links and patterns (chora) (Rice 2007) Appropriation (Rice 2007) Persuasive appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos (Halbritter 2006, VanKooten 2011) Use of counter- arguments (Young, Becker, and Pike 1970)

Image by the.sprouts (CC: BY NC SA) Questions for discussion: Reactions to my partial metalanguage? What works and what doesn’t? Additions to the metalanguage that have worked in your classrooms? What if Kaitlyn had some of the language I explore here? How would her learning be enhanced? This PPT is licensed under CC: BY NC SA