Integrating Multimodal Projects into Existing Composition Curriculum Digital Life Place Narratives Brittany Barr University of Montana

My existing curriculum framework Three main inquiry projects: 1. Personal Academic Argument 2. Op-Ed 3. Life Place Essay Reflective Essay Portfolio

“Faculty need to think not only about why they want to integrate multimodal assignments into their classes, but also about which assignments are amenable to the affordances of different modalities. Once teachers have made a decision to try a multimodal assignment, they will want to think about how such an assignment can complicate or expand the goals for their courses, and when they can most effectively schedule such an assignment” (30). From “Composing Multimodal Assignments” by Mickey Hess

Considerations Your own expertise/interests Time constraints Rhetorical goals of each assignment

Déjà vu: My existing curriculum framework Three main inquiry projects: 1. Personal Academic Argument 2. Op-Ed 3. Life Place Essay Reflective Essay Portfolio

Why the personal essay? Rhetorical strategies/awarenesses employed/cultivated in the alphabetic text: Genre considerations “Through designing digital documents and then testing to determine how people see and read them, our students develop an awareness of themselves as active producers of knowledge in their discipline or profession and as agents in the world around them. The process of designing something that enacts their own experiences…is an essential step for teaching students how to use visual rhetoric” (Hocks 204) Copyright Imagery Figurative language Diction Non-linear piecing

Rhetorical Impacts & Student Input Syntax & style Text’s symbolic level Writing as a discursive process Resistance to assignment

Resources Creative Commons database Vimeo Windows Movie Maker or iMovie Audacity or Garage Band IT Department In class demonstrations

Works Cited & Contact information Hess, Mickey. “Composing Multimodal Assignments.” Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., Print. Hocks, Mary. “Teaching and Learning Visual Rhetoric.” Teaching Writing with Computers: An Introduction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., Print. Contact me at for more information on the digital life place narrative!