A Discussion

 Do you agree with Selfe’s claim that composition instructors should “respect and encourage students to deploy multiple modalities in skillful ways—written, aural, visual—and that they model a respect for and understanding of the various roles each modality can play in human expression, the formation of individual and group identity, and meaning making” (626-27).

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 As Gunther Kress observes, “Control over communication and over the means of representation is, as always, a field in which power is exercised” (641).  The exclusive focus on print and written language, [Kress] noted, has meant a neglect, an overlooking, even suppression of the potentials of representation and communicational modes in particular cultures, an often repressive and always systematic neglect of human potentials in many... areas; and a neglect equally, as a consequence of the development of theoretical understandings of such modes.... Or, to put it provocatively: the single, exclusive and intensive focus on written language has dampened the full development of all kinds of human potential, through all the sensorial possibilities of human bodies, in all kinds of respects, cognitively and affectively” (639).

MULTIMODAL BASEDWRITTEN TEXT BASED

 “Young people need to know that their role as rhetorical agents is open, not artificially foreclosed by the limits of their teachers’ imaginations. They need a full quiver of semiotic modes from which to select, role models who can teach them to think critically about a range of communication tools, and multiple ways of reaching their audience. They do not need teachers who insist on one tool or one way” (Selfe 643)

 “Teaching students how to compose and focus a thirty-second public service announcement (PSA) for radio—and select the right details for inclusion in this audio composition—also helps teach them specific strategies for focusing a written essay more tightly and effectively, choosing those details most likely to convey meaning in effective ways to a particular audience, for a particular purpose. In addition, as students engage in composing a script for the audio PSA, they are motivated to engage in meaningful, rhetorically-based writing practice. Further, as students work within the rhetorical constraints of such an audio assignment, they learn more about the particular affordances of sound (the ability to convey accent, emotion, music, ambient sounds that characterize a particular location or event) and the constraints of sound (the difficulty of going back to review complex or difficult passages, to convey change not marked by sound, to communicate some organizational markers like paragraphs). Importantly, students also gain the chance to compare the affordances and constraints of audio with those of alphabetic writing— and, thus, improve their ability to make informed and conscious choices about the most effective modality for communicating in particular rhetorical contexts” (643).