abstract
This chapter is composed of 14 voices—12 undergraduates, 1 graduate student, and 1 faculty member (Cheryl E. Ball, contact author) from a multimodal composition class at Illinois State University. In a three-part chapter, we speak to the perceptions of undergraduate students’ technology use presented by scholarship, attendees at the Watson conference, and on our campus. The first section, presented as a video, reflects on conference attendees’ discussions of students who weren’t representative of the majority audience (professors and graduate students) at the conference. The second section, also presented as a video, asks how pedagogy needs to change to accommodate an increase in digital technology and what kind of cooperation is necessary between students and their teachers so both parties can effectively communicate to and learn from each other. The third section, presented as a MySpace page, argues that educators should incorporate social networks into their pedagogies because they offer a different way of composing. The sections will be presented together on the class blog, http://www.ceball.com/classes/239, where the index page will become a static Introduction to the chapter and each section will be presented as a page off the index. The benefit of hosting the site (for now) on the 239 class blog is so that readers can explore behind the scenes of our learning experience as we produced digital scholarship this semester.

status

• 12/08: proposal accepted for the collection
• 07/09: student projects revised
• 10/09: collection accepted by press
• 11/09: final chapter draft being readied for editors

accompanying materials

• chapter proposal
• chapter acceptance email from editors
  

see also

• English 239: Multimodal Composition (Fall 2008 syllabus) (under Classes Taught)
• The New Work of Composing (under Edited Volumes)
• “A Case Study of Revision Processes…” (under Honors)

status

• Update 07/09: Prospectus with introduction submitted to CCDP.
• Update 10/09: Verbal confirmation from press editor that collection has been accepted.
• Update 11/09: Email confirmation from press that collection should proceed.

abstract
This introductory chapter to the digital media collection, The New Work of Composing, asks what constitutes a “book” in age of digital scholarship? In a period of digital production, we are pushed to consider what a book is and what it does. How do modes and media change not only how knowledge is produced but also what kind of knowledge is made possible? Which assumptions about the print book—its scope or range, its intellectual possibilities, the kinds of interactions it fosters—are transferable to digital books and which are not? This project lays the groundwork for these questions. The New Work of Composing contains 14 multimodal chapters that are organized around five clusters of issues of related to digital composition. In the introduction, each chapter is described, and the book’s interface is also discussed (e.g., how to read this book).

accompanying materials

• chapter (html or pdf)
  

see also

• The New Work of Composing (edited volume)

status

• Update 6/08: Collection received advanced contract from Utah State University Press.
• Update 4/09: Utah State Univ Press downsized; asked to send mss elsewhere.
• Update 10/09: Collection reviewed by Pittsburgh University Press; co-editors responding to reviews.
• Update 11/28/09: Email notification by editors for new revision deadline of Feb. 1, 2010, to be reviewed again by Pittsburgh UP.
• Update 2/2/11: Email notification of contract by U of Pittsburgh Press. Ours is the lead chapter in the book. We had no revisions.

abstract
This chapter is about a teacher’s progression through three iterations of a class (at two universities) in multimodal composition, with a focus on how two students brought previous multiliteracy practices into the classroom, how that knowledge shaped instruction, and how the instructor learned to not assign texts by modes in a multimodal class so as to avoid a-generic production of wowless, “five-paragraph” videos.

Old abstract: In this chapter, we overview an individual-classroom implementation (i.e., non-programmatic) of multimodal, multimedia, and multigenre composition, in which the distinctions between those terms will be discussed by the instructor–author. The second and third authors (who were students in the class) took on teacher-roles in class based on their histories of composing with multiple modes and media; they reflect on those histories and how prior experiences played a role in the designs of their final projects, which included a video documentary and several supplementary texts designed with different media and different rhetorical situations in mind. Our purpose in this chapter is threefold: (1) to outline and discuss problems with a new media composition syllabus with sequenced assignments that step students through composing in different modes, media, and genres; (2) provide narratives of students’ experiences composing texts in such a course, with a focus on their transferable critical literacies; and (3) offer lessons learned whereby teachers can help students produce more interesting, relevant, and powerful texts than the original syllabus inspires.

accompanying materials

• pre-print (pdf)
• version under review (pdf)

abstract
Using terms familiar to composition, rhetoric, and their related disciplines (i.e., purpose, organization, emphasis, etc.), readers can shift their use of these concepts from written communication to interpret new media texts. I provide a reading of a new media text, “Murmuring Insects” (Ankerson, 2001) to show this transferability in reading new media. The reading and subsequent heuristic that this chapter offers pays attention to the many contexts in which new media texts are produced and read and focuses on interpreting the design elements of a text in relation to its purpose.

status

• 4/15/09: Chapter proposal submitted
• 5/20/09: Chapter proposal accepted
• 7/15/09: Publication contract received & signed
• 8/15/09: Chapter submitted to editors
• 1/10: Expected publication date

accompanying materials

• chapter draft (pdf)
• email (pdf) from press editors with contract
• Writing Spaces website (info about press)

abstract
This chapter is the introduction to the edited collection, Reading and Writing New Media. It introduces the concept for the book: a happenstance of theory about new media in digital writing studies suited to the particular moments in time (mid- to late-2000s) in which the book is published.

status

• see entry for edited collection (linked below)
  

accompanying materials

• final chapter proof (pdf)

see also

• edited collection
• website for edited collection