description [the 'cover' blurb]

ix visualizing composition is a concrete introduction to the fundamentals of multimodal composition. Each tutorial moves through the following three steps:

1. Define. Illustrated definitions help you visualize principles of layout, design and composition: element, contrast, purpose, text, framing, audience, alignment, context, emphasis, color, proximity, organization, and sequence.
2. Analyze. Guided readings of real-world texts—such as photographs, movie clips, comics, and animation—model how writers of different texts put theory into practice.
3. Respond. Interactive assignments invite you to make your own rhetorical choices—determining font face or color, image hue, and the placement and organizational of visual and textual elements—and to write about the impact those choices have.

Note: This is the second edition of ix, the CD-ROM Arola and I co-authored in 2004. In this version, 9 of 13 tutorials (broken down by terms associated with rhetorical design choices) have been completely revised, with new and more multimodal examples and analyses.

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)

description
For this online conference, the three presenters initiated and moderated a synchronous discussion with graduate students on issues of professionalization.

accompanying materials

• none available

abstract
In this online asynchronous session, I presented results and discussion from the CCCC Survey on multimodal practices, with particular emphasis on the section about tenure and promotion issues for scholars working in digital media.

accompanying materials

• web archive version of my conference session (HTML)
  

abstract
In a roundtable keynote, presented in a synchronous MOO (multi-user, object-oriented chat/game platform), the four presenters address multi-layered questions: Is Computers & Writing truly a discipline? What distinguishes it from the related disciplines of Composition & Rhetoric or Technical Communication? What is the research and theory that inform its teaching and practice? The panelists take questions from the audience as well.

accompanying materials

• keynote transcript (HTML version of MOO format)