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 this roundtable, I focused on issues of being a new faculty member in a department and how I created a research identity that was transparent, if a little “quirky,” so that colleagues could begin to recognize my research agenda.

accompanying materials

• paper (HTML)

abstract
In English studies, the past decade has seen a dramatic shift toward analysis and production of multimedia texts (c.f. Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Wysocki, Selfe, Johnson-Eilola, & Sirc, 2004). This shift is informed by the study of rhetoric, which we define as reading and composing texts with an understanding of a specific audience, purpose, and context. In Dr. Ball’s Perspectives on Writing and Rhetoric class, students analyze creative multimodal texts using multiple reading strategies, and then compose their own texts. Although this generation of students is typically well-informed about technology, most of them have never encountered a digital, multimodal text whose purpose is primarily aesthetic. Studying the rhetorical situation in what literary theorists such as Eco and Rosenblatt would call an “open,” readerdriven, adaptable text provides a rich learning experience for students.In this class, students read several examples of open texts including “Murmuring Insects” (Ankerson, 2001), which successfully uses Eastern and Western multimodal elements—including written, aural, visual, animated, and other modes of communication—to juxtapose calm with fear while honoring the events of September 11, 2001. In this presentation, we show this piece in contrast to student-produced multimodal texts that attempt to adopt cultural contexts of other writers, often unsuccessfully. We conclude by suggesting why some students’ attempts at adaptation in these creative and social media are hindered by localized contexts. In addition, we demonstrate how students who don’t attempt to adapt their creative work to other’s contexts often make stronger rhetorical choices in their multimodal texts while still meeting the needs of various audiences.

accompanying materials

• podcast of session

abstract
Presenters in this session reported on the research questions, methodologies, and initial results from a CCCC Research Survey on multimodal composition.

accompanying materials

• not available

see also

• Uncovering Theories & Practices of Multiliteracies & New Media Pedagogies (under Grants)

abstract
This presentation tracks two ecologies: (1) an undergraduate multimodal composition class producing digital scholarship for a digital book collection, and (2) the teacher’s work on that digital collection alongside the production of her tenure e-portfolio. Both students and teacher have asked the following questions in and about their research: What can students teach teachers? What can teachers learn from students? What does digital scholarship look like for undergraduates and faculty? These are ubiquitous questions in our field, and I will show examples from both ecologies to discuss possible answers to these questions, from which larger questions arise: How can a multimodal composition class contribute to the sustainability of academic writing? How can the obstacles of low-access computing promote digital scholarship in which undergraduate students talk back to the scholars who are often talking *at*, not with, them? In answering these questions (in light of the class’s scholarly project and the teacher’s current work in digital scholarship), I argue that teaching, learning, and composing digital scholarship across student–teacher barriers provides sustainable ways for digital media scholars to connect their undergraduate curricula with their research lives.

accompanying materials

• The Both/And of Faculty/Undergraduate Scholarship

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