multimodal rhetoric and composition ENG/IMS 224 Fall 2013

multimodal vs. multimedia

“Modes can be understood as ways of representing information, or the semiotic channels we use to compose a text (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). Examples of modes include words, sounds, still and moving images, animation and color. Media, on the other hand, are the “tools and material resources” used to produce and disseminate texts (p. 22). Examples of media include books, radio, television, computers, paint brush and canvas, and human voices” (227). Lauer, Claire. “Contending with Terms: “Multimodal” and “Multimedia” in the Academic and Public Spheres.” Computers and Composition 26 (2009) 225–239.

“[New London Group] scholars have argued that at this point in history, communication is not limited to one mode (such as text) realized through one medium (such as the page or the book” (Lauer 227).

“Rather, as a result of digitization, all modes can now be realized through a single binary code, and the medium of the screen is becoming the primary site where multiple modes can be composed to make meaning in dynamic ways” (Lauer 227).

“Essentially, as Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001) put it, all modes “can be operated by one multi- skilled person, using one interface, one mode of physical manipulation, so that he or she can ask, at every point: ‘Should I express this with sound or music? Should I say this visually or verbally?’ (p. 2)” (Lauer 227).

writing as a medium writing as a technology

multimodal rhetoric and composition

What is rhetoric?

Aristotle: Rhetoric is "the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion."

Kenneth Burke: Burke builds on Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as the art of persuasion, or a study of the art of persuasion However, he starts prior to persuasion with identification, arguing all persuasion must begin with some form of identification of the rhetor with an audience

Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric is “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." "Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning."

rhetoric as epistemic = creating knowledge or understanding

Why this?

vs. this to be persuasive?

is type rhetorical?

why use Monotype Corsiva vs. Impact vs. Arial ?

when is this persuasive?

vs. this?

is color rhetorical? What does green suggest? Red? Blue? Purple? What about cultural considerations?

multimodal rhetoric and composition

= persuasion using various modes in digital media

Course Projects Rhetorical Analyses: 10% Reading Responses: 10% Research Blog: 10% Mid-term Exam: 10%

multimodal rhetoric and composition

composing as writing + composing as art.

multimodal rhetoric and composition =

composing (in rhetorically savvy ways) using multiple modes: type images sound video

Major Projects Composing with Type + Images: Print Design Project 10% Composing with Sound: Audio Project 10% Composing with Type + Images + Sound + Video: Final Multimodal Project 30% Writer’s Narrative for FMP (4 single spaced pages): 10%

Course Projects Rhetorical Analyses: 10% Reading Responses: 10% Research Blog: 10% Mid-term Exam: 10%