Assessing the benefits and the challenges of a multimodal text, I arrive at the conclusion that it is more advantageous than not. As a forthcoming teacher, especially one who will strive to incorporate writing techniques within the classroom setting, involving a new and refreshing approach to rhetoric text without means of a computer is worth considering.
In Shipka’s critique, “Including, but Not Limited to, the Digital Composing Multimodal Texts”, she examines how students react to this particular method of a multimodal composition. Shipka notes that this type of framework entails students to attend to how language mediates communicative practice when combined with immobile representational systems. Within this task at hand, students record their target goal for their work and illustrate how the choices and strategies they utilized throughout the process either assisted or drastically altered their goals.
Considering Shipka’s two students, Katie and Adam, both needed a considerable amount of time to figure out the way they wanted to take on the task. Both were frustrated trying to figure out how to approach the multimodal assignment. One of the better suggestions was towards Katie. Shipka recommended to create a history about all the histories she did not attempt, meaning all of her false starts and stops. The brilliant idea proved to be solid and sound. Katie’s project was a wastebasket with all her crumpled up ideas on paper. The trash can was written all over (inside and out) with inspirational quotes and phrases such as, “Don’t give up.” I admire the idea that allows students this kind of freedom to break away from a typed document. I find it to be incredibly artistic with this outside the box approach.
Cordova elaborates on what it means to have a multimodality type of literacy with his essay, “Invention, Ethos, and New Media in the Rhetoric Classroom.” Meaning making, which is traditionally rhetoric, is stressed as not a linear system, but progressively more multimodal and interactive because of digital encounters. Cordova highlights three interrelated themes: ethos as a dwelling place can improve a pedagogy of multiliteracies inclined toward the practical side of designing redeeming social futures; relationships that bring to life the New London Group’s understanding of design of cultural society; a storyboard to enhance students’ understanding of multimodality.
Storyboards aim to rethink the meaning of being literate. As Cordova notes, technological modernization shapes our performance of life as well as learning. With this such technology, students construct an across-the-board visual representation of a narrative. These students benefit because they are given the opportunity to literally visualize instead of thinking as their assignment in a linear fashion. It also emphasizes the fragmentary nature of texts as well as the significance of the articulations drawn through each frame of the project. Additionally, it offers a scope of interpretation.
Although the storyboard may produce challenges, it still is an exceptional way to express oneself. Such challenges include: more coaching time in and out of the classroom as well as technological troubles. Yet, it gives a critical understanding of composition. As an up and coming ESL teacher, I know that storyboards are an excellent mode to learn a language. This can apply to native English speakers learning a second language. Listening and observing the way one produces a language is a supreme example of a revolutionary approaching to learning in addition to a new teaching method. Thus, if this is a remarkable tool for language, it is also noteworthy for literacy.