New Mexico State University's English 111 Objectives:

Through a sequence of reading, writing, and workshop exercises, you will:
 •  Engage the composition process in varied contexts.
 •  Read actively and think critically for varied contexts
 •  Use writing to persuade, inform, and engage an audience through considered       and supported thesis development.
 •  Explore new methods of academic inquiry, rhetorical analysis, and            
    argumentation.

 •  Develop academic research abilities.

In many ways the first objective (1) is the most obviously relevant to collaboration and multimodal composition. The varied contexts of this objective are undefined and leave room for the contexts of web based writing, writing with video and audio components, and moving the context out of writing for the classroom exclusively. Writing in multimodal spaces changes the audience of a composition, as does placing the composition in a collaborative setting by including group members as part of the reading/writing audience.

The second objective (2) refers to composition as a process that doesn't change when placed in a non-traditional writing context. Reading actively will be accomplished in multimodal spaces as they are being analyzed as templates for students' work. In this way, the novelty of technology which can so often undermine multimodal composition is actually a boon for its success. Additionally, the reading taking place in collaborative writing is certainly active as the readers of the texts actively participate in their creation and evolution. Critical thinking occurs at the level of symbolic representation, again a novel text in a novel technological environment. The act of representing an argument in non-alphabetic media encourages a further step in the composition process, one which challenges previously held beliefs and assumptions. Further, critical thinking can be encouraged by the scope of the assignment.

Objective (3) can be extended to the concerns of audience previewed in Objective (1). While not automatic to collaborative multimodal texts (it's not automatic in alphabetic texts either...), considered and supported thesis development is often, as this objective implies, a function of audience. Placing these texts outside of the context of the teacher-as-audience mode, even as simply as it occurs within collaborative group work, changes the audience and therefore the concerns and parameters of thesis development. Additionally, informing and engaging audiences will be of key importance to the presentation of the multimodal text. While alphabetic texts consist of a granted format, multimodal texts will attempt at engagement and information in novel and multiple forms.

Objective (4) directly guides 111 instructors to working with their students in multimodal literacies. The "new methods" referred to can easily be satisfied by multimodal texts, and the assignments can structure student engagement with "academic inquiry, rhetorical analysis, and argumentation." In addition, by emphasizing these concerns on more dimensions than occurs in alphabetic texts, the task becomes both more complicated and more relevant to a life lived in a collaborative and multimodal world.

The last objective will be met both in the content of multimodal texts and in their creation. "Academic research abilities" no longer refers to a memorization of the Dewey Decimal system, but instead to the complex of acquiring and analyzing the incredible number of texts housed in libraries and in databases. Familiarity with digital research is of utmost importance to writing traditional researched essays. Research for multimodal texts, again, will only add to the complexity of the encounter. Collaborative writing will also give students practice researching in collaboration, sharing information, information gathering tips, and acting as consistent rhetorical analysts for their own and others' work.