Disciplinary Writing and PPT in Composition
Scholarship in composition encourages teachers to introduce students to the kinds of writing expected of them in upper division courses both relative to genres they will use as well as discourses associated with their major program (Carter, 2007, Cosgrove and Barta-Smith, 2004 and Smit, 2004). Carter and Cosgrove and Barta-Smith identify specific kinds of genre students tend to be expected to write in upper division, discipline-specific courses. For example, Cosgrove and Barta-Smith indicate that computer science majors tend to compose computer programs and code documentation, while mathematics majors tend to write proofs and operations research papers, and nurses tend to be asked to compose community health assessments and article critiques. One genre that they found common to almost all majors was the research paper in which students are asked to research a given topic pertaining their field, synthesizing outside readings and their own observations about that topic and displaying knowledge about the topic (p. 71). In my class, I encouraged students to research forms of writing common to their major field.
I provide specific information about the assignment here. Among the themes of the class, as I developed it, was to consider the forms of writing specific to a given profession, including the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) within professional settings. While many consider CMC such as texting and IMing as social media/communication, many professionals use them in the workplace. Several students were nursing majors who wrote about forms of writing in that field, including CMC. I provide further information about the slide shows they prepared for the class and my assessment of them. A body of literature pertaining to the use of texting and IMing in the workplace is emerging (Swarts, 2006). Indeed, several articles about the use of texting and IMing in the nursing field document the practice (Hazelwood, 2008; Leap, 2010; Mace, 2008; Sindel, 2009; Wortsman and Crupi, 2009).
Beyond disciplinary writing, the trend toward delivery of instruction via the Web and in Web-based environments prompted me to adopt the PPT/audio dynamic of the assignment for this course. An acquaintance of mine who had enrolled in several Web-based courses acknowledged that two different instructors in different disciplines—one was in health sciences; the other in nonprofit management-- required their students to develop PPT slide shows that integrate audio with a research writing project. I speculated that the instructors may have used such an assignment in place of an oral presentation that they may typically use in a traditional classroom setting. As such, students who anticipate taking Web-based classes may need to develop literacy in multimodal composition skills including PPT slide shows that include audio. As I presented the assignment to students, I pointed this out, indicating that if they anticipated taking additional classes via Web-based settings, this assignment could prepare them for such projects.
Also, I have found that such assignments are useful in classrooom-based environments that include oral presentations. In recent years a few students in my upper division, business writing or technical writing courses have acknowledged having Social Anxiety Disorder, which limits their ability to do oral presentations effectively (Anxiety Disorders Association of America, 2010; Mayo Clinic, 2010). These students have provided documentation of the disorder, and I have begun using this PPT/audio product as an option to the oral presentation in those classes as an accommodation.
Carter (2004) and Cosgrove and Barta-Smith (2007) each argue that writing instructors need to engage students early in the forms of writing they will experience in upper division, disciplinary coursework. As writing expectations change with technology that is used for delivery of instruction and learning, writing instructors need to adopt new forms of assignments to give students practice in the kinds of writing they will experience in upper division coursework that is delivered Online. While my instruction did not include technical aspects of recording audio with a PPT slide show beyond showing students where to access a voice recorder in the PPT system, I provided information about visual rhetoric to help students design slides and understand the relationship between visual and audio in such a show. For example, I acknowledged that, much as is the case with an oral presentation, the visual aide should not act as a script with the speaker reading directly from a slide. The visual aide should highlight certain items included in the oral presentation, which in the PPT assignment would be the audio. The next section describes criteria that facilitate assessment of multimodal, multimedia compositions, first identifying attributes to consider with such compositions generally and, then, as applied more specifically to PPT slide shows.
