PHASE II Fall 2008: All College Writing II sections incorporate one multimodal assignment; One section of College Writing I pilots the audio narrative assignment
This phase initially called for substituting one of two “standard” multimodal assignments for a print essay in all College Writing II sections. The first option, for those comfortable with web page technology or who were willing to learn, is the research paper redesign assignment from the pilot study. The second option asks students to incorporate visual support within an argument paper and make a case why certain pictures and graphs support the argument in the print paper. After sharing initial remix argument and film projects from Phase I we found that most faculty were not yet ready to implement digital projects for reasons ranging from a hesitancy to use new technology, to a lack of lab space, to concerns about how a digital project could meet course objectives. After informally talking with the faculty, I decided to use have a more "formalized" show and tell session where faculty who used multimodal assignments could share assignment sheets and sample student projects with non-users in Spring 2009. I also encouraged anyone who had not tried to use either a "high-tech" multimodal project (the remixed argument web page) or a "low-tech" (inserting graphics into Word documents) to try it during the Fall 2008 semester. Some faculty had expressed interest but did not have the time to reserve lab space or to teach themselves how to design web pages prior to the official start of Phase II. In other words, Phase I was stretched out to cover two semesters rather than one.
A second part of Phase II initially called for students in one College Writing I pilot section to complete the “Narrative Remix” project. This assignment is similar to the Argument Remix assignment in College Writing II except students take print-based narrative essays and remix them as podcasts adding non-digetic and digetic sound. Students were to use one of three Edirol recorders in conjunction with the Student Technology Center on campus to make recordings. As with the Argument Remix assignment in College Writing II, students also were to complete a reflective essay noting differences between the two modes of delivery.
We have pushed any mutlimodal changes to College I to Fall 2009 or potentially even later. We were not able to purchase some of the necessary audio equipment in time for this phase, though some faculty have recently become interested in audio composing and now record comments on College Writing II papers as audio files.
One unexpected and interesting development did take place during Phase II this semester. We decided to add an "honors section" of College Writing II (ENGL 206) and the instructor of this course, Judith Lanzendorfer, piloted electronic portfolios using Content System within Blackboard. The students were still evaluated using our rubric, and portfolios were shared with me. Because our current system only calls for portfolios with a "major paper average" of 85% or below to be evaluated by other faculty members (see ENGL 106 Course Information Packet for details), this course was an ideal location to start since most students would likely score above 85%. Dr. Lanzendorfer had just one student who needed a portfolio read by another faculty member, and I read that portfolio. We were able to see how the portfolios could be completed in Content System, shared between faculty, and how long students took to complete these assignments. Dr. Lanzendorfer shares her results in the first Spring 2009 meeting as part of the "show and tell" of multimodal assignments (described in Phase III section).
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