Outlining Multimodal Composition

2009

Increasingly, college composition classrooms have begun to incorporate multimodal composition into their curriculums. Students are now expected to produce hardcopy texts with pictures in them, brochures, fliers, PowerPoints (or similar presentation documents), different types of webtexts, even PhotoShop documents and film clips or short movies (Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe, Sirc, 2004; Williams, 2007; Takayoshi & Selfe, 2007).

In 2004, CCCC published the “Position statement on teaching, learning, and assessing writing in digital environments.” The committee states, “The focus of writing instruction is expanding: the curriculum of composition is widening to include not one but two literacies: a literacy of print and a literacy of the screen. In addition, work in one medium is used to enhance learning in the other.” Although the committee speaks directly to digital composition, the focus is more multimodal in nature; however, instructors must recognize that all multimodal composition is not digital—a misunderstanding many instructors make.

Digital composition in composition classrooms is so prevalent that in 2003, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) formed a committee and drafted a statement to address digital composition in writing courses.

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For more information on how I’ve outlined multimodal composition in the composition classroom, please see the other pages, labeled Multimodality followed by a number (for example, this page is Multimodal 1).