Review Part I: Hybrid Genres
Contributing authors (by chapter)
1. Cheryl E. Ball, Tia Scoffield Bowen, and Tyrell Brent Fenn
2. Erik Ellis
3. Jody Shipka
4. Susan M. Katz and Lee Odell
5. Jerome Bump
The Point
Introducing projects incorporating multimodal components expands the scope of creativity for university students, though not without its challenges. Traditionally, students entering undergraduate writing courses expect to compose the “five paragraph essay”, an essay format used as a foundational tool to structure their ideas into an easily identifiable format for teachers to grade. The drilling of this format can hamstring student creativity within the invention stages of essay composition and student interest and awareness of multimodal writing. Professors assigning multimodal projects should be aware how multimodal student work might be a translation of the five-paragraph essay. Students can face frustrations within the presentational software and confusion learning how to communicate, multimodally, the five-paragraph print essay. However, with the right guidance, students can express themselves in a manner linked to their own creativity and mastery of alternative communicative modes that can give rise to hybrid genres. While PowerPoint and film are some useful introductory systems to incorporate multimodality within undergraduate writing, social online games such as Second Life can reframe the students’ definition of writing and literacy.
The Good
The majority of the chapters feature pictures of student works. Jerome Bump’s chapter discusses his use of the game Second Life as a tool to recontextualize writing and “space”. He includes numerous screen capture of how his students generated digital texts as well as how the program these student overcame the learning curve. He also notes the impermanence of online spaces as an area of caution (digital spaces can be deleted) as well as how digital games have evolved from being fully textual (MUDS) to a more visual and audio communication while shrinking the text box. All of the contributing authors made mention of how the traditional five-paragraph essay and students lack of experience with presentational software weakens their ability to communicate multimodally.
The Bad
The majority of the chapters feature pictures of student work. Jerome Bump’s chapter discusses his use of the game Second Life as a tool to recontextualize writing and “space”. He includes numerous screen captures of how his students generated digital texts including how his students overcame the learning curve involved with using the software. He also note how digital spaces can be deleted, demonstrating the impermanence of online spaces as an area of caution for instructors considering incorporating internet games within digital composition (112-14) and explains how digital games have evolved from being fully textual (MUDS) to a more visual and audio communication while shrinking the text box (115). All of the contributing authors made mention of how the five-paragraph essay and student’s lack of experience with presentational software weakens their ability to communicate multimodally.
Chapter Recommendations
Chapter 2: Back to the Future? The Pedagogical Promise of the (Multimedia Text)
Chapter 5: Thinking outside the Text Box: 3-D Interactive, Multimodal Literacy in a College Writing Class