Palmeri talked at length about his research process: how he began with a literature review, how he coded his research to help identify patterns, then began to draw conclusions from those patterns. Without giving specifics about his initial findings, Palmeri indicated that his research indicated he could see shifts in composition instruction and production in the scope of his current research of a similar sort to those seen during the research and writing of his book. What Palmeri managed to accomplish with his address was to highlight how much alike the research methods of those just entering into the field are like those of seasoned professionals already working in the field. As most of the audience and all of the other presenters were graduate students, this insight into the workings of a processional scholar, of the type many of them no doubt hope to be someday, is invaluable. Wading through stacks of journal articles, books and interviews, as masters and doctoral level students often do, can seem like a daunting task. Being able to see that a respected professor deals with many of the same issues, and hearing him say that the process, while necessary for many research endeavors, is nonetheless tedious, is reassuring. Those who came expecting to hear a more straight forward account of Palmeri’s insights may have found this approach disheartening or unsatisfactory, but in a subtle way Palmeri presented a message that likely resonated with the audience in a more personal way. Graduate students are all too familiar with the pressure to keep up grades, to engage in scholarly conversations and find their footing in the field. The underlying message or Palmeri’s presentation was that while research was indeed a difficult task, it was a rewarding one, and while big names in the field may seem intimidating by the sheer breadth of their knowledge they are, at a basic level, engaging in the same kind of work as the supposedly lowly students.

That said, Palmeri didn’t give much new information, nor did he elaborate on what he had found, or what he hoped to find, from his current research that would substantially differentiate it from his previous work. The presentation had the sense of being incomplete, not unlike a book or conference proposal in which only the most rudimentary notions of structure or content have been determined. The most interesting – or perhaps to some in the audience, the most perplexing – thing about Palmeri’s presentation at the 21st Century Englishes conference was that the lecture seemed to be geared as much towards justifying the merits of his own research as anything else. Perhaps on some level this was his point, to help maintain interest in his historical perspective until his next work is published, but if so this could have been made clear from the beginning. To be fair, leaving the audience to wonder what further insights on multimodal composition he may uncover seemed a bit unusual, though if anyone was truly disappointed by this I imagine Palmeri’s delivery style was at least enough to hold their attention, so even if the attempts to highlight his research process and pitch ideas was not to one’s liking the method of delivery was enjoyable. The one major criticism that could be leveled against Palmeri is that, given his work in multimodality and his advocacy for using new and different media in the composition classroom, the presentation itself was remarkably short on media content. At one point Palmeri did play a short audio clip he had recently discovered through archival research, and he used a PowerPoint presentation to help him present his information, but one would expect something more given the nature of his research. This again leads back to the contention that Palmeri’s presentation was based on still formulating ideas and incomplete research theses.

Palmeri got into more specifics about his research, and how his classroom experiences inform said research, during the question and answer period of his presentation. It was here that his love of his work really showed through; when he wasn’t tied to a single location in order to navigate the PowerPoint presentation on his iBook, Palmeri had more freedom to move around the room and engage with the audience. His aforementioned affection for performance and performing art would seem to be more than just a research interest, as his interactions had more the sense of a master class than a typical question and answer period. Palmeri made a point to ask for and use the names of the people asking him questions, moving closer to the speaker when the space would permit. When he was not able to address the speaker more closely he carried himself in manner that was relaxed and confident but not overbearing or intimidating. Despite being more off the cuff, this section of the presentation could be said to have more concrete information or theory behind it, as it was here that Palmeri gave definitive opinions on topics such as the increasingly multilingual nature of American college students, what role white privilege continues to play in higher education, and how teachers at all levels of education work to make their students as prepared for the challenges of the 21st century digital world as possible with the limited time and resources they have.

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