Composing Media Composing Embodiment

Activities

Part 1 activities media = embodiment Much motivates writing teachers to open their classroom activities to multiple media and communication technologies. Not only do newer technologies make multimodal composing easier than earlier technologies did, but the proliferation of multimodal texts in all areas of our shared lives suggests that our responsibilities to students should include considering how we compose and engage others with some broad range of the media available to us. We have additional motivations in this book. In our introduction, in our discussions of twentieth-century media theory grounded in nineteenth-century theories about production, we argued that an individual’s production of media is about an individual’s production of self—and of self in community. We believe we cannot be thinking , participating beings without individual abilities to produce usable and desirable objects, objects that circulate among others and so embed us into and with the lives of others—and into and within and sometimes against the structures and institutions of our lives. We hope, that is, that we have made it clear, in our introduction and throughout the chapters of part 1, that the media we produce—and consume —embody us. Our media carry us out into the world when, in producing media, we feel ourselves to be individually expressing what matters. But our available and existing media also give us—and so limit us to becoming (until we find productive tactics to change or resist)—what makes sense among our various structures and institutions: each text we consume teaches us, usually not overtly, some way of being in the world. Embodiment is therefore not theoretical (although it is certainly theorizable , as our works cited list shows). We experience relations between embodiment and media as we breathe, walk, talk, look, listen, sigh, read, write, and view. We feel our embodiment continually. How can we not then make part of our teaching—and so of this book— activities that help us and those in our classes observe and question what it feels to be a body mediating and being mediated? 128 composing (media) = composing (bodies) The following pages offer activities growing out of part 1’s concern with how we are embodied in media. The activities ask students to consider the literacies and bodies encouraged by and required for media production and consumption. aCTi Vi Ty 1: ( Vi Su al) li TEr aCy Nar r aT iVE Growing out of “Drawn Together,” this assignment asks students to consider their own embodied literacy practices through the affordances of words and pictures. Objectives •฀ Consider฀the฀differing฀affordances฀of฀photographs/illustrations฀ and words for composing narratives. •฀ Articulate฀how฀we฀are฀represented฀through฀pictures. •฀ Describe฀how฀certain฀literacy฀practices฀and/or฀beliefs฀are฀shaped. Considerations •฀ The฀narratives฀can฀be฀produced฀on฀paper,฀on฀the฀web฀(perhaps฀ using web-based software such as Prezi or Wix), or in a slideshow format (such as PowerPoint or KeyNote). •฀ You฀can฀ask฀students฀to฀construct฀their฀narratives฀as฀slideshows฀or฀ collages. Look at examples of collages and slideshows together to discuss with students differences between seeing many pictures all at once and seeing them in sequence. •฀ Consider฀assigning฀Scott฀McCloud’s฀chapter฀“Show฀and฀Tell”฀from฀ his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. “Show and Tell” provides vocabulary for considering how pictures and words work together to shape readers’ understandings. This vocabulary is formal and arhetorical; you will need to help students understand the rhetorical applications of the vocabulary. assignments Overview A literacy narrative tells a story about your relationship with reading and/or composing. It can be about a small moment of your relationship with texts (perhaps your early love of “choose your own adventure” books, or memories of your aunt reading to you, or the first time you made a video or a website) or it can be a larger story of how you came to be a reader, ACTIVITIES: Part 1 129 writer, designer, and/or composer. You will tell the rest of the class this story in two ways: through a sequence of photographs and/or illustrations alone and then through a sequence of photographs or illustrations mixed with words. You will then reflect on your visual and linguistic choices in a short reflection paper. Part 1: Literacy Narrative, Photographs and/or Illustrations Compose a narrative for the class about your relationship with reading and/or composing. The story can be positive or negative, but should illustrate how you have...