In-class Writer/Designer Activity

(So basically I took the email I sent you and expanded on this based on what I experienced moving through the assignments in Writer/Designer)

 

Regardless of how I choose to represent this concept, I want to write about the body and how with notions of (digital) composing and multimodality the body often gets left out (or not as highly considered as either a “mode” to which informs digital composing, or either is something that’s not present at all). 

To tackle this, I’m thinking about two different things:

1. I’m thinking about doing a “music video” (I think I briefly mentioned this in the car on the way home from class). The music video would have 2 parts. The first part would be from the perspective of the teacher, and how multimodality is like a “bug” that teachers catch, becoming so wrapped up with notions of 21st century literacies and multimodality that they forget about the body and discourses and how the social and material factors into how we make meaning. The second half of my project would be from the student perspective to which I would have students offer responses on a multimodal argument assignment they did for Zarah’s 101 class, reflecting on the ways in which their bodies were or were not used. Within both of these sections I am juxtaposing the argument with the physical response to EDM music (I want people to dance). Not only will this be kind of a comedic approach to persuasion, but also EDM music is a primarily digital composing practice that invokes a bodily response (there isn’t much of a “performance” aside from someone standing behind a DJ set up, but yet people come together and gather to respond with their bodies). In addition EDM music is a remixing (DeVoss and Ridolfo) of new music and old music..I’m not quite sure what to do with this, but I think there’s something there.

• In thinking about a rhetorical analysis of multimodal texts that fall within the genre of music videos, I'm immediately drawn to the EDM music videos for the songs I want to include within this project. Both songs are by EDM artist Avicii. The first is a collaborative song with another DJ (Nicky Romero) and is about transcending mundane repetition and the 9-5 lifestyle. In considering this notion alongside the "traditional" narrative of composition, I think this song is appropriate in situating alongside the multimodality for teachers segment of my project in that is pushes agasint the notion that comp hasn't had a lineage in multimodality (a myth Palmeri debunks within his book). The second video (Levels by Avicii) has almost 0 lyrics and is a similar narrative, but I think is important to tell from the perspective of the student in that there is a long tradition of "text" in the classroom but not as much in multimodal projects. Because I'm complicating and considering the body, I think movement is important to showcase as a "bodily response" both to composing and ideology (as both of these music videos are entirely about bodies responding to how the sound takes them out of the montonous zombie lifestyle of the 9-5 and pushes them to explore alternative rhetorics) and I think it's important to showcase how multimodality can offer the same type of pedagogical philosophy and composing practice. 

1. The second option is more of an interactive website that looks at the body and vine compositions. Vine is a particularly interesting app for composing because it is time sensitive (only 6 seconds long) and often a mashup of author and another text, infused with a text description, sound, and gesture used in accordance to all invoke meaning). This multimodal composing platform is one of the few that directly implicates the body in how users experience and engage with the platform. For me this piece has a lot to do with DeVoss and Ridolfo and the notion of rhetorical velocity and remixing. In addition I’ve been thinking about it alongside Selber’s notion of rhetorical literacy and how there’s a classical influence in vine culture of “performance”.  There might also be a way for me to tie in an example of a platform like snapchat that’s moving towards complicating the body with the juxtaposition of emoji’s and identity, and how platforms like vine contest this….hm…

•  I think working with the different design principles presented within chapter 2 of Writer/Designer can have a lot of validity in talking about the rhetorical situation in how the rhetorical velocity of this vine culture is particularly effective/ineffective in how it uses the body in juxtaposition with how they're considering proximity, alignment, organization, contrast, and emphasis. In this project it is almost as though I'm doing a rhetorical analysis of vine culture, so reading through chapters 1-3 of Writer Designer helps me to contextualize the ways in which vines are considering different elements in order to convey meaning (I think also a lot about access and the ways in which medium allocates for a layered experience of mode (text+gesture+aural+visual). 

Regardless of what I present, I want to talk about the body, and the material. And how no matter how we occupy or use digital technologies, our bodies are always involved...