Final Abstract and Proposal for OSU LC

Abstract

My exigency for composing this creative video essay is the need to provide students with the tools necessary to evaluate and compose in the popular, identity shaping domains such as video and challenge the notion that teaching discourse other than text belongs for the most part, outside of English studies’ domain. Furthermore, this video presentation argues that teaching the composition of multi-modal discourse such as video will help students exercise writing skills not used on the traditional print essay, help them broaden their perspectives on the use of text in combination with other modes, and get them excited about, and proud of, their educational achievements.



Proposal

While having the tools necessary to build a strong print essay is essential for college students, they must acquire different tools to build strong discourse relevant to their cultural identities and the skills they need in the workplace.

Connecting the Academic to the Cultural Emphasis on Multi-Modal Discourse

My creative performance will be a video that exhibits the versatility, complexity, power and appeal of video essays and why they should be taught in the English classroom. Through teaching students that more than one literacy exists, that there are visual, audio, and form literacies as well, this video presentation will emphasize the cultural necessity to think critically or actively about these modes of discourse and practice compositions within them. Teaching students composition in video format will help them become more savvy critics of the video texts they encounter, will give them a stake in shaping their cultural identities in the popular domains, will lead them to create compositions they can share with the internet or their friends and family and be proud of, and will add a dynamic component to their portfolio in whatever field they wish to pursue. Furthermore, teaching students video composition in the English classroom will help them re-evaluate the uses of text when combined with other modes of discourse, get them thinking rhetorically about composing with and reading image, sound, and video, and will get them excited about, and invested in, their interdisciplinary education.

The video composition does not mean less writing (in the conventional sense) practice in the classroom. In fact, students will learn multiple writing skills at once by writing proposals, drafting, re-drafting, and storyboarding their video essays. They will experience the unique difficulty, fun, frustration, and accomplishment in composing video even before they start capturing images, sounds, and video clips. Video composition may actually entail more writing than a traditional print essay in some cases.

While the tradition of text in any given English Department is highly regarded, it should not prevent the expansion of the English umbrella to include the study of multi-modal discourse. Studying discourse where text is one of multiple components should always be in the interest of English departments; the domain of text continues to change and grow whether or not universities acknowledge it. Shouldn't we follow the evolution of text? Expanding our studies to include multi-modal discourse will also show our critical attention to history. In “Toward an Ecology of Hypermedia,” John McDavid considers the transition from oral tradition to the printing press and from word processing and printing to digital communication and asserts that, “each medium (mode) arises by building recursively on its predecessor…taking the previous technology as ‘content’.” With text taking on new uses and working in other domains such as video, we need to embrace what the technology in those domains has to teach us about text, rhetoric, our students and ourselves.