While traditional writing is typically understood as a language based on the combination of words, phrases, and sentences to communicate meaning, modern technologies have led educators to reevaluate the notion that writing is restricted to this definition. Exploring Multimodal Composition and Digital Writing investigates the use of digital technologies to create multi-media documents that utilize video, audio, and web-based elements to further written communication beyond what can be accomplished by words alone. Educators, scholars, researchers, and professionals will use this critical resource to explore theoretical and empirical developments in the creation of digital and multimodal documents throughout the education system.

This book on multimodal composition is designed to help teachers of English composition expand the modalities on which they and their students draw, to go beyond the limits of texts that rely primarily on words, and to enjoy exploring the affordances - the special capacities - of video, image and sound. The book offers faculty practical help on creating multimodal assignments and working within digital composing environments. There are sample essays, advice on intellectual property concerns, sample worksheets and forms, explanations of technical terms, and useful advice about hardware, software, and digital recording equipment.

Jason Palmeri’s Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy challenges the longheld notion that the study and practice of composition has historically focused on words alone. Palmeri revisits many of the classic texts of composition theory from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, closely examining how past compositionists responded to “new media.” He reveals that long before the rise of personal computers and the graphic web, compositionists employed analog multimedia technologies in the teaching of composition. Palmeri discovers these early scholars anticipated many of our current interests in composing with visual, audio, and video texts. Using the concept of the remix, Palmeri outlines practical pedagogical suggestions for how writing teachers can build upon this heritage with digital activities, assignments, and curricula that meet the needs of contemporary students. He details a pluralist vision of composition pedagogy that explains the ways that writing teachers can synthesize expressivist, cognitive, and social-epistemic approaches. Palmeri reveals an expansive history of now forgotten multimodal approaches to composing moving images and sounds and demonstrates how current compositionists can productively remix these past pedagogies to address the challenges and possibilities of the contemporary digital era. A strikingly original take on the recent history of composition, Remixing Composition is an important work for the future of writing instruction in a digital age.

Writing Changes moves beyond restrictive thinking about composition to examine writing as a material and social practice rich with contradictions. It analyzes the assumed dichotomy between writing and multimodal composition (which incorporates sounds, images, and gestures) as well as the truism that all texts are multimodal. Organized in four sections, the essays explore • alphabetic text and multimodal composition in writing studies • specific pedagogies that place writing in productive conversation with multimodal forms • current representations of writing and multimodality in textbooks, of instructors' attitudes toward social media, and of writing programs • ideas about writing studies as a discipline in the light of new communication practices Bookending the essays are an introduction that frames the collection and establishes key terms and concepts and an epilogue that both sums up and complicates the ideas in the essays.

Multimodal Composing provides strategies for writing center directors and consultants working with writers whose texts are visual, technological, creative, and performative—texts they may be unaccustomed to reading, producing, or tutoring. This book is a focused conversation on how rhetorical, design, and multimodal principles inform consultation strategies, especially when working with genres that are less familiar or traditional. Multimodal Composing explores the relationship between rhetorical choices, design thinking, accessibility, and technological awareness in the writing center. Each chapter deepens consultants’ understanding of multimodal composing by introducing them to important features and practices in a variety of multimodal texts. The chapters’ activities provide consultants with an experience that familiarizes them with design thinking and multimodal projects, and a companion website (www.multimodalwritingcenter.org) offers access to additional resources that are difficult to reproduce in print (and includes updated links to resources and tools). Multimodal projects are becoming the norm across disciplines, and writers expect consultants to have a working knowledge of how to answer their questions. Multimodal Composing introduces consultants to key elements in design, technology, audio, and visual media and explains how these elements relate to the rhetorical and expressive nature of written, visual, and spoken communication. Peer, graduate student, professional tutors and writing center directors will benefit from the activities and strategies presented in this guide. Contributors: Patrick Anderson, Shawn Apostel, Jarrod Barben, Brandy Ball Blake, Sarah Blazer, Brenta Blevins, Russell Carpenter, Florence Davies, Kate Flom Derrick, Lauri Dietz, Clint Gardner, Karen J. Head, Alyse Knorr, Jarret Krone, Sohui Lee, Joe McCormick, Courtnie Morin, Alice Johnston Myatt, Molly Schoen, James C. W. Truman

A student’s avatar navigates a virtual world and communicates the desires, emotions, and fears of its creator. Yet, how can her writing instructor interpret this form of meaningmaking? Today, multiple modes of communication and information technology are challenging pedagogies in composition and across the disciplines. Writing instructors grapple with incorporating new forms into their curriculums and relating them to established literary practices. Administrators confront the application of new technologies to the restructuring of courses and the classroom itself. Multimodal Literacies and Emerging Genres examines the possibilities, challenges, and realities of mutimodal composition as an effective means of communication. The chapters view the ways that writing instructors and their students are exploring the spaces where communication occurs, while also asking “what else is possible.” The genres of film, audio, photography, graphics, speeches, storyboards, PowerPoint presentations, virtual environments, written works, and others are investigated to discern both their capabilities and limitations. The contributors highlight the responsibility of instructors to guide students in the consideration of their audience and ethical responsibility, while also maintaining the ability to “speak well.” Additionally, they focus on the need for programmatic changes and a shift in institutional philosophy to close a possible “digital divide” and remain relevant in digital and global economies. Embracing and advancing multimodal communication is essential to both higher education and students. The contributors therefore call for the examination of how writing programs, faculty, and administrators are responding to change, and how the many purposes writing serves can effectively converge within composition curricula.

Technology is changing not only how people write, but also how they learn to write. These profound changes require teachers to reconsider their pedagogical practices in the teaching of writing. This books shares instructional approaches from experienced teacher educators in the areas of writing, teacher education, and technology. Chapters explore teachers personal experiences with writing and writing instruction, effective pedagogical practices in methods writing courses, and professional development opportunities that effectively integrate technology into the writing classroom and contribute to students' growth as writers and users of technology. This collected volume provides as up-to-date understanding of how teachers are prepared to teach writing using technology.