Forms of Multimodal Composition (blog 4)

I love zines. Taking an English class last semester that strictly discussed and made zines led me to enjoy them very much. Prior to the class, I had never heard of what a zine was, so when it came to making our first one, I was so confused. Looking back now, I am not exactly sure why I was so confused since they are fairly simple to make, but I felt as if the zine needed to have a specific type of writing on them and needed to be extravagant. The great thing about zines, though, is that they are all so different! You have so much freedom with zine creation which makes it so enjoyable for the creator. This class was the only experience I have had thus far with multimodal composition (zines specifically) so I hope to be able to incorporate a zine lesson in my future classroom in order to help my students see different ways of writing. In addition to that, in the Buchanan reading this week, she mentions that “many students are drawn to zines because of the personal content of perzines. They like learning about other people's lives and experiences,” (Buchanan, 73). Being able to share zines and trade them is the best part, and students can learn so much about their classmates all because of their writing!

The first digital media example/genre that inspires me as a future educator is having my students create book trailers. Creating a book trailer allows the students to dive deep into the topic and find ways to draw the audience in. If my students were able to create a book trailer, they could present it to the class and allow other students to have the desire to read it and find out what happens at the end. This is a great way to leave your students wanting more information about the book and wanting to read for fun. Another digital media example/genre that inspires me as a future educator is having my students create infographics! Students learn differently and some may prefer to visually see what is occurring in their novel in front of them in an infographic! Infographics allow students to use their imagination and test their creativity and would be an enjoyable way to capture their peers’ attention and share what they created.

Ultimately, the ways that I might use multimodal composition in my future teaching to help promote “writing” will depend on my students! I think the list of New Media Genres that we have are great ways to involve multimodal composition into classrooms while also allowing students the freedom to choose what may interest them the most rather than specifically telling them one way to incorporate multimodal composition. They develop deeper thinking by stepping out of the box in certain situations and trying new tasks and being given the freedom to try new tasks. Allowing them the freedom to decide what they prefer to do involving multimodal composition promotes deeper thinking and civic engagement because they may have never experienced any of the categories on the list, which would lead to them expanding their knowledge and doing things they are not used to. I believe that if a student is doing something they feel comfortable with, they would be more likely to continue writing, which ultimately helps to promote it. They can help find what works well for them and what doesn’t which I think is a great strategy to have since, “researchers have demonstrated how students who recast their interpretations of texts across modes expand their perspectives and extend the meaning making potential of texts,” (Chisholm & Trent, 313). I think the best part of multimodal composition is there are so many different formats for students to experiment with; the options are endless!