Mirroring: Writing as a Balancing Act

Just like a circus, writing is like a balancing act. 

How, you may ask? There are many reasons why writing can be seen as a balancing act. Writing allows us to communicate both socially and rhetorically in our everyday lives. These concepts are not limited to writing practice and theory but include and involve many other disciplines and careers in the writing and thinking process. It doesn't matter if a student is an engineering, science, fashion, or writing major: it is a study that we must acknowledge, understand, and adapt to better our minds and ourselves. Not only do we balance between rhetorical and social acts, but we also balance between different ideas of writing and how they can be applied to different situations. 

This week, we shifted our focus from the threshold concept of social and rhetorical writing to "writing speaking to situations through recognizable forms" (Bazerman 35).  Before reading about multimodal components in the classroom, I had a couple of misconceptions, the first being that these components are only visual aids. I plan on using visual aids in my classroom and teaching materials, but I want to expand my definition of "multimodality" and the varying threshold concepts that support it.

Here is an example of a multimodal component. It's a music video by Lana Del Rey, and while it may seem visually appealing, it has more layers. Students can use these videos, which are an engaging way to understand concepts. However, multimodality is much more complex. Here is Lana Del Rey's music video, "National Anthem."

Also, there is much to say about the concept of multimodality. The first is that it is a complicated and complex term, with plenty of information to understand and apply to our field. Multimodality allows teachers to engage in creative freedom and change up their teaching methods or materials used in the classroom. 

Some examples of multimodality in the classroom are "graphic novels, storyboards, digital slide presentations, comics, brochures and newspapers" where meaning is "conveyed to the reader through varying combinations of written language, visual, spatial and gestural modes" ("Creating multimodal texts"). Podcasts can also be used in the education process, or video essays that allow students to retrieve information in new and exciting ways, far beyond the typical hard copy textbook. It should be noted, though, that multimodality still allows teachers to use textbooks, written materials, and other tools in the classroom. That being said, it is important for educators to know and understand multimodality, especially since it allows a "non-standardized" classroom. In a multimodal classroom, every student is welcome and has the opportunity to contribute in ways beyond the typical classroom model. 

Our text states that "all writing is multimodal" (Ball and Charlton 42). This is true because writing can be seen as a "meaning-making" art and a form of communication. It doesn't matter how the text is presented. This composing of language allows us to use more than one "mode" of communication. Much like a composer creates a score for a film (think of Hans Zimmer), we are constantly composing texts that contain deep and profound meaning within the pages.

After reading about these concepts and applying them to my experiences in high school and undergrad, I found meaning in the text, which allowed me to further my understanding of multimodality and many other threshold concepts. I found the section about the meaning behind texts to be quite interesting. I was able to apply it not only to my teaching studies but to a recent experience that I had in my Poetry 1 class. My professor, Dr. Ralph Wilson, told us that poets learn to write poems by imitating other poets. This does not mean that poets plagiarize, essentially, or that they steal the ideas of their fellow poets. It means that, as we read and attain knowledge from texts, poetry or not, with time, we develop our skills and learn from the great poets of the past. 

As an undergraduate student, my fiction writing professor, Dr. Andrew Plattner, asked our class to imitate a popular short story called "Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. The story primarily uses dialogue to communicate and connect with the audience. I initially felt intimidated by the task, but after using Hemingway's tone and writing style to create an "original" story, I felt accomplished. Much like these examples, most of our writing comes from what we already know. 

We read as much as we can to learn and respect the authors, scholars, and poets of the past, and we mirror these experiences in our own writing. Writing reflects everything we have ever read, felt, or experienced in our lives, and everyone has a unique story to tell. These threshold concepts are helpful for aspiring teachers and allow us to develop our writing skills beyond the classroom and shape us as individuals.

Last, I learned how writing speaks to situations through "recognizable forms" (Bazerman 35). Writing uses rhetorical situations to persuade, argue, create meaning, and defend our thoughts. We also know that we can write to a specific audience to illustrate our ideas while defining them for a specific group of people. This allows us to connect to our audiences and adds credibility to our writing. I learned about how many students only associate writing with "getting a good grade and avoiding correction" and how important it is to help students understand the rhetorical situation, the importance of genre, and the knowledge of situations in their work. The goal is to help students avoid over-generalizing their work and teach them to make "deeper choices" to understand and comprehend their writing (Bazerman 37). 

Here is a link to a guide on improving writing using stylistic choices and deep thought. It is a great website and tool for students and educators when pushing students to improve and revise their writing: Berkeley - Nine Basic Ways to Improve Your Style in Academic Writing. 

While the concept of recognizable forms in writing is new, I found it helpful. Unfortunately, I have been a student in this situation, where you're not learning but "passing" and trying to "make a good grade."  As teachers, we need to lead our students to success. If we aren't helping students to understand these difficult but fascinating concepts, they will not succeed.