Ever since the first symbols were scratched into Sumerian clay, writing has been a coveted skill. Until recently, this meant teaching students how to produce coherent handwritten essays for an audience that was hungry for information and patient enough to read a lengthy article in order to acquire it.
Of course, a few things have changed.
Today, handwriting is arguably obsolete and even printed text has to compete with an influx of visual and auditory information: images, videos, slogans, sound bites, billboards, and flashy website sidebars often capture our attention more quickly and with a more insistence than the written word. Some writers and academicians consider this an insurmountable problem. Others, like Professor Petger Schaberg, (whose enthusiasm is evident even over email) see an opportunity. "Recent research in neuroscience by聽Damasio聽and others suggests that our brains are hardwired to organize our evolving experience through images and their associated groupings,"聺 says Schaberg, coordinator of聽's Digital Composition Initiative. "Why, for example, do we experience sudden fear from the image of a snake in our path? Why does a mere picture of our partner, lover, or child stir a whole gamut of sensations? Why is it that the聽辫丑辞迟辞蝉听补苍诲听videos聽from Sandy Hook are what get us weeping from our common grief?"
So, within this image-filled world, where does teaching writing and rhetoric fit in? According to Professor Schaberg, the answer is in the "Multimodal Turn."聺 "This means learning to compose powerful written text in relationship to the images that swirl around our modern world,"聺 he explains. "Such an approach does not cause academic writing to atrophy, however, it revitalizes college writing, helping it to slough off loose jargon, summary, abstraction, and to reclaim its fundamental force."
As a participant in ASSETT's Teaching with Technology Program, Schaberg designed a "multimodal"聺 project that would help his first year writing students learn to use emotion and logic to communicate persuasively. He is emphatic about the role of digital composition in our time: "I hoped to foster the perception that written persuasion must work to establish a creative interplay with visual images, video, sound, web 2.0 technologies, and social media, all of which have such a pervasive influence in contemporary social persuasion."
Schaberg's first-year writing class created videos, and posters, for local community partners. One student made a video showing the impact of the literacy program "Boulder Reads" both on young readers and on their college-age "reading buddies." The posters range from abstinence-only and gun control regulation proclamations, to a simple statement urging students to "Join us on the Dark Side"聺 created for the The Secular Student and Skeptics Society.
But are these assignments really appropriate for a writing class? "The use of 'slogans' in the posters, for example, is a fascinating exercise in the power of minimal, unconscious language,"聺 says Schaberg. "And the written reflections (in merging the form of a 'design brief' and a 'gallery statement' target writing that demands a reader's interest through powerful voice, narrative development, and the insightful articulation of specific strategies of visual design."
The posters are currently on display in Norlin's Underground East Gallery, capturing the attention of passing students, serving as an artifact of study for PWR classes, and sometimes persuading others to volunteer or join a cause. "With this group of talented first-year writers, I was especially impressed with the tenacity of their beliefs and their simultaneous ability to step back from that emotion during class workshops and to make strategic design decisions that helped them to dramatically improve their work,"聺 says Schaberg. "My students took on this 'Poster Propaganda & Persuasion'聺 project with gusto, and their impressive written reflections underscore their commitment to doing their very best work."
Some lament the decline of handwriting, and others feel nostalgic about a time when people had the patience to sit down and read the Sunday paper. Yet, it is difficult to argue against the notion that students should be taught skills that will enable them to communicate effectively within our new, digital landscape.
Young writers who understand the power of a short statement, and who learn how to strategically integrate their text with images in a way that deepens meaning, will go on to be competitive in the modern world. In an age when many writing teachers still focus their energy on preserving an outdated approach, Professor Schaberg and the CU's Program for Writing and Rhetoric challenge their students to master evidence and argument "the staples of the academic disciplines" but also to extend this mastery of traditional conventions to consider the future of writing in the digital age.
If they are successful, the newest generation of writers will be able to communicate effectively to a wide range of modern audiences, skillfully adapting text, image, video, and web 2.0 design, towards the goal of deep and enduring persuasion.
Article By: Ashley E Williams
