In her article the Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing, Selfe argues that “the relationship between aurality ( visual modality) and writing has limited our understanding of composing as a multimodel rhetorical activity and has thus, deprived students of valuable semiotic resources for making meaning”(616). I totally support her contention for two reasons. First, instructors should use the best possible means that will help them convey their meanings and that will push their students to receive these meanings as precisely and clearly as possible. Second, Speaking and writing are both productive skills in which one person encodes a signal and two or more people decode them. So, the only difference between the two skills is in the form of the encoding/decoding process. In writing people encode and decode letters and make use of punctuation marks while, in speaking, they send sounds and harness acoustic features such as rhythm and intonation.
The most important question is: does this difference matter in Composition ? The answer is no, of course. It only does in Semantics and Phonology. But, rhetorically speaking, I do not see any difference between the two skills when it comes to Composition. In both skills, people can pose arguments and support or refute them with evidences. They can also think, analyze and pass judgments. And this is what should matter the most in Writing classes. And this is what we should center our attention on. As rhetoricians and Composition teachers, we need to do our best to find a way by which we can interweave both skills in a comprehensive writing syllabus.
However, in spite of my support for the implementation of aural and visual activities in our classrooms, they are two-edged weapons. It is not a secret that we need to use these activities in order to communicate particular messages (meanings) to our students and that the arrival of these messages at the destination without any change or distortion is far reaching. Meaning is socially constructed.“ The collective mind of a society will determine its goals and its position in this world, which will be reflected on its behavior, thinking and its way of dealing with others and push it to create its own distinctive identity and frame it as ideologies” ( Anwr Adam, from a response essay prepared for 511). The implication of this quotation in multi-cultural Composition classrooms is that we may use aural or visual activities that carry specific meanings students from different cultures can not grasp. And this will hinder the learning process for which these activities have been used.
Even though I'm still sitting on the fence between Selfe and Hesse--I haven't quite made up my mind as to what extent I agree w/ either--I have to admit that both you and Selfe make compelling arguments for inclusion of aural composition in the composition classroom. I wonder though, where you sit on Hesse's question of whether the composition classroom should focus on "writing/composing" or "rhetoric/composing." Certainly, we want our students to be accomplished rhetors who use whatever means available to convey meaning, but to what extent am I stepping outside my field and responsibilities if I ask my students to compose a rap composition or a Youtube video for their writing portfolio?
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to hear a bit more about this quote: "The implication of this quotation in multi-cultural Composition classrooms is that we may use aural or visual activities that carry specific meanings students from different cultures can not grasp. And this will hinder the learning process for which these activities have been used."
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that allowing students to use modes beyond words is useful for students? Or that it can hinder the learning process if we assume that certain modes are more "understandable" to certain people? I'm intrigued in your points. I realize this was a few weeks ago, but if you feel like returning to to it I'd like to hear more (mostly because I'm curious).
Thanks.