Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers

by Cynthia L. Selfe (Editor)

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. This book offers faculty practical help on creating multimodal assignments and working within digital composing environments.

270 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2007

Reviews

[Jessica Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this collection of articles first came out in 2007, I suspect it was remarkably modern and incredibly helpful to teachers. The book, whose goal was to help theory meet practice for teachers who want to experiment with multimodal composition, was much needed in that time period. That said, reading it in 2016 was like reading a really dated collection of articles--because I was reading a really dated collection of articles. I thought the best article, by far, was Sonya Borton and Brian Huot's "Responding and Assessing." The glossary of terms related to audio and video at the end is excellent and could easily be shared with students and used for a rhetorical analysis in class or at home. However, some of the articles were just not useful at all anymore, especially those that provided instruction for how to compress and share files, for example. Overall, the book was well edited and the chapters were organized in a logical way.

[Megan Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource for instructors in secondary and post-secondary environments. The pedagogical insight is invaluable!! I think everyone who currently teaches or is planning to teach composition needs to read this book, as it outlines and describes how and why we need to integrate multimodal compositions into classroom practices. Additionally, there are many worksheets and assignment ideas included aimed at aiding those who may be unfamiliar, hesitant,or even curious about how to incorporate such texts into writing pedagogies.

[Teri]

I'm in the process of reading this book in the hopes that it informs my teaching of multimodal composition. Already I like it--the opening narrative is very close to my own journey into multimodal writing. I'll write more once I finish the book.