Collaboration in Evaluating Composition
The multiple modes of communication are essential components of discourse (visual, written, spoken, or other); their adhesion to each other is part of the interplay of their delivery and of their being. Yet, one has to posit that within the weaving of these material and linguistic modes there can be a method of evaluating them as one. This sense of a coherent whole where parts come together to create meaning is how we can conceive of grading a multimodal assignment. And how might that unfold in the classroom? For one, as compositionists, and, two as teachers/learners, we are put into familiar territory with the concept of meaning-making. We are not so used to grading discourse conventionally that it is impossible to turn to rhetorical theories to guide how we as readers and audience members understand the communicative events into which we enter with students and their multimodal compositions.
Though we often grade written compositions with rubrics, holistic scoring guides, and hierarchical systems, providing end notes, marginal notes, etc., we can still use these approaches to grading multimodal compositions as long as are guided by the same principles with which we teach any kind of rhetorical communication. Contextually, multimodal texts operate with the same rhetorical principles as written compositions. Ideas connect to other ideas in order to make meaning. Here, Biesecker can again shed light on a framework with which to view these connections. Not only are identities shaped in the rhetorical event, but ideas can only make meaning in contrast and connection to other ideas. "[T]he language of any given text signifies the complicated attempt to form unity out of division, thereby turning an originary condition of impossibility into a condition of possibility in order to posit its ostensible argument" (Biesecker 112). The text, for Biesecker, is a kind of collage, a coming together of many elements to make meaning because articulated ideas, be they words, sounds, images, etc., are utterances that continuously harken back to other utterances in a great web of possible meanings and utterances.
What must be clear for teachers and students is how the collection of ideas or elements connect to make sense for both rhetors/authors and audience members. When an idea is articulated within any context by the author, that idea makes sense in its connection or articulation to other ideas that both audience and author understand. The more well-connected the ideas are to one another, and to other contexts familiar to both author and audience, the more sense the ideas or elements (and their connection) will make for everyone involved. This connection, also referred to as articulation according to Stormer, draws on the Greek notion of taxis, which is helpful to understanding multimodality and how we can evaluate it. Stormer explains that "to articulate is to spatialize culture and nature by arranging diverse material-semiotic elements into recognizable bodies and languages" (261). Teachers and students can talk about and evaluate choices compositionists make when they compose with multiple modes of communication by examining the logic in the unity of compositions that bring together elements, such as written text, images, video, and/or sounds.
And a student-centered pedagogy would suggest that students as authors can assist with the construction of grading criteria and rubrics for their own multimodal texts, which will serve to involve them in the evaluative process. Such processes will engage students in learning and creating multimodal composition. Higher learning thus becomes an interactive communicative event between teachers and students, and between students and other students. After all, we must remember that learning is solidified most by the insight of the self. So, why not ask students for help in developing criteria with which to grade multimodal compositions, and to also help in the actual evaluation process itself? Weimer advocates this kind collaborative approach to grading in Learner-Centered Teaching as a way to encourage engaged learning. Reflection subsequent to collaborative evaluation becomes a process in which students are more deeply invested. They are literally looking back at their communication on many different levels. How they created multimodal projects in order to convey specific meanings, what meanings they articulated in so doing, how they helped develop rhetorical criteria to grade those projects, what kinds of limitations they encountered, and how they may have taught and learned new ways to communicate with a variety of audiences. Why not ask students to reflect on and assess their work within the various modes? In our ever-changing world of technology, who better to assess the "new verse" than those who speak its language, who know its boundaries, and who know what works most effectively from what does not?
We ask instructors to weigh the teacher-centered usage of something like a rubric on a multimodal project, or any composition project, to something more enlightening and more adept to commentary: using rubrics co-constructed with students that will allow for greater student engagement, and will give much more substance to students' rhetorical reflections.
Rhetorical reflection of written texts can have multiple layers when students incorporate sound into the writing process. Many of us teachers and writers have long advocated the practice of reading one's written text aloud to better hear what it says from a more objective position as the writer/reader. But when students record their reading aloud, they add yet another layer of experiencing the text they have written. This allows for an even greater distancing of the self from the text to hear/listen as the audience would when reading the text. And, moreover, what is recorded is pure gospel. As a discipline, we have failed to consider the importance of the sonic world with regards to memory. Yet, we all somehow manage to recognize its power.
One can learn and estimate a great deal on how recording and listening to audio can affect a student's ability to learn. With a sound-recording, exposure to the text is insightful and inviting. The students may record their thoughts and hear their thoughts; such a process reveals more than one exposure to the material, while reading a book may only provide a single exposure to the material. This action-reaction is where learning occurs. Likewise, this action-reaction is where the assessment of more complex forms of text is possible.
For assessment, consider the following procedure: If we ask students to write/compose a text; then ask them to read/view the text; then ask them to record a reflection; then ask them to listen to their reflection. One may count at least four solid exposures to the components of the lesson, which even includes a metacognitive consideration of the material.
But this kind of multimodal rhetorical reflection is not limited to audio recordings. Deaf and hearing-impaired students can also benefit significantly from video recordings of their own texts, especially if they can incorporate visual reading strategies such as lip-reading, signing, and/or captioning. Institutions with strong accessibility resource departments can be a great help with these kinds of processes, but often students do not know how to ask for the needed resources, so teachers may need to step in and be a liaison between the resource department and students until they can manage on their own. The multiple layers of different kinds of reading and editing that occur when students record their compositions can allow for much greater interaction with their work, which is bound to improve their understanding of the communication process, and the rhetorical situation for each communicative event with which they engage. And, as noted above, the more engaged in the process of learning students are, the better at composition they become.