This qualitative study presents two cases from an investigation into how diverse students in a so... more This qualitative study presents two cases from an investigation into how diverse students in a sophomore level writing class in a large research university responded to a pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multiple literacies. The findings indicate that a multiliterate composition pedagogy can productively invite students to embrace a translingual disposition through multimodal and intercultural practices. More importantly, this pedagogical approach provides instructors with ideas and strategies to respond to their students’ diverse linguistic, cultural, and rhetorical traditions while cultivating in them multiple literacy skills that they need to navigate the complex composition and communication challenges of the twenty-first century globalized world.
This article presents an argument for the “re-turn” of essayist literacy in multimedia and multil... more This article presents an argument for the “re-turn” of essayist literacy in multimedia and multiliteracy contexts. For its democratic, pedagogical, and intellectual potential, essayist literacy is too important to be removed from composition curriculum, but it needs to be re-imagined within a diversity of essay traditions, including the turn toward multimedia writing undertaken in diverse writing classrooms. This article analyzes the findings from a study of one such ‘re-imagined’ essayist literacy unit/assignment in a composition course designed to focus on multiliteracies at a research university in the Northeast United States. I’m emphatically not arguing the essay as the sole or even main genre for writing instruction. I am arguing that it needs to be in the mix. Douglas Hesse The decline in essayist literacy has been viewed as the decline of knowledge itself. Ron Scollon and Suzanne Scollon Adam Banks’s chair’s address at the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communica...
Journal of Global Literacies Technologies and Emerging Pedagogies, Jul 26, 2014
This essay is an investigation into the research methods and methodologies of a community of scho... more This essay is an investigation into the research methods and methodologies of a community of scholars who theorize, study and publish about the global/transnational forces as they inform or are informed by the discipline of rhetoric and composition. The study finds that despite differences in the positionality of two groups of scholars— “scholars in the US” (Canagarajah, Matsuda, Pandey), and “scholars from the US” (Horner and Trimbur, Hesford and Schell, Schaub, and Himley), their research methods and methodologies do not show considerable variations; instead, overlaps and reciprocities in agendas, and research approaches characterize their scholarship. The essay then discusses the potential factors triggering these unanticipated results, such as publication protocols of Western publication outlets, or the scholars’ stylistic accommodations to the expectations of Western readers.
Journal of Global Literacies Technologies and Emerging Pedagogies, Jul 26, 2014
In this essay, I contend that a major revision in syllabi/curricula, pedagogical approaches and t... more In this essay, I contend that a major revision in syllabi/curricula, pedagogical approaches and the media of instruction and composition in the existing composition courses is imperative in order to be able to a. adequately respond to challenges and contestations from different corners about "Standard Edited American English-Only" (see Canagarajah; Horner & Trimbur) as the medium of instruction and composition in our writing classes, and b. remain relevant to increasingly diverse body of students. More specifically, I theorize a global composition outlook in this essay, one that encompasses a series of actions and practices, such as pluralizing academic writing; accepting and acknowledging cultural, rhetorical and stylistic variations in all forms of expressions and communications including in our students' compositions; and treating English varieties of our students (if not their native tongues) in their formal as well as informal writings fairly and equitably, which, I argue, can be the much needed initial steps in taking us towards the direction of making our composition classes and pedagogies more democratic, pragmatic, as well as relevant to our students and the complex world they are already a part of or would be upon their graduation.
New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom contends that changing demographic diver... more New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom contends that changing demographic diversity in American higher education and increasing globalization call for curricular and pedagogical transformation of writing courses. The writing curriculum for "globalized classrooms" should be responsive to the resources students bring with them to the classroom and cultivate in them the multiple literacies-both old and new-needed to successfully navigate an increasingly global workplace and a complexly interwoven world. The scaffolding of students' natural meaning making capacities, and teaching of multiple literacies, such as visual, academic, critical, digital, multimodal, and intercultural, should take place simultaneously in the writing classes for "new literacies are in a synergistic, reciprocal, and constantly evolving relationship with older literacies" (Swenson et al. 357). The interplay of new and old literacies in literate activities in the academy and professions can lead to productive interactions and work. In fact, this study is an experiment with and investigation into how diverse students in a sophomore level writing class in a large research university in the U.S. North East responded to a curriculum and pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multiple literacies. The pilot course drew insights and resources from some closely aligned fields of new media, globalization, World Englishes, intercultural communication, literacy studies, and media studies, exploring and exploiting the potentials these intersecting fields have for improving the practice of teaching writing to a diverse body of students. It took a multiliterate approach to teaching writing in its expanded sense with assignments in multiple media and modes-alphabetic and digital literacy narratives, rhetorical analysis of a digital artifact (music video, ad, cartoon/movie clip etc.), argument essay, remediation of argument essay into web forms for local and global audiences, collaborative documentary production, blogging, and small group presentations.
This qualitative study presents two cases from an investigation into how diverse students in a so... more This qualitative study presents two cases from an investigation into how diverse students in a sophomore level writing class in a large research university responded to a pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multiple literacies. The findings indicate that a multiliterate composition pedagogy can productively invite students to embrace a translingual disposition through multimodal and intercultural practices. More importantly, this pedagogical approach provides instructors with ideas and strategies to respond to their students’ diverse linguistic, cultural, and rhetorical traditions while cultivating in them multiple literacy skills that they need to navigate the complex composition and communication challenges of the twenty-first century globalized world.
This article presents an argument for the “re-turn” of essayist literacy in multimedia and multil... more This article presents an argument for the “re-turn” of essayist literacy in multimedia and multiliteracy contexts. For its democratic, pedagogical, and intellectual potential, essayist literacy is too important to be removed from composition curriculum, but it needs to be re-imagined within a diversity of essay traditions, including the turn toward multimedia writing undertaken in diverse writing classrooms. This article analyzes the findings from a study of one such ‘re-imagined’ essayist literacy unit/assignment in a composition course designed to focus on multiliteracies at a research university in the Northeast United States. I’m emphatically not arguing the essay as the sole or even main genre for writing instruction. I am arguing that it needs to be in the mix. Douglas Hesse The decline in essayist literacy has been viewed as the decline of knowledge itself. Ron Scollon and Suzanne Scollon Adam Banks’s chair’s address at the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communica...
Journal of Global Literacies Technologies and Emerging Pedagogies, Jul 26, 2014
This essay is an investigation into the research methods and methodologies of a community of scho... more This essay is an investigation into the research methods and methodologies of a community of scholars who theorize, study and publish about the global/transnational forces as they inform or are informed by the discipline of rhetoric and composition. The study finds that despite differences in the positionality of two groups of scholars— “scholars in the US” (Canagarajah, Matsuda, Pandey), and “scholars from the US” (Horner and Trimbur, Hesford and Schell, Schaub, and Himley), their research methods and methodologies do not show considerable variations; instead, overlaps and reciprocities in agendas, and research approaches characterize their scholarship. The essay then discusses the potential factors triggering these unanticipated results, such as publication protocols of Western publication outlets, or the scholars’ stylistic accommodations to the expectations of Western readers.
Journal of Global Literacies Technologies and Emerging Pedagogies, Jul 26, 2014
In this essay, I contend that a major revision in syllabi/curricula, pedagogical approaches and t... more In this essay, I contend that a major revision in syllabi/curricula, pedagogical approaches and the media of instruction and composition in the existing composition courses is imperative in order to be able to a. adequately respond to challenges and contestations from different corners about "Standard Edited American English-Only" (see Canagarajah; Horner & Trimbur) as the medium of instruction and composition in our writing classes, and b. remain relevant to increasingly diverse body of students. More specifically, I theorize a global composition outlook in this essay, one that encompasses a series of actions and practices, such as pluralizing academic writing; accepting and acknowledging cultural, rhetorical and stylistic variations in all forms of expressions and communications including in our students' compositions; and treating English varieties of our students (if not their native tongues) in their formal as well as informal writings fairly and equitably, which, I argue, can be the much needed initial steps in taking us towards the direction of making our composition classes and pedagogies more democratic, pragmatic, as well as relevant to our students and the complex world they are already a part of or would be upon their graduation.
New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom contends that changing demographic diver... more New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom contends that changing demographic diversity in American higher education and increasing globalization call for curricular and pedagogical transformation of writing courses. The writing curriculum for "globalized classrooms" should be responsive to the resources students bring with them to the classroom and cultivate in them the multiple literacies-both old and new-needed to successfully navigate an increasingly global workplace and a complexly interwoven world. The scaffolding of students' natural meaning making capacities, and teaching of multiple literacies, such as visual, academic, critical, digital, multimodal, and intercultural, should take place simultaneously in the writing classes for "new literacies are in a synergistic, reciprocal, and constantly evolving relationship with older literacies" (Swenson et al. 357). The interplay of new and old literacies in literate activities in the academy and professions can lead to productive interactions and work. In fact, this study is an experiment with and investigation into how diverse students in a sophomore level writing class in a large research university in the U.S. North East responded to a curriculum and pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multiple literacies. The pilot course drew insights and resources from some closely aligned fields of new media, globalization, World Englishes, intercultural communication, literacy studies, and media studies, exploring and exploiting the potentials these intersecting fields have for improving the practice of teaching writing to a diverse body of students. It took a multiliterate approach to teaching writing in its expanded sense with assignments in multiple media and modes-alphabetic and digital literacy narratives, rhetorical analysis of a digital artifact (music video, ad, cartoon/movie clip etc.), argument essay, remediation of argument essay into web forms for local and global audiences, collaborative documentary production, blogging, and small group presentations.
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