Download PDFComplicating Multimodality
While the idea of obtaining a formal education outside of a physical classroom is not new, recent years have seen a boom in online learning platforms, AI, and hybrid learning models. These technologies have changed teaching methods and students’ abilities to access academic environments. Public health issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, influenza A and RSV, require teachers and students to pivot to asynchronous learning activities, or even taking a Zoom meeting in their cars from their phones. By nature of these realities, we navigate multiple modes simultaneously. A student who is attending a class on Zoom may be watching the screen (visual), listening for their cue to unmute themselves to participate (aural), positioning their face within the camera frame while ensuring their roommate is not visible (spatial and gestural). Then they are assigned a writing task that encompasses all these elements on top of their embodied, multimodal participation. Thus, the state of education is vastly different than it was five years ago, and as more classes are offered online, including those in first-year composition (FYC), it is our responsibility to consider the ways that instructors embody multimodality.
In a discipline that centers on the written word, Stockman (2022) reminds us how multimodal composition is more than writing with additional visuals: “The multimodal compositional process is one that invites writers to understand and engage with the whole of who they are, including their racial and cultural histories, experiences, and the expressive modes and tools they’ve become adept at using within, and more likely, beyond their schools” (p. 16). In this way, the embodied process of engaging in multiple modes in the learning and composing allows us to think beyond the visual elements of writing. Students use the auditory, spatial, haptic, and gestural elements to articulate diverse communicative practices that create meaning beyond alphabetic text. If we want students to meaningfully engage in this process, we must recognize that Graduate Teaching Associates/Assistants (GTAs) are often tasked with providing the instructional framework to guide students through this, as GTAs are often the first line of contact between them and their academic writing paths. Tan and Matsuda (2020) signal that instructors need to be prepared for the non-academic side of incorporating multimodality, which results in the “...students’ emotional and affective experiences of disrupting academic convention” (p. 10). This disruption of writing the traditional essay, or alphabetic print-based assignments, is particularly important to note for contingent faculty and GTAs, as they may have less access to resources and institutional support for student reactions to this process.
As a GTA, I am cautious in how I introduce multimodal projects in the classroom. My students seem to have all positive responses with the multimodal activities and assignments I give in both Composition I & II. My only other concern is how this may impact their perceptions of future courses. I explicitly share with them that other professors, within the English department or elsewhere, may not share the same candor and excitement I have for composing in different ways. I do this for two reasons: to help them better understand that every instructor approaches pedagogy in their own way and to protect myself from negative consequences. I do not want my evaluators to disapprove of me for spending more time on multimodal projects than alphabetic-print based texts. And teaching in a state where the legislature passed a “divisive concepts” law, more vulnerable instructors such as GTAs cannot afford to rock the boat in ways that stunt our academic freedom or diminish our livelihood. Both Chen (2021) and Stewart and Stewart (2024) recognize the vulnerability of instructors in FYC programs, and therefore institutional culture and the status of GTAs can greatly influence multimodal pedagogical practices or even efforts.