Download PDFContents
Multimodality and Transmodality in the Classroom
Equity, Time Management, and the Graduate Teaching Assistant
Affordances and Constraints of Multimodality and Transmodality
Equity, Time Management, and the Graduate Teaching Assistant
When it comes to transmodality, Keith Murphy has ideas when it comes to getting it into the classroom: “…modes like speech, drawing, and gestures…do not just supplement each other in relationships of mutual support” (Murphy 1969). Instead, these begin to resemble each other in a way that creates a wider view of a topic or area of focus (Murphy 1969). In this way, transmodality is not just on the instructor but, instead, if implemented correctly, can lead to community building within a classroom setting. If one individual can bring one modality to the table, and another can bring something different, the domino effect will be a truly transmodal class. While this is a novel goal—and one all first-year composition instructors should strive towards—it may not be totally possible in today’s first-year college composition classroom. In fact, a model like this will likely take time and patience to create, and in college, instructors only spend so much time with their students, usually restricted to about three hours a week for fourteen to sixteen weeks. Because Graduate Teaching Assistants have so little time outside of their coursework and preparing to teach, it is imperative that full-time faculty assist Graduate Teaching Assistants when it comes to gathering and sharing multimodal and transmodal texts. Sharing lesson plans based around a transmodal text, or even just providing a list of links that professors have found but have not used in their classes, takes away some of the struggles faced by Graduate Teaching Assistants looking to bring multimodality and transmodality into the first-year composition classroom.
If finding and incorporating transmodal texts puts too much stress on a Graduate Teaching Assistant, moving toward a transmodal classroom is still possible. Utilizing active learning strategies that take up transmodal practices is a step in the right direction regarding equity. Taking up transmodality inside and outside of the classroom is the ultimate goal I propose, but Graduate Teaching Assistants often cannot complete the amount of research and lesson planning required to either find or create transmodal texts. This means that finding texts that can be used for in-class transmodal work is a sufficient replacement that still encourages equity in learning. While this is more of a temporary solution, I concede that some movement toward a transmodal classroom is better than no movement at all.
However, it is important to create those little connections when possible. In fact, that is the whole goal of incorporating transmodality into the first-year composition classroom. Margret Hawkins writes:
Transmodalities attends to meaning-making across the arc of transmodal communication, such that, while production and assemblage may be the starting point, the spaces and timescales traversed, as well as the contexts and processes of reception and negotiation, are given equal weight…transmodalities references transcendence and transgression, where inequitable relations of power can be dismantled and reconfigured, affording equal access, value, and representation to all participants in transmodal interactions. (Hawkins 65)
While there are practical applications to fostering understanding and meaning in the first-year composition classroom, there is also an equity factor to consider when creating transmodal spaces in a classroom.
When thinking of equity, there is a potential next step to be considered. Paul Muhlhauser and Tara Salvati introduce the idea of “transtextuality,” which furthers the ideas of transmodal texts. While transmodality is having the same text in different modalities, transtextuality is “…a constellation of texts expressing a core concept, theme, or vision rather than a singular text” (Muhlhauser and Salvati 3). This constellation of texts would allow students from different backgrounds, majors, English literacy levels, etc., to have access to the core concepts in a way that best suits their needs. So, while some students may prefer the fifteen-page reading, others may instead prefer a two-minute YouTube video breaking down the same concepts, but without all of the academic formality and wording (Muhlhauser and Salvati 3). Transtextuality fosters a form of rhetorical equity because it does not just consider the different modalities, but allows students to situate themselves in the rhetorical conversation rather than enter a rhetorical situation (Muhlhauser and Salvati 3).