Assessing Student Media (reading # 3)

1. Copy and paste a quote from the reading that causes you to have a strong reaction (agreement, disagreement, confusion...) and explain your reaction.

"Bringing together multiple modes in a single composition is often a difficult task. After all, in

writing essays students have to worry only about working with text, and this is challenging

enough. In new media compositions, students are being asked not only to use several different individual modes, but also to bring these modes together in space and time."

This statement sums up how I think a student feels. I could put this into first person and the child could say "writing an essay is hard enough and now you want me to use different individual modes AND put the together in space and time?"  Students are unaware of what multimodal means even though they may have made PowerPoint presentations or a web page. Teachers will need to go over each mode separately and complete one project together. I know my students would have to do this step by step and do not have the cognitive ability to create an elaborate presentation without direct guidance. I do feel it is extremely important for students to express themselves in many ways and not just the generic five paragraph essay form.

2. Have you ever ask students to create a multimodal text? Have you ever created a multimodal text  for a school related assignment? Described the assignment. What were the learning goals? How was it assessed? Do you feel the assignment improved  comprehension of the content? Why? Why not?

I had my students in different classroom create different multimodal assignments. The students in my modified diploma room (science class) made a brochure with Microsoft Publisher. Each student was given a communicable disease and had questions that they had to look up in order to guide them. There were specific items that each child had to have on their presentation. I wanted a picture, definition, statistics, whether it was preventable/curable, and how it was spread. The students looked up the information on their own and copy and pasted images. The difficult task was cleaning up their information and formatting everything onto their brochures. The students then had to present the information to their classmates. The purpose of the assignment was exploring websites to find information, manipulating images, and public speaking. In my collaboration history class, we had so many snow days that we were behind. We had only just began the 1980's and felt the years were very important so we assigned each student a year starting with 1985-present. The students also had a rubric with specific information that we wanted included. The guidelines were that each year had to have three major US political events, 3 major global events, winners of the Oscars, Emmy's, and sporting events. Each event had to be accompanied by a picture and the students presented their projects the last week of school. It is surprising how students do not pay attention to their image and some did not have anything to do with their year or their event. We were assessing the components of the presentation and plan to do a more in depth presentation this upcoming school year.

3. Find an multimodal example of metonymy and embed it in your blog. Is it a good or poor example? Why?

I like this metonymy as it can be deciphered in a variety of ways due to one's views. The picture of a 'suit' can stand for corporate America and the legs that are also tree trunks are indicative of corporations popping up everywhere. The fact that the faceless man is standing on a patch of grass also signifies that there are very few places that are not affected. The fact that the man is so large in comparison to the buildings behind him could mean that businesses are growing too large and the communities are the 'little man'. 

4. Find a multimodal  example of  metaphor and embed it in your blog. Is it a good or poor example Why?

This picture is describing the abuse of Iraqi's soldiers and how it is a stain on America's image. The United States has a reputation for treating everyone fairly. The flag and Uncle Sam symbolize America and I think it is a good example of a metaphor.

5. How does this reading help you think about the use of multimodal text to support writing and learning across content area instruction in school?

I had never thought of multimodal text in too many ways other than presentations. Teachers can do cross-curricula lessons and information is presented to a multitude of learning styles. I feel that students with learning disabilities will be able to understand different modals other than readings from a book. Our school has what is called the Innovation Zone in which freshman take science and math together and then reading and social studies. The classes are set up for project based learning and I have seen several presentations in these rooms that the kids have created. Once teachers are in the frame of mind that there are a lot of ways to present information then we can start moving into a more technology based classroom. 

WORKS CITED:

• Sorapure, M. (n.d.). Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions. . Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/10.2/coverweb/sorapure/between_modes.pdf
• What is a metaphor?. (n.d.). What is a metaphor?. Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://learn.lexiconic.net/metaphor.htm
• . (n.d.). . Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/what-is-metonymy