[Previous entry: "My Motto"] [Main Index] [Next entry: ""]

01/11/2006 Archived Entry: "The Book of Complaints"

The Book of Complaints
After yesterday's post, no surprise that The Book of Complaints should be inserted as a feature at dear old Yellow Dog. Today's complaint (gripe, pet peeve, angry letter to the editor, shoe pounding on desk) is strictly academic (yo, I'm droppin' science): the term multimodal.

Derived (copied?) mostly from the London Group's take on media theory, multimodal has become the word of choice among both the users (the in-crowd) and non-users of technology and teaching. But what does it mean to be "multimodal?" The W3C group has its ideas. What do academics mean, particularly as the rise in essays/articles/conference presentations which use this word grows yearly?
Point 1: It's hybrid writing. Oral, visual, textual and then some. Which prompts the question: was there a time when oral, visual, and textual work didn't exist, or didn't exist simultaneously? When was that exactly?
Point 2: It's related to the other popular word "multiliteracies." Like its cousin, multimodal, multiliteracy depends on the idea that suddenly the world is pushed into a situation where there are multiple ways of communicating, here we go again: orality, visuality, and textuality. Thus, there are multiple "literacies," multiple "modes" of communication. That there is even a concept like “literacy” is troubling enough. That we make it “multi” is silly. But I’ll leave that point aside for now cause the dj is getting restless.

Break: Scratcha sratacha scratcha (the dj hits the turntables)
Ok. Now what? Now that we got these oh so great terms to throw around from article to article, what did we learn? What do we do?

Well, here is where The Book of Complaints gets a nice beefy entry. Cool, folks. Great point (clap clap clap). Now, show us the money! Get out them there multimodal/multiliterate examples and practices for us to work with and develop. Bring out the Web, new media, advertising, music, art, etc. practices that got you thinking about all this in the first place! What kind of theoretical speculation is going on outside writing instruction and educational thinking? What’s the meta-task here? How can you put your own multiliterate experiences to work (i.e., let’s see you be multimodal too!).

Uh.....Nope. Nothing. But it is a really cool catch phrase. Right up there with all the wonderful catch phrases circulated in the political arena (family values), teaching (critical thinking), or in the university (excellence, diversity) which, in the end, never lead us anywhere. Usually, after all the talk about students being "multiliterate" and what not, the endorsed practice looks anything but multiliterate (it is, of course, "literate," print based in form and structure, but also by other attributes: logic, organization, task). It gets people all excited and, as usual, serves as a good old Frankfurt-styled “distraction” so that the real work never gets done and everything stays safely the same.

More later as The Book of Complaints expands this entry and goes after teachers of writing who refuse to write (or be, GASP, multimodal!)