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COMMONPLACE BOOKS = Commonplace Book: Multimedia composing =

“Primarily, multimedia bypasses earlier media by blurring the boundaries among print, video, photography, audio recording, animation, and film by allowing us to combine and integrate varied and disparate media into one discursive space. By allowing us ways to sample, assemble, and reassemble fragments of various cultural media, multimedia literacy is a kind of meta-literacy, produced by a meta-technology, which provides a new electronic meta-context for discourse as well-an exclusively online communication environment.” (Heba, 1997, p. 19)

A Commonplace entry is due 48 hours before your class meeting time weeks 3, 6, and 10. Each entry should be an in-depth reflection on some aspect of the assigned reading. The Commonplace entry should be created using multiple-genres and varied media, such as text, video, images, audio, and may be animated. You may use the software program Sophie, available for free at: sophieproject.org, or other Web 2.0 tools of your choice. It is a multimedia composition. You are encouraged to read classmates’ entries, and may post a response. You must post a response to your instructor’s comments. The purpose of using a Commonplace Book is twofold. First, you will interactively explore salient issues in the course readings in-depth. Second, while commenting on the assigned reading, you will also be thinking through and experiencing how to express ideas in media other than print for potential transfer to classroom practice. As future (or current) teachers of writing, it is important to push on the notion of writing being only centered on the written word. Writing has long been acknowledged as having the power to influence and shape social experiences through policy and intellectual inquiry. Multimedia composing presumes the use of specific literacies as needed to meet the author’s purpose(s) which “stimulates and encourages habits of relational thinking in the reader” (Landow, 1991, p. 83). While there are many essays on the importance of photography (c.f., Benjamin, hooks, Sontag, Weston), multimedia composing brings the visual – such as photography – into the text as part of the rhetorical situation. It is crucial that as our concepts of literacy, text, and communication are ever-expanding that we are prepared to provide meaningful experiences for K-12 students to use multimedia as a composing tool. This assignment is meant to begin that process.



For examples of what multimedia compositions look like and more information, visit the following web-sties:

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There are no rules – just the prevalent knowledge that expectations of what it means to be literate includes the multiliteracies of conventional print texts as well as new kinds of texts, and we must be familiar with the rhetorical power of producing documents that combine words, images, sounds, and resist conventional genre categorization. Most importantly, the media used should align with your purpose be the best choice for that purpose.

Upload each week’s commonplace entry on the course wiki for instructor review, feedback, and response to your instructor. You are also encouraged to respond to classmates’ commonplace entries.

References: Benjamin, Walter. The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In M. G. Durham & D. M. Heba, G. (1997). HyperRhetoric: Multimedia, literacy, and the future of composition. //Computers and Composition, 14//, 19-44. hooks, b. (1995). //Art on my mind: Visual politics.// NY,NY: The New Press. Landow, G. P. (1991). The rhetoric of hypermedia: Some rules for authors. In P. Delaney & G. P. Landow, (Eds.), //Hypermedia and literacy studies,// (pp. 81-103). Chambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nehall, N. (Ed.) (1964). //The daybooks of Edward Weston// (2 vols.). NY: Horizon Press. Sontag, S. (1977). //On photography.// NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.