Practical Consideration about a Practical Book

Selfe's Multimodal Compositions is one of those resource texts that are invaluable to composition teachers. It covers a variety of considerations and practical maneuvers that such a teacher ought to reconcile, whether he or she has already ventured into teaching multimodal texts, has happily given thought to it, or is reluctantly stepping into terrain encouraged (or enforced) by their institutions.

I am grateful to own this text since it practically and efficiently steps through these considerations. Even if one has considered much of these issues already, it is useful to have access to a resource that catalogs them for application when designing courses, assignments, and lessons. And certainly, such a systematic resource itemizes things not considered by any particular instructor.

Still, I am disappointed on one point with Selfe's text: the almost monolithic focus on digital audio and video compositions, in a sense considered mono-modally (if video and audio can be considered modes). Selfe's text does pays tribute to non-digital multimodal compositions (though appendixed knowledge in a book does its share of discursive damage to any subject, relegating it as secondary), and the considerations it shares can certainly be applied to any multimodal composition. But its most practical, instructional content is reserved for digital audio and video. These, of all the possible modalities, when we as composition instructors are probably least likely to implement them, for a variety of reasons:

• Audio and video are modes which we as composition instructors have the least experience in composing, both in terms of functional and rhetorical literacy. Though, in one sense it is certainly good as instructors to be exposed to knowledge on how to broach digital audio and video in our classes, our utter lack of expertise puts us at a distinct disadvantage, compared to other modalities. A sidebar on pages 6-7 of Selfe's text notes a number of concerns an English teacher may point out, and Selfe offers several pages to addressing the contrary. Put one point is not addressed. Most, if not all, of us generate much of our practical expertise as well as ethos as alphabetical composition teachers from our actual experience composing alphabetical texts, almost always in the genres of academia but very often in other genres from other fields. We do not necessarily have the experience of composing audio and video texts for rhetorically critical audiences, which problematizes our authority and sensibilities when it comes to teaching these modes.
  

• Audio and video are modes which our student have the least experience and which they are probably least likely to compose in, whether professionally (most business communication is inter- and intraoffice, which has the least need for audio and video modes, especially given the time commitment need for such compositions) or pubically (most people's public interaction is informal and non-committal; they are not called upon to engage in the develop of advanced communicative projects). Students certainly may have experience composing video in particular, but this is most practically for very personal expression between family members and friends, situations which the sorts of compositions and rhetoric we explore in a composition course do not really address.
  

• Audio and video production are probably the most prohibitive of modes in terms of the cost, distribution, and implementation hardware.
  

• Audio and video software is significantly different in function from the software and online platforms most commonly used by instructors and students alike, making it more difficult to transfer skills learned from other software.

Because of these issues, I would like to see an instructional resource like Multimodal Composition that is focused on the modes, media, and platforms most accessible to composition instructors and students alike. This, I suppose, would include more focus on the implementation of found texts (video clips, audio, and images found online, for instance) in the production of new texts as well as the legal implications of this. Selfe's book references this kind of thing but doesn't give enough detail. The information on copyright is focused on summarizing the laws without useful context for how the laws work, and copyright law is terribly obtuse with a lot of practical rules and examples of application. This would include more on composing online and hypertext documents, including ways to think about new media alphabetical writing discourses and genres. Above all, this would include resources and ideas on how to instruct students on the new media composition they would be most likely to engage in, personally, publicly, and professionally (for those students who will not be producing multimodal compositions as a direct function of their professions, in which case other training opportunities would likely exist for them as part of their major or on the job training itself). I am not convinced that audio and video production will be all that significant in the sorts of compositions students are or will be doing--even with the more than evident turn toward digital compositions--for a long time to come. Though certainly audio and video modes deserve attention in the composition classroom (particularly the rhetorical reading of such texts), there are genres of multimodal compositions that are and will be more prevalent to our students.