Visual Literacy and Composition: an Annotated Bibliography
Fiona Harris Ramsby
Bailie, Brian. “’If You Don’t Believe that You’re Doing Some Good with the Work that You Do,
then You Shouldn’t Be Doing It’: An Interview with Cindy Selfe” Composition Forum
21, (Spring 2010) Web. 1 Nov.2011. Selfe is one of the premier scholars in computers
and composition and someone who is absolutely committed to pedagogy. While this
interview focuses primarily on techno–literacy, I think the following quote is crucial to
remember whatever modality we are composing in. That is, since the “rhetorical and
social turn” in composition and rhetoric, we concerned with the rhetorical choices that
our students make in their compositions, that they can critical analyze the rhetorical
choices of others, and understand that those choices, and their own, are shaped by
hegemonies and dominant ideologies. Certainly, these choices are not always
manipulative but they are never neutral. About composing in a variety of modalities,
Selfe says,
I think rhetoric and rhetorical understandings are themselves technologies that we
can deploy when we try to make meaning in a variety of circumstances and a
variety of media. But media themselves can change rhetorical approaches.
Media, for example, aren’t transparent or neutral, so we need to practice with
media, and we need to know the affordances and the capabilities and the
tendencies and the ways in which particular media and particular modalities
shape our expression, before we can be rhetorically effective. If we don’t do those
things well, it doesn’t matter how important your rhetorical purpose is or how
focused your rhetorical intent is or how keen your rhetorical understanding is, you
have to know how to work with the tools. Unless you know something about the
tool, you’re not going to be as effective in deploying the rhetorical affordances of
that tool expertly. I think the two have to go hand-in-hand. So with video work in
composition classes, for instance, we’re not going to teach students to be
Spielbergs or anyone like that. We’re going to teach them to be good rhetoricians
who can deploy any number of modes of expression and media to make meaning.
We’re going to teach them to use all available means to accomplish responsible
rhetorical ends. (emphasis mine)
Blakesley, David and Colin Brook. “Introduction: Notes on Visual Rhetoric.” Enculturation. 3.2.
(2001). Web. 26 Oct. 2001. Blakesley and Brooke introduce this issue of Enculturation to
show how Visual media are being deployed in an array of disciplines, via various
modalities. Taking up with W. T. Mitchell (see below), they call for a dialectical
relationship between theories of text and visuals: “one in which words and images are
inseparably bound in an act of symbolic interpretation and action.” They turn to the term
“visual rhetoric” in order to “to understand the ways that words and images function
rhetorically and together in the various forms of media and literature that grab our
attention and so delicately direct the intention.” In other words, “Just as rhetoric involves
more than the deployment of words and sentences in the right order, visual rhetoric
involves more than just spatial arrangement or the effective use of page or screen space,
font faces, headers, or visual evidence.” They thus ask for, “more intense scrutiny of how
the visual functions at the point of encounter, as enabling persuasion or fostering
identification, for example. How does the visual communicate meaning? Or, putting it
another way, how do we interpret the visual world? Do we interpret words any
differently than we do visual images? If so, what's the difference? And what's rhetorical
about this process?” Overall then, Blakesley and Brooke stress the role of both the textual
and visual in shaping what can be known and how it is known. (See below the Mitchell
reference as to how visual representations can indicate powerful and hegemonic
ideology.) For further illustration of their point, they discuss Rene Magritte’s Ceci n'est
pas une pipe which complicates the way we read visuals and which highlights the
sometimes problematic relationship between text and visual.
Birdsell, David S. and Groarke, Leo. “Towards a Theory of Visual Argument.”
Argumentation & Advocacy. 33. (1996) 1-10. Birdsell and Groarke lay down a theory of
visual argument that might be useful to writing instructors in terms of analyses of visual
arguments in first year writing. The authors outline their theory by way of the following:
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Visual arguments can be just as lucid and/or ambiguous as verbal/textual
arguments.
Like verbal/textual arguments, visual arguments are contextually bound.
However, in this point Birdsell and Groarke provide a really useful guide to
context for writing instructors. Visual arguments must be examined in terms of
“immediate visual context, immediate verbal context, and visual culture.” They
provide a comprehensive explanation of these “varieties” of context.
Visual arguments bring up the issue of resemblance and representation. The
authors pay heed to the ways in which a theory of visual arguments must account
for “the disjunction between resemblance and representation, the consequent
conventionalization of representation, and the susceptibility of resemblance to
visual and verbal challenge.” In short, the authors insist that “we must recognize
the argumentative aspects of representation and resemblance.”
One must consider the difference between argument and persuasion. Some might
argue that a visual cannot stand alone as argument per se, that it can be treated
merely as a persuasive addition to a verbal argument.
Birdsell and Groarke conclude with the following that might prove useful guidelines
to writing instructors teaching visual rhetoric. They note that, “Any account of visual
argumentation must identify how we can a) identify the internal elements of a visual
image, b) understand the contexts in which images are interpreted, c) establish the
consistency of an interpretation of the visual, and d) chart changes in visual
perspectives over time.
Birdsell, David S. and Groarke, Leo. “Outlines a Theory of Visual Argument.”
Argumentation & Advocacy.43. (2007) 103-113. Written ten years after the above,
Birdsell and Groake elaborate on their 1996 article by an explanation of the following:
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Modes of visual meaning: These include flags (attention getters. e.g Benetton
ads); visual demonstrations (information that is best conveyed through visual
means. e.g. The appearance of Victorian houses in Pacific Heights; Visual
metaphors (e.g Goering as a butcher); Visual symbols (e.g The Cross for
Christianity, the Union Jack for England); and Visual archetypes (e.g. people
depicted with long noses, a la Pinocchio, are associated with lying).
The different modes can help us determine to what extent something is “true.” Via
the modes, they determine to what extent a visual argument is “propositional”
(acceptable) (106). (A map, for instance, is perhaps more “truly representational”
than a cartoon of Bill Clinton with a long nose.) Both make arguments but with
vary degrees of pathos and logos, for instance.
The authors remind us that it is important to assess to what extent images are
being deliberatively deceptive in their attempts to manipulate a certain audience.
To reference one of our own, Professor Jenny Andrus is writing about how photos
of scenes of domestic violence serve the prosecution at the expense of a witness’s
testimony. That is, the testimony is disregarded in favour of visual evidence even
when that evidence does not corroborate with testimony.
Useful to writing 2010 instructors, Birdsell and Groake explicitly connect their
theory of visual argument to the Aristotelian appeals, particularly pathos. Pages
108-111 outline this with a discussion of various 9/11 images.
“Digital Visual Literacy.” Maricopia Center for Learning and Instruction. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Funded by a hefty National Science Foundation grant, this project and its accompanying
website provide an endless amount of resources for teaching digital visual literacy:
<http://mcli.maricopa.edu/dvl>. While it privileges the “how-to” rather than the
theoretical implications of digital/visual literacy, the instructional modules it provides--on
using visuals in word-docs and PowerPoint for example,--as well as sample assignments
and rubrics provide a comprehensive resource for instructors and students learning to
navigate digital and visual media. This website does not target composition classrooms
per se; thus, assignments should be adapted for writing classrooms.
George, Diana. “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.”
CCC,54.1 (2002): 11-39.Print. George examines the use of visual literacy in the
composition classroom (14 emphasis mine). She notes that in terms of pedagogy history
“links words to high culture and the visual to low, words to production and images to
consumption” (31). However, we must understand “how very complicated and
sophisticated is visual communication to students who have grown up in what by all
accounts is an aggressively visual culture” (15). We need to change our thinking. She
recounts an articulate history of the use of visuals in the writing classroom, noting its
status as play, and then the New London group’s call for a reexamination of the visual as
more than play, as well as its urgings that multi-media relationships are dynamic. Various
media should not be “read” independently but should be read to encourage multi-modal
designs (17-18). She also comments on how composition scholarship has treated the
visual over the last few decades; overall, she argues that composition’s de-privileging of
the visual has limited the kinds of assignments we can offer in our writing classrooms.
Perhaps most useful for 2010 instructors is George’s outline of what she thinks a visual
argument is, (as well as her description, on page 33, of a visual argument assignment that
can be adapted well into writing 2010.) Following the philosopher J Anthony Blair, she
agrees that an argument “must make a claim, motivated by reasons for the claim,
communicated to an audience in an attempt to convince that audience on the basis of the
reasons offered” (29). George also claims that visual arguments can be evaluated in the
same way “we find common for written arguments” (31):
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Does the visual make an argument?
How well does the visual communication make that argument?
Is the argument relevant to the course and to the assignment?
Is it interesting? Is it clear and focused?
Groarke, Leo. “Informal Logic.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 21 Mar. 2007. Web.
15 Oct. 2011.Groarke writes that “Informal logic is the attempt to develop a logic to
assess, analyze, and improve ordinary language (or "everyday") reasoning.” He further
states that, “Most of the work in informal logic focuses on the reasoning and argument (in
the premise-conclusion sense) one finds in personal exchange, advertising, political
debate, legal argument, and the social commentary that characterizes newspapers,
television, the World Wide Web and other forms of mass media.” A section of Groakes
article focuses on informal logic at work in visual arguments in that these arguments can
convey the logical reasoning exhibited by verbal and written texts—that of premise and
conclusion. He notes that given that our society is dominated by the visual, a growing
body of debate is assessing whether or not visual arguments can be treated as analogous
to verbal ones.
Of specific interest to writing instructors perhaps, is Groarke’s explication of an
advertisement for vodka. He applies the premise-conclusion formula as a method of
critical analysis by breaking the ad into premise, implicit premise and conclusion
components. Indeed, he notes,
Insofar as the visual argument in the image can be recognized in this way as an
analogue of verbal arguments, it can be understood as a visual argument which
can be assessed and evaluated using the concepts and the tools of informal logic.
In this way, the evaluation of the meaning of an image can be made a matter of
systematic examination and critical inquiry which goes beyond aesthetic
assessment.
Over all, Groake concludes that by using informal logic to assess visual arguments in the
same way one might assess a verbal argument, the Vodka argument is, in fact, fallacious.
His example, then, offers an easy to grasp sample of how we might critically evaluate
visual arguments by utilizing informal logic.
Ferstle, Thomas. Assessing Visual Rhetoric. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr Müller, 2007. Ferstle
collects assessment data from 7 composition first year instructors “ to uncover the actual
criteria and standards valued by instructors when confronted with the complexity of new
media compositions” (back matter). Three themes emerge in the first part of Ferstle’s
study that might inform criteria for assessment: assessment is understood in terms of
LINKAGE which consists of 1) Coherence--The relationship between image and text and
whether or not it is clear; 2) Multiplicities -- how do we assess the set of modalities that
exist within a composition? Or rather how do we assess the “interplay of meaning across
modes” (43). Thirdly, Creativity is an important theme (which subsumes tone, style and
voice)—this addresses visual conventions in terms of colour form, line, shape and
texture. In terms of this theme, Ferstle seems most impressed with the instructor who
demands that students analyze the social context of a picture in such a way as we analyze
its meaning in the here and now (48).
However, in a second round of interviews, three themes emerged: “The desire for
student creativity, student critical analysis and “ a desire for… interested reading
practice on the part of the instructor” (55). However, all three may be read as analogous
to looking at student work through such concepts as “originality,””rhetorically astute,” “
identification,” “ in accordance with course learning” and “interesting”(56-58).
In his “Discussion” (59-74) Ferstle determines three main criteria for assessment:
Linkage—“The critical focus, the determining factor in the kind of assessment practice
best suited for multimodal compositions” (59). Ferstle writes, “this may be understood as
an attribute of a reading strategy that relates the function of the analytical frame used by
the assessor to the affordances available to the modes employed in the multimodal
composition” (66); Creativity—the multiplicity of meaning available to multimodal
compositions (60) and Context—context appears to be measured in terms of the
relationship of text and image within the composition (72) as well as the multimodal
composition’s relationship to the coursework.
Most interesting for instructors in Assessing Visual Rhetoric is Ferstle’s
explication of interplay (66-70). Here, he recounts an analysis of Barbara Kruger’s 1982
multimodal composition Untitled: (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face). This provides a
useful set of guidelines for the analysis of a multi-modal piece.
Nixon, Andrea Lisa., Heather Tompkins and Paula Lackie. Curricular Uses of Visual Materials:
A Mixed-Method Institutional Study. Northfield, MN: Carleton College, Dean of the
College Office, 2008. The overarching question this study asks is “Are the sources of
support that the College provides well suited to the work demanded of students and
faculty as they make curricular use of visual materials?”(2). The pdf of this study can be
found at: <http://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/support/assets/CUVMFinal.PDF>. Most
salient (for our purposes in assisting 2010 instructors) are the following:
1) Faculty members must have support to learn relevant technologies (photo-shop, video
programs etc) (11).
2) Student need for accessible equipment and software, as well as instruction on how to
use it (this is where easy to locate techno support in the library can be utilized) (14).
3) Criteria used to assess student work must be consistent with strategies learned in the
rest of the course (17). In terms of writing 2010 then, it would be helpful for instructors
to base their visual literacy assessment practices on Aristotelian rhetorical strategies—
for instance, how does the image appeal to ethos, logos, pathos. How does the image
project a tone etc?
4) On page 18, the authors present findings of the criteria given for composition and
assessment of a presentation which utilizes power points and accompanying handouts.
Criteria include:
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Coordination of visual with presentation and handouts,
Aesthetics,
Images in focus and appropriately sized,
Citation of images,
Pacing and coordination of presentation
5) Students stress the need for
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Examples of good work
Portability and durability of composing software (e.g power point) (21)
Support with technology and time constraints (25)
6) A further cases study suggests film analysis as a way to exemplify strategies learned in
course work (27). However, due to student familiarity with writing about textual rather
than visual arguments, the authors recommend a style guide or sample of the sort of work
that should arise from an analysis of a visual argument (34).
7) The authors present an evaluation of and criteria for incorporating visuals into science
writing (35).
8) The authors present several criteria, that emerged out of the 4 case studies, for
assessment of visual arguments. These criteria overlapped across assessment practices.
They are:
 purposeful selection of materials,
 aesthetics,
 specific and detailed analyses of visual materials in text,
 balance use of visual elements with the flow of the larger assignment,
 mechanics of working with visual materials,
 appropriate citation,
 composition. (49)
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The authors provide a detailed explanation of each on pages 49-51.
“Introduction to the Grammar of Visual Design.” 2002 Secondary English LIG. Web. 24 Oct.
201. I found this10 page introduction to Kress and Van Leeuwen’s work on the web at
<http://portals.studentnet.edu.au/literacy/uploads/grammar.pdf>. It by no means captures
the complexity of their theories but is a helpful introduction to how their suggestions can
be practically applied (see below for more detailed explication of their theories). They
include an excellent (although much shortened) introduction to Kress and Van Leeuwen’s
guidelines to reading images via Mood, Perspective, Social Distance, Lighting, Colour
and Modality (modality refers to “the degree of credibility manifest in a visual image”
(7)). Consequently, we may assist our students in their composition of visual arguments
when we ask them to consider
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Mood: what “mood” are the participants in the images you select trying to convey?
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Perspective: are participants in a visual attempting to convey a subjective or objective
stance? This is determined by high (reader in a position of power) and low (visual
participant in a position of power) angles. Horizontal angles invite viewer involvement.
Oblique angles prompt reflective detachment from the viewer. With “objective” images,
viewers are not invited to participate per se. Instead, they must read the visual in terms of
the signification of the object in the visual.
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Social Distance: to what level of familiarity does the image invite the reader? A close up
or head shot suggests more intimate familiarity. Andie McDowell compelling us to use
L’Oreal hair products, for instance.
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Lighting. Degree of brightness and position of light source can convey particular
meanings. Shadows may indicate something secret, covered up, amiss. Bright lighting is
hopeful. Soft lighting is romantic.
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Colour: The following table indicates the symbolic use of colour.
o Blue: Peace, tranquility, truth, dignity, power, melancholy, coolness, heaviness. Regarded
as being therapeutic.
o Yellow: Happiness, cheerfulness. Can denote caution, decay, and sickness.
o Red: Warmth, urgency, passion, heat, blood, excitement, danger and hostility. Used as an
accent colour, it can promote expectations and quick decision-making.
o Green: Growth, fertility, health, cheerfulness, vegetation, money. Signifies life, new
growth, energy and faith.
o Grey: Cool detachment, bleakness, and lack of intensity.
o Purple: Wealth, royalty, sophistication, intelligence. Also the colour of passion and love.
o Black: Death, rebellion, strength and evil. Associated with the supernatural, it can also
suggest inner strength and determination, as well as power and formality.
o White: Purity, chastity and cleanliness.
o Black and white: Nostalgia, seriousness, truth, detachment.
o Brown: Credibility, stability, and neutrality.
o Orange: Warmth, strength of personality. Associated with autumn, it also has broad
appeal.
 Modality: Modality pertains to the degree within which an images most naturalistically
representative of the object/participants it depicts. The authors note that Kress and Van
Leeuwen state that
The “touchstone” in assessing modality in images is a colour photograph taken by a
good photographer using a 35 mm camera in natural sunlight. This, Kress and van
Leeuwen claim, is widely accepted within Western culture as being as close as a visual
image will get to representing what is real in a “naturalistic” sense of how people, places
and things might be depicted. (7)
Kress, Gunther and Van Leeuwen. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London:
Routledge, 1996. This “grammar of visual design” takes a social semiotic approach to
reading images. Like many grammar books however, it is significantly prescriptive. It
also takes a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach. Meaning making is a social
practice determined by context and shaped by ideological hierarchies of power. (These
are not necessarily represented in the negative sense of this concept however).
Representation is “a process in which the makers of signs, whether child or adult, seek to
make a representation of some object or entity, whether physical or semiotic, and in
which their interest in the object, at some point of making the representation is a complex
one arising out of the cultural, social and physiological history of the sign maker and
focused by the specific context in which the sign is produced” (6). Signs (which are read
by way of metaphors) are “motivated conjunctions of signifiers (forms) and signifieds
(meanings)” (7). They are never arbitrary (7). Visual design would take the following
into account:
1) Communication requires maximum transparency. However, hierarchies of
power should be acknowledged; this shapes how participants gain understanding.
2) Representation should be chosen in forms that sign-makers “ see as most apt
and plausible in the given context…circles to stand for wheels, and wheels to
stand for cars,” for example (11).
What underlie this book are two important concepts that are crucial to impart to our
students. They are:
1) Visual communication is always coded (32). Take a look at the stylized images
of cultures, those we in our own culture cannot read, to come to terms with this.
2) “Societies tend to develop ways for talking about codes only with respect to
codes that are highly valued’ (32). For example writing, is more valued that oral
or visual codes. Note how science text books, for example, (see page36-8) place
more importance on writing as the medium of information ,rather than the visual
(as indicated by science texts books for younger children), as a child moves
through her education.
Kress and Van Leeuwan also look to Halliday (famous for work in systemic functional
linguistics)for an overview of their system of communication. This is divided into three
parts which they title “metafunctions”:
1) The ideational: Signs must reference something in the “outside world” and their
relations to it
2) A semiotic must be able to project the social relations (or attitudes) between sign and
receiver. Think of the difference between an image of someone looking AT the camera
and someone looking away, for example.
3) “Any semiotic system has to have the capacity to form texts complexes of signs which
cohere” within the text and with the context in which the text is situated (41).
.Odell, Lee and Susan M. Katz “Yes, a T-Shirt!”:Assessing Visual Composition in the “Writing”
Class.” CCC. 61:1 (2009): 197-216. Odell and Katz offer a set of criteria for assessing
visual/textual arguments. They note that in composing and then assessing both visual and
textual arguments—that is, those arguments which incorporate both--the following
should be taken into account:
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Articulate one’s assumptions about audience and refine one’s sense of purpose;
Move from given to new within individual sentences and within larger sections of
text;
Carefully select the amount and kinds of information to present;
Convey that information in language that makes sense given one’s audience,
purpose, and subject matter;
Create and fulfill expectations;
Learn to assess the extent to which one is achieving one’s intended purposes for
an intended audience. (213-14)
Odell and Katz put their guidelines to the test by assessing the composition of a T Shirt
which utilizes both text and visuals to present an argument to “Visit Downtown Troy,
NY” to a specific audience- the Mayor of Troy and the students of the local college. This
example illustrates how their assessment guidelines might be put into practice.
Consequently, this article is useful in that it clearly and succinctly collects recent
discussions in assessment in visual design and rhetoric and composition and extends the
outcome of these discussions to both generalizable and generative methods of
assessment.
“Overview: Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy” Writing Studio/Duke University. Web. 18 Oct.
2011. The following URL will take you to a PDF that can be handed directly to students
to give them an overview of the terms “Visual Literacy and Rhetoric.” : <
http://twp.duke.edu//uploads/assets/overview.pdf >. It provides the following sections for
students to assess and come to terms with Visual rhetoric and literacy: 1) an introduction
which offers the following succinct definitions:
[Visual Rhetoric] is the use of visual images to communicate meaning. It is also
important to note that visual rhetoric is not just about superior design and
aesthetics. It is also about how culture and meaning are reflected, communicated,
and altered by images. Visual literacy involves all the processes of knowing and
responding to a visual image as well as all the thought that might go into
constructing or manipulating an image. In other words, visual literacy is the
ability to “read” and “write” images and the meanings those images communicate.
The handout also explains how to 2) “Identify Fundamental Elements” 3) “Use Principles
of Perception,” and finally it offers guidelines for 4) analyzing and “Employing Visual
Metaphors”
Mitchell, W.J. Thomas. What do Pictures Really Want?: the Lives and Loves of Images.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. In Part One, Thomas talks of images as
“vital signs” and the visual’s interplay of image, desire and “surplus value.” He discusses
how images evoke an array of emotions that stay with us. In Part Two, Mitchell explores
how images and objects (totems for example) are “beliefs about beliefs” (162) that
masquerade as objective representations when in fact they are laden with imperialism. In
Part Three, Mitchell discusses Media. A medium, he writes following Raymond
Williams, is a “material social practice. [It is]a set of skills, habits, techniques, tools,
codes and conventions” (203). Following his definition of media, Mitchell tackles an
array of media from abstract art to cyborg films with examples of his perspective and
analyses. In all, Mitchell presents close readings of a huge array of images and pictures,
suggesting that we must try to understand them on their own terms (think New
Criticism), situate them in their historical context (think Historicism) but also to utilize
them as a reading of the cultures and the ideologies within which they are situated (New
Historicism). It appears that Mitchell rejects the notion that visuals can be read like texts.
(See Kress, Van Leeuwen, Birdsell and Groake). A model of texuality should not be
indiscriminately applied to subsume the visual. However, he worries that a fully
articulated theory of the visual, to quote Blakesley (see above), “is itself overly
restrictive, depending as it does upon a formalist understanding of language as a realistic
mechanism of representation, as an interface or window to something else.”
Redish, Janice J. “What is Information Design.” Technical Communication. 47.2 (2000):163-66.
Two meanings constitute information design. 1) “The overall process of developing a
successful document” and 2) “the way in which the information is presented on the
screen (layout, typography, color and so forth)” (164). The design of a document must
always work for its users (164)—a criteria that it is vital that we pass on to our students in
terms of anticipating their audience in the design process. A designer must bear in mind:
what the purpose is for designing the document, “who will use it, how they will use it and
so on” (164). Redish provides an excellent and easy to navigate model of the information
design process which will help writing instructors expand on these questions. Indeed, this
model may help instructors guide students through the design process for visual/text
documents such as flyers, posters or websites. Reddish offers further advice on info
design for websites and what she terms single source: “creating a database of pieces of
information …that can be used in different situations” (166). (Note* This might be useful
looking ahead to Casey Boyle’s writing 2010 directorship (2013?). Indeed, Boyle
encourages students to build storehouses of data from which they can pull in any given
compositional situation.)
Shipka, Jody. “A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing.” CCC, 57.2 (2005): 277306. Print. Why, asks Shipka, stop at written/visual production in our composition
classrooms? Student compositions can engage a variety of technologies (and I’m not
merely referring to digital technologies). However, “increasing the range of semiotic
resources with which students are allowed to compose, will not, in of itself, lead to a
greater awareness of the ways systems of delivery, reception, and circulation shape (and
take shape from) the means and modes of production”(278). Instead, our classrooms
present the opportunity for students to “purposefully structure the delivery and reception
of their [multi-modal presentations]” (279 emphasis mine). She goes on to explicate a
variety of “deliveries” of student compositions—compositions that not only engage
academic interaction but visceral reactions also. One such presentation on the etymology
of the word “scare” not only provides an informative description of the word’s history, it
was “packaged” with in an elaborate delivery system designed to viscerally heighten the
audience’s reception of the word (Do look it up; it’s genius!) (279). Overall, after
providing two examples of student work in a multi modal based comp class, Shipka
argues that students can:
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Demonstrate an enhanced awareness of the affordances provided by a variety of
media they employ in the service of [their] goals;
Successfully engineer ways of contextualizing, structuring, and realizing the
production, representation, distribution, delivery and reception of their work;
Become better equipped to negotiate the range of communicative contexts they
find themselves encountering both in and outside of school. (283-4)
This article’s usefulness for the repurposing assignment in Writing 2010 is clear in that it
demonstrates alternate ways in which we can broaden the “materials, methodologies, and
technologies that students employ” in their composing processes--a broadening that goes
beyond the traditional “write a four to five page essay that does X” assignment. In doing
so, students can learn about the ways they can deliver, revise, re-purpose, anticipate and
shape audience responses to their work (301). Multimodal composing in the composition
classroom, however, must respond to the following, “in keeping with the WPA Outcomes
Statement for First Year Composition” (301).For writing 2010 purposes these, of course,
provide a useful source for assessment of multimodal projects. Thus, in all iterations of
their compositions, students should:
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Focus on a purpose
Respond to the needs of different audiences
Respond appropriately in different rhetorical situations
Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
Understand how genres shape reading and writing
Integrate their own ideas with those of others
Understand the relationships between language, knowledge and power
Understand the collaborative and social aspects of the writing process
Use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences
Learn common formats for different kinds of texts
Control surface features such as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
“Visual Analysis.” Writing Studio/Duke University. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. This is really useful PDF
from the Duke University Writing Studio. It offers clear easy steps to analyzing visuals in
a section entitled “Actions to Take.” The following URL takes you directly to the PDF
which can be easily printed to handout to students:
<http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/assets/visual_analysis.pdf>.
UTexasSpursChannel. “Analyzing Visual Rhetoric” Youtube. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. . SPURS is a
college writingpreparatory program designed to help college bound students anticipate
the sort of work they will encounter in college level writing and rhetoric. This site offers
introductory videos on Visual Rhetoric; The videos are taught by faculty members in the
writing and rhetoric departments at UT Austin.
William, Robin. The Non Designer’s Design and Type Books. 3rd ed. Berkley: Peachpit, 2008.
This book is a two for one combination of typographic and design principles for the
novice designer. It is highly recommended by UWP Professor, Dr Natalie Stillman
Webb. This is one of the most accessible design books on the market, and it is highly
recommended for students and instructors who want to supplement their writing textbook
with a visual design text. In it, Williams introduces the novice designer, like many of our
2010 students, to the four basic principles of design: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and
Proximity. And yes…the acronym spells C.R.A.P.—something that delights most
students. The four principles go as follows:
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Contrast: Williams states, “Avoid elements on the page that are merely
similar…contrast is what makes a reader look at the page in the first place” (13).
Repetition: She continues, “Repeat colors, shapes, textures, spatial relationships,
fonts, sizes, graphic concepts, etc. This develops organization and strengthens
unity” (13).
Alignment: Williams states, “Nothing should be arbitrarily placed on the page.
Every element should have a visual connection with another” (13).
Proximity: “Items relating to each other should be grouped close together …[to]
become a visual unit…This helps organize information, reduces clutter and gives
the reader a clear structure” (13).
Possibly the most useful section of this book, for 2010 instructors, is William’s chapter
titled “Extra Tips and Tricks” (109-142). In it, she shows the novice designer how to
design flyers, posters, newsletters, brochures, etc. Many 2010 students repurposing their
evaluation or proposal arguments will opt to repurpose in these genres.
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The Non-Designer’s Presentation Book: Principles for Effective Presentation Design.
Berkley: Peach Pit, 2009. This book is available as an ebook through the Marriot Library.
Like its predecessor, this book comes highly recommended by Dr Stillman Webb of the
UWP and is extremely user friendly. It repeats much of what Williams outlines in the
above entry, however, it is specifically designed for non-graphically minded, non expert
presenters. So it is a terrific resource for writing students who have to make presentations
in class, for example, and who want to use Power Point or some other digital medium like
Open Office Impress or Google Presently