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Rudith Maravilla
Dr. Comfort
English 683 Q
18 April 2014
Rationale for Multimodal Project
For my multimodal project I decided to create a website that focuses on revision. I chose
to focus on revision because I often find myself explaining to students the importance of
revising. While most of the students I work with in the Writer’s Resource Lab want me to focus
on grammar and syntax concerns, I continually notice that I guide the conversation toward
explaining why certain arguments, main points, and examples need to be revised for clarity and
strength. After explaining revision strategies, many students realize the importance for moving
beyond just checking for grammatical errors--they walk away with a better understanding that
they need to reevaluate portions of their argument(s) and main points, and many students leave
with a better understanding of what revision means. The goal behind my multimodal project was
to transfer those positive one-on-one tutoring experiences to a whole class experience.
The creation of this website was largely influenced by Lisa Costello's "The New Art of
Revision? Research Papers, Blogs, and the First-Year Composition Classroom.” Costello focuses
on bridging the gap between the writing students do on social media sites and the type of writing
we expect from them at colleges and universities. Costello writes, “The blog, as a media-rich,
public space on the internet, mimics some of the online spaces where many students already
spend time writing; thus, the blog has the potential to bridge the chasm between 'their
writing'(writing students enjoy but undervalue) and 'our writing'(writing students produce for the
academic setting)” (151). Costello proposes that blogs can help students understand the
importance of revision, and that blogs can help students bridge the gap between writing they may
be familiar with and the type of academic writing instructors expect from them. In other words,
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Costello is proposing that blogs can serve to connect the different community discourses students
vacillate between--something any writing instructor should be concerned with, especially if they
are working with a heterogeneous group like the students at CSULB.
This website was also influenced by Nancy Sommers’s Revision Strategies of Student
Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” Sommers discusses the reasons why so many student
writers struggle to understand revision. Sommers writes, "students are aware of lexical repetition,
but not conceptual repetition. . . Such blindness, as I discovered with student writers, is the
inability to 'see' revision as a process: the inability to 're-view' their work again, as it were, with
different eyes, and to start over"(382). Sommers argues that students struggle with the concept of
revision because they are often aware of “lexical repetition” but not with “conceptual repetition.”
Students notice where their writing is redundant with certain words and phrases, but many
students are blind to the repetition of concepts, arguments, and main points. During many of my
tutoring sessions I have noticed that students are unmindful of their circular and repetitive
conceptual logic. With this in mind, I tried to create a website that addresses conceptual
repetition by requiring students to focus on “deep” revision. The website includes an assignment
that requires students to engage in “deep” revision by addressing any conceptual repetition
during revision of ideas, arguments, support, logic, and organization for a blog post.
The research for this assignment was the most useful step for this project. The research
allowed me to gauge how writing instructors are teaching revision in the 21st century. Also,
research showed that there are benefits to integrating revision strategies with the technology
many of us use on a daily basis. Communicating through Facebook, blogs, and other social
media sites has become not only routine, but it has changed the way we communicate as a whole,
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and it would be imprudent for a writing instructor not to think about this when considering how
students write, since writing is communicating with an intended audience.
The most frustrating thing about this project was actually creating the website, because I
am completely obtuse when it comes using certain technologies. Unfortunately, I am not being
facetious when I write that my technological skills are limited to Facebook and Instagram. But
luckily there are great resources on campus and online that teach how to create interactive sites
without needing much more than the ability to copy and paste. Maybe I am a bit antiquated in the
sense that I still prefer a physical book versus an e-book, or that I enjoy the feeling of a print
newspaper in my hands as opposed an online version. But I am also very conscience that
technology has changed the way we communicate, and it would be a disservice to my students if
I did not take that into account. So, I have made it a goal not to leave CSULB before I take a
digital rhetoric course with Dr. Sarah Arroyo, since many of my colleagues have mentioned that
they have gained greatly from that course.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my multimodal project. The website works to
teach not only revision and audience awareness, but it also helps teach students why revision is
an integral part of the writing process. Furthermore, the website helps move the discussion of
revision from the writing classroom to the public space where many students are already writing.
We can make students feel more comfortable, which can subsequently lead to more comfort in
writing for the university, by drawing attention to writing in a public space. While the website
still needs some revision, I think it has the capability of being a great asset for any composition
classroom I teach in the future.
Ideally, this website will be something my class uses throughout the semester. At this
moment the website is designed around a few SCO objectives and one course assignment, but I
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hope to revise the website to include other course objectives and different class activities. I also
plan on either directly linking the website to our discussion board on composition at the beach or
including a discussion board directly on the website. The feedback I received from my
classmates seemed to echo the consensus that more min-assignments needed to be integrated into
the website. I have revised the website taking those suggestions into consideration, and hope to
expand the website to include more in-class and out-class assignments before using it for a class.
My website differs from traditional writing assignments because it teaches students that
we (writing instructors and the university) value different forms of writing. Arguably, the
website moves beyond simply teaching students how to revise an academic paper for the
university. And as Costello proposes, “Part of my job as a writing instructor professor, as David
Bartholomae suggests, is to 'invent the university' by helping students feel comfortable as they
appropriate academic discourse. Bartholomae contends that once we teach students how to write
academically, they can reassert a personal power over their writing by appropriating such
discourse, but they need to do it 'as though they were easily and comfortably one with their
audience’”(155). Hopefully this website will show students that we value different forms of
writing/discourses, and that the type of discourses/writings they engage in outside of class are
not that different, rhetorically speaking, from the writing they will be doing for the university.
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Works Cited
Costello, Lisa. “The New Art of Revision? Research Papers, Blogs, and the First-Year
Composition Classroom.” Teaching English in the Two Year College 2 (Fall
2011):151-167. Web. 2. April 2014.
Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult
Writers.” Print.
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