A Guide to English: Multimodal Composition

"All writing is designed. What is the best way to use visuals in an essay or transform your work from paper to digital presentation? How do you compose a website or a video - and what if you have to work with others to do it? With new case studies and real-world examples, 'Writer / Designer' helps you answer these questions and more as you navigate the process of composing all kinds of text - not just with words but also with elements like sound, image, and movement - so you can create projects for any situation and any audience."--taken from back cover."Grounded in multimodal theory and supported by practice in the classroom, 'Writer / Designer' streamlines the process of composing multimodally by helping students make decisions about content across a range of modes, genres, and media from words to images to movement. Students learn by doing as they write for authentic audiences and purposes. With more and diverse real-world and student examples, the new edition illustrates how multimodal composition can amplify historically underrepresented voices and help to enact change. This brief, accessible text is designed to be flexible, supporting core writing assignments and aligning with course goals in introductory composition or any course where multimodality matters." - from the publisher

"This fourth edition of Digital Storytelling: A creator's guide to interactive entertainment dives deeply into the world of interactive storytelling, a form of storytelling made possible by digital media. Carolyn Handler Miller covers both the basics – character development, structure and the use of interactivity – and the more advanced topics, such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), narratives using AR and VR, and Social Media storytelling. The fourth edition also includes a greatly expanded section on immersive media, with chapters on the exciting new world of the world of XR (AR, VR, and mixed reality), plus immersion via large screens, escape rooms and new kinds of theme park experiences. This edition covers all viable forms of New Media, from video games to interactive documentaries. With numerous case studies that delve into the processes and challenges of developing works of interactive narrative, this new edition illustrates the creative possibilities of digital storytelling. The book goes beyond using digital media for entertainment and covers its employment for education, training, information and promotion, featuring interviews with some of the industry’s biggest names."

"Writing in a Technological World explores how to think rhetorically, act multimodally, and be sensitive to diverse audiences while writing in technological contexts such as social media, websites, podcasts, and mobile technologies. Claire Lutkewitte includes a wealth of assignments, activities, and discussion questions to apply theory to practice in the development of writing skills. Featuring real-world examples from professionals who write using a wide range of technologies, each chapter provides practical suggestions for writing for a variety of purposes and a variety of audiences. By looking at technologies of the past to discover how meanings have evolved over time and applying the present technology to current working contexts, readers will be prepared to meet the writing and technological challenges of the future. This is the ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, writing with technologies, and professional/business writing." - from the publisher

"Jason Palmeri’s Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy challenges the longheld notion that the study and practice of composition has historically focused on words alone. Palmeri revisits many of the classic texts of composition theory from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, closely examining how past compositionists responded to “new media.” He reveals that long before the rise of personal computers and the graphic web, compositionists employed analog multimedia technologies in the teaching of composition. Palmeri discovers these early scholars anticipated many of our current interests in composing with visual, audio, and video texts. Using the concept of the remix, Palmeri outlines practical pedagogical suggestions for how writing teachers can build upon this heritage with digital activities, assignments, and curricula that meet the needs of contemporary students. He details a pluralist vision of composition pedagogy that explains the ways that writing teachers can synthesize expressivist, cognitive, and social-epistemic approaches. Palmeri reveals an expansive history of now forgotten multimodal approaches to composing moving images and sounds and demonstrates how current compositionists can productively remix these past pedagogies to address the challenges and possibilities of the contemporary digital era. A strikingly original take on the recent history of composition, Remixing Composition is an important work for the future of writing instruction in a digital age." - from the publisher

"This critical sourcebook gives instructors a starting point for engaging with multimodal composition. It explores fundamental questions such as, What is multimodal composition, and why should I pay attention to it?, How do I bring multimodal composition into the classroom?, How do I use multiple modes in my scholarship?, With practical discussions about teaching multimodal composition, assessing student work, and incorporating multiple modes into composition scholarship, this book provides a firm foundation for graduate teaching assistants and established instructors alike. This professional resource is available for free to instructors using any Bedford/St. Martin's composition title. To request additional free professional resources from Bedford/St. Martin's, visit bedfordstmartins.com." - from the publisher

"The essays in Web Writing respond to contemporary debates over the proper role of the Internet in higher education, steering a middle course between polarized attitudes that often dominate the conversation. The authors argue for the wise integration of web tools into what the liberal arts does best: writing across the curriculum." - from the publisher

"Providing a clear model that students can follow, the second edition of Introduction to Multimodal Analysis contains fresh, contemporary examples ranging from product packaging and website layouts to film adverts and public spaces. It also features two new chapters on texture and diagrams, as well as a helpful image index that demonstrates how multimodal texts can be analysed from different perspectives. With chapter summaries, student activities and a companion website hosting the images in full colour, this book remains an essential guide for students studying multimodailty within visual communication." - from the publisher

"Essentials of Visual Interpretation teaches students to talk and write critically about visual media and to examine how evolving visual environments, media, and technologies affect human self-understanding and culture formation. Lively and accessibly written chapters provide a solid foundation in the tools and ideas of visual meaning, familiarizing readers with a growing, cross-cultural subfield and preparing them to pursue thoughtful work in a variety of related disciplines. The authors include rich examples and illustrations-ranging from cave paintings to memes, from optical science to visual analytics, from ancient pictographs to smart phones-that engage students with the fascinating complexity of visual interpretation. Each chapter introduces students to key terms and concepts relevant to visual analysis, with ideas for short individual or group exercises to enhance understanding. The book is ideal as a primer in visual analysis and visual communication for introductory students in courses within communication studies, cultural studies, semiotics, media studies, and visual anthropology." - from the publisher

"Graphesis provides a descriptive critical language for the analysis of graphical knowledge. In an interdisciplinary study fusing digital humanities with media studies and graphic design history, Drucker outlines the principles by which visual formats organize meaningful content. Among the most significant of these formats is the graphical user interface (GUI), the dominant feature of the screens of nearly all consumer electronic devices. Because so much of our personal and professional lives is mediated through visual interfaces, it is important to start thinking critically about how they shape knowledge, our behavior, and even our identity. Drucker makes the case for studying visuality from a humanistic perspective, exploring how graphic languages can serve fields where qualitative judgments take priority over quantitative statements of fact. Graphesis offers a new epistemology of the ways we process information, embracing the full potential of visual forms and formats of knowledge production." - from the publisher