Blog 5

DeWitt, Scott Lloyd. “Out There on the Web: Pedagogy and Identity in Face of Opposition.” Computers and Composition 14.2 (1997): 229-243. ScienceDirect. Web. 14 Nov. 2010.

In Scott DeWitt’s article “Out There on the Web: Pedagogy and Identity in Face of Opposition,” DeWitt conducts a study where he interviews gay/lesbian/bisexual (g/l/b) students who are writing on the internet in order to learn about their experiences and how they constructed their identity in a digital context. DeWitt explains that “internalized resistance to being gay fostered by one’s community, occupation, and relationships make coming out forbidding” (231). This raises a whole host of questions in relation to identity as societal views of g/l/b people are not always positive, and negotiating identity in a virtual environment can be extremely frightening due to the potential for hostile responses from a web audience. As a composition instructor at a university, DeWitt notes that he tries to “provide a safe, inviting space in [his] writing classroom for [his] students to talk about sexual orientation as critical subject and as personal experience” (232). However, the web and DeWitt’s composition classroom are two different spaces especially in terms of comfort level because as DeWitt points out “the size of the audience and the potential for confrontation, bashing, and attacks on free speech increase dramatically” in the virtual environment (234). DeWitt explains that he asked the g/l/b participants in his study some questions and subsequently asked them to take him on a tour of their website (234).

I would recommend this article to scholars and my peers in the field because although DeWitt cannot draw a “universal truth” or any generalizable conclusions with thirteen participants, his study does shed light on the identity issues g/l/b students face when composing in a digital context. His study reveals the importance of audience and how g/l/b people choose to identity themselves when composing online for that large (and usually unknown) audience. Because my research project focuses on second language writers’ rhetorical decisions and construction of identity on Facebook, DeWitt’s study is extremely relevant to the work I am doing. This study also offers wider pedagogical implications in terms of the differences/similarities in identity formation in a physical or virtual space and questions the instructor’s role in guiding students in this technological age with respect to professional, personal, and academic development (see DeWitt 242). Because Facebook is an extremely popular social networking site, do L2 writers feel more or less comfortable when constructing a webpage and essentially constructing their identity online? What kinds of rhetorical decisions are L2 writers making on social networking sites like Facebook, and how are these decisions affecting both the writer’s creation of identity (or intent) and the audience’s perception?

Blog 4

Williams, Bronwyn. “What South Park Character Are You?: Popular Culture, Literacy, and Online Performances of Identity.” Computers and Composition 25.1 (2008): 24-39. ScienceDirect. Web. 19 Oct. 2010.

In “What South Park Character Are You?: Popular Culture, Literacy, and Online Performances of Identity,” Bronwyn Williams reads through university students MySpace and Facebook pages in order to better understand and discuss popular culture and construction of identity in a digital context. Williams explains that “the performance of identity is obviously always a social phenomenon” (27). He goes on to point out that “the use of popular culture images to create a personal web page may have a global audience who know nothing else about the creator of the page;” however, students using social networking sites “expect friends to make judgments and comments about their choice of songs, images, and video” (Williams 28). The interactive nature of digital technologies allows anyone with access to create, reshape, or repurpose a variety of multimodal texts and share the production with an audience. Williams points out that “the intersection of media technologies and popular culture practices converge to create new concepts of performing identity” but when an audience member encounters a web page, they might not understand the text(s) the way the author originally intended (30). After speaking with one student, Williams explains “students like Tony understand that while they may be constructing an identity for their friends, the nature of the online text is that it is extended to an audience that is beyond the knowledge and beyond the control of the writer of the page (33). Despite the fact that they may be misunderstood or certain texts may not be interpreted the way the students intended, it is evident students are thinking about how to convey a certain message to their audience and making rhetorical decisions in order to ensure their web page reflects who they are.

An image of a South Park character on a student’s web page could be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on the audience member’s knowledge (or lack of) of the television show. One student has a picture of Kyle (a South Park character) on his page, and Williams suggests how “we might see Mitchell’s posting of the image on the page as in some way a sincere reflection of the identity he is constructing” (35). I would recommend this article to scholars and my peers in the field because the interviews Williams conducted with university students shed light on multiple issues in terms of digital writing. He argues that students’ literacy practices in an online context are heavily influenced by popular culture. This article informs my research project as I am interested in L2 writers’ construction of identity in a digital context as well as the rhetorical decisions they make when developing their Facebook pages. This study has wider pedagogical implications because as digital technologies continue to grow, a majority of students will encounter multimedia and multimodal texts; in fact, they will most likely be consumers and producers. Therefore, it is essential we continue to ask questions, conduct research, and report findings as students’ literacy practices evolve in the classroom as well as online.

Blog 3

Shin, Dong-shin and Tony Cimasko. “Multimodal Composition in a College ESL Class: New Tools, Traditional Norms.” Computers and Composition 25.4 (2008): 376-395. ScienceDirect. Web. 19 Sep. 2010.

Shin and Cimasko equate writing to designing and discuss how “the process of designing...is not only a matter of individual choice but is also a representation of cultural, social, and discursive values and norms” (377). Drawing upon Jewitt’s work, Shin and Cimasko note that “writers synthesize different modes of meaning, and intermingled modes of representation mutually sustain one another and generate new meanings” (378). Shin and Cimasko’s study looks at how ESL students in a freshman composition classroom employ multiple modes of representation in a digital context. In addition, Shin and Cimasko explain that they seek to examine how L2 writers make meaning or build understanding within the academy in terms of a specific assignment like the argument. In the beginning of the semester, students were asked to design a web page, and then for the final project, the instructor “explicitly required that students craft their arguments into fully realized web pages, hypermedia documents that could not be replicated in non-digital print” (Shin and Cimasko 380). The composition instructor “pointed out in one class discussion that successful arguments, such as advertisements featuring photographs and little to no writing, can be made through primarily non-linguistic modes” (Shin and Cimasko 381). Using the New London Group’s model “as a heuristic for understanding the design elements that make up different modes of meaning in multimodal texts, such as web pages,” Shin and Cimasko analyzed the students’ projects using “the five modes of meaning – linguistic design, visual design, audio design, spatial design, and gestural design” (381). Shin and Cimasko found that students tended to give the linguistic mode greater authority and were hesitant to include other modes when designing the text because the linguistic mode is seemingly prevalent in academic discourse.

I would recommend this article to scholars and my peers in the field because Shin and Cimasko’s study reveals the importance of expectations within the various discourse communities. The students in this particular study upheld the conventional writing practices of the academic discourse community and chose to use the linguistic mode more than other modes despite the fact that the project description required (and the instructor encouraged) use of non-linguistic modes. Shin and Cimasko point out that “the students were actively attempting to construct suitable academic identities through their texts and may have found it easier and more beneficial to assimilate to the perceived linear, print-based standards” (390). My research project focuses on L2 writers’ construction of identity in a digital context as well as the rhetorical decisions L2 writers make when developing their Facebook pages. Although Shin and Cimasko’s article focused on L2 writers developing web pages in an academic context, it is extremely relevant to the work I am doing. This study offers wider pedagogical implications in terms of multimodal composition in the classroom and questions the dominance of the linguistic mode in academic discourse. Because Facebook is a social networking site, do L2 writers feel more comfortable employing multiple modes of meaning? If yes, what kinds of rhetorical decisions do L2 writers make, and how can instructors develop and/or alter courses to accommodate multimodal composition?