Delivery and New Media Workshop

Catrina Mitchum, Cheri Lemieux Spiegel, Wil Laviest, & Mathieu Reynolds

Introduction

In his preface to Rhetorical Memory and Delivery, John Frederick Reynolds explains that delivery and memory are classical rhetoric’s two “‘problem canons’”(vii). He maintains that although these two are often overlooked, they are certainly important. Today’s workshop will focus on delivery specifically.

James Porter, in his “Recovering Deliver for Digital Rhetoric” traces the history of this neglected canon. Naturally, he begins his history of rhetorical delivery with a look at classical Greek and Roman rhetoric, wherein delivery was characterized primarily as an emphasis upon the role of the voice, body and emotional impact of a speaker. Issues of delivery were equated largely with these matters of decorum throughout the classical times until a shift in treatment was seen in the 15th century, along with the invention of the printing press.

The printing press itself, Porter argues through the lens of Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, created a new form of delivery. Regardless of this new, non-oral form of delivery, scholars continued to refer to delivery as a physical concern (with emphasis on voice and body), and, for reasons he doesn’t elaborate upon, discussions began to overlook the role delivery played in addressing the emotional needs of an audience. This truncated view of delivery as related to these physical characteristics caused it to be seen as irrelevant to printed discourse.

However, Porter, Reynolds and others such as Paul Prior et al are now arguing for renewed attention to the canon of delivery. Porter argues for how this canon can be seen as important to contemporary rhetorical study and how the digital age, in particular, makes this allowance. His framework is composed of five components which he names “Body/Identity,” “Distribution/Circulation,” “Access/Accessibility,” “Interaction,” and “Economics” (208). Body/Identity refers to concerns over the representations of one’s self in an online environment; for example, how one’s gestures, might be represented through online correspondence. Distribution/Circulation addresses technical aspects of delivery related to publishing and distributing texts. Access/Accessibility raises questions of how a population might be able to connect to web-based information, while Interaction refers to the engagement between people and information in the digital space. Lastly, Economics accounted for a concern over issues of information policy, such as fair use, copyright and the like.

Paul Prior et al’s “Re-situating and Re-mediating the Canons: A Cultural-Historical Remapping of Rhetorical Activity” the authors suggest that delivery might be “reconceived as mediation” (6). Their use of the term “mediation” is rooted in the theories of Bolter and Grusin, Vygotsky and Latour and allows the canon to account for far more than psychical characteristics of communication.

The authors suggest that the canon of delivery, conceived in this way, might include two major sub-headings: mediation and distribution. Characterized in this way, delivery might be said to prompt the following kinds of questions:

What mediations, what kinds of detours, might delivery of a text involve? Do we write a text to be read silently, read aloud (as a speech), recorded on a DVD, or performed by various groups of actors on a stage? What typeface do we use? What color? Do we deliver the document on paper, on the screen, or in some other medium? If on paper, by mail or by hand? If by hand, do we do it ourselves or do we have someone else do it? Do we synchronize the delivery with some other event? Or perhaps we deliver it by allowing others to find it in another place. Do we need to deliver the text first to an intermediary (editor, publisher, boss) for review to get it out to a public of some size? Or do we want the text to be distributed in encrypted formats to a small select distribution list? Or do we divide up the delivery of the message so that the chances of illicit use are limited? (Prior et al 6-7).

It is in this vein, with these sorts of rhetorical choices in mind, that we believe that delivery (call it mediation if you will) ought to be brought into the composition classroom.

Relevance to the modern Classroom

The writing classroom today is approached from many different ways pedagogically. Some instructors teach and assign strictly alphabetic text, others teach and assign multi-modal texts, and still others teach and assign a combination of the two. Everything from assessment to how writing should be taught is debated in the field. However, despite these debates over the details of how to teach writing, the constant in these classrooms is the computer. Instructors no longer require (in fact will not accept) handwritten assignments. With the computer (and nowadays be default the Internet) and other digital devices as a central part of our writing culture today, writing classrooms have to consider a wider audience than the instructor and fellow students. This expanded audience and new mediums for delivery require us to rethink what delivery entails.

This digital age has opened up the floor for new ways of delivery, and it’s important to teach these new ways in college comp classrooms because students need to be able to use all “available means” and consider what those means will do for the message they are trying to convey. The modern writing classroom goes beyond the classroom in more ways than one. Students are often in rooms with computers, and if they are not, they are still required to use computers to do their work. Computers (and the World Wide Web by default) facilitate these new delivery opportunities by not only allowing students to rethink what a text is, but also by allowing them to participate in the wider culture.

With so many choices, the concepts of access, support and appropriate media become key to communication with new media. We can’t assume that students know how to produce digital communication simply because they’re exposed to it (Brumberger). The way delivery is taught changes when you consider new media simply because it’s not a last minute thought. The delivery has everything to do with the composition itself. Students need to consider who will be able to access their message based on their mode of delivery, what is being added to the message by the mode, how the audience will (and can) take the message (and in some cases the composition itself) to “recompose” (Ridolfo and Devoss) or “remix” it to create a new message.

Sample Applications
The canon of delivery within the context of digital media combines design, style and presentation. It retains the classical definition of delivery, which is about voice, body gestures and movements, while integrating audio, visual, text and screen design in what has been coined “textured literacy” (Yancey 2004).

Podcasting is one of the obvious areas where new/digital media and delivery come together. Document design can evoke mood in terms of, for example, use of color or font styles (O’Donnell 1998). Others are new media’s ability for collaboration (wikis), immediacy (twitter) archiving for future audiences.

The following are potential exercises/assignment in which delivery could be addressed in new media text:

1. Take a passage of existing text and create hyperlinks on words or phrases that you believe are the authors intended points of emphasis. Explain the choices you made. Compare choices with other classmates.
2. Create a passage of text and incorporate hyperlinks on words or phrases for emphasis. Explain the choices you made.
3. Take an existing passage of text and insert video or photos within the appropriate sections of text where the video or photo expresses the content.
4. Create a slide show with video and text that delivers a message.
5. Create a wiki entry of about 200 words and choose a font style that best represents the tone of the delivery. Explain your choice.
6. Create a wiki that will be a collaborative story. Choose font styles that reflect particular characters in the story as their dialogue appears.
7. Reduce a paragraph down to the length of a max 140-character tweet.
8. Listen to a podcast with an accompanying transcript. Highlight the matching points of emphasis in the text, such as with font changes or hyperlinks.
9. Create a podcast of an oral address that is intended to persuade. Provide an accompanying transcript that includes visual points of emphasis, such as hyperlinks, that match the points of emphasis in the audio version.
10. Review a passage of text and add appropriate sound files to words within the passage.

References:
Brumberger, Eva. “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: An Examination of the Millennial Learner.” Journal of Visual Literacy. 30.1 (2011): 19-46. Web.

Porter, James E. “Recovering Delivery for Digital Rhetoric.” Computers and Composition 29 (2009): 207-224. Print.

Prior, Paul, et al. “Re-situating and Re-mediating the Canons: A Cultural-Historical Remapping of Rhetorical Activity” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy. 11.3 (2007). Web.

Reynolds, John Frederick. Rhetorical Memory and Delivery : Classical Concepts for Contemporary Composition and Communication. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Eribaum Associates, 1993. Print.

Ridolfo, Jim and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy. 13.2 (2009). Web.

Yancey, K. (2004). Using Multiple Technologies to Teach Writing. Educational Leadership, 62(2), 38.

Delivery of New Media on Prezi

Blog #5 Wysocki-awaywithwords

Wysocki, Anne. “awaywithwords: On the possibilities in unavailable designs.” Computers and Composition. 22(2005): 55–62. 10 Oct. 2011. Web. <10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.011>

In this article, Anne Frances Wysocki argues that there is a need to rethink the limits that the field has placed on the use of materials we use to communicate in order to make unavailable means available. The argument begins by claiming to be “pushing at the edges” of Gunther Kress’s division of word and image by “question [ing] what becomes unavailable when we think of word and image as Kress has suggested we do, as bound logically and respectively with time and with space.” She encourages the reader to question the how and the why of the constraints placed on the materials we use to communicate. This is followed by an examination of the use of space in text, specifically in relation to her title: does it read “a way with words” or “away with words”? In order to compose texts that function as intended, we need to teach our students to consider space not only as they use it in a given time, but also how they came to understand space and how it can be used. Wysocki then addresses the treatment of the divide of the image and text thus far in the field and argues that the two are indivisible. The text has a visual aspect (even if it’s just space) that is necessary for communication. It is argued that we need to expand our conception of what an image is beyond the traditional photograph because the time, place and social function of each image is different. We need to be aware of what our readers don’t expect to see in addition to being aware of what they expect to see.

Wysocki’s article is important because it extends the discussion of word and image present in the field at the time. By asking the reader to consider the fluidity of the materials we use to communicate, she is encouraging an expanded view of our composition practices. It is important to consider how our use of materials changes based on time, place, and context because those things ultimately change how the message is being communicated. Her example of our uses of water helped to drive home this point in particular. The article is useful because it asks questions that have yet to be asked. It asks us to consider what we have made “unavailable” to communicative practices by putting “word” and “image” into constrained boxes of usage. In addition to expanding the types of alphabetic composition possible, it’s particularly useful to arguments for an expanded definition of composition to include images as just as valid as alphabetic. It’s one more step to a broader acceptance of these types of composition.

eHandout for Roundable Presentation

Abstract:

           

The theory that great composition can be taught by great reading is one that is apparent in the discussion of rhetoric and composition dating back through to Aristotle’s time. These theories, the pedagogies they’ve led to, and the idea of the "digital native" are derived from the same belief: modeling translates to production. If you are exposed to a specific type of composition, you will “pick up on” the skills necessary to turn around and produce a composition in the same medium. The lack of real composition instruction in modeling theories, along with the discussion of literacy definitions and expansions (complete and incomplete), the rhetorical treatment of the visual throughout the history of formal rhetoric and the relationship between the visual and the verbal show that visual rhetoric is important; however, it has always been supportive of the verbal instead of being treated as a valuable communication tool in and of itself. Therefore, it is missing an important piece of the communication process: production. Most students in college composition courses are not being asked to produce visual images that stand on their own. It is being assumed that anything you could say visually could also be said verbally instead of giving students access to all “available and unavailable means” Instructors should not be assuming that analysis and modeling equates to competence in students in regard to visual rhetoric because it perpetuates the “teaching in a vacuum” that composition in school is often accused of and creates an incomplete vision of literacy.

References:

Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Trans. George A Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.

Brumberger, Eva. “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: An Examination of the Millennial Learner.” Journal of Visual Literacy. 30.1(2011): 19-46. Web. 

Covino, William A.  ”Rhetorical Pedagogy.”  A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Eds. Tate, Rupiper, and Schick. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 36-52.

George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing."College Composition and Communication. 54.1 (2002):11-39. 18 Sept. 2011.Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1512100 .>

Hill, Charles, A. “Reading the Visual in College Writing Classes.” Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 107-130. Print. 

Hobbs, Catherine L. "Learning from the Past: Verbal and Visual Literacy in Early Modern Rhetoric and Writing Pedagogy." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 55-70. Print.

Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon. 9.5 (2001):1-6. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.

Whately, Richard. “Elements of Rhetoric.” The Rhetoric of Blair, Campbell and Whately.  Eds. James Golden and Edward Corbet. Southern Illinois University, 1990: 273-396.

Wysocki, Anne. “awaywithwords: On the possibilities in unavailable designs.” Computers and  Composition. 22(2005): 55–62. 10 Oct. 2011. Web. <10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.011>

Blog #4 Brumberger: Visual Literacy and the Digital Native

  Brumberger, Eva. “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: An Examination of the Millennial Learner.” Journal of Visual Literacy. 30.1(2011): 19-46. Web.         

Brumberger begins the article by explaining the debate (via a literature review) over visual literacy as it relates to the digital native. It has been suggested (Prensky) that those born into the digital world we live in will become visually literate through exposure throughout their life-time. She then supplies a working definition that includes both an interpretive and a productive component. The study conducted consisted of a survey given to students in several types of writing classes at Virginia Tech. They received 485 responses that could be used and asked questions pertaining to students’ experiences with entertainment and navigational technologies, cameras, student use of personal technology, evaluation of video and images, the interpretation of images, and interpreting tone.     

The results suggest that students are far from being able to analyze and produce visual communication, which contradicts the digital native argument. Their self-perception of their visual communication skills was limited. They then give examples of what could be done in future studies. She claims in the end that the question is not only how proficient are students, but how proficient do they need to be? The data set from this study does not show that “digital natives” are able to “translate” visual images naturally. In fact, it is claimed that their ability to do this is weak. It is suggested that the study may show a stronger visual literacy than the age group actually has because the sample represents a more affluent group that has access to the technology. This study ultimately argues against the idea that repeated exposure will translate to understanding of visual images (as suggested by the digital natives argument). She argues for teaching students to be visually literate because we cannot assume that exposure to images and experience using technology translates into visual literacy skills.   

The strengths in the article were the survey questions themselves, the limitations and the future research section. While the study itself was limited, the data was surprising and convincing (while I suppose it would be easier to convince someone that already agrees with you). This article is important because it begins to take the theories about visual literacy and a specific group of people and work toward investigating them. Giving the reader a good sense of the limits and possible directions for the future opens the investigation up to the rest of the field. In addition, it’s important because we, as a field, need to know what has to be taught. If it’s assumed that students know something that they in fact are not proficient in, we’re doing them a disservice.

Reading the Visual in College Writing Classes

Hill, Charles, A. “Reading the Visual in College Writing Classes.” Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 107-130. Print. 

 

In this article, Charles Hill begins by lamenting the neglect of visual literacy in classrooms. According to Hill, this neglect is largely due to the perception that the visual is some how “less than” the verbal. He claims this idea is based largely on invalid assumptions including that the visual and verbal are separate entities. He refutes this and argues that the visual is not simply another way to say something that can be said verbally.

This idea leads into a discussion for visual rhetoric pedagogy. After posing a list of current questions in the field, Hill tries to answer the question of how we determine which images to consider rhetorical. He identifies “imagistic events”(first-hand images) and “symbolic events” (second-hand images categorized by “intent”) as the two types of visual images. He does go on to caution that these are both subjective; our perceptions of these events are influenced by our cultural values and assumptions.

After discussing the why of visual rhetorical pedagogy, Hill poses suggestions for implementation: 1. looking at the image in the context of American culture by having students consider how images work in society 2. teaching images as rhetorical constructions; students should learn how images are persuasive and 3. teaching the visual aspects of written text as a way to “ease” students into a discussion of visual rhetoric.

Hill then turns to the application in First-Year Composition. He argues that the visual should be taught in FYC because it’s often the only exposure to rhetorical theory that students have in their college careers, and the primary purpose of rhetorical education is to teach students how to respond to messages in the “real world.” He ends the discussion of FYC with the acknowledgement that general education writing courses are considerably over burdened. His solution to that problem is a multi-departmental rhetoric program built around the idea that writing, visual literacy and oral communication are all essential and inexorably intertwined.

Hill gives a lot of good examples to explain his ideas in trying to answer some of the questions that the field has run into. This seems to be his attempt to try and move forward to application with the theories of the “visual” that were circulating. He does seem to differ from George (Blog 2) in that he does still only focus on the analysis and not the production. His discussion of visual elements of text was thorough and again his examples drove the point home-the visual and verbal together help to construct our communication in every way. I particularly found his definition of what images are considered rhetorical and the subjectivity we bring to images to be useful in that it helps to solidify a definition of what we mean when we say “visual.” Not quite sure I can buy into his solution to the whole situation, but the article is useful to start pulling some of the previous theories into the modern classroom.

Blog #2 Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing

 George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." College Composition and Communication. 54.1 (2002):11-39. 18 Sept. 2011. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1512100 .>

George’s purpose in this article is to examine the possibilities of resituating and producing visual forms of communication in the composition classroom. She argues that the debate over the use of the visual in the classroom in and of itself has limited the types of assignments that we may “imagine” for composition. She proposes that understanding the complexities of visual communication is going to be key to moving beyond the current expectations, assumptions and usages of the visual in the writing classroom. First, she gives an historical overview of the attention (or lack thereof) to the visual in writing/composition studies. In her treatment of the history, she examines the idea that we hold verbal to be high culture and the visual to be low culture (hence the back seat it’s taken). Throughout the last 50 years of discussion and integration of visual literacy in the writing classroom (from television to mass media studies), the visual has taken a supporting role to the verbal. It has acted as a catalyst for reaching the ultimate goal of verbal literacy (whether written or spoken): pictures are writing prompts. Ultimately, George proposes that this concept needs to change. The verbal and the visual needs to be considered on equal footing. In the end, George brings in the call made by others for an expanding definition of composition in order to support her idea that design should be a consideration in the writing classroom. Finally, she examines her own use of design in the classroom by defining, examining, and giving student productions of visual arguments.

This article is important because it asks the field to re-examine the back seat that the visual has taken to the verbal in the composition classrooms over the last 50 years. It suggests that students should be designing the visual in order to understand the complexities of it (not just writing about it), and the definition of compositions should be expanded (something that has been suggested by others, but it supports her statement). The article is useful and still relevant because many textbooks treat the visual the same way. The textbooks I’ve been required to use for my courses all “attend” the visual-but only as a stepping stone to verbal perfection. The arguments made can be used to support new media integration into the classroom, but in a bigger sense redefine composition. Particularly the section that analyzes visual argument can be used to support an argument for allowing students to make arguments in other ways.

Blog #1 Verbal & Visual Literacy

Hobbs, Catherine L. "Learning from the Past: Verbal and Visual Literacy in Early Modern Rhetoric and Writing Pedagogy." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 55-70. Print.

In this article, Catherine Hobb’s argues that the visual is and always has been directly connected to the verbal. That said, it is necessary to continue to both teach and study visual literacy.  By tracing the evolution of the visual in rhetorical studies and teaching, she inexorably ties the study of rhetoric and literacy to the visual-we have an incomplete study of rhetoric if we only continue to study and teach the verbal. The connection is made between the visual and several areas of both theoretical study, teaching, and practical use: the creation of ethos through the visual, the visual as a basis for the judicial system, the rhetorical topics of “time and place” reflected in the visual, the art of memory, the creation or gain of knowledge through observation, language origination and the visual, the ambiguity of vision (therefore the need for interpretation). The article is separated into four distinct era’s of rhetoric/study (“Ancient Arts,” “Medieval and Renaissance Images,” “Ocularism in the Enlightenment” and “Description in Modernity”) and pulling from what the primary rhetoricians, philosophers and teachers (Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Newton, Locke, Gassendi, Blair, etc.) of that era said and did in regard to the visual. The final section of the article examines the relationship between the visual and the verbal by explaining both the differences and how they translate to each other. Today, it’s something we can no longer let sit on the back burner as the two have come together in the form of “new media.” We cannot/should not separate the visual from the verbal, nor we privilege one over the other.

This article is useful in the sense that understanding the way a specific concept has been treated throughout history is useful. She takes an approach in her article that is similar to the one taken in this class-trace the idea through the major figures that studied in. Many times, we see authors use history to shy away from change: it’s always been done this way, etc. However, this author is able to use the history of the visual/verbal in order to call attention to the issue of visual literacy that is under debate today. I think she has a good point. We have, as a discipline, focused very heavily on the attendance to the verbal, and assuming that the visual is self-explanatory or concrete. This is particularly helpful to those who plan to study “new media” because new media involves the melding of the image, the verbal and the text.