I have little experience with multimodal composition, the high school I went to didn’t exactly embrace technology, most of the teachers preferred avoiding multimodal projects in their classroom, I think part of this could be because they didn’t want to have to learn how to use these platforms. There have been only few times I’ve done a presentation that wasn’t a PowerPoint. In Chemistry, we had to make a music video about our topic (it did not turn out good, as you can probably imagine with a scientific music video). In my advertising class we had to make an informative commercial to get students and faculty to come to our ‘Think Pink’ breast cancer fundraising Volleyball game, which was also kind of cringe-y since we had little to no guidance or background information on making a digital piece. And in a Freshman English class where we had to make a video acting out and reading the poem O Captain! My Captain! which turned out a bit ridiculous because we just stuck a canoe in the shallow river in my parents’ backyard and pretended to row along until we reached the shore and you could hear my dad cutting the grass and my dog barking in the background. So all three of my ‘multimodal’ projects did not turn out as I imagined they would.

After reading a bit more about digital composition methods I think two that I would use in a future classroom would be a podcast on a book, and a mini documentary on an influential person in your life (or maybe an influential experience). I chose a podcast because I think this can be a fun way to informally explore thoughts and ideas on a book with the intention of a listening audience while not having to be face to face. But as Hicks, Turner, and Statton point out in the piece Reimagining Writing Process via Digital Storytelling, it can move a student out of their comfort zone, which I believe, in return can broaden their idea of their education and the modes in which they can present their knowledge on what they’ve learned and explored. If my teachers never made digital composition a part of my classroom experience, I would have never thought to present my projects in this way, and would have this mindset that if I read a book the only option is to write a paper to present my thoughts and reflections. The article also mentions the extra help that one student needed, which isn’t a bad thing-it can show students that it is okay to go to teachers with help on new topics-we can’t expect our students to know everything-so we should encourage them to ask for help with exploring digital composition. I think a mini documentary would be a good way for students to show their artistic side while also showing that they know how to be informative and supply the audience with information that will develop into a greater picture. By figuring out how to organize, compose, and edit a piece like this students can use deductive reasoning to figure out what would make their piece the most affective-not to mention it will show students that there doesn’t just have to be one draft-it could take edit after edit after edit to get it just the way they want.

In the piece Reimagining Writing Process via Digital Storytelling the authors wrote; “We must help the teachers with whom we work to develop their own knowledge, even as they consider how to help their students grow as writers. And, as we have considered the nature of knowledge that writers need in a digital world, we have shifted our teaching to include both traditional writing assignments such as personal narratives and argumentative essays, as well as digital writing pieces” (Hicks, Turner & Stratton, pg. 168). I think it is especially important to note that as teachers we need to help each other explore and learn about the digital world and how we can implement this into our classrooms so our students can grow and develop in ways that the internet and technology now allow so readily. This article from the Huffington Post gives 8 ways for teachers to use technology to engage their students and help ease them into ‘difficult to grasp’ concepts.