Creation of multimodal texts, including audio, visual, and alphabetical modes, for different audiences, purposes, and contexts. Examines the impact of digital technologies on writers’ considerations of purpose, audience, design, accessibility and ethics.
Restricted to students with at least third year standing.
Course description
This course introduces students to the possibilities and constraints of writing in multiple modes through the creation and discussion of multimodal writing. Working from the idea that the 21st century presents opportunities to engage a range of communities using digital technologies, the course focuses on writing and communication approaches associated with multimodality and offers students a space to discuss key theoretical issues associated with multimodal writing, including accessibility and ethical considerations.
While there are several approaches to the study of multimodality, including cognitive approaches, this course takes a distinctly writing-and-communication perspective to the study of multimodality. Through a variety of hands-on projects, students will examine multimodal writing as a situated practice of communication and compose accessible and ethically-informed texts in multiple modes, including audio, visual, and mixed modes for different kinds of audiences, purposes, and contexts. By so doing, the course enhances students’ knowledge in writing for professional, personal, and civic purposes. Each iteration of this course will focus on a set of contexts, audiences, and purposes of the instructor’s choice.