Tuesday June 19th - Palmeri, Introduction and Chapter 1

As I read Palmeri’s introduction and first chapter, it occured to me that his project in this book is similar to my experience in my endeavors to create dynamic, creative, and productive lessons for my students. Palmeri aims to locate instances in the history of composition studies in which scholars have endorsed multimodal or interdisciplinary practices in alphabetic writing pedagogies. He believes that these instances have been overlooked or not recognized to the extent that they could be; that some of the most influential thinkers in the field of composition studies were ahead of their time, endorsing unique practices in the teaching of writing before the current “multimodal turn.” I don’t believe that I am at all ahead of my time as a teacher, but while reading I realized that I have occasionally incorporated multimodal assignments and projects without explicitly acknowledging their value or possible purpose in the way that Palmeri does. For example, I have allowed my students to create artwork of different kinds, write songs or poetry, act things out, but for me these have all been motivated by a desire to keep class interesting and non repetitive. After reading Palmeri I am more confident in these choices as they may be the key to developing skills in areas that I was totally unaware of.

Something I wonder about is the efficacy of multimodal writing pedagogies as far as improving students’ alphabetic writing abilities. It is difficult to dispute that adeptness in alphabetic writing in Standard Written English is an educator’s, school’s, and parent’s priority for their student or child. While Palmeri makes and interesting case for the potential of engaging in visual, aural, and spatial modes to support alphabetic writing, I am not entirely convinced that the connection is as strong as he does. I have found that all students work better in different modes: some are more artistic than others, some are more musical, etc. When students have the opportunity to work in the modes that they prefer they certainly do better, but I am not sure on how doing this would translate into alphabetic writing skill, but I would like to be convinced. Before I began teaching I would have believed strongly in the notion that compositions in all modes are equally valuable, but now I have seen that alphabetic writing is prized over all others and teachers need to concentrate on demonstrable ways to improve this skill in their students.