"Toward New Media Texts" (Selfe)

Cynthia Selfe discusses visual literacy and possible assignments to teach visual literacy in the chapter “Toward New Media Texts.”  Selfe points out how many teachers of composition have steered clear of teaching visual literacy (and other literacies involved in new media) because they do not feel qualified to teach about them.  Some teachers have introduced visual literacy in their classrooms but have done so in such a way that presents visual texts as subordinate to alphabetic texts.  According to Selfe, by expanding composition studies to include visual literacy, “we may not only learn to pay more serious attention to the ways in which students are now ordering and making sense of the world through production and consumption of visual images, but we may also extend the usefulness of composition studies in a changing world” (72).  Indeed, the world is changing and relying more fully on new media in order to convey messages.  Alphabetic texts will not disappear anytime soon, but visual texts are becoming more important.  

One of the sample assignments Selfe introduces is “Text Re-Design and Re-vision.”  Basically, the assignment is to take an alphabetic text and rethink it to put it on a website.  This sample assignment is most similar to the video commentary assignment that is part of the “inherited” English 120 class.  The video commentary assignment, for anybody who does not know, requires students to get in groups, take one commentary that one group member already wrote, and remix it into a “music video” format.  Most of the students in my class last semester made amazing video commentaries and were much more familiar with the technology than I was.  I liked the assignment because the students liked it-- I think they liked working in groups and they liked making a video.  However, it was almost unanimously, according to my students, the easiest assignment we did all semester.  I also felt a little silly going over elements of PowerPoint with my students.  I could feel them not paying attention.  

I am looking for ways to make the video commentary assignment more interesting and challenging.  However, when I think of doing something like requiring that every video commentary have one embedded video or something of the sort, I run into the problem that I do not know how to do such a thing.  When I think about teaching iMovie as the basic program to use, I am aware that many students do not have iMovie (and, again, I do not know how to use it).  It also would feel like “I’m making this an assignment requirement because I am trying to make it sound more challenging, but really I’m just a little insecure teaching new media and am trying not to be.”  In short, doing any of these things would be really inauthentic.  

I like the idea of remixing an assignment that is already an alphabetic text.  The video commentary, however,  seems to involve lessons that feel like a waste of time.  Likewise, Selfe’s “Text Re-Design and Re-vision” assignment might involve lesson plans that feel like wasted time.  

But I do know I am being pessimistic.