Selfe, Cynthia, Stephanie Owen Fleischer and Susan Wright. "Words, Audio, and Video: Composing and the Processes of Production." Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Ed. Cynthia L. Selfe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2007: 13-28. Print.
In this chapter, the authors focus on giving outlines and explanations for composing with words, sound and video. They examine the challenges of teaching with audio and video, and then provide to sample assignments that focus on multimodal composition. Finally, they focus on the "how" of these types of assignments by going through the hardware, software and additional equipment needed in order for students to do these assignments and then share them.
I particularly liked the focus of not only giving instructions an avenue to take, but explaining how to get there. We often see theories about what we should be doing without the examination of how to put the theory into practice. Between the assignments, the evaluation sheets, the examination of possible issues and the necessary equipment, they do a nice job of preparing a teacher that has never done this before, but also giving the teacher who has some multimodal experience new ideas or direction. I like that the assignments tended to focus on literacy. It reminded me of Downs and Wardle's argument for us to have students learn about writing in these writing classes we teach.
While not directly related to teaching, this website is a dictionary for terminology used in film video and audio.
I think all of us can appreciate a great instruction manual and I agree that this really felt like one. In much of the reading we have been doing this far, I know that many of us felt that we were being given all of this great information, but not really told (or shown for us visual folk), how to use that information in our writing classrooms. I feel like I constantly read the words, "this technology will be helpful to your students if you learn how to use it correctly, but it will be a hinderance if you don't know what I want you to do." This article's explanation and model was like a nice breath of fresh air.
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