Blog Post #4 - Digital Storytelling

    Multimodal composition and digital storytelling are fantastic opportunities to build our students’ identity and agency while also supporting their literacy! I wish that I had been exposed to more multimodal approaches in my classes prior to college, especially the concept of zines (which I had only known as a neat thing art kids from Seatle made on Tumblr). My experience with multimodal composition is largely rooted in ‘you choose…’ projects, where students independently chose to write an essay, make a Powerpoint presentation, or ‘another creative representation’ of what we learned. Unfortunately, the ‘other’ representation was rarely explored as a class, and so we weren’t motivated to express our understanding in multimodal capacities. I’ve turned in more Prezi presentations than I can count and I cannot remember what a single one was about, largely because, in my mind, they did not connect to a larger picture, and were unlikely to even be seen by my peers. The social reinforcement of trading and analyzing zines invest students in their composition.

  
    By referencing deGravelles’ “‘Do-It-Yourself’ Introduction to Zines” (along with other visual tutorials, like the one above) I could easily lay the groundwork for my future students to participate in multimodal storytelling. This chart helped me to imagine the endless ways zines could apply to an ELA class and the power of having a physical archive of knowledge for students to work with. In “Zines in the Classroom” Buchanan points out that zines are both physical and digital, and can be tracked online through blogs and zine-specific databases like BookCrossing. This article also emphasizes the way zines (and multimodal storytelling in general) can be used to promote self-efficacy by exposing students to digital literacies. One aspect of digital literacy that can be explored is understanding that “adolescents can be passive consumers or become more active consumers and producers of culture” (Buchanan 74).  This text also discusses the usefulness of using zines (ex: Novel zines) over multiple classes or spanning years in the same class. I am deeply drawn to the idea of having a physical piece of text which is both a piece of art and a tool for understanding that students can use to shape their own ideas. This reminds me of the first day of an art class when no one wants to make a bold move until the teacher brings out unruly, vivid, and unique examples from past students.

   According to Chisholm & Trent, “Given the demands of the 21st century, scholars have argued that schools have the obligation to prepare students to develop competencies in new literacies” (303). Based on my educational background, this obligation wasn’t fully met until college. Largely due to Covid and the confines of zoom classes, my educators took digital projects in stride and led me to complete multiple group projects in new multimodal forms. The Book Trailer is the project that stands out to me most, and one I can easily see in my future class. In my freshman year of college, we used it to explore The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Through a teaser/trailer, we gained a better understanding of the text while also having infinite wiggle room to explore it in the ways we saw fit. To enhance our learning, we shared our work with the rest of our class and discussed our peers’ work. As a visual/physical/tangible notator, it helps me immensely to be able to have a stand-alone representation of my learning.  Clearly, not all of my students will need to learn in the ways that would have helped me, but I am going to emphasize these multimodal opportunities for exploration in my class and allow my students to develop their literacies.