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Articles Conference Reviews |
Session B11Riding the Web 2.0 Wave with Tried and True Rhet/Comp Practices This session, presented by Dr. Lillian Bridwell-Bowles of Louisiana State University, showcases the CxC curriculum at LSU. CxC (Communication across the Curriculum) was developed in 2005 as a way to integrate multimodal communication into a variety of courses across the university. Dr. Bridwell-Bowles represented the larger group of graduate students and faculty members involved in the CxC program, first providing an overview of the program and later answering questions from the audience. As Dr. Bridwell-Bowles pointed out, our students are always connected to and engaged with technology. She explains how we can use this interest in our own courses to benefit students if we design our courses to engage with technology in a useful way. Instructors who continue teaching communications courses as ones which involve only written texts ignore the reality of current technology needs and uses in today’s society. Expanding our definition of “communication” must include multiple modes in order to prepare students for communication demands both inside and outside the university. Dr. Bridwell-Bowles demonstrated the potential for multimodal communication in a writing-intensive curriculum, citing specific examples of successful courses and individual student projects. To develop a CxC course, interested faculty teaching communication-intensive courses planned to measure students’ growth in communication skills in four modes: written, oral, visual, and technological. Faculty were not expected to focus on all four in a single course; most chose two on which to concentrate. Assignments would be based on these two modes—a written script and filmed advertisement or a webpage were a few examples. Faculty were nearly limitless in the possibilities they could choose. With an emphasis on communication as a process, Dr. Bridwell-Bowles explained that CxC focused on consensus, collaboration, and credibility. No matter the discipline, class time was spent on communication principles, and 40% of the student’s grade was based on communication criteria. Dr. Bridwell-Bowles also explained the CxC studio services, which provide one-on-one assistance for students in any CxC course. Along with tutoring, the studio schedules workshops as well as special events, and maintains a collection of the latest hardware and software used in the curriculum. Dr. Bridwell-Bowles also talked about students who are recognized in the program as “LSU Distinguished Communicators,” a certification achieved through taking certain CxC courses, participating in internships, and presenting a final portfolio of work. Ending her talk, Dr. Bridwell-Bowles showed examples of student work from her capstone CxC course, showing her successful use of student blogs, wikis, and digital video for communication and student collaboration. She also mentioned that the criteria for portfolio evaluation was still in flux, as the assessment of the multimodal components were being refined. Taking questions from the audience, she explained that student resistance was not an issue for the program, as CxC courses were not required, but were available to interested students as electives or as alternatives to similar required courses. Similarly, faculty were never forced to teach these courses. These factors, combined with the fact that most CxC courses are upper-division and involve students with high technical literacies, make for little student resistance. The talk as a whole opened up possibilities for other universities to begin integrating more multimodal communication practices into writing-intensive courses. |