Summary

Reviewed by Brandy Dieterle University of Central Florida

Any time writers compose a text, whether digital or print, they are confronted with and make decisions. To develop this review I had to make choices not only in terms of written content, but also the text's visual aspects. This complex decision-making process was brought to the forefront by Jody Shipka's (2011) important book Toward a Composition Made Whole.

Multimodal composition has been gaining ground in the field of composition studies for years, but Shipka's call for a broadened definition of composition to include non-print, non-linear texts and to revisit the idea of the writing process is still relevant. Shipka's caution to readers about understanding non-print texts strictly as digital texts is important because, as she argued, we communicate in other non-digital ways, too. In Shipka's text, Kairos readers will find a perspective on multimodal composition not widely discussed in the field of composition studies, but it is one that is finding its way into graduate course curriculums in composition studies. In her book, Shipka redefined the term technology to mean more than computer-mediated writing, portrayed rhetoric as a much richer and complex process than what has been captured in previous studies, and provided an alternative pedagogical approach to writing assignments.

Although Shipka's arguments are grounded in writing and communication theory, the potential for her understanding of multimodal composition being integrated into university freshman writing courses is contingent upon the department consisting of like-minded readers. Those who fail to view multimodal composition as teaching valuable rhetorical skills, which Shipka dutifully took note of, likely will not be persuaded by this book alone. Even so, Kairos readers in support of multimodal composition will find a unique perspective and assignments to try for themselves.